Dustin Diamond

by Timothy Niedermann

  Then the boys gave me a tour of the upstairs. We peeked into their parents’ bedroom and, I kid you not, St. Peter and his wife slept in separate beds, Ozzie and Harriet-style. Peter was actually living the wholesome lifestyle he worked so hard to portray at Bayside every Saturday morning on SBTB.

  Making this even more ridiculous was that Connie, Peter’s wife, was a real beauty. A stunner. In my eyes, the original MILF. And in many ways she was very different from St. Peter. Eventually, they were divorced, which I suppose, if you’re not even sleeping in the same bed, at some point just becomes a formality.

  THE GOLDEN CHILD

  When we moved back to NBC after our brief tenure at Disney, Peter Engel decided to alter the format from the teacher-centered storylines of Good Morning, Miss Bliss to the kid-centered stories that became SBTB. He also chose to focus the show on a main character. That main character was Zack Morris and that meant that henceforth Mark Paul Gosselaar, who played Zack, would be known as the Golden Child, enjoying all the rights and privileges that that title provided. Before landing his role as Zack on Bliss, Mark-Paul had made the Hollywood child-acting rounds much like I did in my early days, appearing in the usual fare such as Highway to Heaven, Punky Brewster, Charles in Charge, and The Wonder Years.

  I won’t lie, his coronation as the star of the show was pretty disappointing to me. I didn’t expect I’d be the star, I just thought it would be a full ensemble cast. Over five thousand kids auditioned for the role of Screech, but I was the front-runner from the very beginning. During the audition process, we were each given a breakdown of that character’s attributes and backstory. My character’s real name was Samuel Powers, but he was called Screech because his voice was supposed to be high and crackly at all times. His very name was meant to evoke the image of nails screeching down a chalkboard. Can you imagine how annoying that would have been if I was emoting at that decibel level without any let up?

  In one early audition, I asked the casting director and other gathered suits, “Do you guys seriously want me to talk this way the whole time?”

  They said, “That’s how the character has been envisioned.”

  “Well, isn’t it gonna get kinda annoying for the viewers, really fast? I know I wouldn’t watch that.”

  The suits sat back for a moment for a collective, “Hmmmmmm.”

  “Okay,” they said, “Okay, can you just crack your voice every so often instead?”

  I said (in my signature cracked voice), “Of course.”

  After that, I never saw another potential Screech at the callbacks.

  For the role of Zack Morris, the Golden Child, the final auditions were between Mark-Paul and a dude with black hair (yes, in an alternative reality there could have been a black-haired Zack Morris). What I remember about the black-haired Zack was that he preferred to be off in his own world, doing his own thing. Because I was the only Screech left and the final auditions were scenes with Zack and Screech together, I would approach him to see if he wanted to run lines and he’d say, “Please let me be. I’m trying to get my part down.” So I went over to Mark-Paul to make the same offer. Mark-Paul was, like, “Sure. Let’s do it.”

  They didn’t seem to be able to decide between the two hair colors—which is amusing since Mark-Paul bleached his hair, even though he emphatically denied it for years. It’s common knowledge now, but back in the day it would’ve been a scandal if word leaked out. No one was supposed to know. I don’t know why it was such a big deal. Dude, look at your eyebrows—you’re not a real blonde. But it was a huge ordeal one day when I popped my head into his dressing room to ask a question and spied his box of Sun-In Hair Lightener on the couch. Sun-In: that’s how Zack Morris maintained his flaxen tresses.

  When Mark-Paul and I went in for our sixth and final callback, all the network suits were there alongside as well as St. Peter Engel himself. Mark-Paul and I had run our lines together and had our timing down. Black-haired dude was on his own (and we all know how that panned out). It occurs to me now that those auditions were held in the same rehearsal hall where, years later, we would all congregate to eat our meals together during so many run-throughs and tapings of the original SBTB. Of course, I couldn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that I was as nervous as I had ever been in my young life and that the judgment of that table full of grown ups held my future career as an actor in the balance. Fortunately, they loved us. When we got the parts, we didn’t quite know how to celebrate with one another, being so young and our new kinship being so tenuous, based solely on the volatile vocation of landing a role on a new television program. The moment was amazing but our future together was uncertain at best.

  I firmly believe it was the chemistry Mark-Paul and I shared that won him the role. We really fed off each other in those crucial late-audition callbacks, pushing each other to perform our best. I was Laurel to his Hardy, Costello to his Abbott, Kramer to his Seinfeld. I thought of us as a great team and figured the show would be centered on Screech as much as on Zack. But I was just an eleven-year-old kid. I had a lot to learn about the real world of Hollywood.

  One of the first things the producers asked the main cast to do was to write down any special talents we had or hobbies we enjoyed. The questionnaire was designed to help the writers come up with new material. The writers had a tough job. The goal of any show is syndication and that required—at the time—at least one hundred episodes in the can (four seasons of twenty-six episodes). The were looking for any nugget of info that could help the writers spark ideas for plot lines or subplots to contribute to that steady march towards the brass ring of syndication.

  Mario Lopez, who played A.C. Slater, was a California state wrestling champ and played the drums, so they worked some of those storylines into the show. Later, during The New Class, Natalia Cigliuti, who was a gymnast, had that talent worked into episodes. Anthony Harrell, also on The New Class, was a singer with his two brothers so they wrote an episode where he encounters two “strangers” whose lead singer has bailed on them. Anthony teams up with them to harmonize and save the day. If one of the SBTB cast members could do a standing back flip, they’d write it into the show.

  I played bass guitar in a band, so naturally the writers had me play keyboard. I also played chess, enjoyed computers, video games, and martial arts—some of which they worked into Screech’s character as well. Elizabeth studied dance, so she eventually portrayed that interest, and Tiffani wrote down that she liked beauty pageants and horses. Beauty pageants made it onto the show, but equestrian pursuits turned out to be a difficult hobby to work into a four-camera sitcom on a sound stage. Lark liked to wear expensive clothes in real life, so maybe that was her “talent.”

  I don’t know what Mark-Paul wrote down, but whatever his off camera diversions may have been, they never found their way onto the show. I wonder how that conversation with the writers might have gone:

  “Mark-Paul, buddy, can you sing?”

  “No.”

  “Can you dance?”

  “No.”

  “Play sports? Instruments? Can you juggle?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any interests outside showing up here and gelling your hair?”

  “Um, I do have this cell phone that’s the size of a loaf of bread. I like talking into that.”

  “And so you shall, my boy. And so you shall.”

  When the cast for SBTB was finally assembled, everyone was fully three years older than me. Indeed, I remember walking along the hall in the offices at NBC on my twelfth birthday when Peter Engel stopped me and said, “Happy thirteenth birthday, Dustin!” When I told him I was only twelve, he was genuinely shocked. “Wow,” he said. “If I’d known that, I never would have hired you.” Thanks for the vote of confidence, dick. Glad I could help make your show a success.

  Though the Golden Child did end up being a decent guy years later, I have to say that during much of SBTB, he was a douche. Clearly, he was a fan favorite (even though it was Screech
who received the most fan mail—as many as seven thousand letters a week. And remember, this was before e-mail). Mark-Paul was a cute kid with bright (fake) golden hair and delicate, vaguely Asian features—a result of his mixed heritage (his dad, Hans, is Dutch, and his mom, Paula, is Thai). Mark-Paul’s parents both had thick accents and could often be heard just off set, where Mark-Paul’s mom hovered to watch with unbridled pride her genius thespian son working his onscreen mojo.

  My dad would often hang out behind the scenes, too, mingling off-set with the other parents and crew. Like I said, Dad didn’t suffer any bullshit. Unfortunately, rarely would he choose his battles wisely. He’d rather just shoot straight from his hip, telling people precisely how he saw things, and let the cards fall where they may. A propensity to rub someone’s nose in their own B.S. isn’t always the best recipe for forming fast friendships. No doubt, my dad embarrassed the hell out of me in front of other people many times. But sometimes his style was also pretty funny to behold.

  One afternoon, my dad found himself standing beside Mark-Paul’s mom, Paula, as she swooned over her son’s innate craftsmanship in the dramatic and comedic arts, groaning ecstatically, “Oh, oh, my God. Mark-Paul’s acting can move mountains.”

  Dad simply could not allow that one to hang in the atmosphere. “Mm,” he said. “Mountains of shit.”

  In the early days of SBTB, everybody started jumping on Mark-Paul’s bandwagon. For instance, if the Golden Child mentioned that he had just purchased a new CD, the next day everybody owned that CD and were bobbing their heads in rhythm to it. If he mentioned he was going out one night to see some classic piece of art-house Dutch cinema, all week long people roamed the halls raving about Turks Fruit or Soldaat van Oranje or Spetters. When he “discovered” a trendy Thai restaurant, suddenly for lunch everyone was going out for Tom Yam Kung and coconut soup. I’m sorry, but I just don’t get excited over peanuts in every meal and a burning asshole all night long.

  It just wasn’t in my constitution to be such a conformist, bowing to someone else’s whim and caprice. I was like, “You guys need a flashlight? It must be pretty dark so far up Mark-Paul’s bunghole.” They were crammed high and tight inside the nether regions of that Netherlander (well, half-Netherlander). Even the usually reserved, quiet and all-around boring Lark started claiming she too was of sturdy Dutch ancestry. Dutch ancestry? Really? That’s how you’re choosing to curry favor with the Golden Child? Just to set things straight, Lark is not Dutch. Her real surname is Holloway. Voorhies is just a stage name.

  PUTTING THE KAPOW! IN KAPOWSKI

  Tiffani-Amber Thiessen was cast as Kelly Kapowski, the pretty, popular girl, even though her character supposedly came from a big, struggling, working-class family. In real life, Tiffani had just won the Miss Junior America Beauty Pageant and Teen magazine’s Great Model Search, so there was no question she was pretty. The problem was that she knew it. She was one of those attractive girls who think they are better than everybody else, walking around with one thought dominating her frontal lobe: “I’m hot.”

  Well, that’s not entirely fair. When Tiffani first started, she was really sweet and humble. She would say things like, “Gosh, it’s so nice to meet you. Isn’t this so exciting to be on this show? I know you guys have already done the season before us, and I just hope this works out and we can all be great friends.” She was just a wide-eyed young girl genuinely excited about the possibilities of the future. Everything was bright and sunshiny. That ended quick.

  Once Tiffani started getting a taste of fame, she became the queen bee. I don’t recall her ever actually saying, “All you bitches best avoid me when I walk into the room or I’ll have you fired!” but I suspect she was thinking it. Put it this way: if she had said it, I wouldn’t have been shocked.

  But it was just another symptom of the disease formed by the Ultimate Situation, that being the moment St. Peter ordained Mark-Paul as the cast’s Golden Child, hero of SBTB, and Peter’s clear favorite. That’s precisely when everybody did an immediate career assessment. “Hmmm,” they thought, “Where’s the hand that feeds?” Then they looked at St. Peter, swept their eyes down his arm and found his hand cupped firmly around Mark-Paul’s Golden-Boy shoulder.

  So Tiffani started taking cues from Mark-Paul right away. I remember once I made the grievous mistake of calling Mark-Paul “Mark.” I got a dagger stare from the Golden Child, along with the admonition, “It’s Mark-Paul, thank you.” Tiffani started the show calling herself just that, but it wasn’t long before she was “Tiffani Amber, thanks.”

  Eventually I got to know the Thiessen family, and they were all very nice to me, especially her mom, a sweet, lovely, and kind woman, who, to be delicate, was also a big woman. Knowing the apple usually doesn’t fall far from the tree, I put two and two together when later, while we were on the beach in Santa Monica filming the “Malibu Sands” episodes for SBTB, St. Peter started to regulate our caloric intake based on TAT’s genetic predisposition. (This is when Leah Remini was playing Stacey Carosi on the show, and we were filming on the beach. Leah’s character had a summer-romance storyline with Zack, but there were no offscreen sparks between Leah and Mark-Paul that I knew of.)

  During those Malibu Sands beach episodes, Tiffani was sporting a one-piece bathing suit and walking around with her hands casually shielding her ass. St. Peter took notice. He told her she needed to start watching what she was eating. Then, to cover his tracks, he decreed that the entire cast had to begin eating healthier. He ordered that the Kraft Food Service (which provides all the food for most Hollywood productions) stop providing any junk food like donuts, candy bars—you know, all the good stuff. From then on it was all healthy shit like whole wheat bagels, radishes, carrots, and kale—whatever that is. I hated it. Why was I made to suffer for Tiffani’s fat ass? I was thin as a rail. And frankly, Tiffani’s ass wasn’t even that big. But this was television, and the camera really does add fifteen to twenty pounds.

  This is why I say that Tiffani should have been a much nicer person than she was. She had no business being so mean because she knew that, deep inside her DNA, there was a gathering storm. I always thought that, years later, as soon as she found her true Prince Charming and said “I do,” it’d be like pulling the ripcord on a life raft.

  But as long as her ass was still tight, Tiffani wasn’t shameful about spreading it around. In 1991, on the day we taped the “No Hope With Dope” episode, Tiffani’s real-life boyfriend, Eddie Garcia, was on-set to play Hollywood heartthrob Johnny Dakota. Johnny was at Bayside to film an anti-drug public service announcement (or PSA, as they’re known in the industry). Eddie was starring on another NBC comedy series called The Guys Next Door and had been a back-up dancer with Michael Jackson during his Bad album days. Eddie was a good-looking, talented kid, in addition to being probably the nicest guy in the world. He adored Tiffani and treated her like a teenage fairy-tale princess. But I felt terrible for the guy because I knew that, behind his back (and sometimes right in front of him), Tiffani was shuttling between Mark-Paul and Mario’s dressing rooms.

  I could even smell a certain “smoke” wafting from the crack beneath Tiffani’s dressing room during one of her pit stops. She would materialize from Mark-Paul’s room, pop a mint, spend some time chatting up and nuzzling Eddie, then slip away, disappearing into Mario’s room. Poor, sweet Eddie. Johnny Dakota was oblivious.

  That shit went on throughout the week, until Eddie finally caught Tiffani in her dressing room all tangled up with Mario. From the set, we heard Eddie explode on her, devastated that she’d been so conniving right under his nose. She had embarrassed him in front of the dozens of cast, crew, and ever-hovering network suits who, sadly, had known all along that it was Eddie who was really the one with no hope because he was being made to play Tiffani’s dope. It came as no surprise when they broke up immediately following the taping of that episode.

  The irony and hypocrisy behind the scenes of that episode are staggering. Johnny Dakota, the s
upposed “bad influence” that descends on Bayside with his wicked Hollywood ways, was played by Eddie, the nicest, most steadfast dude you’d ever want to meet. While innocent Kelly Kapowski, who was in danger of being corrupted by the lure of Johnny’s reckless life in the fast lane, was played by Tiffani, who in real life was dashing between Mark-Paul and Mario’s dressing rooms behind Eddy’s back, toking between takes. Gotta love it.

  It took many years of intense lobbying by advocates for SBTB to tackle any of the most pressing teen issues of the day, like drunk driving, drug use, and suicide. St. Peter was firmly against it. But at the end of “No Hope with Dope,” Brandon Tartikoff spoke directly into the camera about the dangers of dope, and the episode ended up being a huge hit. I just can’t help but think of all the off-camera drinking and recreational drug use being indulged in by the cast members during that time. The only place the gang at Bayside was fulfilling St. Peter’s vision of the world’s goody-goodiest high school was in the scripts being handed down from the writers’ room.

  And, boy, was Tiffani different in real life from Kelly. Rena Sofer (who recently played Marilyn Bauer on 24, among many other TV roles) was in the cast of SBTB: Hawaiian Style, our one-hour special episode, which aired in November 1992. When Rena hit the set, she and Tiffani formed an instant friendship, like peas and carrots. I mean, they got spooky close. My radar told me that those two had immediately become a situation to be avoided. Rena was like Tiffani’s long-lost half-sister. Every night after shooting they’d hit the Hollywood party scene. Mind you, guys aren’t any different, especially guys who have an edge with a little fame and a fat roll of cash in their pockets. But, unfair as it may be, the situation is viewed much differently when it comes to the ladies. When a guy hits the late night scene, it’s “What a stud.” When a girl does it, it’s “What a slut.”