Dustin Diamond

by Timothy Niedermann

  Another interesting fact about The Max’s set was that the arcade games were real and set to free play, so you could use them anytime you wanted. The jukebox, however, was only a prop. Inside the jukebox, in the little paper windows for each song, the prop guys would often slip in subversive messages without ever breathing a word about what they’d done. Frankly, I don’t think they even cared if any of us spotted their inside jokes, they were purely for their own amusement. Like in the window for Zack and Kelly’s famous song selection, which if I remember correctly, was A-12, the slip of paper read: “Stereotypical Zack & Kelly song.” Or, there would be a little sign with an arrow beneath the glass reading: “Mark-Paul, Push Here.” And behind the set of the stairwell in the main hallway, past all the lockers, there were all sorts of crazy drawings and messages scrawled onto that wall.

  Anyway, beside the gum tumor is where you would stand and wait with the stage manager who gets the call into his headset from the director in the booth saying, “Cue Screech.” The stage manager gently nudged you through the door whispering, “Dustin. Go.” But while you were standing there waiting for your cue, you were hanging out, visiting with the extras constantly crossing from left to right and vice versa through the background of the scene. If you watch any episode closely, mostly because of the nature of the various camera angles and how shots need to be set up, you’ll often see the same people cross multiple times through the background at ten- or fifteen-second intervals. It doesn’t seem like very long, but over the course of a couple days rehearsal and shooting on tape day, those down times were excellent opportunities for me to flirt with the cute extras.

  Sometimes, between takes, the crew would have to reset, changing up lighting and camera angles, giving me several minutes to stand around and chat, endearing myself to whichever open-faced starlet I thought I stood the best chance with. This was also the best opportunity for the girls to see firsthand that Dustin Diamond was not the character he played on TV. Screech was a warmhearted, goofball persona he created to make children laugh. Although, as a practical matter, we did both possess identical monsters in our trousers.

  Thursdays, or “camera days,” were the best days to hit on extras. On Thursdays, all the extras would come in while we blocked out the episode with the cast’s marks, the lighting, camera angles, final script changes, etc. It was live action for the main event the next day, but we were not in hair, makeup, or wardrobe, and we were still allowed to carry around our scripts (if there were last minute pages, otherwise we had it memorized by then).

  Being a television extra is not a glorious gig. The people you see in the backgrounds of your favorite films and programs, making the scenes come alive, are kind of looked down upon in the industry. It’s a really tough way to break in. Extras are considered “biological scenery” or “atmosphere”—basically props with pulses. But without them, the show couldn’t go on. They work long, thankless hours. During SBTB, the extras would show up early in the morning and leave very late at night—all for a $40 voucher. Many of them were gutting it out to become eligible for the Screen Actor’s Guild, but in order to qualify, they had to work their way up to performing at least three lines on camera. That’s why you’ll always see random, uncredited actors and actresses stroll up to Slater or Kelly or one of the other main characters to deliver a few banal lines of dialogue. Like a nerd who approaches Zack and says, “Excuse me Zack, but I heard you started a new whatever.” That kid’s an extra who was lucky enough to get upgraded to a speaking role. He just banked his SAG card. Guild membership has perks down the line like collective bargaining, better rates of pay, health insurance, and other stuff. It’s a big deal for a new actor.

  Which brings us around to the cute girls eager to discover what they could do to make one of the stars take a shine to them so he’d stick his neck out to win them a speaking role. Many sexual encounters with the show’s extras were mutually parasitic transactions. The girls wanted to move up the ladder as quickly as possible, and the boys wanted to get their rocks off. In Hollywood—and just about everywhere else on the planet, come to think of it—this process is more commonly known as the Circle of Life.

  We’d break for lunch on Thursday and, if things were moving along nicely, I’d share my meal with a lovely lady that afternoon in my dressing room, discussing what we might find ourselves doing after the show. If we hit it off, I’d go to the stage manager or one of the extras wranglers and say, “Hey, is so-and-so coming back next week?” With a knowing nod, they’d always say, “Yeah, I suppose she is coming back.”

  Like this one chick with terrific boobs. She had a big ass, too, but I could forgive her badonk based solely on the unimpeachable quality of her tremendous rack. She showed me her portfolio of “art” photos; in each one she was totally nude. Outstanding. There was another girl with bulletproof knobs that were toned down by her mousy personality, although she did have a lot of piercings and tattoos. When we met, she had a boyfriend, but of course that didn’t stop me. We used to have sex in my dressing room, once even sneaking in to do it on the dressing room couch of this one chick on The New Class who was a royal bitch. That was fun.

  I scored when we filmed away from the set, too. I had a beach romance with a beautiful blonde extra the casting director brought in during our Malibu Sands stretch. I started talking with her and learned she, too, was a big fan of pro wrestling. Turned out she wasn’t just a fan, she was one of the G.L.O.W. Girls (Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling). Her name was Jeanne Basone, and she was the “Hollywood” half of “Hollywood and Vine.” She must have been around thirty years old at the time, and I was about fourteen. There was an instant attraction between us. Our horseplay together didn’t go too far, but in my mental Rolodex of the most gorgeous women I’ve been with, her image is near the top.

  I lusted after more than extras. Soleil Moon Frye appeared on SBTB in 1992 as Robin in the “Screech’s Spaghetti Sauce” episode. Soleil and I went to school together at Valley Professional in Studio City. It was a school that catered specifically to students who were in the entertainment industry and couldn’t attend normal school hours. This may sound cool, but it was actually kind of a drag. On SBTB, we’d work all day for three weeks, then we’d get a week off. For that week, I’d often be sitting in a classroom at Valley Professional, which was much lamer than a typical high school. On the other hand, I was entertaining invites to the Playboy mansion. I suppose things did even out in the end. There does tend to be a cosmic balance to the universe.

  In my experience, the Playboy mansion is not what people assume. Assuming, that is, that you think it’s a bunch of hot, naked chicks running around, which it sort of is, but not exactly. Yes, it’s that, but it’s also very classy. There’s a strict guest list and many rules to obey in the mansion. For example, Rule no. 1: Don’t act like an ass (this one had me behind the eight ball from the word go). Rule no. 2: Don’t eyeball or flirt with whichever girl/girls Hef is currently banging. Rule no. 3: Don’t piss in the grotto (I’m talking to you, Mark-Paul. Sidney can’t talk your way outta that one). Actually, I guess there weren’t that many rules at Hef’s mansion. It was just a fuckfest.

  Soleil’s turn on SBTB came a few years after Punky Brewster was off the air. Soleil had to have had the biggest yammers in Hollywood at the time; I’m talking DDDDs. I just wanted to grab them and … Wait, where was I? No, this was a serious issue. Soleil suffered back problems resulting from her melonesque guzungas and opted to have them reduced—twice! Tsk, tsk. Just another horrific example of man—with all of his blasted modern technology—ravaging the perfectly formed beauty of the natural world. In my opinion she reduced them too much. My informants tell me that today they are the C-cups of a mere mortal. I hope you’re happy Soleil. Another girl who fell squarely into this distinguished category was Erin Reed, who played April Newberry on a short-lived series called Sister Kate. But I liked Erin for her personality. Honest! If I was Hamlet, Erin would have been my Ophelia. She bewitched me, and I wanted to be
around her all the time. I used to wile away many an hour hanging around the set of Sister Kate just to stay abreast of Erin. Also on that show was soon-to-be teen heartthrob, Jason Priestly, who would go on to star in 90210 with my SBTB on-screen love interest, Tori Spelling.

  But I felt bad during these conquests because all through SBTB I just wasn’t taking any chick seriously as a girlfriend. I was pretty self-absorbed and obsessed with new sexual conquests. I was having fun, on the hunt for new pussoire. When you get right down to it, I was just being a dick. But I fully embraced that fact by talking a mousy girl into a tag team with me and a friend of mine. She wasn’t really into it, but somehow I convinced her. I know now that I shouldn’t have done it, but at the time it just felt so right. She said she only did it because she liked me so much, but afterwards things were way too weird. I have to admit, it really tainted my view of her (after letting my friend see her taint). I told her, “Yeah, I can’t be with you anymore.” I had walked blindly into the ancient riddle of the buddy-girlfriend three-way. To top it off, my friend, whom I now call Captain Douchebag (more on that later), ended up being a real creep. In fact, he went on to filth up one of her close friends who worked for the company that cast the extras every week on SBTB. Between my actions and his, I started to become concerned that my steady flow of extras poon might suddenly get pinched off. Had I finally gone too far, putting my smorgasbord in jeopardy? The answer, thankfully, was no. But to this day, I still feel bad about that situation. If I could go back, I wouldn’t do it again. And I advise against it for you, too, grasshoppers.

  Naturally, there were some psychos, too. One girl started showing up at my house, in addition to hanging around the set of SBTB after her role as an extra had ended. She told me she had a new role as a nurse over on DOOL, which taped on a nearby set. Later I discovered that DOOL wasn’t even filming that week.

  The damnedest part about avoiding crazy chicks is that, despite their mental instability (indeed, no doubt because of it), they’re consistently the most fantastic lays. Banging crazy bitches is a delicate, complex math requiring the erect male to counterbalance the numerous (and often tragic) consequences of copulating with an insane person against an absolutely mind-blowing fuck. It’s not fair.

  Sometimes, those innocent first encounters would bloom into serious dating relationships. I started dating a girl I first met as an extra on the show that I soon became convinced was the Perfect Girl. Her name was Anne, We dated for a while, but eventually she dumped me. I was heartbroken because this was the girl. I just had this feeling. But alas, our love went sour. Soon after, I fancied another girl I’ll call “Laura,” who also began as an extra. Just when I thought we might have a future together, she informed me she had a kid. Yipes! An actual child, not a Cabbage Patch doll. I said, “Look, I’m just looking for a good time, sister. Dustin ain’t no baby daddy.” Not in my teens, anyway. The baby momma also turned out to psychic, or so she said. She was convinced she had ESP and would share with me her all her urgent emanations. For instance, on certain occasions she would receive celestial vibrations informing her that I was out partying with other women (which I was) while she was under the impression our lovemaking was exclusive. She would call me on my big Zack Morris brick cell phone while I was on the town and start admonishing me like I was supposed to feel guilty for my transgressions. I said, “Honey, I just tapped your ass a few times. We are not a couple.” She persisted, “Don’t lie to me. I know you’re out with so-and-so.” Which I was.

  It wasn’t long before I realized I’d have a hard time replacing my love that was Anne, so I tried to reconcile with her, the girl I really liked and thought was perfect for me. But it was too late. She said, “Aren’t you involved with Laura?”

  I said, “No baby. That’s over.”

  “Really. Did you have sex with her last night?”

  “How do you know that? I mean no.”

  Turns out Laura and Anne had moved in together. Now they were roommates.

  The thing that truly sucks is that I was only out banging Laura because I felt so hurt by being dumped by Anne. It was only anger sex. Oh well…

  C’est la guerre. So much for the Perfect Girl.

  So conversely, if things didn’t work out with a girl, a fresh shipment of extras was promptly ordered. Ahhh, the smell of fresh extras, rolling around in their packing peanuts, peeling away their protective coating … I almost feel I should write a separate book detailing every boneheaded, hormone-induced misadventure that ended with me hurting someone for whom, however long or briefly, I cared about or who cared about me while I remained oblivious. As the saying goes: I was young, dumb, and having fun. They also say youth is wasted on the young, but I don’t feel like I squandered a minute of it. I was given an opportunity to live a different kind of life for a while, and I enjoyed it to the maximum. I wish I could devote an all-out effort to telling all those girls from my less honorable moments how I truly felt about them at the time and how I feel now with the perspective of years, some hard lessons in maturity, and realizing what it means to take responsibility and be a man.

  First, I would thank them all for being so clean. In the tens of thousands of times I got it on, with thousands of partners, I never contracted so much as an itchy ballsack. That’s not to say there weren’t nights of dread anticipation, seated at the edge of my bed cursing myself for the highly questionable hole I had so recklessly entered. If I devoted a book solely to the girls I hurt, and they were the only ones who bought it, it would be still a bestseller. That’s how many chicks I’ve fucked around with. The title could be Jailbait, Beaters, and Trolls: The Dustin Diamond Story. (For more on this topic, see Appendix B.)

  FAMOUS PEOPLE I’VE MET, OR WHO’S A DOUCHE IN REAL LIFE AND WHO’S NOT

  I’m famous, but I try to be an interactive, outgoing, regular guy with everyone I meet. I figure I’m famous in the way that people in, say, Zimbabwe know me by sight; famous in the way that a bum on the street wearing one shoe and smelling of feces (hopefully his own) will approach me and holler, “Screech!” But on the other hand, if fame were a flight from New York to L.A., I’d be seated in Business Class while Sean Penn would be lounging in First Class. If fame was a credit card, I’d carry the Gold Card while someone like Brad Pitt would have the Platinum.

  Gary Coleman

  I had heard all these stories about how my fellow Gold Card member, Gary Coleman, was a bitter little man with anger is-sues, so I went out of way to be nice to him. I thought, “Y’know what, everybody always jumps on this guy’s case. They treat him poorly. They ram that ‘Whachoo talkin’ ‘bout Willis?’ shit down his throat every chance they get. The dude was born in 1968; I’m sure he’s sick and tired of being treated like a child.” I told him that with me he didn’t have to put up with any of that shit and offered to grab a beer with him. I told him we could sit, hang, and talk about pure nonsense for a change. I had heard he was a model-train enthusiast (something I take no interest in whatsoever), so I struck up a conversation about model trains.

  The dude was so far gone, he wouldn’t let his guard down for an instant. Not even to me, a kindred spirit who has been through the same Hollywood child-star ringer. I felt like I was approaching him like a peer—Screech Powers to Arnold Jackson—and that we’d dealt with a lot of the same hassles over the years for the seminal characters we portrayed on television. People give you shit for why you’re famous? People give me shit for why I’m famous, too. Let’s hang out. But Coleman was so jaded by that point there was no hope for a friendship. Years of immersion in the Hollywood scene had built a brick fortress around that dude. It was too bad, but I understood.

  The Stars of The Tonight Show

  At NBC Studios, between Stage 1 and Stage 3 (where they taped The Tonight Show), the SBTB cast occupied a series of adjoining dressing rooms. For some reason or another, we had taped SBTB on both stages at different points. That meant we shared the same hallways with The Tonight Show and would often run into all the g
uests, as well as Johnny, Doc, and Ed McMahon. I could simply leave my dressing room door open and watch entertainment-industry icons like Crystal Gayle saunter past. In this way I became friends with legendary NBC Southern California weatherman, Fritz Coleman, who would often take time to stop and chat. Even Michael Landon sat in my dressing room for a nice visit with my dad just before Michael made his famous last appearance on The Tonight Show.

  I remember how pissed Doc Severinson was when it looked like the network was going to fight him to keep the rights to The Tonight Show Orchestra, even though it was Doc’s band. At first, it looked like they were going to keep the musicians, bring in Winton Marsalis (he worked out great) and screw over Doc. Doc wasn’t happy.

  I wish I’d thought to bring a recorder into that dressing room. Every room received the feed from all the different stages as they rehearsed and prepared for broadcast. On Thursdays, our SBTB camera day, I watched the feed of all the NBC stars and casts doing their walk-throughs, camera crews setting up their shots, actors reading their scripts, and talking casually. I could see on-location feeds of the various news affiliates’ live shots, rehearsing their heartfelt gravitas: “Our deepest sympathies are extended to the victims of this senseless tragedy… Cut! This shit is too technical. How do I look in this shot? Is my hair fucked up? Brenda! Can I get a goddamn coffee please?!” I watched Johnny Carson and Jay Leno practice their monologues. I even watched Jay Leno pick his nose on camera—really getting in there. That’s something you’ll never find in any DVD bonus footage.

  When he first took over The Tonight Show, I used to have lunch with Jay Leno in the NBC commissary. Jay, as everyone knows, likes cars. I like cars but didn’t know much about them then. Jay used to drive a new car to the studio practically every day, cars like his Lamborghini Diablo and Lamborghini Countach or his Ferrari Testarossa (which he let me sit in). Jay would say, “Oh, I like the Diablo, but the Countach has such a classy look.” “Yes,” I would agree. Classy look. Yes, indeed, Mr. Leno.” But he’d also drive old jalopies to work, too. He had so many cars and motorcycles, and he knew everything about them. He was more than just a casual collector of fine automobiles and motorcycles, he was an encyclopedia of gearhead knowledge. And he was actually just as nice a guy in real life as he appeared to be on TV.