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Debunking Screech

screech

It seems Dustin Diamond (AKA: Screech from TV’s “Saved by the Bell”) was recently at two major Universities within the UK, including both the University of Glamorgan and the University of Hull, selling out the student union bars with his “unique” comedy styling.

Screech was, according to an IMDB source, “was the main attraction of last Saturday night at the Hull University Club, Asylum”. Apparently, he came on stage where people texted questions from their phones, and then he answered them.

“It was weird”. Said the source. “one of the questions was ‘What the hell are you doing in Hull?’ and he answered that he was looking for girls to ‘t-bag’. Seriously, he just ruined my childhood”

Other posters on the University of Glamorgan forum website felt that the Union had “wasted” money in getting Screech.

“I’m sorry but a 20 minute appearance on stage where he judges a brief contest (of sorts) and tries to flog his t-shirts and porn isn’t good enough.

He should’ve stayed to sign autographs and have his picture taken but he stormed off and refused to do it apparently. At least Stuart Parker (the ex-Neighbours star) stayed to do that.”
– A poster on the University of Glamorgan Student Forum Website

But this isn’t the first time that Screech (sorry, Dustin Diamond) has acted like a real jerk. Many people have claimed that he has asked people to pay for autographed and personal photos of himself.

Others claim that his attempt “blue humour” and potshots at the expense of his TV career, a career that many students grew up with, is just a way of hitting back at the very thing that the students wanted to hear about. It’s like seeing TV’s “Batman” Adam West coming to a UK Student union events that prominently feature nostalgia acts and basically shitting on the TV show, and for you for watching it… and adding “oh by the way, please buy my T-shirts and merchandise where I use the name of Batman to cross-promote my comedy act”.

That’s basically the problem I have with Screech. Yes, you can use comedy. Yes you can use ‘blue humour’ to move yourself on as a person. Heck, even the “Chuckle Brothers”, and “Keith and Orville” as well as “Zippy and George” go around Student Union bars telling very adult jokes. But not at the expense of the show that made them famous. Most of them are very ironic about their respective show, Screech isn’t being ironic about who on the show he’d bone.

Regardless of this, I still feel Screech does have a role to play in comedy circuits if he can accept the whole “Yes, I’m Screech; I’m going to have fun with the character” with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

His Get D-Shirts website claimed that earlier this year his home in Wisconsin was facing foreclosure and he needed 30 days (or 40, depending on what page you read on the Get-D Shirts website) to raise the money to stop the foreclosure and ultimately, save his home.

He went on the road and asked people to help him raise funds from the purchase of T-shirts so that he could save his home. Screech even went onto “Shock Jock” Howard Stern’s satellite radio show to promote his cause…

However questions were soon raised when Artie Lange, feeling charitable after listening to Screech on Howard Stern, invited Diamond the chance to open two of Artie Lange’s stand up comedy gigs in Pittsburgh. Considering the fact that Lange doesn’t know Diamond it seemed like a generous offer, an offer that would pay Diamond $2,000 for just 10 minutes work… Did he show up? Did he hell!.

Screech has consistently over exaggerated about his situation. After the 30 days to cease the foreclosure on his $250,000 home his website is still up and running, and accusations that an apparent attempted “mugging” was staged or faked to drum up support for his issues. It didn’t work though.

On August 14, Dustin was scheduled to personally helm a five-hour telethon from the Denver headquarters of ManiaTV! The event would raise money earmarked for his “Save My House” campaign, but ninety minutes before the telethon was scheduled to begin, Richard Ayoub, ManiaTV!’s vice president of programming, pulled the plug.

“We didn’t want to take the risk,” explains ManiaTV! spokesman Jason Damata. “We couldn’t verify that his house is in foreclosure, and even if there are facts to substantiate that it is and he’s really, honestly trying to save his house, he exhibited some really strange and obnoxious behavior.”
— Jason Damata (From westworld.com)

Screech now has own “sex tape”. Called “Saved by the Smell” it showcases Dustin/Screech performing a “Dirty Sanchez” on two females. Many people are asking whether the sex tape was staged or whether he was in on it. Dustin himself has said that he will do all in his power not to release it.

“I can`t confirm that there is a tape that apparently has gotten out. I have seen a clip on the Internet. I`m not happy about it. Maybe a significant other or a friend that was shown this saw it as an opportunity to make money by selling it to this scumbag.”
— Dustin Diamond (from CNN Transcripts)

Whether Dustin’s house is really up for foreclosure isn’t really the issue, neither is his sex tape, or whether Screech will lose 5 pounds or 8 pounds “Celebrity Fit Club“. The issue is bigger than that. The issue is of public perception of Diamond as a person.

Yes, the guy is trying to make a living. Yes, he’s a stand-up comic; he might be a great comic, and yes he does trade on his name; it’s the law of the jungle on the comedy circuits – if you’re name is hot, you’ll get gigs. If he wants to use blue humor in his act that’s fine. There is no argument from me that he shouldn’t work, or that he is somehow a false character. I’m sure he’s a stand up guy — but the thing is, he comes across as a real jerk about his time on Saved by the Bell and the “Screech” character and the only thing he wants you to know about is his success on the stage and how much it is selling out.

My point is this, Dustin’s world view is that the general public needs to know, all the time, that he isn’t Screech. And will sh*t on you for bringing it up, or questioning him. But the thing is, everything he does puts him in that situation, ergo Dustin has put himself into a Catch 22 situation!

The general public associate characters they grew up with like Spock, like the Fonz and less so, Screech. The people buy into nostalgia. It’s okay to make fun of your character or to move on and use blue humor; but at the very expense of the show that people actually watched?

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