- 8 hours ago
- #video
- #hollywood
#video #Hollywood Demons Season 2 Episode 3
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:01First, I wanted to say thank you so much for making my childhood.
00:00:05Teaching me how to be cool in high school.
00:00:06He's the young heartthrob who has teens across the country.
00:00:10Saved by the bell.
00:00:11Saved by the bell.
00:00:17How you doing?
00:00:18How you doing?
00:00:19There's a lot of people that watch this show.
00:00:28Stalking. Criminality.
00:00:30The price of fame.
00:00:32911, what's your emergency?
00:00:34To be totally honest, it was pretty bananas from the jump.
00:00:38He alleged his parents were stealing his money.
00:00:41He had a small puncture wound on his chest.
00:00:45Excuse me a second.
00:00:46Yeah.
00:00:47It was overwhelming.
00:00:50It was fake.
00:00:52Shannon's cycle fan.
00:00:56How did Saved by the bell shape you?
00:01:08But I've seen the tape.
00:01:10You're gonna die.
00:01:12This situation will never be repeated again.
00:01:26I remember sitting in my little pajamas.
00:01:30I was on my couch in my living room in Miami, Florida.
00:01:33The Saved by the bell theme came on.
00:01:37When I wake up in the morning and the alarm gets out of the morning, I don't think I...
00:01:41It kind of just grabbed you with those rainbows of colors.
00:01:44Lots of 90s pop art graphics.
00:01:48It's time to see the bus drive by.
00:01:50It's all right.
00:01:52Cause I'm Saved by the bell.
00:01:54It had that kind of bam, bam, bam.
00:01:56Lots of neon geometric shapes whizzing past.
00:02:02How can you not move to this groove?
00:02:04I can handle it.
00:02:06It just draws you in.
00:02:08Cause I'm Saved by the bell.
00:02:13Saved by the bell ran from 1989 to 1993.
00:02:17It's part of millennial core.
00:02:22It was so popular that I don't think you would have been able to find a teen in the 90s
00:02:28who didn't have a favorite character on that show.
00:02:31Every girl you knew had a crush on Zack Morris or AC Slater or wanted to be Kelly Kapowski or
00:02:37Jesse Spano or Lisa Turtle.
00:02:39Saved by the bell is a comedy meets sort of melodrama sort of fantasy about high school with a group
00:02:46of kids.
00:02:46It was colorful, vibrant, somewhat bubblegummy.
00:02:50Viewers might say that it's the school they wish they had attended where everybody gets along.
00:02:56Everybody has an identity.
00:02:58Everybody has a good time.
00:03:03But it's really about that cast and they could do almost anything.
00:03:08Saved by the bell followed this group of six friends and their daily lives at Bayside High.
00:03:14And the cast was made up of actual teenagers.
00:03:20It felt authentic.
00:03:22There was that age element that connected us to these characters.
00:03:26Bring them out to the stage.
00:03:27Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez and Mark Paul Gosselaar.
00:03:31The show was named one of the 20 best school shows of all time by AOL TV.
00:03:37Hi.
00:03:38Great to be here.
00:03:39Hello, everyone.
00:03:40People remember it with great affection.
00:03:45But that sort of glossy, lovely quality, behind that there were a few other things that were going on.
00:03:55It's a very different, more complicated and darker story.
00:04:00The executive producer, who was our showrunner, a guy named Peter Engel, was a very strong born-again Christian at
00:04:06the time.
00:04:07Peter Engel is the writer and the executive producer of Saved by the Bell.
00:04:11Before that, he was in Hollywood, in the more darker, difficult parts of Hollywood.
00:04:18Into a decadent life, doing drugs, dating adult film stars.
00:04:22And suddenly, one day, he saw a vision of Jesus on the beach.
00:04:29And decided he wanted to be a force for the good.
00:04:36And his quote about that,
00:04:39No one said a word when I did a thousand bucks of cocaine.
00:04:42But when I saw Jesus in Malibu, everyone said, are you crazy?
00:04:47However, I don't care if it was a cocaine psychosis.
00:04:50It was something came through and delivered a moment of clarity for him.
00:04:54So we weren't even allowed to cuss.
00:04:55But I think that's part of the innocence that made it sort of charming and maybe resonated,
00:05:00because it was a big escapism.
00:05:01In order to understand Saved by the Bell, you actually have to go back to how the show originally started,
00:05:07which was a very different show.
00:05:11Before Saved by the Bell, Peter Engel produced the Disney show called Good Morning Miss Bliss.
00:05:21So Good Morning Miss Bliss was going to be a Saturday morning kids show.
00:05:25And it was about Miss Bliss and her dealing with these young adolescents in middle school.
00:05:30You know, at that time, the Disney Channel was looking for more live action shows that they could put on
00:05:36their network.
00:05:37Hayley Mills was attached, which I love Hayley Mills.
00:05:39I'd grown up watching her in Pollyanna and Parent Trap.
00:05:42Good Morning Miss Bliss, which is a show really about the teachers.
00:05:46And the children are there, but they are secondary characters.
00:05:49There are three cast members in this cast that you'd be more familiar with that Saved by the Bell.
00:05:54I was tasked with finding all the kids, the principal and the other teacher.
00:05:57They were very specific for the main character, Zach.
00:06:01They wanted a Ferris Bueller type kid.
00:06:03I'm like, oh, okay.
00:06:06But I was not finding that personality.
00:06:09But then I remember when Mark Paul came in and he read and he was the one.
00:06:15He was the kid.
00:06:17His perfectly quaffed blonde hair, which I later found out, was not a natural shade.
00:06:24His dimples, his smile.
00:06:27He had swagger.
00:06:29I mean, if you can say that about a teenager at the time, Zach Morris had swagger.
00:06:40Hi, everyone. I'm Max Patimo, and I'm formerly from Good Morning Miss Bliss, and Mike Gonzalez was my character.
00:06:47And it's nice to be back on camera after 35 years.
00:06:54I just remember going in and, you know, starting out meeting the casting director, going back for the second and
00:06:59third auditions.
00:07:00And I remember telling my mom, if I get on the show, you owe me a box of C's chocolate.
00:07:05It's a really big one.
00:07:07Thirteen auditions later, I think it was, I was on Good Morning Miss Bliss as a 13-year-old.
00:07:12I was Mikey Gonzalez, Zach's best friend.
00:07:25And this is Lark as a little baby.
00:07:30I think she's like three months in here, smiling for the camera.
00:07:37She grew up in Pasadena.
00:07:39Here's Lark.
00:07:40Lark at four.
00:07:43Ballerina.
00:07:44She loved doing that.
00:07:47Lark had a strange relationship between her and her dad.
00:07:52We were divorced when Lark was about three, four years old.
00:07:57Lark was a quiet little girl, shy.
00:08:00When I put her in ballet, she would just light up and just show off.
00:08:08I worked at Columbia Pictures.
00:08:10I became an executive secretary, and my daughter showed interest in getting into show business.
00:08:17She wanted to do commercials.
00:08:19She's turning 11, 12 soon, and I just started to get my daughter an agent and go from there.
00:08:27What's the problem?
00:08:29Uh, well, uh...
00:08:30What do you want?
00:08:32Your Gita suite...
00:08:33I remember this scene.
00:08:37What?
00:08:39Doing that really reinforced her desire to be an actress, a performer.
00:08:46And then there was a good dry spell, six to nine months, and she was becoming discouraged because she wasn't
00:08:53getting anything.
00:08:55And then she auditioned for Good Morning, Miss Bliss.
00:09:00Lisa Turtle was the most stylish friend of the group.
00:09:05It was between Lark Voorhees and Tiffany Thiessen.
00:09:08In the room at the testing, I did bring up,
00:09:12Hey, we don't have anybody of color in this piece.
00:09:15And on the seventh call back, she got the part of Lisa Turtle.
00:09:21And then you're also meeting the other characters.
00:09:23I thought Heather Hopper was very funny.
00:09:26She was cast as a girl named Nikki, and the last role to round up the ensemble is a character
00:09:31named Samuel Screech Powers.
00:09:33He was dorky, he was goofy, and just kind of more the comedic relief.
00:09:41We ultimately ended up doing an open call, and that's where we found Dustin Diamond.
00:09:46And I remember his father being there.
00:09:48I remember his voice was kind of screechy, you know?
00:09:52Can anyone tell me where the Lost Colony is located?
00:09:57No one knows Miss Bliss. That's why it's Lost.
00:10:01Dustin starts on Miss Bliss at age 11 and begins playing a character who's three years older than he actually
00:10:07is,
00:10:08and he is the only one that's not playing his actual age.
00:10:11It's tough for a child actor. I mean, it's tough for an adult.
00:10:15It takes a lot of energy and a lot of work.
00:10:17Being on set as a child actor in a typical week, Monday through Friday,
00:10:21I think we'd had to be there at 8 a.m.
00:10:23Monday was the table read. You would sit down and go over the script.
00:10:28Tuesday and Wednesday were rehearsals.
00:10:30Thursday was the dress rehearsal, and then Friday we would film.
00:10:33And every day, in between doing all of that, there was a mandatory three hours of school.
00:10:39So it was demanding, and it was a job as a child, which I think makes children grow up differently.
00:10:49On weekends, I was exhausted and recovering and ready to go back on Monday.
00:10:54To me, it feels no different than when you're training a puppy.
00:10:58The puppy doesn't really know what it's doing.
00:11:03In the beginning, I think it's fun for the kid.
00:11:07But I think after a while, it's not just chasing the ball for fun and getting a little treat afterwards.
00:11:13It's like, oh, and we're going to do it again?
00:11:15It's like, how many times can I do this?
00:11:18Peter Engels tried to keep the set wholesome, made sure the parents were around, and made sure language was appropriate
00:11:24for this age group.
00:11:27But child stars are pushed into an adult environment prematurely and missing the normal developmental milestones of childhood.
00:11:35I was away from my friends. You're not interacting with different people. You're not going outside to do P.E.
00:11:42If you're coming back to regular school from being a child actor, nobody's going to know who you are.
00:11:47It's like, you've been absent. Like, you're an outcast. You're a new person.
00:11:55Lark took it in stride, and she knew that this was what she wanted to do.
00:12:02But we didn't know how the show was going to do. There was no way to know.
00:12:07Because most Saturday morning shows were cartoons, and they were trying to introduce something different.
00:12:13We have here a classroom based on mutual respect. There are three things I ask of you.
00:12:19The Miss Bliss character was overly saccharine, and that doesn't make for an interesting TV character.
00:12:27So we filmed 13 episodes, which was one season back then.
00:12:30Ultimately, I got the call. It wasn't picked up for a second season on the Disney Channel.
00:12:35And, you know, that was the end of Good Morning, Miss Bliss.
00:12:41We didn't get a lot of information from Disney.
00:12:45Basically, what we were told was Disney didn't want to continue the show.
00:12:49And what they did was they sold the rights to a few of the characters to NBC, and NBC was
00:12:55going to package it as a new show.
00:12:56It was a welcome surprise that it was picked up, but you feel vulnerable.
00:13:03They can decide to not pick you up the next season.
00:13:06So only three of the students from Good Morning, Miss Bliss make it over to NBC.
00:13:13Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Dustin Diamond, and it's Lark Voorhees.
00:13:19It was devastating, I would say. It was tough to process as a child, because, you know, you feel the
00:13:25rejection of not continuing after, you know, a year of doing this.
00:13:30And I think my response was to take a break and go be a regular kid, and lo and behold,
00:13:38I never looked back.
00:13:40But for some of these actors, there were some strange outcomes for some of them, including stalking and criminality.
00:13:55911, what's your emergency?
00:14:02We'll do zoom-ins on him, too.
00:14:04I'm Robin Lippin. I'm the casting director of Saved by the Bell.
00:14:09Producers decided to shift the focus away from this teacher, Miss Bliss, and cast three new teen actors to go
00:14:18alongside Zach, Screech, and Lisa, who will now be in high school at a completely different school.
00:14:24I was casting A.C. Slater, who was the jock and the kind of the Fonzie, John Travolta type.
00:14:31It was hell on wheels.
00:14:33To find someone with that personality and the look and the comedy, it was really hard, until Peter said, let's
00:14:39open it up and he could be any ethnicity.
00:14:43Then all I remember is Mario Lopez walking in.
00:14:46See, you have to understand, we both like this one girl, right? And we're both kind of little, we're leaders.
00:14:52And I remember calling Peter and saying, I found him.
00:14:56They weren't necessarily looking for like a Latin guy to play the role, which I thought was really cool, which
00:15:01I thought is the way it should be.
00:15:02Should be people that look like you and me, be able to play roles.
00:15:06I was casting Jessie Spano, who was the feminist.
00:15:10Elizabeth Berkley had confidence, but there's also a vulnerability about her.
00:15:14I don't believe a woman should be displayed like a side of beef.
00:15:19However, I am wearing a swimsuit underneath, and for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing, it's blue
00:15:24with pink stripes, okay?
00:15:27And then I was casting Kelly Kapowski, the cheerleader.
00:15:32Tiffany just had that look.
00:15:33B-A-Y-S-I-D-E, go this side!
00:15:37In addition to six young actors, there were only a couple of adults as series regulars.
00:15:42A guy named Max, who's a very great magician named Ed Alonzo.
00:15:46He's always entertaining us.
00:15:47Right.
00:15:48I played Max, the owner of the diner, where the kids hung out.
00:15:52We're just sort of there to keep the scene moving.
00:15:55When we had the episode with buddy bands, and they said, make the buddy bands appear.
00:16:00And I made them appear, and I gave one to each kid.
00:16:04And that kind of stuff sort of brought like, you know, like, I'm here to always help you guys out.
00:16:09But the attention really needs to stay on the core of the six kids.
00:16:14That's the show.
00:16:20When we watched the pilot episode, I thought, oh, what a refreshing show this is.
00:16:26The show started to dominate Saturday morning kids programming.
00:16:30Saved by the Bell garnered more ratings than the Bugs Bunny and Tweety show, the Smurfs, and Alvin and the
00:16:36Chipmunks.
00:16:37I don't think any of us imagined what it would have become.
00:16:40During the original run of Saved by the Bell, it attracted more teenage viewers than the Cosby show.
00:16:45At that time, they hadn't seen a black young actress perform that way.
00:16:49Want to know who boosted my confidence as a little black girl growing up in the 90s?
00:16:53Lisa Turtle.
00:16:56Lark was a fan favorite and a breakout character.
00:16:58Lisa Turtle was hashtag soft life before hashtag soft life was a thing.
00:17:03Not only was she the fashionable one, but both of her parents were doctors.
00:17:08That is a flex.
00:17:10We started to see a real fan base of kids.
00:17:14People were showing up to NBC to try and get a glimpse of Mark Paul or Mario.
00:17:22We started touring and doing like mall tours.
00:17:25When I saw that crowd of people that I was like, oh, wow, there's a lot of people that watch
00:17:33the show.
00:17:34It was just, it was very strange to me where I was coming from junior high where kids, you know,
00:17:42were horrible and mean and like would pick on you or say horrible things.
00:17:45And then you've got a group of, you know, 5,000 kids who are all wanting your autograph.
00:17:52There were giant bags of actual fan mail coming in.
00:17:56But I know that Dustin seemed to be getting the most letters from fans.
00:18:02Some members of our audience showed up today with something special. Where are you?
00:18:06On this talk show, there are a few teenagers in the audience.
00:18:11Over here, would you stand up and show Dustin what you did?
00:18:15Wearing t-shirts with the letters screech on him.
00:18:28And we can't forget there was a massive screech fan base out there.
00:18:34And he seems taken back by this.
00:18:38After a season two, syndication really made the show blow up.
00:18:44That is when you're able to be sold to other stations across the country so it can be played in
00:18:51the local Channel 5 markets or the local Channel 9s or 11s and 13s.
00:18:57Then Saved by the Bell was basically playing five times a day, seven days a week in different time zones,
00:19:05not just one episode every Saturday morning.
00:19:08And then it started going into all these other countries, which is why I ended up traveling through all these
00:19:12other countries because of the show.
00:19:19What can be great about being a young actor, a successful young actor is fame and fortune.
00:19:25What can be really bad about being a young actor is fame and fortune.
00:19:32I think that the public doesn't realize how really unglamorous this industry is.
00:19:42Mario Lopez said he started out making about $1,500 an episode.
00:19:46That's a lot of money to a kid.
00:19:49But after a second season, in 1991, Saved by the Bell was pulling in roughly about $15 million in advertising.
00:19:58If it's a union show and they were really paying them low, somebody was cashing in on it.
00:20:07Generally speaking, the executive producers, the higher ups make a lot of money.
00:20:12As a 12-year-old, you probably don't have any credits behind you.
00:20:16Chances are this is going to be your first big job.
00:20:19I've seen deals that are, this is what we're offering, take it or leave it.
00:20:23And if you leave it, we'll have somebody else.
00:20:26Look, when you're offered your first job, you don't say no.
00:20:28You have to start somewhere.
00:20:30You feel fragile and you feel vulnerable.
00:20:34So you don't feel strong in a position of negotiation.
00:20:38Because they're in charge and they can make a decision that can change your child's life.
00:20:45And you don't want to be responsible for doing something or saying something that jeopardizes that.
00:20:55These actors just didn't get good deals.
00:20:58And even worse, Dustin Diamond alleges his parents misused his money.
00:21:03My dad is not good with money.
00:21:06He bought all this stuff with my money.
00:21:09So in the 1990s, the law requires that 15% of a child's earnings needs to go into a blocked
00:21:18trust account.
00:21:19Legally, the parent cannot touch that money.
00:21:23However, a child can't legally manage their own money.
00:21:27Which means that a parent or guardian has to manage the other 85% responsibly and in the best interest
00:21:36of the child's, not theirs.
00:21:39Is that enforceable?
00:21:44I met Dustin in like 2017, 2018.
00:21:48I came into his life much later.
00:21:52Dustin started telling me more about how much he made or how much he didn't really make.
00:21:55He made about $1,250 per week working on NBC on Saved by the Bell.
00:22:01Dustin had alleged that, you know, his parents are stealing his money or taking his money.
00:22:05You know, my parents wasted so much of my hard work.
00:22:08If the child is now approaching adulthood with nothing, nothing to show for hard work and long hours.
00:22:15If I just found out after 10 years of working that I had nothing in the bank anymore.
00:22:27That's tough.
00:22:32My name is Mark Diamond and Dustin Diamond is my son.
00:22:36You might know Dustin Diamond as Screech from Saved by the Bell.
00:22:40But there were a lot of other aspects to Dustin.
00:22:49Well, one of the things that was a big part of our life that almost nobody knows about is that
00:22:55our family was dealing with hard things.
00:23:02Yeah, I've had a lot of loss.
00:23:05I've basically lost everything and everyone I ever cared about, you know, except for a couple of friends.
00:23:11And, uh, yeah, yeah, my sister was murdered when she was 16.
00:23:17Yeah.
00:23:18She disappeared on her way home from school and a hunter found her in a field three days later.
00:23:32They wrote it off as a suicide.
00:23:35But, I mean, my sister was right handed and she was shot in the left temple.
00:23:43Dustin and his dad had already had a bunch of loss and grief around his family.
00:23:48The death of someone close to you is always hard.
00:23:50But the impact of not having closure or really accepting how they died can impact not just Dustin's dad, but
00:23:57the whole family.
00:24:01Generational trauma is the idea that, you know, your parents or your grandparents experienced a trauma and it shaped the
00:24:09way that they then treat the next generation.
00:24:12So, for example, if your grandparents were alive during a war and they experienced like wartime trauma, you know, for
00:24:20their children, they may end up being very protective of them.
00:24:25And so that shapes the way they see the world, how they attach to each other and how they operate
00:24:29in the world.
00:24:32My first son was named Ryan.
00:24:34He was born on my sister's birthday, March the 4th.
00:24:39He had the same day of the week, same time, same minute.
00:24:43So, you know, people were telling me, well, your sister's been reincarnated.
00:24:49But he had Down syndrome.
00:24:51He had an enlarged heart.
00:24:53He had exterior connections.
00:24:56It's called ductus arteriosus.
00:24:58I still remember.
00:24:59And that's like a, that's like a leak outside your heart.
00:25:04And most of these kids don't live past a year.
00:25:07When Dustin was born, he was two years younger than Ryan.
00:25:12We were really, really worried that he might have Down syndrome, that he might have similar problems.
00:25:19But he was born healthy.
00:25:22But the thing was, Ryan couldn't crawl.
00:25:27He couldn't stand.
00:25:29He learned to roll around.
00:25:31And Dustin used to entertain him and play with him.
00:25:35And I think that was the beginning of his creativity.
00:25:40But then Ryan got the measles.
00:25:43He got them in his lungs.
00:25:45And his lungs were already compromised.
00:25:49He died in 1983 at the age of eight.
00:25:59Dustin had been perky, outgoing kid.
00:26:02He was getting good grades.
00:26:04Suddenly, he was morbid and failing in school.
00:26:12I feel like I bonded with Dustin in grade school before Saved by the Bell.
00:26:18In fifth grade, our teacher said we were going to be getting a new student.
00:26:24I immediately liked him.
00:26:26You know, he liked to be a little goofy.
00:26:29We constantly were creating a ruckus.
00:26:32And we were just great friends and enjoyed our company together.
00:26:38Dustin didn't talk about his brother that much.
00:26:43Dustin just didn't really want to talk about the pain from losing a brother.
00:26:49I know that Dustin definitely wanted to be an actor.
00:26:53Dustin got involved with going on auditions.
00:26:57We did two episodes of The Wonder Years with Fred Savage.
00:27:03This is The Wonder Years, The Glee Club.
00:27:05He really enjoyed this, not because it was a primetime thing.
00:27:10He just liked the opportunity to work with all these other kids.
00:27:13That'd be great, Miss Hancock.
00:27:14We'd love to sing in the spring scene.
00:27:17Oh, come on.
00:27:17So Dustin looked to acting as a way to solve his grief.
00:27:22And now here he is in a community and a family where everyone else feels a part of something.
00:27:30I was the one taking Dustin, going on auditions.
00:27:34And quite frankly, I thought he'll get tired of it.
00:27:38But he gets cast and saved by the bell.
00:27:42And by law, you can't have a minor on the set completely unsupervised.
00:27:51It was a legal requirement that either a parent or a guardian was there.
00:27:55So a guardian you would have to pay.
00:27:57I think all of the parents that were on Saved by the Bell, we were all determined to be there.
00:28:02Mark Paul's mother was always there.
00:28:05If I wasn't there because I was working sometimes, my mother was there.
00:28:12Dustin's mother was working for what had been the phone company.
00:28:16But when Ryan had his medical bills, we were forced into bankruptcy.
00:28:22We just don't have the income we used to have.
00:28:24And we got to a point where we had to make a decision.
00:28:27I gave up my job so I could leave and go to the set.
00:28:34Any regrets?
00:28:37Just with my life, working for Columbia Pictures, I was offered a position to something better.
00:28:47I didn't accept it because Saved by the Bell was just getting popular.
00:28:54And my whole point was to forward my daughter's career.
00:28:59So I said no to the position that I wish I had said yes to.
00:29:06And hired somebody else to be on the set.
00:29:12His dad gave that up to go make sure that Dustin became successful.
00:29:16He tells the press that my parents took my money.
00:29:20Yeah, yeah.
00:29:21How did it feel that he was blaming you?
00:29:25Well, it really made me upset.
00:29:28And I told him, why are you throwing me under the bus when I can't pop myself on television and
00:29:35go, uh, no.
00:29:37Dustin's agent would take out her 10% commission.
00:29:41Anything left over, we had to cover certain things like taxes, gasoline, obviously, headshots.
00:29:48Every fan letter wanted the same thing.
00:29:51Can you send us an 8x10 picture, autograph, thousands of letters?
00:29:56But see, we had to pay for that.
00:29:58This didn't leave much money for us to do anything.
00:30:02In fact, nothing.
00:30:03So it wasn't like he was taking money from Dustin.
00:30:10The parents do have to give up their careers and they don't get paid.
00:30:14So the parent may think, well, if I become their manager, I can take 10% of whatever they make,
00:30:21as opposed to giving it to another manager.
00:30:24That was the case for Mark Paul's mom.
00:30:27Look, it's tough.
00:30:28I do feel bad for parents, but the money, I think it really messes up that sacred relationship with a
00:30:35child and parent.
00:30:36The public tends to think success, particularly fame, will solve all the problems.
00:30:45Not only does that typically not solve problems, it makes them worse.
00:30:49We had no idea that Saved by the Bell would be such a success.
00:30:54And you can have some fans that are very dark themselves and obsessed.
00:31:03And Lark had one in particular that was very dark.
00:31:08He sent many letters.
00:31:10He was very demanding.
00:31:13It was during the time when Rebecca Schaefer, she was killed by a psycho fan.
00:31:20And Lark had a psycho fan.
00:31:22Just by the things that he would write.
00:31:26He was going to be her husband and nobody else would be.
00:31:30And he would kill anybody who tried to get in the way of that.
00:31:41There was a period of time when I wouldn't allow Lark to answer the door.
00:31:50I was afraid one day he would show up at the door.
00:31:56He sent many letters.
00:31:58A lot of them I didn't show them to her.
00:32:01Because I didn't want her to have that kind of fear.
00:32:04But I did tell her that there was a fan that was crazy.
00:32:09And we want to be on the lookout for that.
00:32:13As long as she was on the set at the studio, it would be harder for him to get to
00:32:21her.
00:32:22Because he's got to go through these layers of security.
00:32:29Dustin had a stalker, too.
00:32:32And we were actually afraid for his life.
00:32:37The guy called on the phone.
00:32:39This guy said, you're Dustin's father.
00:32:42And I said, yes.
00:32:43Who is this?
00:32:44And he said, I want Dustin.
00:32:46You will bring me Dustin.
00:32:49Or you're going to die.
00:32:51We never had any kind of contact or anyone following us around anywhere, anything like that.
00:32:57And then we ended up in a house, which was in another city.
00:33:02I'm sure this was, I mean, unsettling is not a strong enough word for a young adolescent to be dealing
00:33:10with something like that.
00:33:13The young performers really have no sense of what fame is going to be like for them.
00:33:22In 1993, a woman accused Mario Lopez, he was 19 at the time, of raping her at her home in
00:33:31Chula Vista.
00:33:31She was 18.
00:33:33Shortly after those allegations surfaced, a second woman comes forward and claims that Mario Lopez raped her in 1991.
00:33:41Reporters were calling me, asking me, is this possible?
00:33:46Listen, just because somebody has a squeaky clean character and history doesn't mean these things shouldn't be taken seriously.
00:33:53They should be, they should be investigated carefully.
00:33:55Also of note, during these rape allegations, Mario Lopez was completely cooperative with detectives and denied any wrongdoing.
00:34:04I believe Mario is suffering the unfortunate consequences of having a high profile in the community.
00:34:11The deputy district attorney announced that there was no evidence to support either allegation, the 1993 rape allegation or the
00:34:19subsequent 1991 allegation.
00:34:21Mario is not the first person who has some celebrity status to suffer this type of allegation.
00:34:31Even though there were these things that were going on behind the scenes, season four did very, very well.
00:34:39Well, this is Mario, Tiffany, Mark Paul and Lark.
00:34:46Sometimes after the show ended, she would get into a dark mood.
00:34:52And it's as if she had been fighting that whole day, whatever is going on in her head.
00:34:58And then after the show, she would just give into that space.
00:35:09She had anger moments, but they would be short-lived.
00:35:15And I didn't know why.
00:35:23Save by the Bell was on for four seasons, and then it ended, and it had been a long time
00:35:28coming.
00:35:28All the kids grew up, and Peter wanted age-appropriate kids.
00:35:34Save by the Bell did end.
00:35:36It ended on a high note.
00:35:39They were doing this graduation show, and that was going to be it.
00:35:43We had said goodbye after we graduated on Save by the Bell, and then I was going back to school.
00:35:49I was like, I wasn't really sure if I was going to become an actor or continue being an actor.
00:35:53And then Peter wanted to do a couple of TV movies.
00:35:57There was Las Vegas.
00:36:01There was Hawaii Style.
00:36:04Peter Engel definitely carved out his own niche on television in the 90s.
00:36:10After Save by the Bell ends, he created shows like California Dreams, USA High, Malibu, California.
00:36:16All shows about teenagers based in California.
00:36:20Yoo-hoo! Dr. Drew over here!
00:36:23Hi!
00:36:23I was actually a guest appearance on one of the Peter Engel shows, Hangtime.
00:36:29We all get jealous sometimes, and it's usually when we have a lack of self-confidence or feel inadequate or
00:36:34insecure.
00:36:34Talking to young people about relationships to probably bring that educational, informational element in.
00:36:42And then comes the spinoff, The College Years.
00:36:45This wasn't a kid's show anymore because it aired during primetime on NBC.
00:36:49Executives were smart enough to still cater to the audience that grew up with this cast with the same type
00:36:55of quirky and fun storylines the viewers came to know and love.
00:36:59The College Years, that's the one that I was really proud of.
00:37:02It has all the elements of a primetime adult show.
00:37:07But, just like when Good Morning Miss Bliss became Saved by the Bell, the entire cast was not invited back.
00:37:15The three guys, Mark, Mario, and Dustin, all go on to that show.
00:37:21Tiffany Amber Thiessen is also brought back, but not Lark and Elizabeth.
00:37:29They said, they don't want Lark.
00:37:33And I told him, I said, this is the first time that I no longer believe in the show.
00:37:42Because I'm almost ready to cry.
00:37:44But, uh, it hurt her.
00:37:48It was, it was a stupid decision.
00:37:58They did exclude Lark, and I didn't know why.
00:38:02You don't know if you're negotiating where they can exclude you, exclude your child or that character.
00:38:08That's part of the business.
00:38:14A lot of people in the Black community resented not having Lisa Turtle on there.
00:38:20That's, that was their Black identity on Saved by the Bell.
00:38:26And then it was suddenly gone.
00:38:29Lark Voorhees did go on to perform in soap operas.
00:38:33And movies, too.
00:38:35She did How to Be a Player in 1997.
00:38:39And then she did How High in 2001.
00:38:43In 2008, she stars in a movie called The Next Hit.
00:38:47She's in her early 30s by this point.
00:38:512001, and the next thing that she does is 2008.
00:38:54That's seven years.
00:38:55That's a long time.
00:38:57What was going on during that time?
00:39:03A lot of conflicts with, uh, things that she was going through emotionally, mentally.
00:39:13She went through bouts of anger.
00:39:16Sometimes we'd be slamming the doors or yelling out of frustration.
00:39:22She would run out of the house.
00:39:25And I didn't know where she was.
00:39:28I thought maybe there were things in her childhood that I didn't know about.
00:39:34I was seeing something impacting my daughter that wasn't healthy.
00:39:40That wasn't good.
00:39:43The controversy surrounding Lark Voorhees from Saved by the Bell.
00:39:46Kevin Frazier was first to talk to Lark and her new husband.
00:39:50In this ET interview, she was described as odd and rambling by the press.
00:39:55How did your mom react?
00:39:57The, uh, support, uh, was there.
00:40:00You know, at, uh, specific necessary.
00:40:03Exact.
00:40:04And, um, you know, it's all celebratory.
00:40:09So it's a, it's a very, uh, strong, powerful, uh, ongoing.
00:40:15And, uh, we carry that through.
00:40:17Her speech is just confusing.
00:40:20It's hard to follow.
00:40:21I have no worries myself, nor do I, um, exude, exhibit, or, uh, possess within my living, uh, stratus.
00:40:34I had leadership positions in a psychiatric hospital for over 30 years, saw tens of thousands of patients with a
00:40:40variety of serious mental illnesses.
00:40:41And there was something odd about this.
00:40:44And when there's an odd presentation, you have to worry that there's some sort of thought disorder.
00:40:50Schizophrenia, mania, something in there that's just not where the, the thinking isn't lining up.
00:40:57Certainly drugs could also cause something very similar, for sure.
00:41:00But she didn't look intoxicated.
00:41:02Let's just set the record straight once and for all and clear this up.
00:41:05Are you bipolar? Have you ever been bipolar?
00:41:08No. I have always been mentally healthy, 100%, uh, stable.
00:41:14Even though that's what she's claiming, it's clear that there's something deeper going on here.
00:41:19You and I have to talk. I'm pregnant.
00:41:26Time out.
00:41:29More than 20 years since the show wrapped, the Saved by the Bell cast reunited and Lark and Dustin were
00:41:36both excluded from this reunion on The Jimmy Fallon Show.
00:41:42Dustin didn't get invited and that kind of hurt him a little bit.
00:41:45He goes, man, how do you not have Screech? How do you not have Screech? Like, come on. That's ridiculous.
00:41:50I don't know why they didn't contact Lark as well.
00:41:54I know she was hurt.
00:41:57Disappointed.
00:41:59There's just a lot of speculation around what was happening to Lark Voorhees. It was a mystery.
00:42:06First I was told she was bipolar.
00:42:08Then the recent diagnosis is that she's schizoaffective thought disorder.
00:42:18So here are signs and symptoms of schizoaffective.
00:42:22Hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech. We saw that.
00:42:25But do not get schizoaffective disorder confused with schizophrenia. They are very different.
00:42:31Schizophrenia is a progressive disabling specific syndrome. Schizoaffective disorder is not progressive. It's not as disabling as schizophrenia. And same
00:42:42with the mood disorders. They can be relatively mild.
00:42:44But it doesn't have to be traumatizing. It makes me wonder how she's doing today.
00:42:50Do you want to speed all around, Derek?
00:42:52Exactly.
00:42:52Cool.
00:42:53So just a little quick powder and I'm back.
00:43:10I'm back.
00:43:11Let's do it.
00:43:11Let's do it.
00:43:12Let's do it.
00:43:13How are you?
00:43:13I'm grand.
00:43:15Tell me who you are.
00:43:19Hi, I'm Lark Voorhees.
00:43:23you might recognize me from how high that was a lot of fun and lisa turtle saved by the bell
00:43:31and it was the best feeling in the world the best it is great to bring life to these characters
00:43:38and when you know you've hit that character there's nothing like that rush in the world
00:43:43because you can see the boom that it's going to bring to everybody else in the audience
00:43:48one of the movies that i really loved doing was saved by the bell hawaiian style got to splash each
00:43:54other and ride bicycles get bit by mosquitoes and naturally we're in hawaii so we had a good time
00:44:00my favorite episode on saved by the bell is called the mall and i loved it because we got the
00:44:06cut
00:44:06loose and we had all these sets we had a theater and then we're hiding in a tent there's all
00:44:12these
00:44:12different storylines going on at once and we do it and we did that and went to school really yeah
00:44:17i remember i was taking my final exam in chemistry i had to stop doing that go film my scene
00:44:25come back
00:44:26and finish my final exam and that's your job that's your job full full days full days full days
00:44:36schizoaffective is um a complicated illness this stuff comes on 18 to 22 so lark was 19 years old
00:44:46when she finished saved by the bell so it was just coming on then there hardly would have been any
00:44:50noticeable signs during that time but there are all kinds of stressors uh around child actors the
00:44:57exposure to fame the stress of being in adult roles at a young age the child also feels a chronic
00:45:03stress
00:45:03stress to always be performing this all contributes to developmental problems it can to some extent
00:45:10the stress can be good but if it's chronic stress over a long period of time now you're throwing not
00:45:17one day of stress or two days of stress but an entire you know year or more of a stress
00:45:23that they have
00:45:23to live under that can make them more vulnerable in their later years to other psychiatric conditions
00:45:29these stressors these experiences does not explain a causation of schizoaffective disorder it's
00:45:36contributing to how it's manifesting but the schizoaffective has to have some genetic component also
00:45:49was a relative that also had similar signs her father had indicators of things
00:46:00when we were married his anger scared me when there was one slap i left i was gone
00:46:08when she got older around 12 13 she spent time with him and she talked about his anger fits
00:46:19he passed away somewhere around 2016 i came to some paperwork on his death and there was a medication
00:46:31which indicated there was some sort of personality disorder and that's why he and i could not get along
00:46:41in our marriage years ago and lark's aware of this too correct
00:46:49i don't think so no i didn't tell her that
00:46:57so she'll learn now
00:47:14i'm the owner of charlie's comic-con and we're looking to have luck come out here
00:47:19to me i love it i love it can't get enough now i'll always be entertaining
00:47:27we have movies coming up and this and that and uh i look forward to working in 2021
00:47:35nbc's streaming platform peacock released a reboot of saved by the bell
00:47:41it was great she's right she's cheerful she's well put together she looks great i hadn't seen
00:47:47them in years and we got to share our talent again and find that saved by the bell method
00:47:52that makes you go when i wake up in the morning and the dog is out of one and i
00:47:56don't think i'm
00:47:57gonna make it on time yeah all that give myself a look see the bus drive by you got it
00:48:06yeah i love
00:48:07saved by the bell yeah so do i she can live with this condition if she learns to manage it
00:48:14learns
00:48:15it's it's symptomatologies and start dealing with this both symptomatically with medication
00:48:21and cognitive behavioral therapy both very very helpful for any young women or young gentlemen
00:48:27if they're in this business really in life period don't give up
00:48:32there's so many actors out there now and so the the really strong ones are going to pull through
00:48:37and that's what they're going to be looking for so don't give up
00:48:40i've been watching this guy on television since i was a baby
00:48:45he was like this buff dude with the mullet and the tank top
00:48:50whenever you're part of a really big show you become pigeonholed into that role that you made famous
00:48:57with saved by the bell though that actually wasn't the case hi how are you i'm good how are you
00:49:03tiffany
00:49:04amber theesen became this teen tv show darling she appeared on shows like 90210
00:49:10i'm having a real problem working with you i saw her in a woody allen film and she was excellent
00:49:16let's even look at mario lopez saved by the bell wraps up he starts radio announcing
00:49:20he hosts extra for a while i'm even creeping in your hotel rooms while on vacation i even went out
00:49:26dancing with the stars because my mom wanted me to do it unsafe by the bell they dressed him in
00:49:30a
00:49:30unitard i said mario you're the strongest person i know because he can get on stage and pirouette
00:49:36he does do it and stay true to his point mark paul became quite successful in adult programming
00:49:42nypd blue he was a regular cast member that was that was a big leap many of them did go
00:49:48on to have
00:49:48some success after saved by the bell except for dustin diamond
00:49:54screech is in a world of his own on saved by the bell because you could argue that the other
00:50:01characters were conventionally attractive whether it was being an athlete a cheerleader or having a keen
00:50:09sense of fashion screech didn't necessarily have any of those qualities he was dorky he was
00:50:17goofy and he was obsessed with lisa turtle hey lisa my horoscope says we're destined to dance together
00:50:26and she did everything she possibly could to get away from him my horoscope says beware of dorks
00:50:33well lisa screech is easier to get rid of goodbye miss october but screech was adorable okay even if it
00:50:41wasn't their favorite character he's just so memorable dustin is the only child actor who is in
00:50:49all the seasons of the show began with miss bliss and all the iterations he does saved by the bell
00:50:55the
00:50:55college years where the kids grow up go to college was 1993 to 1994. and then during the college years
00:51:02they also launched a new spinoff saved by the bell the new class it didn't have any of the original
00:51:08cast
00:51:08except for the principal and screech he's literally in every single branded aspect of saved by the bell
00:51:17for me as a manager i didn't want my client to get pigeonholed into one character they were going to
00:51:24play and then maybe never work again i mean what do you what do you do you you you walk
00:51:29away
00:51:30from what has been a successful show and already has an established audience even though it's a
00:51:36different version of it there's a good chance you're going to have a chance of succeeding
00:51:42in 1994 he's 17 and with the new cast it gets a little uncomfortable
00:51:51i was there when screech dustin diamond uh returned into that fold
00:51:58i'm gonna be well to be totally honest it it was pretty bananas from the jump
00:52:06so you'd walk in the dressing room and it was immediately a little odd
00:52:11he had pictures of like knives and guns in his dressing room
00:52:18i will tell you that dustin did like to carry a pocket knife
00:52:22we were friends from before he was on the national stage and
00:52:27he liked the chinese stars the samurai swords the knives
00:52:34he came off the big hit saved by the bell but he's still an insecure teenager at that time
00:52:40who comes in wanting to present like i'm the big boss i've got the gravitas i'm really the star of
00:52:47this
00:52:50show i saw him treat a lot of people poorly to be very clear we were shooting something one day
00:52:58as
00:52:58i recall it was a promotional video i was one of the pas involved and uh they you know told
00:53:04him be
00:53:04natural have fun joke around and we'll just capture it and soon enough there was an argument between
00:53:10dustin diamond and a cast member i can't even remember what started it exactly but here's dustin
00:53:17diamond saying i could have you fired very quickly it led to dustin pulling out a butterfly knife
00:53:29it's a very physically threatening thing to everybody's trying to say back off everybody cool down
00:53:35finally it ends up with dustin he didn't attempt to strike him with the knife but it ends up with
00:53:40him
00:53:40in tears and he runs off i have trouble making sense of dustin's behavior some of the time that's
00:53:46not good that's violent i guess my best read on that situation was that he's pulling out all the
00:53:54stops to display his power but reached this emotional crescendo with these threats and then the
00:54:00reality i think comes in of like you're not going to stab him you're not going to be able to
00:54:04get him
00:54:04fired i think running off and crying was the only route available they told me that there was uh
00:54:14something that happened on the set and dustin threatened somebody uh and i went to uh taping i
00:54:21think the next week and we sat down and talked to him a lot of people don't realize that he
00:54:27was dealing
00:54:27with with hard things he already lost his brother now dustin's mother uh she had been diagnosed with
00:54:36cancer and she went downhill pretty quickly and um you know dustin saw that happening in 1996 during the
00:54:47course of the run of saved by the bell the new class his mother passed away ultimately it is just
00:54:56dustin
00:54:59the new class lasted seven seasons that's actually longer than the original saved by the bell
00:55:06and dustin performs as screech from age 11 to the age of 22. he misses out going to proms to
00:55:16the football
00:55:17games on the weekend and so he was never able to sort of branch out and make friends in the
00:55:22real world
00:55:23with kids then in the end this was the demise of his career
00:55:33in 2001 he declares bankruptcy he lost his house and lost everything by not paying the mortgage payments
00:55:39one of the things we see with child actors is they may not get the usual skills that are necessary
00:55:44to
00:55:44be an adult and certainly if somebody didn't pay attention to his financial education
00:55:49he may not at all understand how to handle money he moved to a small town in wisconsin and starts
00:55:57complaining that he needs money you would think of someone who went on and did all these shows he
00:56:02wouldn't have any issues for life i think where the money was really to be made were in the residuals
00:56:10the syndication residual payments are payments you get every time the show is aired
00:56:21so i got some of the i believe these are residual checks from dustin like here's one for 12 hours
00:56:28and 74 cents it says like right here literally reused on tv so this was from 2002 so the series
00:56:36is already
00:56:36over yeah it's 12 hours and 74 cents so after saved by the bell dustin finds small roles in 2001
00:56:49he is
00:56:50in made with vince vaughn did you just let screech in the club in 2003 he's in dickie roberts former
00:56:56child star wait seriously you guys have limos there's a song called i do from 98 degrees and there's
00:57:03this record scratch moment oh man i was just with that girl in my living room rug that's my girlfriend
00:57:11every time he plays himself i met dustin through our manager at the time right after the new class
00:57:19as much as he would say ah i'm tired of being you know the screech he loved it he loves
00:57:25when people
00:57:26recognized him for being screech but at no point in dustin's career does he gain a reputation for
00:57:34being a skilled thespian his career is about being screech
00:57:43for many years dustin actually went into comedy
00:57:58what happens a lot of times with child stars is that for so many years of their life
00:58:03they've been defined by this character by the expectations of producers by audiences
00:58:07who came out to get drunk and make fun of screech part of their entire self-identity is tied
00:58:14to being approved of and in hearing the claps and the rewards that they get from people paying
00:58:20attention to them my career is sailing isn't it most people in my line of work start out stand-up
00:58:24comedy hope to get a movie hope to get a tv series someday i'm doing it backwards you know later
00:58:33in life
00:58:33if you're not still acting or getting that same amount of attention you guys ready want to see
00:58:37some questions give you robert de niro as jesus of nazareth
00:58:52that can also lead to you know a lot of substance abuse risk-taking behaviors we made it yeah you're
00:58:59thrill-seeking because you're still seeking that hit in 2006 a sex tape emerged entitled screech
00:59:07saved by the smell yeah it was disgusting oh i don't want to like
00:59:16oh gentlemen uh we know that we get three points for every position we'll tally those up later at very
00:59:22minimum him talking to the camera and advising his gentleman viewers of what he has accomplished here
00:59:31suggests that this was not something leaked accidentally suggested he intended to put this out
00:59:39when that hit it wasn't exactly kim kardashian big but when you hear screech has a sex tape
00:59:45come on everyone's talking about it you know even myself at work my co-workers my friends were like
00:59:53ew you know like how could you be friends with someone who put something out like that
01:00:00and that's what really bothered me about that sex tape but i've seen the tape yes and
01:00:08you are kind of a jerk in the tape i was a close friend of dustin diamond i work as
01:00:15a professional
01:00:16wrestler he loved wrestling and we have a common interest we just like to entertain people but 2006
01:00:24is a turning point in his life now with every google search every person that looks there's an asterisk
01:00:31next to his name so here's one more challenge that he's got to navigate one more piece of criticism
01:00:37that he's got to deal with and this is a big one can i be honest too i think ever
01:00:43since the sex tape
01:00:44came out he started to hit rock bottom if you agreed to combat i'd fight you i did not threaten
01:00:52you
01:00:52celebrity fake club the new reality show this is a marine sergeant and dustin threatens him
01:01:01you put yourself and then this uh gentleman loses it he did that and he got paid extra to be
01:01:12the bad
01:01:12guy and that's when he started seeing that people didn't like him anymore he started thinking he was
01:01:17a jerk and so you started going from the good guy the funny dorky kid to now you're not what
01:01:24we thought
01:01:24you were you know there was always a fear somebody wanting to attack dusting you'd always get a lot of
01:01:30hate calling him names some people would try to belittle him there was a time we were walking
01:01:38new york city and i think someone threw something at us and stuff like that and it's just screech sucks
01:01:41or something like that when he's 32 years old in 2009 dustin publishes a memoir about everything
01:01:50that he says went on behind the scenes of saved by the bell and there it was behind the bell
01:01:57he alleges in this book favoritism sexual misconduct sexual acting out drug use and most of the
01:02:06performers that i have talked with report no such thing i was upset when i read the book i was
01:02:13thinking
01:02:13how could you say any of this and he was going i didn't i didn't they hired a ghostwriter and
01:02:19i said
01:02:19well how could you be so stupid as to you know hire somebody and not check what they're doing on
01:02:25a
01:02:25regular basis but i know the answer to that he didn't want to write a book he didn't want to
01:02:30take
01:02:30the time to even check on it apparently i never read the book and the only thing i know about
01:02:37the book
01:02:38was what he told me i think he got about fifty thousand dollars for that and so that may not
01:02:43have
01:02:43been worth it cast members they hated it they really felt betrayed he was just going doing getting
01:02:54in trouble one after the other my intuition said something something's not right with him and
01:03:02something else is going to happen it's december 25 2014. dustin and his fiancee at the time were in
01:03:18wisconsin in a bar there was an argument and he actually stabbed someone jesus this is the knife and
01:03:34this is the damage done there are two sides to every story when i met dustin for the first time
01:03:47in jail
01:03:47he explained to me what had happened it was december 26th he and his fiancee amanda normally don't spend
01:03:58a lot of time socializing outside because they get strange reactions but they decided to have a little
01:04:04christmas cheer and go to the local establishment to have a drink we uh went to the bar and sat
01:04:13down
01:04:15people noticed that he was there noticed that he was a star and began trying to covertly take pictures
01:04:23of him
01:04:26but amanda at some point said hey guys we're just here trying to have a drink can you can you
01:04:32leave us be
01:04:34i never was a problem until later i started taking pictures and laughing and making it a game to bump
01:04:41into us and try and capture it on video or camera and dustin noticed this happening and amanda was
01:04:48actually going to the bar to get the check and somebody did body check her for the video
01:04:58and she turned around and it became a pushing match his fiancee scream dustin looked at the commotion
01:05:05and saw two men were holding her back
01:05:10and there was blood actually coming down from her nose and at that time he intervened dustin said that
01:05:17this guy casey smet makes contact with diamond and attempts to push him away from the group
01:05:26dustin was very protective of amanda and he said he remembered he had this pocket knife
01:05:34and that's when his knife caught the kid's shoulder
01:05:40he had a small puncture wound about a centimeter long on his right the right side of his chest
01:05:47the right side of his chest and the right side of his chest and the right side of his chest
01:05:55here's a police photograph of the injury to casey smet and this photo i don't think that's all blood
01:06:03looks like he's been wiped with iodine which makes a bulk of that color on him
01:06:09dustin was charged with second degree reckless endangerment which is a felony in wisconsin
01:06:15like so he was facing up to 10 years in prison for that but he was also charged with carrying
01:06:21a concealed weapon at the time the knife that he had uh was not legal for him to carry since
01:06:27that
01:06:27time it's now legal to carry the same knife but he was also charged with disorderly conduct
01:06:35we don't know exactly what happened because this is a classic he said she said situation
01:06:43and when you look at the surveillance footage it's really hard to tell who is the aggressor who is
01:06:49defending themselves dustin and amanda told me that they don't go out very often he said tom let me
01:06:56give you an example if if i go out during the daytime and i'm at the store i get one
01:07:01of two reactions
01:07:02one is somebody this person i've never met before will run up to me throw their arms around me and
01:07:08hug
01:07:08me i love you dustin i love you what dustin said the other thing that happens is somebody will take
01:07:14their cell phone hit record and say what's it like to be a d-bag as i got to know
01:07:22dustin over the
01:07:23weeks and months we were preparing for trial i learned that dustin was a young man when his brother died
01:07:28he also was a young star and essentially half of his childhood was spent working on this show
01:07:36and being a star took away some of his normalcy growing up something dustin diamond dealt with
01:07:44constantly was being the punchline yeah you've been called a lot of things you idiot get lost creep
01:07:51you're a strange and weird person hair nerd is more like it get out of here back when bullying was
01:07:58cool screech you got a tummy you dummy it's the beatles you idiots he's not our kid you goof let's
01:08:04call me tweed so stupid i'm just simp
01:08:10there is no stable you dork you can't do anything you twink screech you're an idiot but we allowed this
01:08:17as entertainment it's not a pretty picture this dink is frying my brain oh you knit with that's the royal
01:08:23doofus after a while repetition you keep hearing this you start to believe that you're those things
01:08:29stupid goofball idiot i mean i love saved by the bell but i mean it was always funny when we
01:08:34see it
01:08:35and you know but listening to that over and over good
01:08:43it makes me sad for him
01:08:48makes me sad for him sorry i just
01:08:55now i get it i get why he was so
01:09:0050 50 with the show you know and sometimes he got it in real life too
01:09:06and you know what's funny is i was always nice to screech in real life i think i was the
01:09:10only one
01:09:10that was really he was i gotta say i was always put up with a lot i was really nice
01:09:15to him
01:09:16not really not really not really i can say i was not very nice you were you were sorry the
01:09:23thing with
01:09:24dustin too is that we were all uh three years older than him so at that point in your life
01:09:29that's
01:09:30a big gap like three years now you know if you're 30 or 35 or whatever that's not a big
01:09:35gap but when you're
01:09:3515 and someone's 12 that's a huge thing so he was always ostracized he was always in the and
01:09:41you know kind of trying to follow what we were doing and you know his teenagers are like hey
01:09:51dustin was so separated from the other cast because of the age and so he would
01:09:56always hang out with the the background people when dustin was in school you know it was between
01:10:02the ages of like six and ten nobody has really developed into nerd bully so he didn't really
01:10:12experience being bullied so much until later because he was a nerdy kid in his television high school role
01:10:23like the real bullies of the world sort of made up for his lack of not being bullied in school
01:10:41first verdict that has been signed by mr nichols reads we the jury find the defendant
01:10:57dustin diamond not guilty of second degree reckless dustin was found not guilty of the serious felony
01:11:02charge which left the other two charges reads we the jury find the defendant dustin diamond guilty of
01:11:10능
01:11:18a few days after being discharged he gets picked up for a parole violation because his urine drug
01:11:24screening shows oxycodone he was sentenced to another 60 days in jail that tells me that that
01:11:31That is not an incidental interaction with opioids.
01:11:36Somebody who is on probation and goes back to opiates is an opiate addict, by definition.
01:11:49I've been doing car insurance since 1999 in Rockford, Illinois.
01:11:53And I started working with Dustin through TV commercials for my company.
01:12:00Do you realize it's illegal to screech your tires?
01:12:03Yeah, but it's kind of my thing.
01:12:05He gag, you punk! Get covered!
01:12:07I am covered.
01:12:09Hmm? Barely.
01:12:11That paid him more money than saved by the bell.
01:12:13It was a lot more than the $1,200 per week.
01:12:15You know where I can get cheap car insurance?
01:12:17Yeah, that's easy. Insurance cake.
01:12:19And when we started doing these commercials with Dustin, that's when we started to really, really grow.
01:12:26And that's what started our friendship.
01:12:33I did a lot of things for Dustin that people probably don't know about.
01:12:38After his girlfriend Amanda had moved back to New York, I started realizing he needed more help.
01:12:43Like, um, I bought him a vehicle.
01:12:46You know, I remember one time I made a deal with him to meet his dad.
01:12:51And that's because I had found out that it had been 15 plus years before the last time I'd seen
01:12:57him.
01:12:57He was always traveling all the time for comedy gigs or commercial shoots.
01:13:02They just didn't see each other.
01:13:03So we met with Mark.
01:13:07When Dustin finally went to see his father, they were able to hash out everything from the past and make
01:13:12amends.
01:13:12When Dustin came out to California, one of the things he wanted to visit was there's an old cemetery up
01:13:20in this area where they have some people that fought in the Civil War.
01:13:25And he wanted to see this one that we had shown him when he was a kid.
01:13:31It says, remember, man, as you passed by, as you are now, so once was I, as I am now,
01:13:38so you shall be prepared for death and follow me.
01:13:43So in 2018, things started to kind of spiral a little bit for him.
01:13:48We would go out to dinner and things, and he would eat himself under the table and then get violently
01:13:55ill.
01:13:57I asked him, you know, is it pain pills? What's going on? You know, and there's a point where he
01:14:03kind of shut down.
01:14:04He was afraid to go get help because he didn't want to be that child star that had that problem,
01:14:09you know, that looked at another one on drug addiction or something like that, you know.
01:14:13When the child performers end their run, it can be very disorienting to them and hard to lose the dazzling
01:14:21fame and lifestyle that was so gratifying for them.
01:14:24And sometimes that's when you see people retreat into drugs.
01:14:28I brought him to the hospital for MRSA. MRSA, the staph infection, is basically like a bacterial skin flesh-eating
01:14:36disease, basically.
01:14:38Dustin had a surgery, and he had it removed. There was a point after the surgery where the surgeon came
01:14:44out to talk to him.
01:14:46So he was in there for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, something like that. That was a long time.
01:14:51And I knew that the surgeon didn't have a 45-minute conversation about, you got to pay us your bill.
01:14:56So we get back to his house. I had made some payments for him. And he says, give me a
01:15:01one-way plane ticket to Florida.
01:15:04People that were close to him, eventually they would break apart.
01:15:10It's just sometimes Dustin wanted to just kind of push us away a little bit.
01:15:13And I'm going to put myself in that category. He pushed me away too.
01:15:17He wasn't used to people caring about him.
01:15:23What people don't understand about being a celebrity is that they have problems just like you and I.
01:15:31The difference is, when you have a problem or I have a problem, our family knows, our co-workers know,
01:15:36our people around us.
01:15:38When they have a problem, the whole world knows.
01:15:43So they become reclusive.
01:15:47Especially when I think that he found out during that interview with MRSA.
01:15:52I think he found out that he had something and he was afraid to deal with it.
01:15:57He was just too nervous to even go to the hospital or to a doctor to get checked because he
01:16:01thought
01:16:02that the next day he would be in the tabloids of like, oh, we must have some something wrong.
01:16:08He was getting ready to film in August. Dustin said, I can't.
01:16:12I'm like, why? He goes, I just won't look right for television.
01:16:15I'm like, is it MRSA? He goes, no, this is way MRSA. I'm like, what is it? He goes,
01:16:21I don't know yet. I'm going to go get a biopsy. We're going to start figuring this out.
01:16:26So then he finally did get into the do biopsy and then he called me. He's like,
01:16:31yeah, come down here and help me with this stuff. Right?
01:16:34Did you know what it was by the time you got there?
01:16:36We knew it was cancer. Yeah, we knew. It was a really large tumor on his neck.
01:16:45He called me and he said, I'm dying. And I wanted to go back there and see him. He was
01:16:51afraid that
01:16:52he was going to go out like his mother did.
01:16:56So we had heard that he had maybe six months, maybe six weeks. We didn't think it was six days.
01:17:07We would take some band letters and read some of these letters to him in the hospital.
01:17:12Some of them were, were really touching about how
01:17:19I remember reading one of them from a fan that said he saved his life.
01:17:31Yeah, he said he was going to kill himself.
01:17:41So he was getting bullied in school.
01:17:55I get home and my boyfriend at the time, I walk in. He says, I got news for you. I
01:18:01said,
01:18:01what? He says, um, did you hear? I said, what are you talking about? Hear what? He said, Dustin Diamond
01:18:07passed.
01:18:14And I said, what? He said, Dustin passed. I'm sorry.
01:18:34He did want to be buried. He, um, he actually did not want a grave marker at all because he
01:18:39didn't
01:18:39want to be messed with in the afterlife as he was when he was in life.
01:18:45What's the world missing not having Dustin in it?
01:19:03This is nice. I miss having the fun. I can remember to have fun.
01:19:14Just give me a second.
01:19:15Yeah.
01:19:19Hey, it's the B-Man. Uh, give me a call when you get this. Uh, yeah, dude. You're, you're awesome.
01:19:24Um, I need to talk to you about, uh, upcoming work and stuff like that and ideas that I have
01:19:30and things that we might be able to put together and, uh, some stuff. Uh, I also had an idea
01:19:34or something like that. He wasn't done doing the things he wanted to do. He's gone a year later.
01:19:43Do you miss Dustin? All the time.
01:19:47Yeah.
01:19:53All the time.
01:20:13It was really cool to go out there and be a part of the memorial episode. Yeah. The only one
01:20:18I
01:20:18didn't get to meet was Lark. Um, from what I understand, she was just too emotional and she
01:20:24had to keep going back to makeup and she was crying during the shoot and she had a hard side
01:20:27with that. Yeah. Well, he died of cancer. That hurt. Even with Dustin gone, we still carried it on
01:20:39in the name of Saved by the Bell, Peter Ingle, all of the writers and producers and Dustin.
01:20:45And we all got to celebrate him. To screech. Oh. Screech. Screech. Screech. I'm glad we got that on
01:20:52footage. Cause he matters. Yeah. I got some stuff that we found in, uh, Dustin's dad's house. Um,
01:21:05this was, uh, one of his first headshots. This was, uh, one of his report cards from onset from the
01:21:12Valley Professional School and he did get all A's. Right. So that was pretty cool. I found, uh,
01:21:21unopened fan letter. Do you want to open it? Okay.
01:21:291994. Dear Dustin, I watch all of your TV shows. I like them all. You're very, very, very funny.
01:21:37I know you're busy, but maybe could you send me your signed picture? I know you're famous,
01:21:45but please I'm nine. I love Saved by the Bell and my favorite animal is a pig. What's yours?
01:21:53Well, it was definitely a dog. Yeah. A lot of dogs. Do you in real life like Lisa?
01:22:00Yeah. From your fan, Danielle. Right. It's kind of cool. So I can tell you,
01:22:08Danielle, that he absolutely did like Lark. Um, she was a really good person and she left a voicemail
01:22:16for him. Um, and we played it for him before he died and, and he, he enjoyed it. She was
01:22:22the only
01:22:22one that really reached out to him and, um, is really heartfelt. And I know they had a connection.
01:22:32That was my very good friend.
01:22:37I miss him.
01:22:44These celebrities have to get the drugs from someplace.
01:22:49This part of the drowning. Responsible for Matthew Perry's death. The physician
01:22:53added to his demise. He was known as Doc Hollywood. I have the power of all the doctors.
01:22:58Somebody should be held accountable for killing somebody.
Comments