Viewpoint by Gary Collins/reporter
Everyone goes through a stage in his life when he loses the naiveté and the feeling of immortality.
In high school, students are carefree, excited and ambitious about the future with no “real world” concerns to bother them.
No one, for the most part, is cynical, yet.
Growing up in the late ’80s and early ’90s, I, like most people my age, spent Saturday mornings watching Saved by the Bell.
The show is a sitcom about a group of high school friends who do everything together.
I guess subconsciously I looked up to them because I knew high school was a place I would be going some day. At the time, I didn’t know anyone in high school.
The story lines were fairly simple on SBTB. The group—Zack, Slater, Screech, Lisa, Jessie and Kelly—often found themselves dealing with typical teenage issues such as jealousy, the first driver’s license and money.
Then sometime around age 9 and 10, I stopped watching the show. I hated it. I thought Saved by the Bell was the dumbest thing I ever saw, and I could not believe I ever liked it. For the next nine years, I would never watch it. If I saw it on TV, I would change the channel.
Something changed during the summer after I graduated high school. I spent a lot of time watching TV.
One of the stations started airing re-runs of SBTB, so with not much else to do, I watched it for laughs and to compare it to my high school experience.
A few years ago, the first five seasons were released on DVD, and I bought them. It wasn’t until a couple months ago that I realized why I liked the show again.
The show’s characters have a perfect life: no “real-world” issues to deal with.
Anything that does go wrong is always resolved by the end of the episode, and in the end they’re all friends again.
Everyone is happy; no one is scared, and situations always work out for the protagonists.
Today when I watch SBTB, I am reminded of those simple days, being young and not worrying too much about “real world” problems that won’t go away until I’m dead.
