Behind the Bell (Book Review)
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:23 pm
Warning: this review is NSFW and contains adult material. You've been warned.
Title: Behind the Bell (2009)
Author: Dustin "Screech" Diamond
Dustin Diamond, the child actor who played occasionally loveably but mostly annoying character Screech on television's Saved by the Bell, fell on hard times in the early 2000s. In 2001, he left California and moved to Wisconsin. In 2003, he filed bankruptcy. In 2006, he started selling t-shirts in an attempt to keep from losing his house. Later that year, he released a sex tape. Finally, in 2009, he wrote and published Behind the Bell a scandalous tell-all book exposing the show's secrets and so much more.
So. Much. More.
Diamond sets the stage by introducing his castmates. He dubs Mark-Paul Gosselaar (who played the show's star, Zack Morris) as "the Golden Child," and is quick to point out that "Mark-Paul bleached his hair. It was a big secret, but I saw the evidence!" He complains that the entire cast walked around with their heads up Zack's ass. "If he liked a band, everybody would go buy the CD the next day." Dustin ponders why Zack is considered to be the star of the show when Screech got more fan mail on a weekly basis. Mark-Paul gets off easy as Diamond switches to Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, who he says was taking turns sleeping with Mark-Paul and Mario "A.C. Slater" Lopez. Diamond calls her a slut and a bitch and tells a story about how, during a remote shoot, all the good food was replaced with health food by food services due to "Tiffani's fat ass." Diamond refers to costar Elizabeth Berkley, who played Jessie Spano, as Tiffani's sloppy seconds, content to lock herself in whichever costar's dressing room Tiffani wasn't in.
After establishing the fact that all of his costars were terrible people, all of whom were terrible to him, Diamond sets the record straight about his sex life. I hope you're looking forward to reading about Screech's sex life, because it fills the next 100+ pages of the book. After Diamond was tricked into taking a Polaroid of his junk and having it passed around the set, Diamond claims people began referring to him as a tripod... you know. Diamond talks about how, like a rock star, he would point out extras to the show's producers to give backstage tours (of his dick) to. Diamond claims to have had sex with more than 2,000 women while working on the show, and later claims to have had sex "tens of thousands of times," a lot of which happened on the set. Diamond claims to have had set on pretty much every flat surface on the set. His other favorite spot to pick up chicks is Disneyland, and he includes a detailed list of all the best places to walk away with "stankfinger" (his word, not mine). Diamond even dishes on an affair he had with a high level NBC executive roughly 15 years his senior when he had just got his driver's license.
All wasn't rosy in Diamond's life. We get a few stories where people took advantage of him. He also explains a child actor law where 15% of a child actor's income goes into a separate account that they can't access until they turn 18, and by the time he turned 18, the other 85% of his income had already been spent by his parents. The fourth iteration of the show (Saved by the Bell: The New Class) wrapped up filming in 2000 and Diamond filed bankruptcy in 2003 so I'm guessing the 15% wasn't that much.
Oh, Screech also smoked a lot of weed, but not as much coke as some of the other actors. And also, Mark-Paul did steroids for a while. And everybody drank all the time.
As Diamond wraps up the book he wants everyone to know that Tiffani Amber Thiessen was only faking her tears when she was crying at the final wrap party. It's those kind of comments that make it tough to feel sympathetic for Diamond. After his childhood acting career ended and staring financial ruin in the face, Diamond took the opportunity to call out essentially every single person he had worked with and air every bit of dirty laundry he could come up with.
In 2020, the Saved by the Bell Boot launched with 10 episodes. All the kids from the original series except Diamond returned, and publicly Diamond questioned why he wasn't invited back. I hope the book sales were worth it.
Note: Dustin Diamond passed away from cancer in 2021.
Title: Behind the Bell (2009)
Author: Dustin "Screech" Diamond
Dustin Diamond, the child actor who played occasionally loveably but mostly annoying character Screech on television's Saved by the Bell, fell on hard times in the early 2000s. In 2001, he left California and moved to Wisconsin. In 2003, he filed bankruptcy. In 2006, he started selling t-shirts in an attempt to keep from losing his house. Later that year, he released a sex tape. Finally, in 2009, he wrote and published Behind the Bell a scandalous tell-all book exposing the show's secrets and so much more.
So. Much. More.
Diamond sets the stage by introducing his castmates. He dubs Mark-Paul Gosselaar (who played the show's star, Zack Morris) as "the Golden Child," and is quick to point out that "Mark-Paul bleached his hair. It was a big secret, but I saw the evidence!" He complains that the entire cast walked around with their heads up Zack's ass. "If he liked a band, everybody would go buy the CD the next day." Dustin ponders why Zack is considered to be the star of the show when Screech got more fan mail on a weekly basis. Mark-Paul gets off easy as Diamond switches to Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, who he says was taking turns sleeping with Mark-Paul and Mario "A.C. Slater" Lopez. Diamond calls her a slut and a bitch and tells a story about how, during a remote shoot, all the good food was replaced with health food by food services due to "Tiffani's fat ass." Diamond refers to costar Elizabeth Berkley, who played Jessie Spano, as Tiffani's sloppy seconds, content to lock herself in whichever costar's dressing room Tiffani wasn't in.
After establishing the fact that all of his costars were terrible people, all of whom were terrible to him, Diamond sets the record straight about his sex life. I hope you're looking forward to reading about Screech's sex life, because it fills the next 100+ pages of the book. After Diamond was tricked into taking a Polaroid of his junk and having it passed around the set, Diamond claims people began referring to him as a tripod... you know. Diamond talks about how, like a rock star, he would point out extras to the show's producers to give backstage tours (of his dick) to. Diamond claims to have had sex with more than 2,000 women while working on the show, and later claims to have had sex "tens of thousands of times," a lot of which happened on the set. Diamond claims to have had set on pretty much every flat surface on the set. His other favorite spot to pick up chicks is Disneyland, and he includes a detailed list of all the best places to walk away with "stankfinger" (his word, not mine). Diamond even dishes on an affair he had with a high level NBC executive roughly 15 years his senior when he had just got his driver's license.
All wasn't rosy in Diamond's life. We get a few stories where people took advantage of him. He also explains a child actor law where 15% of a child actor's income goes into a separate account that they can't access until they turn 18, and by the time he turned 18, the other 85% of his income had already been spent by his parents. The fourth iteration of the show (Saved by the Bell: The New Class) wrapped up filming in 2000 and Diamond filed bankruptcy in 2003 so I'm guessing the 15% wasn't that much.
Oh, Screech also smoked a lot of weed, but not as much coke as some of the other actors. And also, Mark-Paul did steroids for a while. And everybody drank all the time.
As Diamond wraps up the book he wants everyone to know that Tiffani Amber Thiessen was only faking her tears when she was crying at the final wrap party. It's those kind of comments that make it tough to feel sympathetic for Diamond. After his childhood acting career ended and staring financial ruin in the face, Diamond took the opportunity to call out essentially every single person he had worked with and air every bit of dirty laundry he could come up with.
In 2020, the Saved by the Bell Boot launched with 10 episodes. All the kids from the original series except Diamond returned, and publicly Diamond questioned why he wasn't invited back. I hope the book sales were worth it.
Note: Dustin Diamond passed away from cancer in 2021.