television

MartyDigs: West Beverly High

The recent landscape of American television has been dominated by shows about motorcycle dudes, tattoo shops, vampires, pawn shops, and swamps. It’s like America is suddenly obsessed with the state of Florida (zing!) I am not really into any of those shows, but the Soap Opera Network has afforded me the opportunity to take a not always pleasant trip down memory lane by showing reruns of Beverly Hills, 90210. It’s always refreshing to revisit my pimply high school years via a show about good looking rich kids who looked, acted, and lived like they were ten years older than they really were.

This summer has been full of bad news. But I have been blissfully ignorant to all this debt ceiling nonsense – I don’t read or watch the news. I am too busy catching up with Breaking Bad, creating playlists on Spotify, and playing trains with Jack to pay attention to the news. And to be honest, I’m broke anyway, so if the country collapses the United States government will be walking in my shoes. Right now, I would certainly welcome the mo’ problems that the Notorious B.I.G warned came with having mo’ money. And the fact that I don’t participate in fantasy sports is starting to shine through as well, since I had no idea who any of these great players the Philadelphia Eagles have signed lately.

It certainly has been an eventful summer. One event from this summer I am still reeling from is a sight I saw last weekend at a Wawa when I was coming home from the Shore. I witnessed a very attractive woman snap into a Slim Jim. Well, she didn’t snap into it – it was more like a chomp. Regardless, it was a very disturbing and puzzling scene. She was fit, and very pretty, and I just felt bad for her boyfriend or husband. Because when she kissed him, he was going to be tasting spicy machine processed dried meat that she just gobbled down.

During some of these hazy, lazy summer afternoons, as Jack is piloting Thomas the Train around endless tracks through my living room and kitchen, I channel surf in an attempt to find something decent to watch. I painfully admit that a very guilty pleasure of mine is to watch old episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 when they are on. I only like the ones from the very early 90’s – the first two seasons. Before the blond kid killed himself goofing around with a loaded revolver in a scene that was more after school special than teen drama. Later in the series, the show really jumped the shark. I don’t know exactly what was going on, but it’s my understanding that Brenda was studying on the moon, the parents moved to Middle Earth, the guy who owned Peach Pit moved into the Walsh’s home, and Screech made a bunch of cameos.

The first two seasons were the best. Back in 1991, the C+C Music Factory wanted to make America sweat, Colour Me Badd wanted to sex you up, and I just wanted a girl to talk to me. For reasons that I could only attest to raging hormones and simple teenage stupidity, I was a fairly faithful watcher of 90210. I can’t explain why I watched it. I guess I felt a necessity to watch, foolishly thinking that maybe it would shed some light on how to navigate through high school. As if the goings on at a fictional high school in lavish Beverly Hills would mirror those at a middle class parochial high school in Southern New Jersey. What a joke. The show dealt with such heavy hitting topics like date rape, alcoholism, gay rights, anti-Semitism, drug abuse, abortion, teen suicide, AIDS, teen pregnancy, and bulimia. Yikes. My freshman year, my biggest problems were pimples, getting someone’s parents to pick us up from the mall, and resisting the urge to tune in to the hilarious antics of Steve Urkel on Friday nights. Maybe I was the lucky one, while these Beverly Hills teenagers were dealing with a different crisis on a weekly basis, I was living an innocent adolescence of playing Nintendo, throwing water balloons at unsuspecting passerby, and making crank phone calls to Chinese restaurants.     

Make no bones about it, I really hated the show. It drove me nuts. I know that my scorn stems from the fact that I was jealous of these sharply dressed, finely styled, teenagers who seemed to have it so easy. After every episode I would ask – why isn’t my life like this? Why can’t my dad (an elementary school principal) get a promotion out to Beverly Hills? And why can’t I grow my sideburns like Dylan and Brandon? I couldn’t stand that Steve and his smug, self-assured, shit-eating grin. And Brendan, who was so good-hearted and chivalrous, was bedding a different girl every episode- how did he get away with that? Ugh, and that Dylan, that brooding, furrowed brow, ersatz James Dean. These guys were supposed to be in high school? I’m 35 now, and still have a way better hairline than any of those dudes did back then.     

 I don’t ever remember thinking that any of the girls on the show were attractive. In all honesty, the harsh truth is that Jason Priestly was technically “prettier” than the girls on that show. Watching now, Tori Spelling looked like a horse and was the worst nepotism case in history. Jennie Garth (Kelly) looked like a ghastly mouse, Andrea looked like a mom, and Brenda just looked like a total bitch. However, Tiffani Amber Thiessen (aka Kelly Kapowski) eventually became a cast member – next to Belinda Carlisle, she is one of my lifetime celebrity crushes.      

They had everything – Dylan drove some classic convertible that was on par with Cameron’s dad’s car in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. My car choices were my parent’s 1985 Pontiac station wagon with wood grain siding, or a 1971 Ford Maverick that looked like it belonged on the set of the Mad Max movie series. For Spring Break, they would vacation in Palm Springs at luxurious hotels throwing raging parties and living it up. We would rent some flea bitten motel in Wildwood, New Jersey with a pool that was empty except for a few dead rodents at the bottom. And “parties” where there would be 3 girls (who had boyfriends) and 20 guys in jean shorts vigilantly hovering over their 12 packs of warm Busch Light.    

The episode that addressed racism was always a favorite of mine. When Brendan befriends a black student, he nobly defends the kid from racial slurs and discrimination. While I always applauded the show for tackling that topic, the ironic thing was that it was the first time the show ever featured any African American actors! You can taste the hypocrisy! If I was black, I think I would be more insulted by that concept than any of the racial content of the show.

For the nostalgic value alone of seeing the outfits, hearing the music, and looking at the hairdo’s – it has been funny to watch some of these old 90210’s. Regardless of the bad sentiment they can drum up. It would have been nice if I could have visited my 14 year old self in the DeLorean and assured 14 year old Marty that yes, eventually you would date some very attractive girls, the acne would clear up, and the kids you envied who wore Z Cavarricci’s would eventually be teased for wearing Z Cavarrici’s. And now they have a 90210 remake – I don’t know why I didn’t try out. At 35, I am still a way more convincing high schooler than Ian Ziering or Luke Perry!

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