#98: Peter Engel Productions
Peter Engel really knew how to produce a television show. Every single episode was just a variation on the same theme, but if you're going to get stuck in a rut, it might as well be a good one.
Saved By The Bell was my first introduction to the great man's work. I would tune in every morning during those long summer holidays to see what adventures Zack and the gang were up to. It gave me a glimpse into a world where (and this will shock you) a stereotypical nerd (Screech) could be friends, in fact best friends, with a stereotypical cool guy (Zack) and an amateur wrestler who calls the girls "hot momma" (Albert Clifford Slater). There was nothing like this at my school. And if there was, I wish that somebody had informed me. It showed me how things could be and filled me with a hope for the future.
Penarth was no California, Stanwell Comprehensive was no Bayside High and I wasn't cool enough to be Zack (even Zack wasn't cool enough to be Zack) but I was also certainly no Screech. Honestly, I wasn't. In fact nobody in that show represented me as a teenager. But that was the point. Saved By The Bell was the vision of the perfect school that nothing in real life could live up to. A school where the troublemaker was best friends with the headmaster and any problem could be sorted out in twenty-five minutes.
And there were many problems. Ranging from the small (a cockroach loose in the school) to the medium (trying to win a radio phone-in competition during school time) and the huge (Jessie's drug addiction). However, they were all sorted out in the same way - the friends all rally together, tell the troubled one what they're doing wrong (perhaps even hand out a few leaflets), Mr Belding has a stern but fair word, they see the error of their ways and it's all back to normal as the Rock N Roll guitar riff begins to signal the end of the show.
It really was that obvious. Seriously, I can understand why so many people hated Saved By The Bell. You could see the moral coming a mile off within the first five minutes. The set-up was the same every week, as was the resolution. However Peter Engel had one stroke of genius. Zack was popular and mischievous - the kind of character that young viewers could admire. When he was cheeky and disruptive, you secretly wished that you had the guts to be like that at school. He was a rebel. In any other children's show Zack would be the bad guy. But in Saved By The Bell he was not. He was the hero. Engel knew that kids would listen to Zack. If it had been Screech learning a valuable lesson every week, who would have cared? It would have been expected of him and would be another reason to laugh at him. Having Zack as both cause and remedy told the viewers that you can be naughty and nice, you just have to pick your moments wisely. Instead of laughing at Zack, you laughed with him.
So thats the deep analysis done. What really made me watch Saved By The Bell so obsessively was the hope that I would find out how Zack got hold of a life-size cardboard cut-out of his ultimate crush, Kelly Kapowski. I had crushes on girls at school but they didnt give me so much as a Polaroid picture of themselves. I was so jealous. Did he steal it? Did he win it? Did he make it himself in an obsessive stalker kind of way? I never did find out.
It was probably for this reason that I tuned into Saved By The Bell: The College Years some years later. I had never enjoyed Saved By The Bell: The New Class as it was just a regurgitation of previous storylines being played out by a cast who were nowhere near as likeable as the original gang. In fact, they had made the very error that Engel had avoided with the original series - they were just too goody-goody. You couldn't believe that they would even know how to get into trouble in the first place. Plus Screech was now Mr Belding's personal assistant. Not for me thank you. No, The College Years was right up my street. It featured the original cast but this time in a university setting. This was perfect. At the time, I was about to head off to university myself. "Dont get too excited" I told myself. "University will probably be nothing like this" (I had learnt my lesson from Saved By The Bell's portrayal of school life). In fact, I later found out that the portrayal of college life was pretty spot on.
OK, so the high point of Zack's college years was heading off to Vegas, getting married to his high school crush, working as a male escort (with Screech of all people) to earn enough money to pay for the wedding and being chased by some unsavoury types after AC Slater hits on the wrong girl. By comparison, the high point of my college years was the night that I stayed up during a marathon Playstation session, drank too much coffee and thought I was Mick Hucknall from Simply Red. I even stood up to sing an impromptu medley of Something Got Me Started and For Your Babies for my friends. With an imaginary microphone. Substituting the words I didnt know with the word "thing." But apart from that, everything was pretty much the same. Eccentric lecturers, crazy parties - it was all there. Peter Engel had struck gold once again.
That wasn't so much the case with California Dreams. A show that told the story of a high school rock band who also liked to surf. Indeed, as the theme tune told us, they were "surf dudes with attitude, kinda grooving." Never has the use of the word "kinda" been so apt. The weren't even remotely close to a groove and probably never would be. Once again they were too goody-goody. These people would never have formed a rock band. And the only attitude they had was a good work ethic. No, the theme tune was definitely the best thing about this show. It is no surprise that of all the Engel shows, it has hardly ever been repeated (on UK screens at least - I bet they're digging it in Albania).
Maybe Engel knew that his formula was going off the rails. California Dreams wasn't a bad idea in principle, it just wasn't so good in practice. Perhaps thats why he chose to stay with the surf dude theme for his next show, Malibu (or Malibu CA to give it its full title). Now this was more like it and is probably my favourite of the later generation Engel productions. Firstly, the formula was back on track. Two brothers, streetwise and rebellious from their time living in New York (but still with good morals) move to Malibu to live with their estranged father after their mother moves to Saudi Arabia to start a new job. Already the seed is planted for many lessons to be learnt - estranged father issues, being the new kid in town - and to be fair, they weren't quite as obvious this time as they had been in Saved By The Bell. Malibu hit you over the head with a hammer rather than Saved By The Bell's industrial sized shredder.
Malibu was a show aimed at the older teens who had grown up with Saved By The Bell but now wanted something more relevant to their lives. The most obvious proof of this is a character called Traycee (their spelling not mine) played by Playboy model Priscilla Taylor. She has possibly the largest pair of breasts ever to be seen in a children's television production (and she wore a skimpy bikini in every episode). There is none of the comparatively innocent look of Saved By The Bell's Tiffani Amber Thiessen here (although Thiessen did go on to make erotic movies, as did Elizabeth "Jessie" Berkeley). Now where was I? Ah yes, Malibu. The problems that the characters encounter are still dealt with in the same way - rallying around and sometimes handing out leaflets. The only difference is that there is no Mr Belding to offer a stern word. Although the actor who played him, Dennis Haskins, did make an appearance (as himself if I remember correctly) to help one character through a particularly tough time. Thats what the viewers want. Self-referencing works every time. In fact, Peter Engel himself turned up in one of his own shows - appearing in the final episode of USA High (Saved By The Bell: Europe Style if you will) as Chancellor Engel. However, when things were going so well, the show made a fatal mistake. A cast change. Just like The New Class before it, the new characters just didn't gel or were not believable. The show never really recovered but at least had the decency to come to a permanent end soon after.
So by now a clear pattern has emerged. Each Engel show needs a group of teens and a set-up that will get them into lots of problems. It is no surprise then that his other shows do not divert from this track. Hang Time was about a group of high school kids who played basketball. This gave the writers much opportunity to deal with one of Engel's favourite themes - drug use. At least a handful of episodes dealt with sports drugs or smoking or drinking. In fact anything that is not good for a rewarding sporting life. Of course, these problems were sorted out in the usual way. The litter problem at an Engel school must have been appalling what with all those leaflets flying around.
City Guys showed signs of moving a little away from the formula. Again set in a school, this time the kids are from the inner city. Indeed, the theme tune explains it better than I could: "C.I.T.Y you can see why these guys are city guys. " OK, maybe not. But the storylines did seem to be more relevant to modern society and the morals weren't so cringe-inducing. Issues such as inter-racial relationships, sex and drugs were all dealt with well with not a leaflet in sight. Although the female principal did come along to offer a stern word - just like the good old days. My favourite episode is the one where Al (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Joe Hahn from Linkin Park) refuses to work for an advertising agency because they promote toy guns to young children. Classic Peter Engel.
In more recent years, new Engel shows have not been forthcoming (at least there are always re-runs to keep us entertained). He did team up with ex-child star Fred Savage to make All About Us (from what I understand, its basically Saved By The Bell meets Sex In The City) and he is also Executive Producer for Last Comic Standing (Pop Idol for comedians) but thats about it. According to his IMDB profile he became Dean of Communications and the Arts at Regent University in 2003 only to resign a year later to return to producing. Let's hope that in his short time teaching he managed to pass on his magic ingredients to a future generation by having a stern word and handing out a few leaflets.
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