I Need to Watch More Jimmy Fallon

Months ago, I caught a bit on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon where Mark-Paul Gosselaar showed up as his alter ego, Zach Morris. That character, with his oversize '90s cell phone and his super-bleached blond hair taught me all I needed to about teenagerhood on the early '90s Saturday morning (and subsequent TBS staple) TV show, Saved By the Bell. I'm not even going to dignify any ignorance by explaining the plot of that pop-cultural icon. What I will say is if you grew up in the '80s and '90s, that was your shit.

What was Mark/Zach on hand to talk about? Why, the reunion of the one-hit wonder band, Zach Attack. Or rather, the Jimmy-Fallon facilitated reunion of Saved By the Bell. In my geeky way, I got excited. Very excited. OMG, if only all the actors would show up as their characters. Slater and Jessie would totally be married by now.

I'm not a big Fallon watcher. My allegiance is to Craig Ferguson and his total abandon of late-night show conventions. But every once in a while, Fallon surprises me by doing something that speaks to the cheesy core of me. Like with the aforementioned bit or with his acoustic version of "Pants on the Ground."

Well, turns out that the reunion can't happen. Fail! Right? Wrong. Jimmy Fallon more than compensated by reuniting the cast of California Dreams and having them present their title song. Why, I reaaaallllllly thought they were lip-syncing.



Thank goodness for Entertainment Weekly. Even though they didn't hire me to intern for the Website, I am still a faithful reader of EW.com. It feeds my pop candy tooth. Without them, I'd never have seen this clip. I was so geeked watching it at work on Friday. Reading through the comments on the EW blog, I felt like I had located my kinsman. These are my people. And hey, there were other people wondering why shy hottie Mark Winkle didn't get a nod on air. I was shocked to learn other people think like me.

California Dreams was no Saved By the Bell, but shoot those kids had a band, which magnified their hotness factor times 10. And there was an Asian character! And she dated the Black drummer! And I was so in love with Mark Winkle, the replacement lead male singer. This past summer, I discovered that Rockford Public Library stocked my beloved show and I rushed home with my rentals. The quality of the film does NOT stand up. But, man do I love every one of those so-terrible-it's-good story lines.

Read their comments here:
http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/03/05/jimmy-fallon-california-dreams-reunion/

Hire me, please, EW!