Saved by the Bell

R.I.P. AC Slater

01-29-2010

Everyone calm down. Your second favorite Bayside High Schooler is not really dead, but he may as well be. I was channel surfing last night and stopped when I saw AC Slater (Mario Lopez for those of you over the age of 33 and under the age of 18) standing on stage with a microphone. Was this the long awaited Saved by the Bell reunion? Was he at least hosting a marathon? Was the episode where Jesse overdoses on caffeine pills about to air? Unfortunately, none of the above was true.

I had accidentally tuned in to the Season 5 premier of America’s Best Dance Crew, also known as “ABDC”. Aside from referring to itself by using an acronym that makes me feel dyslexic, this show has made me lose every ounce of respect I’ve ever had for AC Slater. The first time I saw the show a few years ago I wrote a eulogy for AC on Brahsome. I thought it wouldn’t last, yet 5 seasons later the show is more popular than ever.

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Before I get to some unbelievable news about AC, let me first explain this shitshow. If you’ve never seen ABDC, it’s basically about a bunch of dance “crews”. We are told about the unique style of each crew’s “routine” and why we should be excited to see them “perform”. The crew then runs out on stage in the same way cheerleaders would at one of their retarded “competitions” (Note: cheerleading is not a sport, don’t even start with that bullshit argument. No really, if you’re going to try to defend it as a sport just stop reading. I don’t like you at this point). Each crew then gets interviewed by AC Slater and they generally make asses of themselves, while displaying the results of a K-12 OTB public education, capped off by a few semesters of community college. The crews perform a routine that showcases their “original flavor” and highlights their “sickest moves” while some shitty song you hear at Felson’s plays in the background.

The crews are then judged by former N’Sync member JC Cha-gay, Lil Mamma, and Omarion. Yeah, I don’t know who the latter two judges are either. They provide insightful commentary on the routines, using terms that I’m positive don’t exist in the dictionary. JC Cha-gay approved of one crew by saying, “your isolations were very nice”. However, Omarion wanted that crew to “push their isolations a bit further”. Not knowing what the fuck an “isolation” was, I continued to watch as the next crews “performed”. I still had no idea what was going on.

According to AC, the last four seasons of this show has “sparked a movement in the streets in every city across the nation” which resulted in “new crews going harder than ever before.” So now they’re holding three regional competitions, to determine which group of commoner community college drop outs is the best at flailing around on a stage in the same way that Helen Keller would while trying to fight her way out of a wet paper bag. The competitions began in the “Dirty South” where the Jungle Boogie crew introduced “crankin’”, a new dance style where five idiots, wearing what appear to be windbreakers from the Jamaican Olympic team (think Cool Runnings), run around on a stage like jungle animals. More about Jungle Boogie, from their bio: “When twin brothers Anthony and Antwain quit college to pursue dance, their family shut them out. The twins’ family still has never seen them dance but they are hoping to win back their love and support.” Why am I paying (through the taxes my parents pay) for these assholes to follow their dreams? Here’s a dream; get a fucking job, pay your fucking taxes, and stay out of Felson’s. The judges critiqued their performance. I didn’t listen.

I thought about the good ol’ days when I idolized AC just for being AC and also for being married to Ali Landry for two whole weeks.

ali landry

Some of you are thinking, “Two weeks? What the hell happened?” Well, Ali Landry annulled the marriage because AC cheated on her a few times, really close to, or possibly on their wedding day. After the annulment, AC went on to host random television shows and appeared on Dancing With The Stars. I thought he had already hit rock bottom, but I was wrong. AC Slater went from Ali Landry, to this…

Ghost dance crew

Meet the Ghost crew, who resemble a group of Mexican gangster lumberjacks. Their bio, “A crew that has faced a lot of adversity in life, crew member Patrick decided to better his life and leave the rough life of gang banging with the Crips behind him. The crew would break into a local apartment complex gym room to practice dance.” How can AC go from Ali Landry to hosting a show featuring former gang members who leave a life of drive-bys and gang bangin’ to perform isolations (still don’t know what that means) with their crew? Hosting this show is even worse than his decision to play Greg Louganis in “Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story”.

I understand why shows such as American Idol, Making the Band, America’s Next Top Model, etc. exist. American Idol has a clear winner that receives a recording contract. Making the Band follows a similar format, but the difference is that no one watches this show. What does a dance crew do when they become America’s Best? Are there dance crew contracts? I began to pay attention to the show again and saw the losers leaving the stage, tears streaming down their faces, as they realized they had to go back to their miserable lives not being me. Note: The amount of hot girls in the audience rivals that of Felson’s, when people actually went there. For some reason, they love this shit.

While AC Slater is not actually dead, he’s been dead to me for the past few years. That was until Forrest showed me some stunning new information regarding AC and the rest of the Saved by the Bell cast. Not only did AC (and Zach) bang all the girls on the show, but in 1993 he even had his way with some random chick. By “had his way” I mean “raped”. No, he didn’t rape some chick from Valley in a Saved by the Bell episode that focused on violence against women. He raped an actual person, allegedly. Now we all know rape isn’t funny. Except when it happened to Forrest at Camp Sea Gull during that game of capture the flag with a……I can’t go any further into that due to a 15 year old lawsuit that’s still tied up in court. From this news article from May 11th, 1993, we can see that AC was accused of rape. Normally, I would assume the male was innocent, just like the Duke Lacrosse players. However, AC is sort of a Mexican, which means he’s probably guilty of this, or some other, crime (most likely drunk driving, being an illegal immigrant, not paying taxes, abusing our nation’s healthcare system, overcrowding our school systems, not learning English, or ruining perfectly good American made vehicles by lowering them, tinting the windows, and covering them with retarded decals from Auto Zone). Apparently, NBC paid the girl $50,000 to keep it quiet. We all know how ITB that is. This story was corrobarted by Screech, in his tell-all book “Behind the Bell”, which I’ll be reading and reviewing soon.

This shocking news has made me rethink my love (no homo) for AC. He obviously did whatever he wanted in the 90s by banging a lot of hot girls and doing drugs on set (even during the “No Hope with Dope” episode). But I just can’t get over him hosting this ABDC atrocity. So, RIP AC Slater, you’ll be missed. Goooo Bayside.

William Needham Finley IV