The Most Politically Incorrect Episode of Saved by the Bell Ever

Note: This blog was originally posted by me on February 24th, 2006.


ok, so i had to wake up at 7 am today cus i'm getting groceries delivered and my window is between 7:30 and 11 am. ps it is now 9:50 and they still ain't here. so after hitting snooze i was up and ready to wait at 7:15. so being up this early (which i never am) i knew i had to seize the opportunity to watch some saved by the bell. and fortune of all fortunes it was a college years episode! and everyone knows the college years are my favorite. now, as big a fan as i am, i actually think i had only seen this episode once before, and that was actually my senior year of college. what episode is it you ask? it is the episode where slater finds out he's chicano. now i missed the first 15 minutes so i'm basing most of this off of memory from the last time i saw it 2 years ago. ok, basically slater is in some class, there's a muy caliente latina sitting in front of him, and somehow she enlightens him to the fact that he is indeed chicano. now through the years i always wondered why a character played by MARIO LOPEZ was never identified as being even a little bit ethnic. i guess lisa turtle filled the ethnic role and they thought they needed more white kids, you know, to keep it balanced. slater even had a white dad! now maybe they thought we were all stupid and wouldn't notice, but i noticed, and it bothered me for years. a better route for this story would've been to have slater find out he was adopted. then he could say "oh that's why my dad is white." instead he finds out he's chicano which leaves us all to ask ourselves "why is his dad white?" so you may be asking, what's so politically incorrect about this? well, the writers sure did make zack out to be one hell of a racist ass in this episode. (and the throwing around of the word "chicano" by EVERYBODY in a spanish accent i thought was a little over the top) i believe zack's initial reaction was "i always thought he was italian." (ps, i LOVE when zack turns to the camera and talks to us!) and the fact that slater was a busboy in the student union makes me think that these writers had this episode in mind for a loooong time. so instead of being supportive of slater's new revelation that he is now a part of the US of A's largest minority population ((cheers and claps! hollleeerrrr!)) zack just can't stop talking about the ski trip up to tahoe where he totally plans on macking it to leslie. ok, side note. maybe its cus i went to st. a's, but do guys and girls ever really live together like that in a college dorm? is there a dorm room out there that looks like that? let alone a FRESHMAN dorm? but i digress. so this chicita has totally gotten to slater and he's done himself some soul-searchin'. well maybe not soul-searchin', but maybe a call to his dad. and what did he find out? his last name is really SANCHEZ (gasp!) turns out his dad changed it to slater so he could get in to the army. if he really thought a chicano last name was going to stop him from getting in the army he should've just said "but look at me. clearly i am WHITE." so then slater decided to participate in a good old fashioned chicano sit-in in the chancellor's office, which means the trip to tahoe was cancelled. was zack happy? hell to the NO! would you be if your best friend got in the way of you getting some ass? i didn't think so. so, since this is SBTB, zack clearly comes around and supports his friend and the chancellor decides to support the chicanos. support them in what? i have no idea. i think i missed that part. has anyone else seen this episode? for all of its inappropriateness, its definitely one of my favorites! its like catching the episode of seinfeld where kramer burns the puerto rican flag. in real life - so not funny, on TV - classic! groceries are here! (10:25)