The next couple of weeks will be hairy at work, but then I will once again be free! I really do love my job, which is awesome, but it does NOT consist entirely of Googling funny pictures and eating McDonalds, which are my real passions, so I am slightly disappointed to have to spend so much time away from that. Instead, let's focus on the positive. Like SBTB tertiary characters. Name one thing more important. One. You can't, can you? Thought so...
Okay, get excited. Today's character is...
Laura the homeless girl!
Note: I am not in any way shape or form making fun of homeless people, that is ridiculous to even think. I am purely making fun of how cheeseball and terrible this show is. Okay? Okay. Let's move on.
Okay, so it's Christmas time. The gang gets jobs to help pay for Christmas gifts and sharp blazers (I'm looking at you, Morris) at the mall, and Kelly gets a position (ha) at Moody's Store for Men. She meets Laura, who is a tall drink of water from the wrong side of the wood-paneled station wagon that Zack immediately becomes smitten with. However, the fairy-tale romance is shattered when Laura eats an apple for lunch and, as most people would immediately deduce henceforth, he figures out she is homeless. Then her dad gets in the mix, I actually sort of forget his role outside of the fact that he passes out from not eating and there is some random scene that takes place in the men's bathroom at said mall, and then Zack brings Laura, her dad, and the whole gang, who apparently don't love their own families enough to want to spend the holidays with them (well, Kelly's family is so big she probably gets forgotten all the time, Jessie's dad is off doing it with Leslie the aerobics-instructor-second-wife, AC's dad is probably "on base" in Germany, Lisa's mom is probably working at the hospital and Screech's parents are probably at Graceland AGAIN), go to Zack's mom's house (Derek is totally making deals on his giant cellphone in some other room in the house) and as a gift, Laura and the dad sing a song. I'm pretty sure they allude to the fact that Laura and her dad will move into the Morris home forever and then never bring them up again, and there is some Christmas play, and Mr. Moody accuses Laura of being a thief, but those parts are dumb. Okay, what do the Internets tell us?
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| Why does it look like Zack is wearing a jean skirt? |
Frank and Laura Benton were a homeless father and daughter, respectively, who caught the eye of Zack and the gang around Christmas time. Laura, who worked in a department store with Kelly, seemed to be a tentative love interest for Zack during the two-part episode; she was very shy around Zack about her poverty stricken life. Zack, Slater and Screech got Frank to a hospital when he passed out at the mall from hunger, and then found out he was Laura's father. Laura's boss accused her of stealing a suit jacket that Kelly set aside to buy so Frank would have an outfit he could wear to job interviews. Later the boss apologized. Eventually the Morris family took the Bentons in until they could “get back on their feet”. They were never seen again following the end of the episode.
Their story arc marked one of the few explicitly two-part episodes of Saved by the Bell. ("The Wicked Stepbrother" and "Palm Springs Weekend" being the other two. "The Last Dance", "The Aftermath" and "Fake I.D.'s", while not listed in official "parts" and not shown side by side, were essentially the same story arc and can be loosely treated as the show's fourth multiple-episode.)
Um, okay, first of all, who knew they had a last nam? LAME. Also, "poverty-stricken." And these episodes are called "A Home for Christmas". And why is there no mention of that bathroom incident? There TOTALLY is one. Anyway, who is this Laura Benton in real life? Spoiler alert: this is an awesome one.
Jennifer McComb, EX-SISTER IN LAW OF JAMES VAN DER BEEK. Who cares about anything else, really. This is the best one yet! Her sister was obviously married to the Beek, and her sister starred in "No One Would Tell", which starred DJ Tanner. It all comes full-circle friends... life is good.
I looooooovvved Laura's hair. She was so pretty. In fact, I remember thinking that she was too pretty too be homeless. How can a pretty person with such great hair be homeless?, thought my 12-year old self.
ReplyDeleteOf course, now I know that you can be homeless even if you're pretty, but only if you refuse to become a prostitute (but your hair would still never look that good if you slept in a car and didn't shower regularly).