MovieChat Forums > The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story (2014) Discussion > I hate to admit it but I believe Dustin ...

I hate to admit it but I believe Dustin Diamond....

posted 10 years ago by OliverGbyrne
23 replies | jump to latest

Ok lets make it clear! I don't like Dustin now , hated him in Celebrity fit camp , I found him gross BUT with that said I do believe he started out as a normal nice young kid like we see in the film and that feeling of being the clown and on the bottom of the cast sheet turned him into the douche he his now.
Watching the film , I was thinking that it makes sense that he his the way he his.
I totally believe that the rest of the cast did not bother with him NOT because he was particularly bad or anything but because he was younger and nerdy looking and there were all gorgeous young things lol
They were kids and I am sure they unintentionally bullied Dustin and made him feel like he was no good.
There is even an ET backstage vid somewhere I saw , where Lopez and Goselaar are talking to each other and Lopez say something to Goselaar like "But you used to be hard on him" or something like that.
So he grew up giving himself that Jerk persona to finally get noticed and it sort of stayed with him.
The scenes where he was with a girl and all she wanted was to meet Mark (Totally believe that)
The "Friend" taking advantage of him (Again I can see that as true facts)
Plus there is a vibe I get from the cast , like Tiffany.
Did you guys see Tiffany reaction when the actor who played mister Belding dropped by to say hello during an interview ? She seemed so cold towards him! And yeah I can picture that she was a bit like that with Dustin when he was younger.
So I felt sorry for him back then but I still don't like the person he has become.....

There are a couple of scenes I'm more suspicious about. Like Dustin punching that kid (I cant picture Dustin being all though)
That scene where everybody found Dustin funny because he his making duck sound! (Really , it's not that funny)
and lets being honest the kid playing him in the movie is actually cute looking compared to the real thing.
But with that said I don't found this film hard to believe...

[–] xandrasky27 10 years ago

What I found interesting is that he did not really portray the rest of the cast in a bad way. If anything, he is the only one who comes off unlikeable, IMO.

I hope he is getting the help he needs because the guy is obviously very messed up and I feel bad for him.

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[–] cbfan41 10 years ago

Obviously Dustin believed he was the most talented and the one that made the show "work". I also think he was picked on by the other cast members. Perhaps it was method acting and/or Dustin was annoying.

[–] Knightmare6 10 years ago

I don't know if he felt he was the most talented, so much as he just wasn't given the chance to shine in his own eyes. He was the comedy relief to everyone, but himself.

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[–] cbfan41 10 years ago

Agreed. Again I will say it was Dustin "believing" he was the most talented since he was the comic relief. You wonder where Dustin's parents were in all of this. If it was my son, I would be much more engaged including to him that he brings joy to so many people with his comedy...which is a gift that he should not squander but ultimately did.

[–] Occult_Detective 10 years ago

It's really hard to know what to believe, and what really went down. Dustin Diamond has said his own "tell all" book was mostly ghost written based on a few questions he was asked.

I can't help but feel like it was all pretty downplayed though, as if (and acting as a producer) all the negative statements Dustin has said about the cast, this was sort of his "apology" to them all, and while showing that they were very much typical teenagers, a lot of it is shown in positive light, or in a way that makes us understand "hey, we were kids. kids do these things. egos rise, personalities clash, but it was never personal."

[–] theworldastage 10 years ago

@ Occult_Detective

Couldn't have said it better. That is absolutely what I think as well.

[–] Smug_Grinch 10 years ago

His dad in particular didn't really like taking Dustin to auditions, and made it seem like he looked down on the whole acting like a clown thing. Though it did show him at one of the tapings.

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We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

[–] pantherfan99 10 years ago

I also think he was picked on by the other cast members. Perhaps it was method acting and/or Dustin was annoying.

No he was picked on because he wasn't 'pretty' or 'cool' like the other cast members

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[–] stanleyhetz 10 years ago

What I found interesting is that he did not really portray the rest of the cast in a bad way. If anything, he is the only one who comes off unlikeable, IMO.

I thought that movie was based on a book that wasn't really written by him.

[–] horsebungle 10 years ago

"There is even an ET backstage vid somewhere I saw , where Lopez and Goselaar are talking to each other and Lopez say something to Goselaar like "But you used to be hard on him" or something like that."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbu7wfEGwO4

Thats not what happens. Lopez says "I'm being hard on you" and then Gosselaar makes a joke about locking him in lockers (on the show)

And Diamond has lied so much there's no reason to believe him about anything. Even "Eric" in this movie seems made up, I thought he would end up being imaginary like in A Beautiful Mind

[–] branenj001 10 years ago

The movie is extremely, extremely tame compared to the book. In the book he has an affair with a female producer(or someone in the business) much much older) portrays Tiffani as much bitchier, Lark as a total freak, discusses Mario's rape scandal, gets more insulting (much more) with how stage parent like certain ones could be, talks about them doing drugs while promoting the there's no hope with dope episode, and even talks smack about Dennis Haskins basically being miserable the whole time that he played second fiddle to a bunch of *beep* kids. He never stopped talking crap about Mark Paul the "golden child" and people walking around on the rainbows that he farted out.

This movie was pointless because if it was going to go unauthorized and fake like this book it may as well have been juicey and "go there" like. This really did serve more like an apology to the cast for the *beep* book he wrote about them.

They should have just gotten together and asked them all about their experiences. I don't believe Mario for a second that he has forgotten them all. I do have to say that I don't think ALL Dustin wrote was untrue though.

[–] stanleyhetz 10 years ago

The movie is extremely, extremely tame compared to the book. In the book he has an affair with a female producer(or someone in the business) much much older) portrays Tiffani as much bitchier, Lark as a total freak, discusses Mario's rape scandal, gets more insulting (much more) with how stage parent like certain ones could be, talks about them doing drugs while promoting the there's no hope with dope episode, and even talks smack about Dennis Haskins basically being miserable the whole time that he played second fiddle to a bunch of *beep* kids. He never stopped talking crap about Mark Paul the "golden child" and people walking around on the rainbows that he farted out.

This movie was pointless because if it was going to go unauthorized and fake like this book it may as well have been juicey and "go there" like. This really did serve more like an apology to the cast for the *beep* book he wrote about them.

They should have just gotten together and asked them all about their experiences. I don't believe Mario for a second that he has forgotten them all. I do have to say that I don't think ALL Dustin wrote was untrue though.

Dustin Diamond didn't even write that book.

[–] branenj001 10 years ago

Either way, Lifetime didn't even take the juicy fake details from the book and even "go there" so it makes you wonder what was the point.

[–] Vins_gurl18 10 years ago

portrays Tiffani as much bitchier, Lark as a total freak,

Wow....

A "freak" as in sexually, or....as in weird?? lol

[–] JFMJJ88 10 years ago

Not only is Tiffani portrayed as a bitch, but Behind the Bell also depicts her as a slut, a whore (who has a threesome with Mark-Paul Gosselaar and a producer in order to get the trip to Paris) and a drug user.

[–] shred-com 10 years ago

I've never read the book, but I didn't think the film portrayed anyone in particular bad (it actually seemed fairly realistic). There's no doubt that Dustin was probably bitter and jealous of his co stars (which the film showed), but I wouldn't be surprised if the two guys did ignore him and bully him just a bit (or at least he saw it that way). Mark and Mario seem like nice guys though, and I never thought Dustin seemed all that likeable tbh.
What has his co stars said about the book? Were they all pissed about it?

[–] JFMJJ88 10 years ago

The Lifetime film is, thankfully, the loosest adaptation of a book that I've ever seen. One example: In his book, Dustin Diamond portrays himself as a sex magnet who frequently brought female fans to the set for sex. He even boasts about having had sex with a female network executive. Happily, none of that nonsense made it into the film.

When Behind the Bell was released, Dustin's costars were very dismissive of it as being nonsense. Eventually Dustin himself claimed that most of the book was made up by a ghost writer.

[–] LaraCroftLegacy 10 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbu7wfEGwO4

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[–] CranberryNoVodka 10 years ago

I don't believe he was picked on at all. It's not new information that Dustin was the youngest of the cast;therefore, he typically hung out with Dennis Haskins/Mister Belding more than the rest of the cast. It wasn't bullying in my opinion. All of them talked about it, and it sounds like they just couldn't relate to him. This was in the E! True Hollywood Story...
I don't feel sorry for him.
I didn't see the video with Tiffani, but I don't think she's into her Kelly Kapowski days. She shook that off pretty well.I don't think she's annoyed with it, but I'm sure she knows she's more than Kelly and doesn't want to get pigeonholed into that idea again, considering she was Valerie Malone in 90210, her Lifetime movies were great and sad, etc.
If you treat a girl like a dog, she's going to piss on you

[–] HorrorFanatic24 10 years ago

I agree. Tiffani was rude.

I believe they treated him differently. I felt sorry for him. He is a douche..but he seemed like a nice kid. No one wants to see his side of the story. I come more to believing his then I would Mark, Mario, Elizabeths or Lark's sides.

[–] folse431 10 years ago

http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/24408/saved-by-the-bell-facts/

[–] sweetcar0line 10 years ago

There is Dustin's original version of what happened (the book that he later recanted), the rest of the cast's version (everything in the book was BS), and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I absolutely believe that Mark-Paul, Mario, Tiffani, and Elizabeth (I think Lark was more of an outsider, but unlike Dustin it was by choice) excluded him. I also think he was probably obnoxious and annoying, and played that up in misguided attempts to get attention, which only made them avoid him even more.

I also believe them when they say that they have such great memories from the show and they were all just kids having innocent fun; they had good friendships with each other and were a tight knit unit. He was the outsider, so clearly he didn't have the same experience that they did. And I think that what they perceived as harmless jokes at his expense and typical teenage stuff deeply hurt and affected him, and it's something he obviously still hasn't been able to really get past it.

I think the rumors of threesomes, sex, and drugs were greatly exaggerated, but I do think there's some truth to them. I'm sure that throughout the years, some of the cast members dated and slept with each other. But I don't necessarily believe the allegations of threesomes, homosexual encounters, or borderline molestation involving Mark-Paul, Tiffani, and the producers. I don't think it's a stretch that Mario took steroids and that the cast smoked weed in between takes, but I don't think any of them were junkies.

Re: The date rape charge against Mario. Whether he actually raped the girl, I don't know. But the allegations did happen and were reported by various media outlets at the time.

Overall, I don't think he made everything up, but I don't know that his experience of it is in line with what the others remember, either.

[–] HazzleDazzle (15) 6 years ago

This is a reply to the original poster and I doubt you will even see it but I’m replying anyway. I agree with you on everything. Years ago in an early interview of Dustin’s after the show had ended he was talking abut always feeling left out and in the way. I always remembered that. I too was a shy bullied kid and even my own family made me feel in the way and just too much trouble. I’m watching Dustin’s dad and my mom was the same thing. Anything she did for me she expected something like a bow and standing ovation. I was told I owed her for things a parent is suppose to do. It tough growing up like that. I can see the cast ignoing too. I feel bad for him.