Sometime in the 80s, a video version of Clue was made. Clue has always been one of my family’s favorite games (and movies), and I’m not sure where my parents got this, or who from, but it involved a series of video tapes, a few decks of playing cards, and some kind of complicated scoring system. The entire game was way too hard for my sister and brother and me (probably somewhere between 13, 9, and 6) to understand or play. So, we would watch the video. Not the videos, because they were really long and boring, but the introductory 10 minute video.

Like, a lot.

We thought it was really funny. The first bit of the video contained scenes of all of the characters around the mansion getting ready for dinner, presumably before Mr. Body is found dead. It’s a total ham and cheese sandwich. Like the videos they make you watch before you do jury duty.

I guess we watched it so often because we really have always loved all things cable access and watched it all the time when there was real cable access. Like the Channel 8 news where the guy literally sat on a stool in front of the camera with no desk, Wine Dine and Leisure Time where this drunk lady and her friends conned restaurants into giving them free food for an on-camera “review”, and the old PBS specials when nobody famous would be caught dead on PBS. Now it’s harder to find stuff like that, unless you root around the Christian networks. But, this Clue video was serious cable access-style entertainment. And we still say lines from it (“I’m the butler, Didit.” “I’ve never BEEN to Sumatra.”) and remember the whole thing down to the parts where Didit (also the host) would tell you to pause the tape and go over the rules with the group you’re playig with almost twenty years later.

All of this Clue love might account for how much I’ve always loved the Saved by the Bell episode Mystery Weekend, which features Zach embarrassing everyone who ever lived, Lisa hiding behind walls, Clark Kent style deception, and Kelly getting angrier than she’s ever been in her life. Kiwi twist, anyone?

So, Lisa was the winner of a radio contest. The prize was a free trip for her and five friends (random) to a Mystery Weekend. You know, one of those awful things where audience participation – something I dread on every level – is mandatory. My college friend Molly’s dad and brother came to visit once, and we all went to a touristy midtown restaurant called (I think) Jekyll & Hyde’s. The waiters all dress up in costume and, since they’re in New York, are obviously struggling actors, so they really ham it up. I guess I look like that one person who’s not going to enjoy pretending that you’re a vampire and not just an out of work actor, but I’m also not scary, so costumed people (in restaurants, in theme parks, during intermissions) always decide that if they can get me to participate, they can do anything! So, our vampire waiter came back to our table about five times and sat next to me and tried SO HARD to get me to act like he was a vampire, and I just couldn’t handle it. I hate audience participation.

So, anyway, Mystery Weekend. They get to the house and Kelly is so excited and happy (it won’t last) because she’s never been in a real mansion! Lisa’s unimpressed.

She’s also not even all that happy that she won the prize anyway, since dialing so many times made her break a nail. She dialed a bunch to win and then lamented the fact that she dialed after she won. She’s never satisfied.

Zach, meanwhile, immediately begins his assualt on his own dignity by rubbing his hands together greedily and demanding that the games begin NOW since he’s arrived.

So, the Mystery staff consists of Mr. Jamieson, who’s “British” and owns the mansion; the butler, who’s “British” and possibly retarded; the maid, who’s French; and the staff piano player (I know, right?). The Mystery Weekend people know that this mansion is in Southern California, right?

And these old farts get mad that the Piano Player’s music is too tinkly and cocktail hour and that he won’t play music they can dance to. Lisa and Jessie are appalled at their uncouth party behavior.

Then drinks are served, and Kelly is disgusted with Lisa’s drink: a mango tonic with a kiwi twist. She says she doesn’t even drink it, just likes to hold it and show it off, I’m guessing because it looks like a cocktail. She’s such a fraud.

Hey, check out Jessie’s pants. They’re so tight, she has to stand like a Barbie on one of those doll holders. Kelly looks disgustedly at her, as well. But, Mr. Jamieson thinks her un-jointed legs are hot, and decides to marry her off immediately to the Piano Player, who serenades her by playing a two-handed song with one hand.

The Maid, who had something going on with the Piano Player, spills a glass of water on Jessie’s already skin tight denim pants. Now it’s gonna be even harder for her to move.

So, anyway, the Maid is sent away and the Piano Player doesn’t even seem to notice that anything happened, and then is given Mr. Jamieson’s drink to make up for the fact that the woman sitting next to him had a drink spilled on HER, and this is getting as confusing as that Clue game. But, anyway, Mr. Jamieson smokes, and this episode was part of the season that included the epsiode There’s No Hope With Dope, so Kelly walks over to him on a tirade and waves his cigarette smoke away from her face, which was previously nowhere near him, and tells him that smoking is both bad for his health and hers and she’s not happy.

But, she’s interrupted by the Piano Player keeling over.

Which, of course, no one is going to be upset about, because it’s a Mystery Weekend, and they were planning on solving a mystery. But, Zach runs in from off screen, clapping and pumping his fists, yelling that the party has finally gotten started. And everyone shifts uncomfortably like David Brent just told a racist joke, because Zach is acting like such a tool.

The Mystery Weekenders try to figure out how the Piano Player could have died, and Slater and Screech discuss the idea that it was autoerotic asphyxiation.

Everyone goes up to their rooms to change into their best suits and cocktail dresses for dinner, and I find it hard to believe that six sets of parents let their 16-year-old teenagers go away for the weekend unsupervised to this place. But, anyway, the Maid shows up to fluff stuff, and starts kissing Zach on the cheek and rubbing her lady bits all over his thigh, which he thinks is totally not weird. The Butler comes in and has some kind of heart attack.

Then, these boneheads talk about the fact that, though the Piano Player was the last person to “like” the Maid and is now dead, at least it was a good way to go. Zach and Slater think that the idea of being interested in someone is enough of a reason to die happily, but at least Screech has the decency to seem a little confused by this concept.

And meanwhile, THIS is what they’re fantasizing about? Like, I get that some people probably like Shelly Duvall, and I know that plenty of younger boys think older women are hot, but… What?

Anyway, they head down to dinner, and Screech does … this for, like, three minutes.

And Zach wears a suit made entirely of a putting green.

Mr. Jamieson receives a phone call that the “PO-lice” are arriving any minute, but Zach’s friends have been whisper shouting that the Piano Player was poisoned by a drink given to him by the Butler (but meant for Mr. Jamieson, which they all gloss over), and Zach instantly decides that he’s solved the mystery. He gets up, makes an announcement that he knows which cards are in the little packet, and excitedly tells everyone that the Butler, who was in love (?) with the Maid and was jealous of the Piano Player, poisoned him to get him out of the way. Mr. Jamieson, who runs a Mystery Weekend as a job, is like, “eff offffffffffffffff.”

But, Zach’s wrong, because the Butler’s dead.

But, just in case you thought that Zach wasn’t as big of a tool as I made him out to be for this episode, notice his annoyed and dejected expression after discovering that the Butler couldn’t have done it. He whines about how he was so sure he was right, even though they’ve been at the Mystery Weekend for, like, less than an hour. It’s a weekend! He really thought he would solve it before they’d even had dinner? I mean, how boring would the rest of the weekend been?

So, the police show up (a “British” inspector, natch), and he wanders around the room a bit, hmphing at everyone he sees. And then he notices Screech, silently humping something in the corner.

Screech’s Count Fuckula impression helps him solve the mystery, though, and he pointedly says that the murderer is….! And the lights go out. Please notice, by the way, that that old bag on the left is NOT wearing a necklace.

Lights go out, a strange roaring sound like a lion is heard, and when the lights come on, the inspector has been shot with 40 arrows. Through the closed window. (At 4:04. Sorry about that.)

Kelly’s bitch attack is starting to get worse, because she angrily proclaims that, now that the stupid inspector is dead, they’ll never know who the killer is. She probably just wants to get out of there, because this Mystery Weekend is boring, and the old couple smell funny like BenGay but also like caramel and she brought her best dress and Jessie’s dressed like a stewardess and Lisa’s dressed like a circus, but the only available guys are old or wearing plum satin or putting greens or are Screech, and she could have been picking up a few extra shifts at the Max and possibly scoring with the hot new manager, but instead she’s stuck here at the Mystery Weekend for the ENTIRE WEEKEND and none of Zach’s jump the gun guesses are right, and the paid actor that was supposed to tell them who did it was also paid to die, and this mansion isn’t even that great now that she’s seen there’s only four bedrooms, like, GOD.

The freakout is interrupted by the Maid falling in the hallway. She tells them that she, too, was frightened because she also drink zee cognac and that the murdere is in here and we are looking at him or ‘er! Actually, she just complains that the floors were overwaxed and does an impression of a marionette.

The axe on the knight falls, almost killing Mr. Jamieson, but Lisa rushes in time to save him, and then gets all up on him, stroking his chest and continually asking if he’s okay.

But, she’s not even okay, because, it took a few tries, but she finally realized that an axe almost falling on Mr. Jamieson = an axe almost falling on Lisa, and now she’s going to need Zach to help her up the stairs because Grandma’s got the shakes. Everyone else bolts to pack because Mr. Jamieson assures us all that axes falling, Maid’s slipping, and necklaces being stolen (yeah, that old lady claims that her necklace was stolen when the lights went out, which is amazing, considering she wasn’t even wearing one, which means she’s probably just senile) are NOT PART OF THE SCRIPT and everyone should just go home.

Zach and Lisa, however, are told that they will get free passes for another Mystery Weekend, to which they react thusly:

Oh, man, right? What a relief to get free passes to make up for this free trip you took with four other people, plus four other strangers, that was canceled early.

Anyway, they make it upstairs finally, and Zach is still barely packed. He brought a lot of different suits to choose from for dinner, I guess. Lisa thinks that she sees someone out the window and screams and knocks over Zach’s suitcase, and Kelly gets SO MAD at her! “Lisa! We’re on the SECOND! FLOOR!” Crosses her arms, rolls her eyes, looks at Jessie, like, Can you believe this dumb bitch?

The rest of the gang leave, and Lisa tells Zach she’ll help him repack, and then tries to get it ON with him.

Not really. That didn’t happen until season five. He goes to get his free vouchers, and locks her into the room from the outside, because that’s not at all dangerous to run a hotel where doors only lock from the outside.

He gets to Jamieson’s office, which has been ransacked, and callously asks for the vouchers. Jamieson opens up his safe and Zach, who’s no longer playing a game, supposedly, just nosies it up for a look at the combination.

“Thanks a lot, man!”

The lights go out again and now Mr. Jamieson’s missing. The rest of the house runs in to see what’s happened and Zach tells them he came to get free vouchers and he doesn’t know where Jamieson went. The Maid suspects foul play because Jamieson is cheap, and Slater suspects foul play from that guy next to him, like, DAMN.

But, anyway, Zach is now the prime suspect in the murder of Mr. Jamieson. Which kind of makes sense, since he was so gung ho to get the prize money. But, then the “real” “police” are brought in, and are two people who are so obviously in costume that I’m embarrassed to know that the writers thought I was this dumb.

What kind of police force sends over a soft spoken female detective wearing a church outfit and a be-whiskered pregnant man over and absolutely no uniformed officers? And what kind of people would be dumb enough to think that these are the actual police? Everyone in the SBTB universe, I guess. Anyway, they want some character witnesses, and there’s a lot of Zach’s great, but he’s also a douche, and pointing. Lots of pointing!

Kelly, by the way, still angry.

Screech keeps a special diary of his favorite S&Z memories, and when he opens to a random page and reads an arbitrary date in 1987, Zach immediately tries to quiet him before he can tell the story of being tied to roller coaster tracks by Zach. How he remembered that particular date so vividly is beyond me.

Clearly, opportunistic teenager = murderer, and Zach’s basically found guilty on the spot. But, he says Lisa can vouch for the voucher story, and they go up to talk to her. But, she’s missing, too, despite the outside lock, and everyone thinks Zach killed her. A point made more valid by the search which reveals Lisa’s watch in Zach’s pocket.

Jessie and Slater seem mildly disappointed that Zach would kill one of their best friends. Screech pouts a bit that the love of his life is gone, but gets in a few jokes for good measure. The other guests’ eyes aren’t even focused. The detectives tell everyone to just get some sleep and they’ll figure out how to arrest a murderer in the morning. Kelly tells Zach that, should he end up in jail, she’ll come to visit him every Sunday. That is the single nicest thing anyone ever said.

When alone in their room, Screech curiously asks whether Zach poisoned Lisa or what, and Zach flips on his robot killer switch and goes gunning for Screech.

In an effort to clear Zach’s name, they wish for a secret passage that’s reached by turning the candlestick, and then their wish comes true!

Please take a moment to look at Screech’s shoes and try to tell me that those aren’t women’s pumps.

Anyway, the passage leads to the office, which is on the first floor, so Zach, Slater, and Screech crawled all the way from the second floor to the first floor. In the office, they see the following evidence.

Did you study the items carefully? Zach did. He gathers everyone back in the living room to solve the mystery. From the special clues of the glasses, he discovered that Lisa was there the whole time, trying to take a dump in the fireplace. Everyone had noticed her, but they were all so traumatized that they blocked it out instantly.

He knew that Lisa was in on it the whole time, because no one else would drink that horrible thick pink concoction of hers, “with a kiwi twist, dur.”

Also, Jamieson was the killer, and is masquerading as the lady detective.

Wait.

Who?

Ohhhh. I didn’t have any idea until he took off the earrings.

So, Jamieson killed the Piano Player… why? And the Butler? Why? Screech wants to solve another part of the mystery, but Slater and Kelly were talking earlier and she was reminding him that he had Metallica tickets for tonight which he didn’t tell anyone else about because he didn’t want them to know that he listens to metal and instead he sold them and bought this awesome plum silk jacket that’s now rumpled and dirty because he had to crawl through a god damn secret passage and he’s not even gonna get a piece of the prize money that Zach’s gonna get because he was set up to get it because clearly the wrongly accused guy is going to try harder than anyone else to figure out what’s really going on here, so now this Mystery Weekend is seeming like the worst idea in the entire world and, seriously, Screech, “EFFFFFFFFF YOU! There’s nothing left to solve.”

But he’s even wrong again, because the Butler was also the other detective. Zach is the prize pig, once again. What a dick.

The Top Five Four Totally Maxxed Out Outfits of Mystery Weekend!

There were less outfits than normal to choose from, since there are only two costume changes in the whole show.

4&3. Slater’s boldly patterned giant silk shirt and skinny belt, plus Screech’s everything.

2. Zach’s oversized putting green suit, which emphasizes his giant sloping shoulders.

1. Lisa’s neon sleeves made of bean bags.