It’s becoming more and more apparent that Lifetime’s upcoming movie The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story is one giant shitshow. And there’s a chance it’s not authorized because no one actually knows what the hell is happening. Not even Dustin Diamond, who wrote the book on which the made-for-TV movie was based.
Diamond’s book Behind the Bell came out in 2009, but he has since claimed that his ghostwriter took a lot of liberties, concocting some “nasty and negative lies.” He aims to really set the story straight in the upcoming Lifetime movie, but apparently, he hasn’t been all that involved in the process. As Laura Stampler at Time reports, Diamond may be billed as Executive Producer, but he hasn’t read the script or seen the final product:
When informed that the teaser shows Diamond’s character punching someone in the face while shouting “I’m not Screech!,” he was surprised, because that incident, he says, never happened.
“No one who is writing this was there,” says Diamond, revealing his first signs of concerns over the film, to which he signed on in a hands-off capacity. “I didn’t talk to [the writers] really, so how did they research? I’m going to watch with very nervous hopes . . . if they butcher it and get it completely wrong, I’m just going to film a documentary of just me talking about the errors.”
Aaaand, there it is. In what sounds like the world’s worst 20-year game of Telephone, Diamond has created a new career of “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT” and it’s clear he has no intention of slowing down. Many of Diamond’s fellow castmates have either expressed disappointment or complete indifference regarding the Lifetime movie, so I supposed we’ll just have to see if the Unauthorized story (which premieres Monday, so fire up those DVRs) will actually be enough fodder for anything besides a glorious Labor Day live-tweeting event.
Image via Getty.