♫ Zack Morris Is Trash ♫
Lisa and Screech are studying
for the Academic Bowl.
Zack interrupts to announce his brilliant plan
to skip school Friday and go skiing with Slater.
Screech wants to come.
Zack says he can carry his skis.
But when Lisa asks how Zack plans to skip school,
this blonde mastermind has no damn clue.
Screech says teacher contract negotiations are happening.
And a speed bump could lead to a strike.
Zack calls him a big dork, and steals his idea.
Mr. Belding's wrapping up negotiations with Mr. Tuttle,
and Zack asks if he can do a quick interview
about the Academic Bowl for the school paper.
Then reveals his rouse out loud.
"Then we'll turn those comments into a teacher strike."
In front of the one person on Earth
who shouldn't hear it.
Zack gives loaded questions about Bayside's opponents,
designed to evoke nasty fighting words from Belding.
The gang's Bowl prepping,
Zack barges in to put an end to their learning.
He asks Mr. Tuttle for a quote to use
in an article about the negotiations.
But first they need to queue the tape past Belding's quote.
Then "accidentally" play a heavily doctored edit
of Zack asking about the teachers,
spliced with Belding's now re-contextualized
disparaging remarks.
Zack's audio fraud works.
And the teachers go on strike.
Now his peers are missing a day of education.
And the teachers are losing a paycheck.
Zack pats himself on the back.
Jessie asks how skiing was.
Zack says it looked fun, but he didn't even go outside.
Because who could have predicted snow would be so cold.
They ask where Screech is.
Zack says he's where supposed to be,
carrying the heavy shit he didn't use.
Screech collapses, hits his head
and everyone but Zack gets up to help.
Screech got sick on the trip,
but isn't about to let that stop him
from practicing for the Bowl.
Zack hears the teachers are close to resolving
their non-existent issues,
and decides to intervene before they can
resume educating kids for barely enough pay to survive.
Mr. Tuttle leaves Belding's office,
once again on good terms.
And Zack stops him to say even though they got
improved pay and hours, they should be asking for respect.
He says until they get a break room
and better parking spots,
it's clear as day no one respects them.
Mr. Tuttle marches back and says
he'll see Belding on the picket line.
Zack gloats about his strike.
Belding says the strike means no class,
and no Academic Bowl.
Zack's friends who've sacrificed to train for the Bowl,
reprimand him for his careless actions.
And Screech who has so little to live for,
breaks down in tears.
Zack crashes a tense meeting about the strike
he manufactured and announces he'll read
the solutions Belding asked him to type up.
Wink, Wink.
Belding agrees to let the teachers
use his office as a lounge.
Belding will give up his parking spot,
so the teachers are all one space closer.
Belding will use his annual bonus
to pay for the faculty Christmas party.
The teachers accept Zack's terms
that do nothing to significantly improve their lives,
and all come at a great expense to principle Belding,
he never agreed to.
Meanwhile, the cold Screech got on the ski trip
took a turn for the worse and hospitalizes him.
The gang considers forfeiting,
a notion Zack rejects as he canceled
a perfectly good strike for this dumb Bowl.
The Valley team shows up and Zack,
unable to handle being taunted by nerds,
says he's going to join the team,
just so he can kick their nerdy asses.
Zack disturbs his friend in the hospital,
while he's trying to recover from the illness he caused,
and demands he teaches him everything he knows.
Screech is drifting in and out of consciousness,
desperately clinging to life.
But manages to eek out one single piece of knowledge.
An acronym for remembering the order of the planets.
"MVEMJSUNP."
- Lisa says if Screech,
in his delirious state was coaching Valley,
they'd be so confused, they'd lose.
Zack ignores his dying friend, and gets a great idea.
Zack sends Slater to meet with Valley to say he's bitter
his friends picked Zack over him for the team.
And he has damaging intel he wants to share.
It's your classic reverse double agent,
revenge misinformation scheme to cheat
at competitive learning.
Slater says Screech taught Zack everything he knows,
and on top of that, Zack's specialty is football,
so study up on only that one sport.
The Bowl is not going great, but Bayside's hanging in there,
no thanks to Zack, who only answered one question,
and got it wrong.
Bayside picks the final category,
and Zack chooses basketball.
And because the nerds were lied to
about only studying football, they blow it.
Zack even showboats,
preventing his teammates from buzzing in,
so these manipulated nerds can
publicly humiliate themselves.
It's all tied up and the final question
is to list the planets in order.
The only thing Screech taught Zack.
And Zack squeezes it out of his tiny brain, just barely.
Then tells Belding he's having the after party
in his office and he's going to wreck the place.
Let's review.
Zack Morris used fraudulent audio to anger teachers
into striking without pay,
just so he could go skiing,
then didn't even go skiing.
But still made his best friend carry all his heavy gear,
causing him to get sick.
Then preyed on teacher insecurities to keep school closed.
And when faced with losing his few remaining allies,
lied again to the teachers at someone else's
physical and financial expense.
And after sending his friend to the hospital,
only visited him to harass him for knowledge
to defeat some nerds,
then used elaborate subterfuge to cheat
at competitive learning,
and still only won because of a hospital room
information shake down.
Zack Morris is trash.
♫ Zack Morris Is Trash ♫