As Irritating as His Moniker, Screech
By LauraBelle on Dec 29, 2007 in Commentary
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For years, ever since the first child star had the misfortune to grow up and find life isn’t the same as an adult as it was for a precocious child star, there has been a debate if fame is the right thing for kids or not. The problem is, we only hear of the kids that grow up and take a really bad path, drugs, DUIs, theft, prostitutes, etc. We don’t hear about the kids that go on to lead productive lives out of show business, other than the occasional rumor about Beaver and/or Eddie Haskell getting killed in the war. To say that all the show business kids end up badly probably isn’t a fair assumption.
A fair assessment, though, can probably be made on a recent season of Celebrity Fit Club. While the season ended some time ago, Friday night held a Fit Club Marathon including the season with two separate, very different, one-time child stars, Dustin Diamond, aka Screech of the Saved By the Bell, and Maureen McCormick, aka Marcia, Marcia, Marcia of the The Brady Bunch. Maureen is still just as cute as she was as a young teenage girl, although with a few more pounds on and a few more wrinkles. But hey, that adds character!
Dustin is a different matter altogether. After joining a show about celebrities losing weight by following the methods shown, such as eating healthy and exercising, Dustin proclaimed he was going to do it his own way, eating pizza and beer. Of course, this wasn’t going to work, as if it was, he wouldn’t need the help of Ian and Harvey anyway. But Dustin’s behavior only got worse and worse when this failed to get him the attention he seemed to be “screeching” out for.
During a dinner together with all the fit clubbers, Dustin shared with everyone that there was a porn tape of him and his girlfriend making the rounds. He also talked about how upsetting it was to his girlfriend, saying that she wanted to break up with him over it. He wanted to stop it from going around. That’s not exactly what he said, but I tried really hard not to listen too closely to this conversation. Dustin also went into great detail of what we would see on the tape, talking about size to the point that the other people were disgusted and/or rolling their eyes. Really, I don’t want to hear about anyone’s “size,” and when I do, it won’t be about Screech.
It proved to be false somewhat, as Dustin and that same girlfriend showed up at a porn convention hawking their movie. She didn’t seem upset in the least, and he didn’t seem to be stopping it, but promoting it. He said since that it was more a less a “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” thing, but it certainly seems at this point that the guy just can’t get enough attention. While at one time he was precocious and young with a charming quick wit, it’s no longer cute. The wit is still quick, but not in the least bit charming.
Everything erupted during one weigh-in where he put five pounds on, and went on to talk about how he refused to eat the way they wanted him to. He went on a tirade against most of his fellow fit clubbers, the worst of which was saying that at the porn convention he wanted to create his own line of products, and wanted to get something in particular for American Idol castoff Kimberley Locke. She was disgusted, ran off the stage in tears, and seemed to be calling her manager asking for a way off this show. Also running out was ex-pop star, Tiffany, enchanting malls as a 15 year old. She had also become an emancipated minor at that point, not wanting to be around her parents anymore. As she ran off saying the yelling was too much like her childhood, it all became a little clearer for us. Dustin continued to act blase, throwing around insults and even challenging Harvey to a fight, causing the Marine to nearly blow a gasket in anger.
Yet, another member of the Celebrity Fit Club, fellow child star Maureen, was setting records in weight loss. Instead of being defiant and vulgar, she admitted to her weight problems, and in record time, met her goal weight, losing 18% of what she first stepped on the giant scale with. She was a model fit clubber. Although, they wanted to call her out on her drinking. She apparently had a few drinks when they were all out together, shortly after 11 AM. Hey, it was noon somewhere, right Maureen? She wasn’t shown driving anywhere, like Lindsay, Paris, and a host of other young celebrities, so if she had a few drinks before noon was it really hurting anyone?
Regardless of the early drinking, Maureen seems to be doing okay. I’d rather see someone just have a few drinks than go off on a tirade attacking everyone verbally like Dustin. The point is, I don’t think you can look at Maureen’s drinking as reason to say all child stars go bad, but I think you could have made that assumption about Dustin. With him it sure seems like he just can’t get a handle on not being in the public eye and not getting attention such as that any longer. Somehow it seems to manifested itself into belligerence. Yet with Maureen, if she’s handling it with a few drinks every now and then, she’s probably doing okay.
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For more information on Celebrity Fit Club, see SirLinksalot: Celebrity Fit Club Links.
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