SBTB 03.17 - S.A.T.s

James is back! As before, he plays his character with aplomb. Gusto. Vigor. Yes, Mark Blankfield, you certainly did well. But, I have highlighted you before so I won't do it again. (Though you will show up in this post later.)

Besides James, we had a Mrs. Helen Billingham as a guest on the show.

Susan Osborne

Susan Osborne plays this austere woman, and it is the only role she seems to have ever landed. She did, however, produce some documentaries from inside different factions: the State Department (movie), the Detroit Gang Squad (TV), and polygamy in Bountiful, Utah (TV). Hooray, lady.

But what is she looking at so intently? It must be S.A.T.s, since that is what this episode was about. Check out Kelly's bubble sheet.

The picture is grainy, but you can see by my superimposed graphic that Kelly had only filled in three answers. This makes sense, as her character admits as much. Take note of the page, though. You see all that space up top for personal information? Now check out Lisa's answer sheet from this exact moment in the test:

Uh, that's the back of the sheet. And Lisa already has an entire row filled in. We have a few options here: 1) Lisa is a genius, 2) Lisa is guessing so she can go shopping sooner, 3) Kelly is a dumb, dumb brick. I refuse to believe that sweet Kelly Kapowski could be dumb as a brick, so the answer must be one of the first two options...

Let's turn our attention to hot ladies.

What? Molly the Troll, I didn't mean you!

Christine Taylor

That's better. This is Christine Taylor, the gal who plays Heather Brooks. (I'm bummed that no other still could do her justice.) Do I even need to explain who she is? Alright. She has been in "Dodgeball," "Arrested Development," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and "Seinfeld." She is married to Ben Stiller, which gets a big demerit in my book. Regardless, she is nice to look at.

Let's get back to James. The scene with him in Mr. Belding's office is a huge curiosity. His beard is clearly falling off; why didn't they just redo the scene?

As you can see from the yellow line, his beard was super loose. So much so, that it falls off in front of Zack. This causes Zack to break character.

And Zack breaks hard. He goes from a super serious student to an obviously tickled student, which would have been incredibly out of character in the moment. So why not reshoot the scene? Well, the producers must have looked at this and deemed it far too funny to cut. Despite Zack's breaking, it actually adds to the absurdity of James's beard. I agree with the inclusion, even if it "taints" the "pristine image" of SBTB.

Feel free to share what stood out to you in the comments below.