If you mention the name Dustin Diamond, few people recognized it. But, if you mention the name Screech, almost everyone immediately thinks of the nerdy character from the teen show “Saved by the Bell.”
Dustin began playing the Samuel ‘Screech’ Powers character when he was only ten years old. As he played Screech over the years, America literally watched him grown up. He was so well-known, he is ranked #16 on the VH1 list of 100 Greatest Kid Stars.
After “Saved by the Bell” ended its seven-year run, Dustin decided to become a stand up comedian. Leaving the Hollywood limelight, he bought a house in Wisconsin on a land contract. However, as the land around him was developed, the price of the house rose. Having bad credit, he could not get a conventional mortgage. Knowing this, the owners gave him a letter stating he had 30 days to pay $250,000 or he had to leave. They figured because he had bad credit, he would not be able to come up with the money and they would get the house back and sell it for a nice profit.
Dustin contacted an expert in land contract, Arthur Giraldo for help. Giraldo kept telling Dustin everything was fine, there was no need to worry. Apparently, he himself was not worried – at least not worried enough to do anything to help Dustin. He would set closing dates, but allegedly was doing nothing to help towards actually saving the house from being foreclosed upon.
Eventually served with foreclosure papers, Dustin finally realized that Giraldo was not working on his problem. He went on Howard Stern to tell the world his story, but he still only had 40 days to save his house.
At this point, you might be asking yourself why I am telling you this story. That is because Dustin has a web site where he is selling t-shirts to raise money to save his house. You can visit Dustin’s web page and make a $15 donation. For this, you receive a t-shirt that says “I paid $15 to save Screeech’s house.” The extra “e” in his character’s name is not a typo, but had to be added to avoid copyright infringement.
So I was never a big fan of “Save by the Bell” but I am a fan of humorous t-shirts. I might just pay the $15 to help a former child actor and get add a funny t-shirt to my collection.