California Dreams Boned the Fish When...

[TMC]

http://www.bonethefish.com/viewtopics.php?394

California Dreams was about a multi-ethnic group of teens and their band. The show's plots combined real-life issues with zany adventures. It covered a range of topics such as fear, using drugs for a competitive edge, falling for scams, letting greed overtake friendship, accepting a divorced parent dating, forgiving others for past wrongs, and dealing with general teen social problems.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070225...ptheshark.com/

• Other Thoughts:
  
  Surf dudes with attitudes is the basis for this show. This was supposed to be the new Saved By the Bell! First of all they are the bunch of bad lip synchers and the "real" singers are awful. The plots are of course lame, but worse of all is they kept introducing new characters that had the habits of old characters! For example, in their first year they had this geeky character, he got smart or got written off, then the genius at Must Miss TV introduced a new character that was geeky! Give me a break.
  An awful rip-off of "Saved by the Bell," which, in turn, was an awful rip-off of "The Facts of Life," which was a great show.
  For the record, California Dreams was a lame ripoff off Saved by the Bell which was a lame ripoff of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a FABULOUS movie.
  The show, my pick for the worst show ever, jumped from Day One. I don't know what anyone on the production staff was thinking. Were the writers on crack? Did they think that the jokes were funny? If so, they should have some serious charges brought against them. The only character that was even worth turning the show on for was for Sly Winkle who was played by Michael Cade. Everyone else should have been killed off. Even worse, how could any station want to air reruns of this God-awful show? They must be on LSD. This show stank.
  Saw it once...it was HORRIBLE!!!!!! I only watched it because I was tired and desperate (obviously). How does this stay on the air while great shows like "Cupid" are cancelled after a month or two?
  Sure it was a dumb teen sitcom, but it had hot babes. What more do you want?! I thought they did their own singing, but I could be wrong. It was dumb, but it wasn't supposed to be smart. It was entertaining and that was enough for its time.
  This show really jumped the shark when Nikki Cox played a blind babe. The group's 17 year old business manager (which was laughable enough) meets her on a "blind date". In one scene, the group puts on blind folds and tries to imagine what it's like to be blind (I can smell the cafeteria lunch!) In my mind this was one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in a television show a bunch of wealthy California Beach kids putting on blind folds and trying to sense what it would be like to be blind! At least this wasn't the biggest mistake Nikki Cox ever made, no that was getting engaged to BobCat Golthwaite.
  This show JTS from day one. What kind of high school kids get together and start a soft rock band? N***a Please!
  From day one. Can we say Saved by the Bell.
  the theme song......surfer dudes with attitude
  When that asian chick took over as lead singer! That show was actually interesting until Jenny left it and that one Asian girl took over! Grr!
  This show jumped when this no talent hack walked around in the background.
  this show jumped the shark the day it started. I personally liked the show the first time they made it when it was called Saved by the bell.
  The only reason to even look at this show was Heidi Lenhart. She was one of the most stunning girls I have ever seen. When she left (was fired? quit?) after one season all we were left with was the incredibly annoying blonde whose name escapes me but somehow made it onto Baywatch years later as probably the most unspectacular lifeguard in the long history of that particular show.
  Yes - stupid idea for a show. But it was great. It wasnt bad - it was just stupid n cheesy. But when a show is on that early on a weekend who wants to watch some drama - It was cute.
  Oh please......should have been named "California DWEEBS".......that boy who played Sly Winkle was the ONLY thing going for it. I wonder what happened to him? He was charming......
  Yes, it is true that this show was based on Saved by the Bell. However, the first season was still very good. The music was not that bad, and at one time I bought the soundtrack cd. The show took a minor shark jump at the beginning of season 2 with the introduction of tough guy "Jake", he was fairly lame. There was absolutely NO chemistry between Jake&Jenny. The show actually improved when Jenny left and was replaced by Samantha. However by this time Matt's originally the leader of the band and the most important character) role had dwindled down to almost nothing and Brent Gore quit in disgust at the end of the second season. The show went downhill fast, and the last three seasons are not worth watching, as Sly's cousin was a very weak substitute for Matt, who could really sing (and NO, the actors did NOT play the instruments on the songs! The liner notes of the cd list studio musicians.) The first season in particular was actually a fairly good program & one of my favorites.
  God, this show sucked so bad, I think it was the reason I started sleeping in on Saturday mornings!! The situations were so stupid and the acting was unconscionable! I did however know all of the words to the theme song!
  Never, it was an awesome ensemble cast that actually improved as the seasons went on. I actually didn't like the first season with Matt, his sister, and their family angle. The cast changes actually made the show better.
  I actually kinda liked this show. Sure it was a Saved By The Bell clone (and now isn't City Guys the new clone?)and I loved that girl (I think you guys said her name is Jenny)she had the dark hair, she was a babe! And she had attitude! I liked her and her brother (I think it was his band, he was the lead singer) but then they both quit (wonder why) and they brought on the asian girl who was okay and the tough guy (Slater wannabe lol)and the black guy was kinda funny, and so was the blonde girl. She was okay looking, but have you seen her now? Damn! She has a strange forehead thing going (like Reese Witherspoon) but since she has chopped off that mousy long hair, her shoulder length hair really compliments her. Sly, what was he about? I remember those dumb clothes they had him wear, like the acid wash jeans Slater wore lol. I am sure I wore the same thing back then too. What a nightmare the early 90's clothes. (The bright colors)
  This show jumped the shark on day 1. Clearly it was a rip off of saved by the bell right down to the individual episodes. I seem to recall Jesse having a drug problem on saved by the bell, and then the blonde girl on this show has the same goddamn problem. The best career move she ever made was getting a boob job and going on Baywatch. I cant even believe people watch shows like this one, USA high, etc. Saved by the Bell is the only one of these shows which had style. It had the courage to suck really hard and not take itself seriously. Speaking of which, why are the actors from saved by the bell: the new class having better careers than the actors from the original. Can anyone explain this to me please?
  Quite frankly this show was fantastic. It was really funny and although it did cover some of the same issues as saved by the bell, i thought on the whole it was a funnier programme. I mean Sly Winkle has to be one of the funniest characters ever and Michael Cade pulled it off really well. In fact all the actors did well and i really liked the music!! Wish their were re-runs but sadly they aren't on at the moment.
  Never jumped the shark-and I'll tell you why. It was not anything more than a silly teeny-bopper show designed to show teenagers actors and actresses their own age and HOT! I personally touched myself in an impure manner to several of the chicks on this show, and I'm proud of it! You would too, if you were a homely sixteen year old. Don't Lie.
  I might have been able to stomach this lame excuse for a show if Sly could just keep his damn shirt on for one episode. Does anybody recall the modeling episode?? Laughable enough but didnt anybody realize he was 5'2"? His body wasnt bad but the boy got way too much pleasure out of parading around topless for me not to question his sexuality. I'm still waiting to catch him in an episode of Queer as Folk. He'd be perfect.
  Sure, the show was cheesy, but it was definitely better than Saved By the Bell: The New Class. CD was probably the only thing that kept me watching TNBC after SBTB ended! But I have to admit, the singing was cheesy as hell, especially this one song I can't seem to forget -- when Tony (black dude) had some kinda rap song all to himself, and Sam (Asian girl) sang "He's phat, he's the king!" for the chorus. Oh lord -- that was beyond stupid...wasn't this song supposed to impress some record exec too?!
  California Dreams jumped the shark and went down in flames pretty much from the beginning but the episode that really clenched it was when Tiffani's dad started dating Ariel.
  it didn't. people who watched California Dreams and were expecting a gripping, true to life docu-drama on Californian teen culture were in for a culture shock. It's stupid, it's cheesy, it's morals and ethics are everything we learned from Saved by the Bell.... and I loved every last minute of it.
  Everyone had that chris atkins blonde afro,from the BLUE LAGOON didn't they? It kinda jumped when they were havin' a off road race,and they found out there nemesis had a turbo charger on their car,so they thought they had better get one put on their car ,,,,fast! However,turbo chargers are effective on track races,and drag racing only ,Correct me if Im wrong
  OK. I admit the show was a bit cheesy and it did have pretty much the same plotlines as Saved by the Bell. But it was still one of my favorite shows. Toni was HOTT!! Sure his character was a little nutty but when he went to that show USA high he looked mighty fine. I hated his solo song though. That He's so Funkay! It was pretty stupid. But his relationship with Sam was pretty cute. The only thing I thought was pretty stupid was the fact that Jake used to go out with Jenny then when she left he gets with her best friend Tiffany. Then they break up and he gets with Lorena the saucy, wealthy, Latina that housed Sam when Matt left. Then after Jake discovers he still liked Tiffany he breaks up with Lorena and gets with Tif. The worst part is that They are all hanging out like everything is all cool. That is so unrealistic.
  This show never jumped because of Sly, Tony, and Sam. They were hilarious! However, I never understood why Sly and Tony were afraid of Jake when they were both bigger than him. They could have each bench pressed this wannabee biker as a warm up for their work out.
  This was Peter Engels poor attempt at another teen comedy. What I hated most about this show was that friggin Jake. I mean he over did that cool tough guy act way too much. And where do the producers get off insulting the audience by making a 5 foot 6 140lbs pound kid a tough guy. I was in my early teens when watching this and I knew I could destroy Jake. I liked Saved by the Bell more than this, hell I even liked the Zack Attacks music more.
  I don't know just what in the hell has gotten into some of you people. You guys actually think the show got *worse* after the Garrisons left?! No way! If anything, the show got *better* after they left, especially when I think about the very first season. Granted, I prefer Matt over that ******* Jake any day (at least regarding personality rather than his singing) but remember the very first season with Tiffani (who I also don't like), Sly, Tony, Matt, Jenny, the parents, and their little brother? Wasn't that just the coolest?! I DIDN'T THINK SO EITHER! Just thinking about that reminds me of 90210. I mean, I guess Brandon and Brenda's parents were cool, but they were pretty irrelevant to the story! Jeez Louise! Anyways, I really enjoyed the show when Lorena and Mark came. God, was he HOT! I just adored Aaron Jackson and Michael Cade! Lord almighty! And I loved it when Lorena and Sly FINALLY hooked up (which they saved until the last couple of episodes while focusing on Sam and Tony's adorable but odd relationship and Jake and Tiffani's overrated relationship. *rolls eyes*) But anyways, despite its cheesiness and SBTB plots, I'd gladly watch it again and again and again and again...
  It jumped when they stopped spending money on the sets. I remember watching an episode where we see a guy and a chick supposedly standing on the balcony of a beach house at night. But the background (the moon and the stars) is so fake that it's hard to ignore. I mean, is it really THAT expensive to shoot the damn show at night?
  Today is September 8th, 2003! Wow! Awhile ago, we were glued to the sets watching our favorite new hit tv series Saved By The Bell and California Dreams. Come one "critics". If you liked Saved By The Bell, I'm pretty sure you liked California Dreams too. I'm sure MOST of you "wake up in the mornin" knowing the SBTB theme and are "surf dudes with attitude" when C Dreams theme hits the tv screen. You bop your head to the "Go For It" songs of the Zack Attack and are fans "Anytime" of the California Dreams team. Of course everybody likes SBTB more because it came out FIRST and some of the jokes were a little better. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE SBTB, but California Dreams started taking part of my heart as well. It gets tiresome after watching SBTB reruns over and over on TBS (which they show every morning). Do you know how many times they show the reruns! I know ALL the words to ALL the episodes. They just stopped airing C Dreams on the WB and replaced it with Family Matters (which I love, but they're on TBS as well). You have to admit that "Tony" was a funny character and so was Sly. However, they ALL had some going for them, that's why they were casted for this show! Jake was cute as well, and the girls all had funny lines here and there. They couldn't have been much like SBTB (Jake was more of a rebel than Slater, one band was managed by a friend and the other wasn't, none of the girls from C Dreams were fashion lovers like Lisa, etc.) It's a little something called ACTING. Alot of their episodes were not the EXACTLY the same, and if they were similar, they were changed around a bit. SBTB and C Dreams was and still are cute comedies not just geared toward "teens" but for whoever wants to watch them. It would be smart to put one Saved By The Bell and C Dreams on during the Saturday noon time slot that they had C dreams on so that EVERYONE who loved to see both gangs can enjoy them again. I'm sure BOTH shows are rip-offs in one way or another of other shows. WHO CARES! They make us laugh don't they? Sure, we would have people who still favored SBTB, but if you watch C Dreams and not just judge it by the FIRST EPISODE OR SEASON, you will see that BOTH SHOWS are legends in the making!
  When Eddie Mekka (Carmine from Laverne and Shirley) guest starred as the tough kid's chain-smoking uncle who developed cancer. The tough kid wanted to smoke too because he thought it was cool, but Carmine told him it was wrong. This episode, coupled with the annoying theme song, made the whole series even crappier.
  OK, OK...so C. Dreams is yet another cheesy SBTB rip-off designed to propagate the idea that teenagers are idiots (an idea, by the way, that stands uncontroverted). Sure, the relationships were ambiguously gay (*snicker*). Sure, the musical selections sucked ass. Sure, Jake was about as tough as my baby niece. Sure, the shape of Tiffany's forehead was a bit unduly. Sure, the "He's so funk-kay" song was annoying as hell. But, you've gotta admit...this was a good ass show. It was a show that we hated to love (as opposed to the reverse). It made Saturday mornings (and, after syndication, weeknights) fun. "...Just lay me lay here in the sun, until my dream is doooone..."
  I'm surprised that this show had a cast that stayed together straight (season 3,4,5) That's very rare in an NBC teen show! Of course it was a crappy cast that stayed. I think season two (post Jenny) was the best but that's just me
  I will admit that although California Dreams was almost a duplicate of Saved by the Bell, it never jumped. It was produced by the same people so what do you expect they had the same story lines. Besides the songs were cool and my best friends cousin is Jay Anthony Franke.
  CALIFORNIA DREAMS was a lame ripoff of SAVED BY THE BELL (why anyone would want to rip that show off is still a mystery to me)that jumped from day one. This was teenage junk that was unmemorable for the most part. The only performer on that show worth watching was Michael Cade as Sly. I always hoped he might have a chance at a career if he could get away from this turkey, but, alas, it was not to be.

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http://www.californiadreamsreviewed....eams-reviewed/

California Dreams is an enigma. People seem to remember it fondly, but it had such poor DVD sales the final season was never released. Jimmy Fallon even invited the cast on his show when it looked like he was never going to get a Saved by the Bell reunion. I rarely see anything negative about the series, even about the last two seasons I hated; the closest thing I usually see is about how useless the extended Garrison family was, and they didn’t stick around long in the grand scheme of things. But none of the cast really went on to become well known, and the series has largely been forgotten, not even a blip on most people’s radars.

For comparison sake, Saved by the Bell Reviewed regularly gets five hundred hits a day, even nearly a year after I finished that project. This one is lucky to get a hundred.

So why is it California Dreams has such a good reputation without the accompanying staying power in nostalgic memory that Saved by the Bell has enjoyed?

Personally, I blame it on having some very talented writers who weren’t given much direction where to take the show. Sure, it was quite obvious in the first season and even the second that this was supposed to be a dramatically different show from Peter Engel’s biggest hit: rather than focusing on the school lives of our character, we would see them form a band and try to make it big in show business. We’ll see another aspect of teenage life: the making of dreams and how real life and growing up interferes with and changes what we previously thought we wanted.

And, for a time, it worked. Despite the uselessness of the Garrison family as a framing device, the first two seasons were incredible, with some great writing, compelling characters, and memorable plots. I dare say that, at its best, California Dreams deserved to win some awards, and they certainly should have been nominated for more than The New Class. It was just different enough from the original.

Even Sly, as much as I hate him, was a well-written character. Recall that my two least favorite characters on The New Class were Brian and Tony. I hated them because they were poorly conceived, written, and just overall useless. I hate Sly for personality traits I think the writers intended to give him, and I can’t really fault the show for that. It would be like watching a James Bond film and getting mad at the villains for being too villainous. It worked.

So what happened?

Brent Gore’s exit might have been the worst thing to happen to this show. Though it had already been showing signs of morphing in its second season, the third was nearly a complete reboot. Suddenly, Jake was the leader of the band, and Sly’s dopey and horribly written cousin was kind-of sorta not really filling Matt’s role on the show. More and more plots started revolving around life in high school, and the band itself was relegated to a supporting role, being pulled out on occasion to remind us it existed. This was not the same show I reviewed in its first two seasons.

Yet the third season wasn’t terrible per se; it was just very different, adhering more closely than before to the tried and true Saved by the Bell formula nearly every Engel-verse show follows.

The same can’t be said for the final two seasons, where the writers seem to be phoning in the plots, not giving a **** anymore and barely putting any effort into distinguishing this from so many other Engel-verse shows. It was painful to sit through because I’ve seen all the plots so many times on other shows. I’m convinced this is the era of quantity over quality for Peter Engel, and he long ago gave up when he realized the California Dreams were never going to be a household name like the Saved by the Bell gang, but they were getting good enough ratings not to be cancelled.

Why, then, was the last episode so damned good? I have a theory: Ron Solomon really did care about this show, and it probably killed him they had gotten so formulaic to the point you could drop in the cast of any other Engel-verse show without consequence. So he decided to give it a send-off worthy of the potential it once showed. California Dreams was going to have a better ending than any other Engel-verse show, one that jaded, cynical critics would look back at twenty years later and realize how good it was.

And it worked. After yawning through most of the last two seasons, it was such a pleasant surprise to watch the final episode and see so much actual effort being put into it. Granted, it will still never stack up to classic final episodes like M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or Cheers. But, for a TNBC show, the finale is damned good, and it’s a shame most people will never see it, if for no other reason than they have no idea what California Dreams is other than a song by the Mamas and the Papas.

So why weren’t more episodes like this? Why give such few ****s about a show with so much potential? I think the answer comes down to this: being different from Saved by the Bell wasn’t garnering the ratings. The NBC execs probably wanted a new Saved by the Bell, especially with the mothership going off the air and no guarantees for The New Class and The College Years. So, Engel and Solomon did what they had to do to keep it on the air: they sold out.

And it makes sense: think of all the critically acclaimed shows that, despite being good, never got the ratings: Freaks and Geeks, Firefly, Arrested Development, Star Trek, Everwood, Jack & Bobby, just to name a few. Being good doesn’t guarantee your show will be a commercial success, and that’s one of the major flaws of our entertainment industry. Fortunately, things are beginning to change with streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime investing in quality programs, but it’s still true that your show can be really good and never make money.

And that’s the story of California Dreams to me: a good premise and great talent flushed down the drain to make a few bucks.

But let’s not let this cloud our judgment of this show. Let’s always remember this show for what it was at its best. After all, when it comes down to it, I’d rather rewatch this show any day over The New Class and The College Years.

I reviewed this show largely because it kept coming up on Saved by the Bell Reviewed. So many of you remembered it so fondly that I decided I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Like the Saved by the Bell franchise, I had never watched this show prior to reviewing it. And, as you can probably tell, I’m very glad I did.

I’m feeling it’s time for a break from the Engel-verse, though. I’ve been at this for four years, and have now reviewed five of Peter Engel’s series. I’m a bit tired right now, and I’m beginning to be known as the person who reviews Engel-verse series. Some of you are even already asking if I’m planning on reviewing City Guys or Hang Time next.

And there was a time I wanted to review all of TNBC’s offerings. What I’ve come to realize, though, is I’m essentially just going to be reviewing the same plots over and over again if I do, and that prospect doesn’t particularly appeal to me. I have a feeling I’d eventually be reduced to just going, “Saved by the Bell already did that!” over and over again. Besides, I never wanted to become the internet’s foremost expert on Peter Engel shows.

So my next project I have in mind is going to be a little different. I want to do a blog on One Season Wonders. I’ve always been fascinated by shows which are cancelled after one season and whether they’re worth a second look. Of course, there are some that have become cult favorites in the age of DVD and Netflix, but I also want to review some of the oddities of the past, many of them forgotten, such as The Ugliest Girl in Town or Cop Rock.

So keep an eye out for that. I’ll be launching it soon and will post on Facebook when it’s ready.

In the meantime, I wanted to thank you all for following this blog over the last two years. It’s been such an honor to relive this show with you as it brought back memories for you. Seeing your comments every week kept me going, and I was always amazed by how respectful you all were, even when you disagreed with me.

I was going to do a bonus post or two, but I’m not sure I have much more to say about California Dreams. There’s not much more out there. No, this is a good place to end.

So thanks for taking this journey with me, and I hope you’ll join me for One Season Wonders when it’s launched soon.

Until then, I’m always your friend, Chris the Geek.