Do you remember when Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack Morris Saved by the Bell) died in a motorcycle accide
Today my friends and I were talking about the old 1990s rumor about "Paul" from The Wonder Years growing up to become Marilyn Manson. When we started talking about that it triggered a childhood memory I had forgotten about for a very long time.
I was about 6-7 years old, which would be 1993-94, playing four square in my next door neighbors front driveway with the three kids that lived next to me. The oldest sibling was 6 years older than me, so about 12-13 years old, and I remember him breaking the news to all of us that Mark-Paul Gosselaar had died today in a horrible motorcycle accident, and we were all destroyed about it. I don't think I found out it wasn't true for a very long time.
It wasn't until quite a few years later, probably early 2000s, that I thought about that memory again, and when I looked it up on yahoo or msn or whatever, I surprisingly found tons of results of other people who remembered this happening in the early 90s too, including Mark-Paul Gosselaar himself dealing with the persisting rumors and people saying that he was dead. I seem to remember him saying it put him into a bit of a depression at the time, as his career had slumped by that time as well. Somehow, this was a VERY widespread rumor, but I don't think it was ever pinpointed exactly how or why the rumor ever came to be?
I was curious, for those old enough, to any of you remember hearing this rumor way back in the 90s? When I first heard the rumor, NOBODY I knew had the internet, even our school didn't have it yet. It kind of fascinates me how this possibly spread to the point where even I heard it in my tiny little town as a kid? I don't think it was ever in some official publication or even a tabloid.
I was about 6-7 years old, which would be 1993-94, playing four square in my next door neighbors front driveway with the three kids that lived next to me. The oldest sibling was 6 years older than me, so about 12-13 years old, and I remember him breaking the news to all of us that Mark-Paul Gosselaar had died today in a horrible motorcycle accident, and we were all destroyed about it. I don't think I found out it wasn't true for a very long time.
It wasn't until quite a few years later, probably early 2000s, that I thought about that memory again, and when I looked it up on yahoo or msn or whatever, I surprisingly found tons of results of other people who remembered this happening in the early 90s too, including Mark-Paul Gosselaar himself dealing with the persisting rumors and people saying that he was dead. I seem to remember him saying it put him into a bit of a depression at the time, as his career had slumped by that time as well. Somehow, this was a VERY widespread rumor, but I don't think it was ever pinpointed exactly how or why the rumor ever came to be?
I was curious, for those old enough, to any of you remember hearing this rumor way back in the 90s? When I first heard the rumor, NOBODY I knew had the internet, even our school didn't have it yet. It kind of fascinates me how this possibly spread to the point where even I heard it in my tiny little town as a kid? I don't think it was ever in some official publication or even a tabloid.
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The Paul is Dead rumor, at least it's been fully documented how it came to be (McCartney's car really was crashed in January '67 on an icy night, he just wasn't in the car at the time, he was inside Mick Jaggers car instead) and it was written about at the time it happened (Published in Beatles Monthly Book in early 1967 as false rumour, cryptic clues appear in subsequent albums, pointed out to Russ Gibb by an anonymous caller in Summer 1969 telling him to play Revolution 9 backwards, story reaches national headlines immediately, leading to widespread rumors of an impostor as McCartney does not publically respond for over two weeks)
But the Zack Morris rumor, I'm far more fascinated how it possibly reached me in my neighbors driveway way back then. I'd be fascinated to know exactly who started the rumor, and how it managed to spread outside of the internet. Mark-Paul knew about the rumor very early on, but he was never able to come out an squash it. He never did anything to publically address it, and it came at a very odd time of his career. He was fresh off a smash hit TV show, yet typecast to the point where finding acting work suddenly became impossible.
The oldest published report of the rumor I can find is in this 1998 Toronto Sun article, about five years after the rumor first spread, when he was starring in the film, "Dead Man on Campus" - funny enough it even mentions 'The Wonder Years' rumor
By JIM SLOTEK -- Toronto Sun
HOLLYWOOD -- To the best of his recollection, it was in November of 1993 that Mark-Paul Gosselaar first discovered he had died.
"It was right around Thanksgiving," says the guy who played the smooth-talking, blond-haired Zack Morris for six years on NBC's Saturday morning high school series Saved By The Bell. "I read it on this (online) bulletin board and ever since it's been off and on. I've died a half a dozen times in different ways, motorcycle, car, drug overdose.
"I mean, I could go on and say 'Hey, I'm not dead!' But people go `N'uh-uh n'uh-uh, you're not him. You lie.'
Now 24 -- and, with a movie and TV series on the way -- Gosselaar is one of that ilk of celebrities tailor-made to become an urban myth. We're talking patently recognizable, with a hint of whatever-happened-to obscurity. It's how myths evolved that the kid who played Paul on The Wonder Years got to be Marilyn Manson and how Mikey from the Life commercials took acid and jumped off a building.
"I mean, for the longest time, I told people I wasn't online because I didn't want to answer for that kind of stuff. But there's a girl I gave the right to do an official Mark-Paul Gosselaar Web page. She was only 13 and very professional. I ran into it one day and called her and said 'Keep it up.' And she said `Can it be official?' and I said `Sure!' I love reading bulletin boards, y'know -- `I heard he's a homo', `I heard he's on drugs', `I heard he's dead'. My wife and I read this stuff and laugh."
A reporter tells him that he ran 'Mark-Paul Gosselaar' through a search engine and found online "nude" pictures -- the kind where a head is placed on someone else's body. "You're kidding? You actually saw it?" he says, beaming. "Was I huge?" Beyond huge, he's told. "That's great!"
Such is the turnaround for Mark-Paul Gosselaar these days that even the lies told about him are flattering.
Gosselaar rode out three dry years after leaving Saved By The Bell in '94 (the show -- which gave us such names as Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, and Beverly Hills 90210's Tiffani-Amber Thiessen -- still carries on with a younger class of kids, but has retained comic relief character Screech).
But this week he hits the big screen as co-star of the teen comedy Dead Man On Campus, about a straight-A, student-gone-wrong (Tom Everett Scott) and Cooper, his bad influence bong-smoking roommate (Gosselaar) who try to save their academic standing through the fabled Dead Man's Clause -- the one that says if your roommate dies you get an automatic pass. So they set about finding the most suicidal kid on campus and enlisting him as a roomie.
With the role, Gosselaar continues an ironic 11-year onscreen academic career that includes Saved By The Bell, Saved By The Bell: The College Years and Dead Man On Campus.
In fact, Gosselaar -- a child actor since age four -- hasn't been to a school since he started Saved By The Bell at age 13. "On the show, we had the three-hour-a-day tutor which was terrible."
It's not exactly a huge character arc from Zack to Cooper -- both being shallow, smooth-talking operators. He's a little prouder of the character he plays in Hyperion Bay, an upcoming WB fall series where he stars as a one-time high school geek who comes back to his small town as a software mogul and starts a computer company.
"The character didn't get girls in high school, he was overshadowed by his older brother. That felt more like me. I wasn't very popular when I was in school -- although people thought they knew a lot about me. They knew me from Mattel commercials and stuff. I always felt like such a freak, the kid that works, the one who gets paid to smile."
He met his wife Lisa, who was an extra, during the last season on the show. "I'd never dated anybody like that who came onto the show for a spot. But all of us on the show dated each other. Y'know it's kinda hard not to, working with these beautiful women for six years."
The romances among the cast apparently ran in all directions, though Gosselaar doesn't elaborate. He does allow he was close to Berkley and he only ever saw the controversial softcore Showgirls "on the Spectravision, with my head sideways to see through the squiggly lines. There were scenes I didn't watch. I couldn't stand to see Elizabeth that way."
After Saved By The Bell came the crash. "I wasn't working. I'd walk into a room and be typecast immediately as the guy from Saved By The Bell. They wouldn't give me a chance to show them otherwise. And I didn't work for three years. I mean, some actor who's bussing tables at Jerry's Deli would say 'Oh three years isn't that long of a time.' But when you've been successful for that many years and all of a sudden you hit a wall, well that's pretty hard.
"When I hear about Gary Coleman being a security guard, I can respect that. Because my cousin was a car detailer (a high-end cleaner) and I was set to detail cars for a living."
Coincidence or not, it was about then the outdoorsy Gosselaar took up skydiving. "I did 41 high jumps in three years and was ready to try skysurfing. Then I got married and bought life insurance and parachuting kind of went out the door. There were people who died that I was close to. Every time you go up there you go 'This could be it.' "
"Whatever happens, it's not the end of the world. Acting is just a ways and means to do things I enjoy ... which is racing cars, being on a boat, wakeboarding behind a boat, hanging out with friends, eating a good dinner and having a nice house to live in. It's really just a job for me."After three years, however, things began to change. Roles in direct-to-video films (he doesn't even want to identify them, but they include a thriller called Kounterfeit with Corbin Bernsen) were followed by parts in three movies-of-the-week and a successful audition for Dead Man On Campus. Luckily for Gosselaar, director Alan Cohn had never watched Saved By The Bell. After he made his casting decision, Cohn says he was second-guessed by the studio.
Maybe the death rumors were the only thing that kept him in the news and he went with it.
Mendela effect?
Sounds like this.
Mendela effect?
Sounds like this.
Ah I keep finding myself stumbling across this. It's interesting to think about it. Then it usually sends me down a string theory hole. My head just exploded.....
The real question here is why would parents hyphenate a first name? Did they just both want different names and couldn't decide on one together? Just weird to me. I would rather come up with a new name based off the two names like Markipauler than have a hyphenated 1st named baby!
I've always wondered this as well, haha.
Mendela effect?
Sounds like this.
I specifically remember my friend Justin telling me this, and I'm sure some other kid told him. This would of been around 1995 or so. Of course even then I was dubious of his bullshit after he tried to convince me Dallas Cowboys DE Daniel Stubbs was their best quarterback, and that the Scott Bakula movie Necessary Roughness featured a dozen on-field murders
But I did fear the Manson one and was like 'really?'
I think I even tried Looking at pictures of both to see if it was true lol
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
I specifically remember my friend Justin telling me this, and I'm sure some other kid told him. This would of been around 1995 or so. Of course even then I was dubious of his bullshit after he tried to convince me Dallas Cowboys DE Daniel Stubbs was their best quarterback, and that the Scott Bakula movie Necessary Roughness featured a dozen on-field murders
haha this reminds me of the Family Guy where Peter says something about the ghost of the dead kid in Three Men and a Baby
I specifically remember my friend Justin telling me this, and I'm sure some other kid told him. This would of been around 1995 or so. Of course even then I was dubious of his bullshit after he tried to convince me Dallas Cowboys DE Daniel Stubbs was their best quarterback, and that the Scott Bakula movie Necessary Roughness featured a dozen on-field murders
haha this reminds me of the Family Guy where Peter says something about the ghost of the dead kid in Three Men and a Baby
I remember that rumor. It's a standee of Ted Danson's character. It was seen earlier in the movie.
I did hear the Marilyn Manson rumors, but never this.
Playground rumor effect
This. The MM rumour was polpular, actually a few of his were like taking out ribs to suck himself off, but no the MPG rumour never made it to my playground.
Originally posted by: TheDream
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
Playground rumor effect
This. The MM rumour was polpular, actually a few of his were like taking out ribs to suck himself off
Holy shit, that's not true either?!? Absolutely remember being told that by a kid at Summer Camp in 1998ish!