Dustin Diamond returns again to his inner Screech

NEW YORK - The rank of megastars known simply by one name includes, of course, Madonna, Cher, Beyonce, and Bono. Oh, and one more, surely - that man-boy known as Screech.

Samuel "Screech" Powers of the 1990s TV show Saved by the Bell has become almost an icon - for gross ineptitude. He was adorkable before there was such a thing. He even had a catchphrase: "Zoinks!"

Dustin Diamond, the man behind Screech, is 37 now. His hair is cut close to his skull and he wears a beard; both are flecked with gray. He's married, works as a stand-up comedian, and lives near Milwaukee.

For Diamond, Screech has been a curse and a career. He played the character for a decade and then tried to run away from Bayside High as fast as he could: Diamond was a jerk in a season of Celebrity Fit Club that he said was scripted. He released a sex tape, which he said was faked. And he revealed sordid details in a tell-all book, Behind the Bell, which he said was embellished by a ghost writer.

Diamond is back this Labor Day weekend mining familiar territory: Lifetime TV is running The Unauthorized 'Saved by the Bell' Story on Monday, which Diamond executive produced. And he's stepped into the Off-Broadway Bayside! The Musical! playing - you guessed it - Dustin Diamond, a man who never left high school.

The Associated Press sat down with Diamond to discuss the show, his missteps, and killing Screech.

Question: Your relationship with the show is sort of love-hate, isn't it?

Answer: Everybody of any magnitude that I can possibly think of has gone through love-hate relationships with something that becomes so big. The bigger it is, the more you go through it. Think of Star Trek or any band. . . . Give me some time away and, after there's some space created, then you can come back and give big hugs to the thing that brought you there.

Q: You've tried to wriggle free with Celebrity Fit Club, porn, and the book. How did that go?

A: That was really the one-two-three punch of being the bad boy, not the squeaky-clean Screech you remember, which, on one hand, helped because it did break that image. But in retrospect, I kind of wish I hadn't gone exactly that route. . . . I wanted to rattle the cage, but I didn't think that it would rattle it so much.

Q: Why did that show seize the culture so powerfully?

A: We never knew. I think looking back, the look and style of everything really sits well with nostalgic feelings of being young and being in school. The color palates that we chose, the outfits we were wearing, it kind of spoke to that generation.

Q: Have you kept in touch with some of your Saved by the Bell costars, like Mark-Paul Gosselaar or Tiffani Thiessen?

A: They can't say they really know me. The last time I saw Mark-Paul and Tiffany, I was 16. That was 21 years ago. That's a hefty amount of time to traverse in growth. I've done a lot of stuff since I was 16. I made a lot of growth changes.

Q: What can we expect from the TV movie?

A: The Lifetime movie is going to be based on my book in the way that it's a behind-the-scenes look, but my book was written by a ghost writer, and they tried to milk the negativity. It wasn't supposed to be a dirty tell-all.

Q: So the movie will set some of that right?

A: Yes. The overall vibe, the overall feel, should be pretty surprising. I think people who are warm to the show are going to watch it and really enjoy it. And the people who are skeptical are going to watch it and say, "Wow, OK. This wasn't what I thought it was going to be at all."

"The Unauthorized 'Saved by the Bell' Story"

9 p.m. Monday on LifetimeEndText