The Craziest Lost Beverly Hills, 90210 Episodes of All Time

“The Pits”

When Nestlé wants to construct a candy factory where the Peach Pit stands, Nat cracks under the pressure and sells. While Brandon is terribly disappointed, he takes heart in the knowledge that Nat received $100 million for his old restaurant. But Nat reveals that things aren’t so sunny in the episode’s climactic scene:

 

NAT: Oh, Brandon. I was just trying to save face. They didn’t pay me $100 million. All Old Man Nestlé gave me for the Peach Pit was two Kit Kats. It could have been worse; I could have gotten one Kit Kat. That would have only lasted me one minute. Two Kit Kats last me a minute fifteen. I eat the second one faster ‘cause I’m so sad. Thinking about that first Kit Kat, gone.

 

This is also the famous episode where Dylan is handsome and surfs.

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“Side Burned”

In a shocking season finale, Brandon and Kelly call off their engagement after Brandon discovers that Kelly has been carrying on an emotional affair with his sideburns. “Choose, Kel,” he demands: “them or me.” Crying, Kelly peels the sideburns off of Brandon’s face and drives down the coast with them in the passenger seat. Weeks later, when she realizes the sideburns are just hair, it’s too late—Brandon has already moved on to a relationship with the new sideburns he grew in her absence.

 

KELLY: It’s really over?

BRANDON: You had your chance, Kel. I’m with my new sideburns now.

 

KELLY: I should have left the cast with Shannen.

 

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“Silver Mettle”

David Silver loses the Peach Pit After Dark, his car, and his home when he can’t pay any of his bills because—even though he is still rich—he forgets how to open his wallet. He’s saved when his dad, who is also rich, comes by at the end of the episode and opens his own wallet to pay his son’s debts.

DR. SILVER: This is how you open a wallet, son.

DAVID: Oh, I forgot. Thanks.

 

DR. SILVER: I’m concerned about you.

DAVID: I am a cool DJ.

 

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“He’s an Eck! … House!”

Determined to expand the show’s audience beyond the teenage demographic, Fox executives pressured Aaron Spelling to build an episode around Jim Walsh, played by James Eckhouse. Backed by a soundtrack of the Commodores’ “Brick House” (with the chorus changed to “He’s an Eck! … House!”), Mr. Walsh looks over tax returns at his desk, shirtless. Ratings and audience testing were disastrous. Due to music-royalty issues, this episode is not available on DVD or streaming services. Mondo Kim’s Video in New York City stocked a bootleg VHS copy, but even that disappeared not long after the store shuttered early in 2009. Legend has it that, under cover of night, Fox and Mattel buried thousands of unsold James Eckhouse action figures deep in the New Mexico desert months after the episode aired.

 

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“Do You Hear That?”

Heartened by research that showed audiences loved the 90210 theme song, producers assembled this experimental episode whose simple plot—Brenda wants to ask Dylan out on a date, but Dylan ends up in the hospital from accidentally eating a bottle of hair gel—was complicated by the frequent intrusion of the distorted electric guitar, synthesizers, and saxophone of the show’s main theme.

BRENDA (Terrified): Did you hear that?

 

STEVE: Yes. Where is it coming from?

 

DAVID: I am a cool DJ.

 

Steve Sanders then starts a cult worshipping the strange sound and gains control of the townsfolk. Parents’ groups protested this episode for a scene in which Donna Martin reads the word “sex” while filling out an identification form.

 

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“The Gang’s All Here”

The later days of 90210 featured a lot of turnover, but nothing like this season 10 episode in which 67 cast members joined and left in the same hour.

 

VALERIE: I’m leaving town.

DAVID: But I’m in love with you!

(Valerie drives away.)

 

(Truman rides in on a horse.)

 

TRUMAN: I’m leaving, too.

(Cassidy lands in a helicopter.)

CASSIDY: Who are you?

 

TRUMAN AND CASSIDY (Simultaneously): I’m new in town!

CATDON WALSH, a talking cat with hair like Brandon’s, enters. He starts to speak, but is immediately captured by a hawk.

 

TV Guide hailed the episode as “confusing” and “the product of extensive drug use.”

 

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“The Pittance”

Nat confesses a dark secret to Brandon: the deal he accepted when Nestlé took over the Peach Pit was even less generous than he’d initially disclosed.

 

NAT: Oh, Brandon. I was just trying to save face. They didn’t pay me two Kit Kats. All Old Man Nestlé gave me for the Peach Pit was one poop. It could have been worse…

 

(Nat looks up and discovers it’s not Brandon listening to him at all, but Catdon.)

 

CATDON: I am a cool DJ.