Saved by the Bell is yet another TV show that has been revived because the audience demanded it. And I am actually looking forward to seeing the new show. The cast consists of the old cast but now their kids attend Bayside High. The announcement of the Saved by the Bell revival sure made me reminisce about the 1990s with the Spice Girls, my first Air Jordans, Cindy Crawford and high school!
Saved by the bell 1990s
Back in the 1990s, I would get home from school and the kids channel in The Netherlands would air the show every day at 16.00. I would follow the adventures of Zack Morris, Samuel “Screech” Powers, AC Slater, Kelly Kapowski and Lisa Turtle.
All of the students attended Bayside High with Principal Richard Belding who would frequently fall for Zack’s pranks and mischief.
Other great scenes would usually be the ones at The Max ran by a magician named Max (duh!) who would help the kids if they faced a moral dilemma and when he did, he did it with magic! It was so impressive back then. I mean who wouldn’t want to be a magician? In hindsight, I should have traded my chemistry set for a magician one back then, especially since David Copperfield was dating Claudia Schiffer at the time. Anyway, nerds from back then rule the world these days so, joke’s on you high school people who called me a nerd ;)
The show was originally called Goodmorning Miss Bliss and was set in Indianapolis. While the show was initially a moderate hit and more episodes were ordered, the ratings failed miserably. And because of that Disney were against ordering more episodes.
The head honcho of NBC at the time, Brandon Tartikoff, did like some of the elements of the Good Morning Miss Bliss TV show and asked Peter Engel to retool the show. NBC was losing young viewers to animated series on Saturday Morning and they wanted to get them back. Animated series like Batman: The Animated series and X-men: The Animated series. So you know what Saved by the bell was up against at the time. Huge competition.
So Tartikoff came up with a live action comedy series, which was unique back in the 1990s.
Peter Engel however wasn’t too fond of the idea and didn’t feel like making a children’s television series. Convinced by his wife, Engel told the NBC headhoncho’s that he would do Saved by the Bell. A title he didn’t even like.
Feeling that Indianapolis was not very exciting, Engel decided to move the show to a fictional part of Los Angeles. The main locations were Bayside High School and The Max cafeteria. Plus the show would be filmed before a live studio audience.
Most of the cast of Goodmorning Miss Bliss were replaced and Tartikoff gave the show a seven episode order. The name “Saved by the Bell” was suggested by senior producer Tom Tenowich. While Engel hated the name, Tartikoff loved it and it stuck. The first ever episode of Saved by the Bell aired on Prime Time on August 20, 1989.
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The Saved by the Bell spin offs
The original Saved by the Bell lasted for four years. The network decided to pull the plug but that wasn’t the end of the show.
NBC felt there was more that they could do with the show and created Saved by the Bell: The College Years. It was the first show in the Saved by the Bell franchise that didn’t air on Saturday morning but on Prime Time on Tuesday nights. The setting changed from Bayside High to the also fictional California University or Cal U. There is a nice pun in that name but I don’t know how to punch it.
While the show was initially a continuation of the Saved by the Bell series, the show would soon focus on college hardships. Like the first time you are away from home living in a dorm. The first time falling in love as an adolescent. In most of the series Zack tries to win back Kelly Kapowski who is dating her professor. He succeeds in the end and the two get engaged and married, against their parents wishes.
There was also a Saved by the Bell: The new class series. The characters on the show however were exact copies of their predecessors except with different names and to be fair: the cast lacked the chemistry the actors of the original series had on screen. In all the next classes, since the cast would change often as opposed to the original series where there few changes, the only constant would be Mr. Belding, played by Dennis Haskins.
Saved by the Bell 2020
The Saved by the Bell 2020 series is created by Prime Time Emmy award comedy writer Tracey Wigfield. Wigfield won the Emmy for the absolutely amazing show 30 Rock.
The premise reads as follows:
The series will center around a new group of Bayside High students from “overprivileged” and working-class families, among the latter of which were transferred to the school as part of a plan by now-California Governor Zack Morris—whose administration experiences controversy for closing too many low-income high schools—to send lower-income students to the highest-performing schools in the state.
For the series, the original cast returns for at least one or two episodes. Some will do all of them, some will only do a couple due to commitment to other shows. Mark-Paul Gosselaar for instance has a lead role on the comedy series “Grown-ish”. By the way, I would recommend you watch that! As well as Black-ish. But I digress, as I do more often in my articles.
While most of the cast immediately jumped on the bandwagon to do a reunion show, one cast member was left out. And not just the series but apparently also at cast reunions who would come together from time to time to catch up.
On the TV series called Dr. Oz she said the following about being left out:
“I have to admit I did feel a bit slighted and hurt when I was not invited to be part of the ‘Saved by the Bell’ reunion, as well as other cast members events,” Lark Voorhies shared. “Yet, of course, I also realize that having this puzzling disorder may have played a major part in that factual decision. With that in mind, I am truly thankful for having had the chance to work on a show that has been so successful.”
Lark Voorhies, who played Lisa Turtle in the original Saved by the Bell, was not even asked. She was interviewed and explained how hurt she felt but also indicated that the reason why she hasn’t been cast is because her bi-polar disorder.
Six days ago it was announced that Lark Voorhies will join her former castmates Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Tiffani Thiessen, Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkeley to star in Saved by the Bell 2020. Another happy ending!
What do I expect from the new series?
Like I wrote in the opening paragraph, when I watched the show I was a teen in the 1990s. I have watched all of the series, even sat through Saved by the Bell: The New Class for reasons. Yes, don’t make fun of me! And it was a different time. I doubt that the show has withstood the test of time but with the original cast returning, I am hoping to see some of that old chemistry in a new package and that the new students will be just as funny as the original. So I will watch a couple of episodes and then decide if it’s worth watching or not.
Things I am looking forward to is Zack Morris’ turning out exactly like him. Kelly Kapowski still looking as cute as she did before. And Jesse Spano’s environmental work and feminism would work so well in this day of age.
By the way did you know that talkshow host Jimmy Fallon also had somewhat of a reunion?
That reunion features a Jimmy Fallon at Bayside High telling the gang that he is moving to New York to pursue a career in comedy and eventually will have a talkshow. That part is pretty much based on the real Jimmy Fallon. Although I am not sure if he actually planned for a talkshow. What’s also mentioned is Fallon dating none other than Nicole Kidman. A story he would often tell people like Howard Stern and sometimes with Nicole Kidman as his guest.
The new Saved by the Bell 2020 will premier on November 25.
The actors poke fun at their acting roles after Saved by the Bell ended. It’s a funny sketch and you can clearly see how much Fallon loved the show:
