-Our next guest is an actress and Emmy Award-winning writer
you know from shows such as "Great News,"
"The Mindy Project," and "30 Rock."
Her new show "Saved by the Bell" is streaming now on Peacock.
Let's take a look.
-If we can't agree at this table,
then how are we gonna get the whole school to walk out?
Bayside has like a million cliques.
Got the artsy kids,
the girls who code,
the cool Christians,
uncool Christians.
-Mm. Yeah, but there's Douglas kids in all of those groups.
And you guys are our friends.
-Yeah, but being friends with someone doesn't mean
you're willing to put your neck out for them.
-Listen, I can get people at this school to do anything.
Did you notice how everyone here calls soda "fizzy juice?"
I made that happen for a reason I don't remember.
-Okay, Lexi, you and Jamie try to get everyone on board.
Devante, Aisha, and I will reach out to local media
and convince them to cover the walkout.
-And as soon as my dad picks up, I'll convince him to come.
-Your wait time is approximately 4 billion minutes.
-Please welcome to the show Tracey Wigfield.
How are you, Tracey?
-Hi, Seth. I'm good. How are you?
-I am wonderful.
I know that you are working on Season 2 of
"Saved by the Bell" right now in what is a very packed house.
Who do you have living under your roof right now?
-Yeah, so we -- it's my husband and I.
And my husband is a comedy writer too.
And then we have two kids.
I have a daughter who's three and then a daughter who was born
just two weeks before everything went into lockdown,
so she's about to be one now.
And then my parents have been quarantining with us too.
So, my mom was out here when the baby was born,
and so she's been with us for a year!
-[ Laughs ]
-Which is long, and my father, who is an attorney
in New Jersey, came out in the summer.
So we have just, like, such a loud house all the time.
It's like my children are screaming
and I'm in a Zoom room downstairs,
and my husband is in a Zoom room in the baby's room,
and my dad's, like, running a legal practice
in the other kid's room with a bunch of, like, loud alarms
that, I guess, like, baby boomers, like guys in their 60s
just always have a bunch of different phone alarms
going off all the time.
My mom is watching, like, "90 Day Fiancé" at full blast.
It's just, like, not quiet ever.
-I'm always delighted by stories about your mother.
And she must be spending a lot of time with your kids.
-Yes, yeah, I know.
I made a show, "Great News," that was on NBC
and is on Netflix now, about my mom,
and I'm always so frustrated because I have stories
every day that are so easy that I can just steal.
But my mom -- it's really sweet.
My mom and my 3-year-old daughter have, like,
a really sweet relationship, and they're really close too,
but over the course of this year, they've been spending
so much time together that my 3-year-old, I realize just now,
has the personality of a 65-year-old, like,
Italian American woman from New Jersey, where they,
you know, she's like really brassy and confident and she --
the other day, my daughter Celine was, like, on her iPad
and trying to get, like, "Paw Patrol"
to load or whatever, and she was getting frustrated and she goes,
"Oh, [bleep]" [ Laughter ]
And I was like, "What? What did she say?"
And she was like [bleep], which I guess is good
that she's not saying the F-word in English,
but she's just like Paulie Walnuts or something.
-I feel like, not to get too far into the, like,
therapist's office, but I feel like by naming your daughter
Celine, you tried very hard not to have that happen.
-Yes. I wanted -- I wanted a French fancy person,
but we've just been pulled back to suburban New Jersey.
My mother -- and it's really sweet because my daughter, like,
loves hearing my mom's stories.
Like, my mom is always telling her about, like, growing up
in the '60s in New Jersey, and, you know, my daughter is
at that age where she loves to, like, play things that,
you know, and make us play with her and, you know.
She'll be like, "Let's play Grandma when she was little,
and I'll be Grammy and you be Tommy Tomassi,
the guy who owned the meat store and got Grammy's daddy
tickets to the fireman's carnival."
-[ Laughs ] -And I'm like, "I don't know --
I don't know who this guy is, what his characteristics are,
what this story is."
-That's fantastic.
Hey, congratulations on this show, which is really wonderful.
And one of the best elements about it is you are writing
in the "Saved by the Bell" universe,
which is something I have heard that you were doing,
obviously not for television at the time,
when you were 12 years old.
-Yes, so, you know, I've been a fan --
like a lot of people my age, I've been a fan
of "Saved by the Bell," you know, my whole childhood.
It was just one of those shows that for some reason was on
in repeats like 24 hours a day,
on 6 different channels all the time.
So it was just a huge part, and I've heard from other people
in doing the show that it was
a huge part of their childhood too.
But, you know, my best friend Renata and I used to make,
like, funny comedy videos because we loved "SNL" and stuff
and we wrote, like, a parody, like, "Saved by the Bell" movie,
and when I started -- you know, when I pitched this show
and started working on it and stuff,
Renata sent me the script she still had of it.
And I was like, "Oh, my God,
this is going to be so embarrassing."
It was something I wrote when I was 12.
And when I read it, I was like,
"You know, it's pretty good.
It's like 1% better than, like, the stuff I write now."
[ Laughter ]
-But you've actually gotten to work with the original cast.
That must be just a trip.
-It's thrilling.
Like, you know, because I say this
and I feel like people think I'm stupid or something,
but, like, "Saved by the Bell" really was huge for me.
It was like my "Star Wars."
That's, like, an embarrassing thing to admit, I guess.
But, you know, it's so cool to love something so much
when you're a kid and then be able to, like,
pitch your own version of it
that is very much done in reverence
but also a little bit poking fun at it.
And it has created this situation where there's, like,
you know, the 10-year-old inside me is getting --
has too much power and is like a child tyrant running the show.
Like, you know, I loved Zack and Kelly so much,
and, like, they showed me what love is meant to be.
-[ Laughs ] -And, you know, I was, like,
in situations this year where I'm, like, producing a scene
where I can be like, "Kiss again, Zack and Kelly.
Do it again. Kiss her longer," or whatever.
And I'm like, "What are you doing? Be an adult."
-Well, I will say, I think it's a show --
I know it to be a show that a lot of people care deeply about.
And it is in such a safe pair of hands with you.
Congratulations on it,
and thanks so much for spending time with us.
-Thanks so much. This was fun.
-Season 1 of "Saved by the Bell" is streaming now on Peacock.