Was Zack Morris, hero to Bayside High, actually a villain the whole time?
Did he actually have super-powers?
And what was up with Screech's creepy robot, Kevin?
We answer these burning questions and more with things only adults notice about Saved
by the Bell.
You could make a full-length documentary on the inconsistencies in Saved by the Bell,
but the most jarring timeline mistakes are all the result of how the show started out
as something very different than what it became.
"All right, what's going on?"
"Nothing!
What do you mean?"
Originally, the show was called Good Morning Miss Bliss, and was built around Parent Trap
star Hayley Mills as a teacher at John F. Kennedy Junior High School in Indianapolis
and her students.
When Miss Bliss was cancelled after one season, the show was revamped into Saved by the Bell,
which put the focus on the kids instead.
The school's location was changed from Indiana to Bayside High in Los Angeles and while Zack,
Screech, Lisa, and Mister Belding stuck around, the other characters, including Miss Bliss,
were dropped.
"I hate to tell you this…"
"Please don't start a sentence that way."
Everything else stayed the same, and that led to some illogical backstories later in
the series.
For example, Zack and Jessie often reminisce about their childhoods together as neighbors...when
they likely lived more than 2,000 miles away from each other.
Kelly Kapowski apparently went to junior high with the group as well, but we know that can't
be true either.
And it's also pretty weird that three kids and their principal all moved across the country
to the same new new school district at the same time.
While Saved by the Bell had plenty of unrealistic antics and ridiculous plot points, the show
was grounded in reality… more or less.
"I'm here to investigate an alien sighting …”
“You really believe there are people here from other planets?”
“Well... they have to be somewhere"
It definitely got weird, but almost everything that took place, however unlikely, could have
actually happened… except for one major element.
Zack Morris's bizarre ability to stop time.
The "Time Out" scenes mostly work as a narrative conceit, giving Zack a chance to speak to
the audience directly about whatever's going on in the show.
On more than one occasion, though, he actually interacts with the people and things around
him while they're frozen in time, even using it at one point to dodge a punch thrown by
another character.
It's likely because of this that some people buy into the theory that Saved by the Bell
is all part of Zack's imagination or dream world.
How else can you explain Zack's mystical powers, his incredible luck, or his elite status within
the school?
When you compare his change from a junior high student in Indiana to the coolest kid
at a California high school, the theory becomes even more plausible.
Speaking of unexplained and incredibly implausible elements of Saved by the Bell, we really need
to talk about Kevin.
Unlike many of the nerds in Saved by the Bell, Screech never really seemed all that smart.
With a twelve-hundred score on the SATS, he occupied a weird sort of in-between space
for '90s nerds, and was usually more awkward than brainy.
Except for the time he designed and built a living robot named Kevin, that is.
"Good morning, Zack."
"Oh, hi, Kevin.
Can I come in?”
"Sure. I'm dressed."
The fact that Screech somehow created a full on artificial intelligence is weird enough.
But really, the problem here isn't the how.
It's the why.
Screech spends the entire series being justifiably dunked on by his crush and being used as a
pawn in the complicated schemes of his only "friend," teenage con artist Zack Morris.
With that as his social life, he somehow created a robot that, despite having intelligence,
emotions, and all the other hallmarks of humanity, had no choice but to live in his bedroom and
be his friend.
Screech even made Kevin incapable of making any facial expression other than smiling,
which just adds to the creepiness of the whole situation.
It could be worse, though.
Being created to spend your entire life in Screech's bedroom listening to his jokes is
bad enough.
But at least he didn't use his weird talent for robotics to build a cybernetic Lisa Turtle
to take the place of the real one.
That we know of.
It doesn't take an adult to notice that certain characters go missing throughout the seasons
of Saved by the Bell.
In fact, no matter what your age, you would have to be in pretty rough shape not to notice
that Kelly and Jessie mysteriously vanish for about half the episodes in season four.
It's only really as adults that we notice how scrambled season four really was, and
why there was actually a pretty good reason for it.
For half of that season, we saw episodes with the new student, Tori, played by Leanna Creel.
This was because, after shooting the season four finale, the network ordered more episodes,
shooting for the even 100 that they'd need to get the show into syndication.
Unfortunately for the producers, this happened during pilot season.
As Mr. Belding himself, Dennis Haskins explained in an interview, Kelly and Jessie actresses
Tiffani Amber Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley wanted to move on to other projects instead
of coming back to Bayside for the TV equivalent of summer school.
To fill the void, the show brought in Creel, shot a 10-episode arc about Tori, and then
crammed those episodes into the middle of the season where they hoped nobody would notice
the change.
While they certainly made some attempts at Very Special episodes, Saved by the Bell's
track record of teaching its viewers actual lessons was spotty at best.
More often than not, the show indulged in its fair share of fear-mongering, especially
in regards to soft drugs.
In the show's defense, the happy-go-lucky feel just wouldn't allow for an episode on
heroin, but it's hard for an adult to take the drama surrounding caffeine pills seriously.
"I got hooked on caffeine pills so I could stay up and study.
Not only did I hurt myself I hurt my friends!”
"This is really good stuff!"
The original plan for the infamous "Jessie's Song" episode, however, was to warn kids about
something a little stronger.
According to the show's executive producer, Peter Engel, the caffeine pills were originally
supposed to be genuine methamphetamines.
In his book, I Was Saved by the Bell, Engel explained that NBC's Standards and Practices
department vetoed the decision and made them change the speed to standard issue caffeine
pills.
As Engel wrote,
"We might as well have had Jessie getting addicted to earl grey, or breaking into the
Max to snort coffee grounds."
Saved by the Bell deserves some credit for its seemingly colorblind casting of its main
actors, but it also wound up with some of the most insanely cringeworthy moments when
it turned its attention to race.
Need an example?
Just take a look at "Running Zack" and try not to shudder when Zack's presentation begins.
In the episode, the kids are assigned to do a report on their ancestry, and it does not
go well.
In addition to Lisa referring to the Underground Railroad as "the original Soul Train" and
Jessie freaking out over the reveal that her ancestors were slave traders, we have Zack.
After learning that he has a distant Native American relative, Zack gives a jaw-droppingly
racist presentation where he paints Screech's face with lipstick and has him wave around
a tomahawk.
Since this is Zack Morris, his teacher gives him a do-over rather than just failing him,
so, Zack goes out and does some actual research, meets with a real Native American named Chief
Henry, and then somehow becomes even more racist.
Zack's second presentation is delivered in a full buckskin costume complete with a war
bonnet, and he refers to himself as "Running Zack."
The show obviously means well, but if your attempt to deal with a serious issue hinges
on Screech doing racist vaudeville bits, maybe just stick to jokes about math tests.
In general, kids shows exist within an innocent universe.
Add in that Saved by the Bell aired in the late '80 and early '90s, and you have a perfect
storm of sin-free entertainment.
Adults, on the other hand, are jaded.
We've been beaten down by the world and groomed into downtrodden cynics.
If there's something sinister lurking in the shadows of Bayside, we'll spot it.
"Belding still wants us parading around in bathing suits!"
That's why we struggle to see Mr. Belding the way we used to.
He used to be part of the gang, a well-meaning principal who took an interest in his students.
Nowadays, it's pretty clear that he wouldn't last long as a principal, and might even end
up on the news.
Seriously, we have questions.
We wonder why he's laying on Zack's bed, for instance.
According to the show, this is perfectly normal behavior, and there were no consequences for
it, or any of Mr. Belding's other weirdly creepy actions.
Like, say, wrestling with Slater, barging into the girls' locker room, and shutting
down the school's attempts at actually educating children in order to deliver a moral lesson
to exactly one of them.
When we were kids, Zack was a true ladies man.
He could do wrong.
Whenever he gave a female character his unsolicited attention, it was a blessing, and the women
of Bayside High should have thanked this golden-haired god for giving them the time of day.
Today, however, a character like Zack probably couldn't exist as a hero.
Even in the original series, there are a few moments where Zack's schemes went from innocent
to practically criminal.
"Oh I'm furious, but killing Zack isn't the answer.
He'll just do it again."
Take "Model Students," for example, an episode in which Zack creepily takes unwelcomed photos
of female students in swimsuits and uses them to create and sell a "Girls of Bayside" calendar.
That's a plot better suited for a modern horror movie than a kids TV show.
Or, even worse, "The Zack Tapes," where Zack learns to use subliminal messaging to get
his way.
Unfortunately for the women at Bayside High, Zack's "way" is to coerce women into relationships
against their will through mind control.
It might be played for laughs on the show, but that is a straight up supervillain plot.
It's no wonder that Jessie has to rally the entire school into one united force, bailing
on all of classes they're supposed to be taking in order to stop him.
It's basically Saved By The Bell: Endgame.
The rules of acceptable behavior have changed alongside our growing social awareness and
sensitivities.
Zack and the kids watching him back in the Saved by the Bell era may not have known better,
but we do.
That's why, when watching this show as an adult, we might be hit with the nagging question:
if this show was made today, would Zack be the bad guy?
Young Mister Morris's antics have definitely not aged well, but even back in the '90s,
we knew Zack was flawed.
If nothing else, he lies constantly, about some pretty big things.
"I can't believe Zack Morris is dying."
Fast forward a few years, and we've got plenty more disturbing behaviors that paint Zack
as a pretty bad dude.
When Wendy wins Zack in "Date Auction," Zack ignores her, insults her, and shames her for
being overweight.
In "Home for Christmas," he insults homeless people and develops a minor savior complex
about one of them.
He constantly bullies the kids in school, and even mocks his friends.
In "Teen Line," the victim of his insults and social obliviousness was a young woman
in a wheelchair.
"Whoa.
You're in a wheelchair."
But there's a reason he's so horrible, at least in the first half of every episode.
All of those many mistakes that he made taught him lessons, and learning those lessons made
him a better person.
Still, it's hard to watch the way Zack treated others around him, and then forgive him simply
because he learned it was wrong.
But maybe we learned to be better people through Zack's horrible mistakes.
If you're ever in doubt, just ask yourself what Zack Morris would do...and then try to
do the opposite.
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