tek's rating:

Saved by the Bell, on NBC
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I didn't get NBC when this aired on Saturday mornings, but my CBS station would air it on Saturday afternoons. Anyway... I enjoyed it. I thought Zack was really cool. Mr. Belding was funny. Screech was kinda funny, if somewhat annoying. I suppose they were all kinda funny. The Max was also a cool hangout, especially when Max himself was running the place. Of course, I suppose I watched this for years before I learned it was like a sort of spin-off or continuation of a series called Good Morning, Miss Bliss. They eventually reran old episodes of that, so I got to see a bit of it. It wasn't really any different from SBTB as far as I recall, except that it included a teacher named Miss Bliss (Hayley Mills), and of course the kids were younger. There were also later spin-offs of SBTB (The College Years, of which I saw very little, remember basically nothing, and isn't really worth mentioning anyway; and The New Class, which I never saw at all).

Anyway, SBTB was about this group of friends who went to Bayside High together. The main character seemed to be Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), who was sort of... I dunno, a bit of a schemer or whatever. I don't remember that well. His best friend was a brainy girl named Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley). His girlfriend was Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Amber Thiessen). There was also a jock named A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez), and a geek named Samuel "Screech" Powers (Dustin Diamond). Screech really liked this girl named Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies), who was rather vain and spoiled I think, and didn't like Screech, except as a friend. And the principal was Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins). And I dunno what else to say.

I can't remember too much specifically about anything that ever happened on the show. But... after I stopped watching it, I eventually felt guilty about ever having watched it or liked it. Like, it was really pretty lame, or whatever. Still, Adult Swim reran the show for a little while, long after the show's original run ended. Eventually I tried catching an episode, but I only watched a very little bit of it because it sucked beyond my capacity to bear. I dunno, maybe there are episodes I wouldn't mind watching again someday, but I may never know. I doubt I'll ever try to watch it, if the opportunity presents itself. But whatever, it's a part of my TV-watching past, and as such holds a certain nostalgic value for me, so... there you are. (I also think of it as kind of a progenitor of the modern era of teen sitcoms.)


kid stuff
kid stuff nostalgia
TNBC