The Final Episode #60: Saved by the Bell (1989 - 1993)

 

I really like how I choose shows for The Final Episode. Sometimes it's a show that pops into my head and then sometimes I go to look at my totally legal non pirated DVDs and I go "Hey why HAVENT I talked about this show? I then watch the Final Episode. I then vomit up a few thousand words about whatever television show I watched. I'm trying to keep from saying "Hey this is a clip show episode so you can just skip reading this because it'll be lousier than my usual discussions on goofy things like Saved by the Bell.

Saved by the Bell was a sitcom that ran for five seasons between 1989 and 1993. It ran on NBC on Saturday Morning and was a big deal. It even got NBC out of doing cartoons for Saturday Morning and in the 1990s it was Saved by the Bell and like 3 other Saved by the Bell ripoffs. Like the least interesting and not entertaining version of the show. It was like "lets give these snot nosed bastards what they want! the same damn thing" and this is coming from a man who's seen and liked about 53 Jaws ripoffs. Saved by the Bell ripoffs were very lazy.

The actual shows history is kinda interesting. It was first a show called Good Morning Miss Bliss that was made for the Disney Channel I believe. It was based around the adults of the school with the kids being more of a B-plot. Hayley Mills of The Parent Trap fame. It lasted a season but the creator Peter Engel believed it could work. They dropped all the teachers to bit parts and decided to focus on the kids. It was great and they could just shove the Good Morning, Miss Bliss episodes in as a part of the syndication package as a bonus! Just shove a scene of Zack Morris talking about how this was from before high school and blammo! 13 new episodes for everyone to enjoy.

The shows ongoing plot was well the adventures of a teenage sociopath named Zack Morris. He would constantly fuck over his friends and then try to win them back. I'm pretty sure grown up adult Zack Morris has several dead bodies in his backyard. Just saying. His friends were Screech, a big nerd and the best member of the cast. I loved that guy and I'm very sad that he died. I have a movie called Purple People Eater in which he AND Chubby Checker are in. That's something huh. AC Slater a jock who at first wants to date Kelly who Zack also wants to date but ends up dating Jessie, a artsy feminist weirdo. Kelly was the head cheerleader. Lisa Turtle was into fashion. and being black. 

I loved this show as a kid like capital L loved it. They would show so many episodes in the morning on TBS. Like at least 5 each day. It was like yeah shove on Saved by the Bell whatever and did this for at least a decade. I'm sure of it. I would watch this as much as possible. On days off from school or the summer or whenever I pretended to be sick. I once pretended to be sick for a damn week. It was great. I got to watch so much tv and play Super Nintendo that week! What a time to be alive. This show was ridiculous and I thought hilarious. The characters were incredibly fun and there's a reason why they actually went through with a reboot of it and not just saying "OH WE ARE REBOOTING (insert thing here)" and never do it. The reboot was actually decent enough too.

The Final Episode was called Time Capsule and involved a bunch of kids that were totally like the original gang finding a Time Capsule from 1993. So they watch the Video cassette and then random clips from old episodes pop up. Like one of these clips is a dream. How the hell did they get video of that?  So we just have Mr. Belding with a bad mustache watching these clips with the 2003 class that is just like the 1993 class because they think thats funny or interesting. Why not have a weird story involving the Time Capsule and these new kids and then have the old kids come in via video at the end. That would be better than another lazy ass clip show episode. I didn't even like clipshows when I was a kid. I don't know why they would bother rerun them. I guess they did it because Saved by the Bell only had 86 episodes and they needed every one they could but man no one wanted to watch a clip show ever. Except maybe in the days before VCRS and shit.

FINAL VERDICT: I like to talk at least a little bit about the Final Episode but there's really nothing to do with a clip show. I was going to go look for a list of what episodes these clips originally came from but I figured I'd be as lazy as the people who did this clip show. At least have the cast team up with David Hasselhoff from Baywatch or some NBC show that no one remembers now if your gonna do a clip show. FUCK.