I seriously didn't want to bring in a Saved by the Bell.  Never did much for me, and the people who liked it always bugged me.  High school was hell for me, and all shows that have high school kids as anything but miserable always puts me off (which is why my two favorite high school movies will always be Breakfast Club and 3 O'clock High).  However, for my Fantasy Logo section it is too perfect, and a lot of my friends liked it.  

If you are one of those people who loved the show, you can test yourself by taking this Saved by the Bell quiz.

Of course, the best thing about writing up something about any show that stars kids is you can now find a ton of stuff about how the child actors are totally messed up, and Saved by the Bell seems to be no exception.  Here are a few items I found:

Mario Lopez, who played muscle bound pretty boy A.C. Slater, is so obsessed with image that he made a girl work out extensively with a trainer, get liposuction, and a boob job before allowing her to be seen in public with him.  This article about it makes him look like a total ass.  I hesitated to link the Don’t Be a Slater Hater Facebook page, mainly because I can't figure out if it is making fun of him or praising him (possibly both).  By the way, the URL www.slaterhater.com is available if any of you want to make a Slater Hater club website.  I promise I will link it.  

Another teen star from the show, Elizabeth Berkley (I thought it was spelled with three e's), starred in the horrible-yet-weirdly-appealing movie Stippers (by the way, finding something interesting on a movie with a name like Strippers is pretty worthless, as the search engine gets gummed up with about 100,000 sites trying to hook you up with actual strippers.  However, if I find myself setting up a bachelor party soon I now have the resources needed).  She received two Razzies for it, and the roll appears to have tainted her career ever since.  Not much since then besides bit parts and independent films.  What do you do if your film career has more or less stalled out?  Write a self help book, of course!  Maybe I"m getting cynical in my old age, but a girl who started trying to be an actress at age 10 and played a stripper in a movie does not strike me as the best person to address teenage girl self esteem issues.

Speaking of the movie Strippers, I remember when it came out in 1995.  A friend of mine saw it and said it was horrible.  I said wait for video and he looked me in the eye and said "No.  See it on the biggest screen you can find."  Of course, the all time best stripper movie will always be Zombie Strippers.  Also, I was looking for one of those stripper training courses or pole dancing classes (I had a girlfriend who decided to take one of those AFTER we broke up.  Life sucks) to link and stumbled across this hilarious video of a stripper training session turned into a catfight.  While less than wholesome, this video is more or less clean.

Bad taste fashion model Lark Voorheis (Lisa Turtle) has been married twice and has one child.  Not bad, as these thing go.  Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack Morris) played a detective on NYPD blue and now has two kids.  Tiffanie-Amber (what's the deal with hyphenated first names on this show) Theissen (Kelly Kapowski) played Valerie Malone on 90210 (another show that give me stomach pains) for four years but never really went anywhere else.  Image obsessed d-bag Mario Lopez (A.C. Slater) did some lame shows then was on Dancing with the Stars.  Now he is host of some lame MTV dance show (remember when MTV would show music videos?).  Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie Spano) had her career torpedoed by Strippers and now is an author and most recently hosted Step Up and Dance.  Dustin Diamond (Screech Powers) is probably the biggest train wreck from the show.  He is now a part time porn star and is in serious danger of becoming homeless.  Dennis Haskins (Principal Richard Belding) is now doing karaoke videos which have a weird amount of viral popularity.  Leanna Creel (Tori Scott, the only girl in the show that really appealed to me) got cool after the show and is now a photographer.  Leah Remini (Stacey Carosi) had a huge career as a main character on King of Queens (a show I actually liked).  Ernie Sabella (Leon Carosi) now plays the voice of Pumbaa on the Lion King (Ha ha ha).  

One of these days I'm going to figure out why I always seem to do the most work on the shirts I care the least about.  Also, in a surreal twist there was also at once point a Saved by the Bell comic book.  Life is strange.