September 13, 2022 • 39 mins
"DID I DO THAT?" - Yes, yes you did. You gave us a strawberry and banana flavored cereal named after one of the most annoying characters this side of Jar Jar Binks. In the early 90's, Urkel-mania was EVERYWHERE, even on the cereal aisle. Is this one best left to the dustbin of history? Probably. What about Saved By The Bell? It's practically an institution, but should it instead be locked away in a vault, never to be seen again? Listen and find out!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the Way Back Machine
with a bowl of your favorite cerealto relive the cartoons that made it worth
waken up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning super Cast. Good
(00:42):
morning, and welcome to the SaturdayMorning super Cast, where it's always Saturday
morning and the cereal bowl is alwaysfull. I'm Jeff, I'm Corey.
I'm so excited. Yeah, therewe go, folks, And I'm so
scared that that was a little givingyou a hint about what we might be
discussing today. We're we're continuing ourdive into the anomaly of I guess,
(01:07):
the sort of an anomaly the semianomaly of live action Saturday morning sitcoms.
We're gonna be talking about the Iguess the I guess this is like the
one to beat right, saved bythe Bell? Yeah, sure, absolutely,
I mean, as Saturday morning sitcomsgo, I would assume. But
before we get into that, we'regoing to talk about another another phenomenon of
(01:29):
the nineties, late eighties, earlynineties. Yeah. So we talked about
family matters on the pilot episode awhile back, and we didn't touch on
Steve Urkel as a character very much, because he's not in the pilot episode,
thank goodness. However, lest anybodyforget just what a pop culture juggernaut
Jilliel White's character was. In nineteenninety one, he got his own cereal
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called urkle Os and it lasted exactlythe year nineteen ninety one, and that
was it. You can't find anythingabout it being on shelves after that or
anything. So um the show premierHe premiered on the show at eighty nine,
so within two years he was hewas so popular that he had his
own cereal. Do either of youremember this cereal being on shelves for that
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twelve month period? No, nota bit did I do that? No
me either. I vaguely, Ivaguely remember hearing the name, Like when
I read the name when I wasdoing research, I thought, Okay,
that sounds vaguely familiar, and Iwondered why if it was something I would
have tried, And when I foundout so so, folks. They're basically
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they were oh shaped rings that lookedlike fruit loops and had the same consistency,
but they were strawberry and banana flavored. You had one pinkish red one
and one yellow one. I guessthey were pinkish red and yellow. Um,
which is not a combination that appealsto me. What about you,
guys? Now, I know sometimesyou guys, I guess maybe olidia if
I'm remembering correctly. Well, sometimesslice up banana to put in your cereal
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or did I make that up?Uh? No, you did not.
That is fact. Okay. Isthere anything about the combination of strawberry banana
flavored basically fruit loops and appeals toyou? I would say no. And
here's why. Historically, Strawberry Chemicalmass produced fake strawberry, usually fars okay,
(03:23):
And you also have the sliced,freeze dried space strawberries in products like
special K. Right. Fake bananahistorically does not work well. Um.
Actually, just the other day Itried something that was supposed to Oh it
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was a pepperich farm but it wassupposed to be like a banana swirl bread
loaf bread, and I tried it. My mom really liked it. She
happened to have this loaf just kindof on a whim. She saw it
and thought, oh, give thisa shot. She really liked it.
Banana bread is big in my parentshousehold. I tried it, and I
(04:10):
was just slept in the face bychemical banana. So I see the banana
specifically as being a potential Achilles healright, saying, well, we've discussed
before that I can't stand banana inany way, shape or form. So
this is a hard, hard nofor me. Corey. What about you?
Anything about this appeal to you?Yeah, I kind of like both
(04:32):
of you guys. Fake banana.Artificial flavor has never really been a winner
in my book. But you know, the other flavors I'm not necessarily against.
Yeah, strawberry, I could getbehind it if it was just strawberry.
We've talked about before, like thestrawberry honeycomb that I really like.
But yeah, I and I'm tryingto figure out So this makes perfect sense
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from a marketing perspective. You know, we've been talking the last few shows
about you know, tie in cereals, and this certainly makes more sense than
Wishing Stars with Jimmy Crickett. Ifyou're gonna, if you're gonna zero in
on one character, Steve Urkel isdefinitely the one to do it. At
ninety one was right in the thickof Urkelemania, So I completely understand.
I think the merchandising tie in makestotal sense. Family Matters was huge the
(05:17):
Friday Night Um oh what was thatcalled? Thank you? Um? That
was huge. So having a tiein product with all of that makes total
sense. Um. Once again,I think this suffers my strawberry and banana,
I think is what I'm wondering about. Well, okay, that's a
(05:38):
two valid questions. One why strawberrybana? Two Again, we're just recycling.
It's kind of lazy cereal making.We're recycling shape, we're recycling a
concept. It just looks like reworkedfruit loops. It's kind of like and
Corey back me up in this.It's kind of like back when Nintendo Supernintendo
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Genesis was the thing, and theywould they would release a movie tie in
video game and a lot of timesthey would just take an existing game and
slap a do paint job on it. Oh yeah, kin sir, absolutely
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what he said. That's sort of
what it reminds me of. Umno oh, no, I get that.
Yeah. I'm assuming we probably allhad sort of the same mileage out
of Steve Urkel because we're all roughlythe same age. Um. I thought
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he was funny to begin with,but after about an episode and a half,
I thought, okay, this I'veseen enough, and I think where
we all pretty much on the samepage about that. Yeah, I would
say so yeah, and it becauseit sort of got more heavy handed as
the show went on, and Iespecially got lost and left behind when the
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whole like uh Stefan or Kell thingthat was that was great because they gave
Jalil White a chance to show hisrange. Sure, yeah, so so
much range, so deep, umso well, And then I would always
get annoyed as a kid when majorcharacters would come on and a sitcom and
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immediately get um live studio audience applauseon their very first entrance applause. Right,
that bothered me for some reason,Like it bothered me with this.
It even bothered me in like classicTV kind of situations, like when the
Fawns would make his first walkout appearancein an episode of Happy Days and the
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studio audience would always you cheer anapplaud that annoyed me. Oh yeah,
I'm with you there, Yeah,I'm with you there, Like why are
they excited? He just he showedup right, are at home or we
at home expect to do a plautor anything, and then yeah, um,
so I get that completely. Sothe other thing, the thing that
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I really am surprised about is effectthat the ceial didn't last, because again,
he was such a fan, especiallyif kids, little kids loved him.
I went to church with a kidwho did, who walked around with
his pants pulled up, saying,got any cheese all the time, just
because of Steve Urkel. So Ihave to imagine, do we think this
would have been a little more successfulhad they chosen a different flavor combination than
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strawberry and banana, because I don'tknow many little kids who like banana flavored
anything if they have the choice.Yeah, I think they may have had
a bit more mileage. But it'sreally tough to say, because I think
kids back then kind of ate anythingbecause the mass marketing was huge back then.
That's true, agreed from the parentperspective, I could see parents being
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more eager to buy it if itwasn't such an irritating, polarizing character tie
in character, right, Yeah,irritating and polarizing, that's that's a perfect
description for Steve Urkel. This is. The banana is one thing, but
appearing with strawberry just doesn't seem wedidn't know, again, if you're aiming
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it at kids, because strawberry isI've always thought of as more of an
adult flavor. Maybe maybe I'm theweird one there. I mean, obviously,
you know, strawberry quick is athing, but when I think of
strawberry cereal, I'll think about itbeing not quite as sweet and so especially
pairing it with with banana, Idon't know. I don't know that I
would say strawberry is more of anadult flavor. I would definitely say more
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tropical fruits are adult flavors. Sowhen we get into things like um,
pineapple, mango, papaya, kiwi, coconut like basically all the pina colada
flavors, the tropical drink flavor,those, yeah, those strike me as
adult flavors. Um, strawberries andbananas I think are super kid friendly.
(09:46):
But I think if most kids areexperiencing banana, it's because they're eating a
banana, not because they're having weirdbanana flavor. Mass produced products right,
oh boy, the boxes the boxart for lack of a better term,
of course, obviously, all featuredSteve Urkel, and if you go to
(10:07):
mister Breakfast dot com, they haveprobably the most famous one, which is
Steve Urkel decked out in like almostlike Uncle Sam regalia. He looks like
a band leader or something, andhe's got like, you know, red
and white striped pants and there's alittle circle on it that says Erkele for
president. Um, and we reallydodged a bullet there. Presale promotion of
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the box referred to it as afun circle shaped product, which sounds about
as generic as you can get.Yeah, exactly so. And again,
folks, the reason we kind ofwanted to talk about this is because it
was something that was, you know, aimed at kids from a from a
sitcom to kind of match up wesaved by the Bell, But um,
we never got a saved by theBell cereal that I'm aware of. And
(10:48):
I was surprised by that when Iwas doing my research. Um, so,
is there there's Is there anything aboutthis that would appeal to you now
if they were to rerelease it otherthan the fact that it's tied into Steve
Urkel. Yeah no, absolutely not. Yeah, I'm out. Okay,
yeah, me too. There's nothingfor me here, Yeah, met me
(11:09):
too. But I would love tohear what our listeners say about it,
So, especially if any of youthat are listening remembered erk Rolls and actually
had abal I'd love to know justhow they tasted. I can't imagine it
tasted very good, because again,if they were good, they'd be on
the shelves longer. But I reallywas surprised at the fact that it only
lasted a year, because again,this was right in the middle of Erkelemania.
(11:31):
I don't know how it's tell usto describe it. So we're going
to take a short break and comeback to discuss that that television opus,
Saved by the Belly? Did Ido that? Okay, we are back
and okay, so we're gonna talkabout Saved by the Bell. But did
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either of you know that it startedout as a Disney Channel sitcom starring Hayley
Mills. Yes, I did.I watched most most of Good Morning,
Miss Bliss. Well there were thirteenepisodes. Yeah, largely catching it back
when a Disney Channel, when itwas still that separate paid cable subscription.
(12:13):
Kind of an interesting precursor now thatwe think about it, to all of
these separate streaming services we all weall have, right, So, back
when Disney was not just part ofyour regular cable or dish package or now
it's own separate streaming service, whenthey would do those Disney free preview weekends,
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that was always a big deal becauseit meant some of the blank VHS
tapes would be coming out and wewould usually be finding a because they would
throw some decent movies up during thosefree preview weekends. So what Matt,
the briefe household would probably be recordingon VHS something it was showing. Huh
(12:56):
yeah, And so I'm I feelfairly calm eident I have probably caught the
lion's share of Good Morning, Missbliss Um during I remember We'll see and
we had the Disney Channel. Icame home one day in the fourth grade
and Dad had decided we didn't havecable before then we got channels ten and
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twelve, ABC and CBS, soif I wanted to watch the A Team,
I had to go to my grandparentshouse. Um, but I came
home one day and all of asudden, I turned on the TV and
it's a Disney channel. I'm going, what's going on? Dad? My
dad had had cable hooked up andgotten used the Disney Channel, and so
I remember watching the I remember watchingthe pilot. I know, right,
it's very unlike him, but Iremember watching the pilot because it had a
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Healey Mills in it. And Iwas a big fan of The Parent Trap
and The Parent Trap two, whichI think came out in eighty eight,
and this was eighty nine and apart of eighty nine. That movie is
perfection. Any it holds up toit holds up to um totally death.
Brian Keith here, here's Brian Keithwas forty years old when that film was
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made, five years younger than Iam. Now. Think about that the
next time you watch it. Butyeah, it was said the difference there,
Good morning this bliss. Hailey Millswas was sort of the lead of
it, and it was set inan Indiana middle school. And then NBC
had produced the show for the DisneyChannel. It was the first time a
major network had produced a TV showfor a cable channel, so it was
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sort of a trailblazer from that standpoint, or at least for a paid cable
channel. But then when Disney decidednot to renew it, they NBC took
it back and retooled it and madeit say by the Bell said it in
California, and it was they wereI guess they were in high school at
that point. They were all freshmenat that point, and added a few
different cast members. The original castdid not have Tiffany Amberthise and Elizaeth Berkeley
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or Mario Lopez in it, butsay by the Bell if You're not familiar.
It was created by Sam Bobritt forNBC. It premiered in prime time
on August twentieth, nineteen eighty nine, on the Sunday Night and then started
airing on Saturday mornings after that asthe flagship series for vcs T NBC lineup,
and it's a lighthearted comedic situations,it occasionally touches on serious social issues
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such as drug use, driving intothe influence, homelessness, remarriage, women's
rights, environmental issues, blah,etc. Etc. Series starred Mark Paul
Gossler, Dustin Diamond, Lark Vorhees, Dennis Haskins, Tiffany Amberthson, Elizabeth
Berkeley, and Mario Lopez. Itran for four seasons, airing its final
episode again in primetime on May twentysecond nineteen ninety three, a Saturday evening.
The show spawned two spinoffs, Sayby the Bell The College Years,
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which was a primetime series, andSay by the Bell The New Class from
ninety three to two thousand. It'sbasically the same show, just follows a
new group of students at Bayside.There was also two TV movies, Stayed
by the Bell Hawaiian Style and Savedby the Bell Wedding in Las Vegas in
ninety two and ninety four, respectively, And I believe in twenty twenty there
was a reboot that aired for twoseasons. Did either of you watch the
(15:54):
reboot? No? No, okay. I a couple of people I know
that watched it said I really enjoyedthat. They said it's actually pretty good,
and I find that hard to believe. So I'll just have to take
their word for it. So mCorey, I'll start with you. What
is your experience with Say by theBelt. I'm assuming we've all at least
seen several episodes. Yeah, Ithink I've probably seen like a dozen episodes.
(16:15):
But I was never one who watchedit on religiously or anything like that.
I was watching different stuff at thetime, but yeah, I've seen
I've seen probably a good dozen ofthem, enough that you get all the
jokes that are made about it.I'm assuming, yeah, yeah, okay,
Olivia, what about you. Ican't say that we would actively seek
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it out, but again, justkind of part of this Saturday morning background
noise. I in reading through theepisode synopsis, I know I've seen a
pile of these, so yep,we're pretty familiar. It's eighty six total
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episodes, and I've certain that I'veseen all of them at some point because
for a long time, this showaired on in the afternoon in syndication,
and there for a while it seemedlike I could not turn on my TV
at home without saying by the bellbeing on, And so, like you
said, Olivia, it would justkind of be background noise. I would
put it on and just let itrun while I was doing homework or something
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else. And I mean, let'sbe honest, I kind of had a
I had a crush on Elizabeth Berkeley, and especially after show Girls came out.
Really need a minute, oh yeah, oh yeah, really I would
have found show Girls to actually bekind of a h's this is how attractive
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I find her, This is howattractive. I find her. It did
not diminish her beauty in my mindand in my eyes. So huh,
So, Corey, were you aKelly girl? Were you a Kelly Jesse
or Lisa Um? I think ifI probably had to choose, I would
be more of a Lisa kind ofguy. Okay, yeah, I think
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so Kelly was fine. And youknow, yeah, I found leaves of
the most attractive. Okay, that'sfair and reasonable. Olivia, what about
you? If I had to askyou about the guys, were you?
Were you a Slater or a Zachor possibly a Screech or were you mister
Belding? You were mister Belding,weren't you? No? I appreciated the
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fact that Mark, Paul and Mariowere pretty attractive people. I can't really
say that I had any kind ofdistinct fandom really about anyone on the show.
Okay, all right, So therewere a couple of things about the
show. Jenny Garth actually appeared asa nerd On't if you guys remember those
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episodes where she appeared as a reallynerdy character who ended up hooking up with
Screech. Oh yeah, And allthey did to make her nerdy was they
put her in like pigtails and glassesand that was it. Yeah. Yeah,
Dustin Diamond, who played Screech,was four years older than the rest
of the cast. He was onlytwelve years old when he got cast,
and the producers had no idea thathe was a younger. He wouldn't have
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been cast, and I guess theywere already in production before they figured it
out, kind of like what happenedwith Milacunas on that seventy show. I
don't know that he I don't knowthat he sort of lied by omission the
way she did, but anyway thatthat's what happened. But yeah, you
know, the show revolved around sortof Zach and Kelly's on again off again
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and then Ac and the Slater beingin love with Kelly as well, and
at a certain point, like Ithink every character on the show dated one
another, with the exception of Slaterand Lisa, they never got together,
but everybody else did at certain points, so which which you have on long
running TV shows. There was asection where they they worked over the summer
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at a resort that featured Lee aRemedy and um Ernie Sabella Carosi, Yes,
Ernie Sabella and I'll take this momentto a brag again about the fact
that I've met Ernie Sabella after performanceor Chicago. One night in New York.
Yeah, he came out carrying atelevision. I assumed he was taking
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it home because he was ending hisrunning the show, not that he was
stealing it, but whatever. So, um, did you guys ever watch
say By the Bell the college years? No? Never did. I did
watch. I did catch a strayepisode or two, but by that time
I was old enough to then bekind of over over it and passed it
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and done with it. That wasfor me. That was one of those
things. It was sort of likewatching Aftermash You sort of watch it out
of morbid curiosity because yeah, you'vegot basically, you get these three actors
because the I don't remember if anyof the female actors carried over, but
I know the three main male actorsdid, and they're playing basically doing the
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same stick that they did, butthey're now in their twenties, with the
exception of Dustin Diamond, and itjust looks sad. Yep. So yeah,
it's just the whole premise of itis just getting really tired. Yeah,
right, And so we talked aboutthe serious issues they tackled Andy and
they did in their own ham handedway. There was an episode about abusing
drugs. We talked about the Oliviareferenced. If you haven't seen the show,
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folks, go just go look itup on YouTube. Just look up
Jesse Spano caffeine pills because she getsaddicted, I guess to caffeine pills or
something like that. Yeah, Ithink so. I think that's exactly what
it was, wasn't it. Yeah, And she starts singing, I'm so
excited, I'm so scared. Theepisode, Jesse's feeling a lot of pressure.
She's studying really hard. She needshigh SAT scores, she needs to
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get into Stanford. And at thesame time, the girl group of her
Kelly and was Lisa and then too, the three of them. It was
okay, so the three of them, we're supposed to perform somewhere, possibly
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at the Max. And they weresinging I'm so excited and so in it
the very beginning of the episode.In one other spot, like you see
them doing some rehearsal with some blocks, you know, dance blocking kind of
stuff. And anyway, so yeah, she Zach discovers that she is abusing
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caffeine pills, trying to stay upway too long, go away too far
without sleep, trying to accomplish allthese things like, you know, studying
for exams, practice with the girls, whatever, and then which leads to
the epic easy to find on YouTubebreakdown of I'm so excited, I'm so
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scared. My favorite version of that, by the way, if you can
find it out there, is theone where they've slowed it down and it
starts off, it starts off atpitch at speed, and then it slows
down at the I'm so scared andher voice drops about an octave and a
half and it's it just hits theright way. Love it. That's hilarious.
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Uh. They handled that. Theyalso handled drunk driving because they total
I believe it was either Lisa's caror something like that, Lisa's mother's car.
Okay, Yeah, thanks for beinghere, Olivia, because I don't
remember all that, and I thinksomebody gets hurt, either her or somebody
gets gets hurt like gets you know, gets a concussion or something, and
I remember the I don't remember itwas the the caffeine pills episode. If
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it was another one that they actuallywere using illicit drugs. Somebody was,
but Brandon time was ahead of NBC. Do what no, go ahead?
Sorry. Brandon Tartakoff, who atthe time was ahead of NBC, did
a PostScript with the cast and atthe end of what they all said at
the same time, there's no hopewith dope. And of course they said
it in unison, so it soundeddirty and creepy and everything, but that
(24:04):
was a separate Okay, So,Corey, I know you're probably not going
to have an answer for this,but I have to ask, do you
have an episode that you remember fondlyas what might be construed as a favorite?
No, I really don't. Iwas trying to come up with something
earlier today. Yeah, I watcheda couple episodes on YouTube and just nothing
stood out. I was just kindof cream ching all the way through it.
(24:26):
Olivia, what about you? Itwould not be surprised to find that
you did have one. Yeah,Like I, Jesse's song in particular does
stand out to me, just becauseit's part of that kind of so bad,
so dated it's great sort of phenomenon. Right, there were a little
(24:47):
bits and pieces that that I remember, well, there were other episodes that
even in early nineties, Olivia wasactually straight up pissed off about. Like,
for example, season I think it'sthree, there's an episode called date
Auction where the school's trying to raisemoney for new uniforms for cheerleading, and
(25:18):
the guys you know, offer themselvesup for the date auction, and anyway,
a plus size girl bids on Zachand wins him, and then he
proceeds to be an absolute quod aboutgoing on this date with her, and
(25:38):
being a teen who I've struggled withmy weight in various points, teetering on
normal size or rack size, plussize it various points all through my life.
And anyway, I remember young teenOlivia seeing that episode and being absolutely
(26:04):
totally thoroughly pissed off that he wasjust being such such a jerk. And
then finally at the end he realizes, like it just he was being rude
and he should have just been honestwith her the whole time. No,
(26:25):
maybe instead of just being honest,realize that you've been acting like an absolute
tool and valuing people based on theirclothing size, which is garbage. Anyway,
that one stuck out, but justnot in a positive way. The
oh and then the episode that youtalked about Jeff is also season three and
(26:48):
is aptly titled No Hope with DopeOkay, yeah, and it's it is
absolutely one of those kind of likeheavy handed, very special episod so kind
of things. Um, there area couple other ones I think stood out
to me, especially when people wouldeither break up or get back together.
Oh yeah, yeah, cut DayI think is one of them. That's
(27:14):
where I think it's I think that'sJesse and later break up off the top
of my head. Um anyway,um, but um, and I can't
really say that there's like a specificepisode that I was like, yes,
this one, love it, withthe exception of Jesse's song, just because
(27:34):
I'm so scared. So yeah,well I do have a couple. Uh
and you guys know me, Youknow, I don't really I don't really
like many things ironically, Like ifI like something because I genuinely enjoy it.
There are times that I can appreciatethings from an ironic and an ironic
bent, But if I like something, it's because I like it. And
(27:57):
any episode where They're band was involvedthe Zach Attack. You guys remember the
Zach Attack. Oh yeah, Ido not. There was an episode where
they had a they have a bandCorey called the Zach Attack or I think
it's just called Zach Attack. Um. Zach of course plays lead guitar and
Ais sings, Kelly sings. Kellysings for him because he's not he's he
(28:22):
doesn't have enough of a blow didego right? And Slater plays drums,
screeches on keyboards, and I thinkLisa maybe does percussion or something. I
don't know that Jesse's involved. Butthere's this whole episode where they get a
hit single called Friends Forever. That'sa catchy tune. If you go look
it up, they'll look it up. It's a catchy tune and uh,
of course you know they they havesome success with it, and of course
(28:44):
at the end of the episode it'sall been been a dream. But there
was another episode where they played ata dance together and Slater was playing drums
and singing lead on how Am ISupposed to Live Without You? The Laura
Brannigan song that was a hit fromMichael Bolton. Yeah it was Laura Brannigan
whoever wrote it, And I specificallyremember that's when I realized, Okay,
(29:07):
I could have believed that it wasMartin Paul Gosseler singing Friends Forever. He
was a little high for his range, but I could have conceivably believed that
it was his voice. This wasnot Slater's voice, as it was not
Mario Lopez's voice at all. AndI remember Screech being dressed as a chicken
and yelling cockadoodle dudes as he whenhe introduced, when he was introduced or
(29:27):
something. I don't know. Shouldwe have a moment of silence for Dustin
Diamond? No, okay, Idon't know, though. I mean,
it was stage four lung cancer.I don't wish that on anybody, right,
No, absolutely not. I'm notsaying he made good life choices because
he didn't. I've heard plenty ofreports that he was an absolute miserable human
(29:49):
being to work with. But exactly, but again like cancer. U yeah,
oh, I did look at thatsong up just now. It was
how Am I Supposed to Live WithoutYou? Was co penned by Doug James
and Michael Bolton. Okay, Iwas thinking, I think maybe someone else,
I think maybe a woman had hada had recorded it in like the
(30:10):
mid eighties or something. That's whatI'm thinking of well it was it was
originally supposed to be recorded by airSupply. M M. That would have
been good. Yeah yeah rock yes, uh so supposed to be air supply
and um but uh they Clive Daviswanted a lyric change. Bolton said no,
(30:32):
and uh, let's see Laura Brannigandid have a recording of it.
Okay, that's that's okay, SoI did didn't completely make that up.
So there's that. Um. Soit's It's been interesting to see the career
path that the people in the showhave taken. Elizabeth Berkeley, of course,
has probably the most infamous career becauseof Showgirls. Mario Lopez has a
(30:52):
decent career as a as a TVhost now like a talk show host or
a game show host. Um,Tiffany and Berthson, I haven't seen much
of anywhere. She was on ashow called fast Lane. I think it
was with Peter Faconellie years ago.Have not heard from large askins here and
there. Yeah she Uh. Tiffany'sdone various like one and two season sitcoms,
(31:15):
right yeah, yeah, but she'sdone a lot of like dramas and
drama eds. But it's been alot of situations where it's only like a
one and two one maybe two twoseason um series. The kind of stuff
that you know shows up on wouldshow up on like you know, t
(31:37):
NT, right, not major network. Yeah, Mark Paul Gossler has had
I think, probably the I guess, the most longevity of anybody in the
most I guess high profile career ofanybody on the show. He was on
NYPD Blue for a while Franklin andBash, which I've not seen, but
I heard it was actually pretty good. Have you guys seen that at all?
I caught a stray episode of itat some point. He and brecken
(32:00):
Meyer were on that one. Um. Yeah, but yeah, he's had
He surprisingly has had like the bestcrew and by all accounts, apparently in
real life is is a very niceperson. So it was good. That
was good. You'd like for nicepeople to, uh to succeed. But
yeah, Dennis Haskins as mister Beldinghas has been playing that note and been
ringing that bell for for a longtime. Um, so what do we
(32:24):
think it is about Saved by theBell that made it successful where other shows
have not, Because we we've hadwe've had copycats at the time We had
a show called California Dreams. Itwas about a band. Um we've had.
There was a show called City Guyson a few years later that didn't
last. What is it about Savedby the Bell that that made it catch
on and caught our attention? Doyou think wasn't it kind of the first
(32:47):
to do it when you know City'sDreams that I think came afterwards, Yeah,
it was. It was absolutely.Yeah. We had we had shows,
we talked about shows in the seventiesdid it, But but to have
an actual sitcom with with these sortof production values, you know, primetime
production values and everything, I thinkit probably was. And the fact that
they had sort of a Benetton adof a cast, you know, they
(33:08):
had different ethnicities present and everything Ithink helped as well. US cute girls,
yeah, cute clothes. I thinkit was just it started it all.
And I think the fact that itwas so ubiquitous, you know,
NBC produced it, so they youknow, they owned all the rights and
everything, so of course they're goingto push it because any profit that comes
(33:29):
in goes straight to them, andso I think that's it has a lot
to do with it as well.There was an actress who came in and
I think the last season to takeJesse's spot. Um if I remember,
yeah, because you had Tiffany AmberTheson and Elizabeth Berkeley really weren't in season
(33:52):
four per se um, they hada right. They did appear in several
episodes that had been bumped for abumped forward from seasons one, two,
and three. Um that for thatthey that for Wikipedia was vague, didn't
use for some reason and that endedup getting ruled forward. And so you
(34:16):
would have them show up, buteverybody would noticeably look a couple of years
younger, right, and they wouldall they would use those from Good Morning,
Miss Bliss. They would use inthere and uh, Zach would there
would be like a blurb at thebeginning where Zach would say, yeah,
this is this is a flashback tosomething that happened before everybody else arrived at
the school or something. Yeah.But her, the character, yeah,
(34:37):
Leanna Creole's her. The character's namewas Tory, and she was sort of
a weird she she wore a leatherjacket. She was sort of more Slater's
type of girl. I always feltlike, yeah, if we're making an
analogy to Happy Days, she waskind of a leather Tuscadero. Yeah,
that's a good that's a good uh, yeah, that's a good. Good
(34:58):
analogy there Ano, Yes, that'sexactly what happened. Yeah, because then
saved by the Bell, she wassupposed to kind of be a foil against
Zach Zach, similar to how leatherTusca Darrow is supposed to be kind of
a foil and equal against Fonzie.Right. So, I think Corey,
I think you're probably right. Thefact that it was the first really to
(35:19):
do it, I think has alot to do with success. And I
think you know, NBC pushing itand putting it in uh you know,
syndication in the afternoon and everything.It sort of always stayed in the public
eye. It was, like Isaid, it seemed like any time I
turned my TV on, it wasthere. And you know, when we
were a teenager. Again, theshow was for what it was. I
think it was well done. Theactors were they you know, they did
(35:40):
their job. I was always annoyedby So I think it helped too that
yeah, I think it helped toothough, that they they they kind of
aimed it though in terms of interestages of characters, the content they aimed
at more toward that they upper adolescentand tween kind of gap that a lot
(36:05):
of Saturday morning content really did notaim for didn't service, right, And
I think that's just a big reasonthat it was as successful as well.
And it aired later in the morningwhen the kids had gotten up as well.
So yeah, so yeah, Ithink I think it filled um,
it filled a variety of different littleniche niche issues, and it tried to
(36:27):
stay kind of on message and relevantwith like the very special episodes, right,
yeah, agreed, And we hadthat, um and and and we
have had several of those each season. It wasn't that every episode was a
very special episode like you have withlike the Facts of Life or something like
that. But but there were plentyof them. But for the most part,
it was it was really innocuous problemslike, you know, Zach has
(36:51):
two dates to the dance, how'she going to juggle you know, two
girls or or what have you.Yeah. So, uh so I'm guessing
Corey, You're you're not going togo back and revisit any of this now
that we've discussed it. No,I really don't think so. Like I
said, I watched probably I thinkI watched three episodes over the last couple
of days just to kind of refreshmyself, and it was just like,
(37:12):
yeah, I now kind of seewhy I didn't really watch it when I
first came out, and I don'tsee myself going back again, right,
Olivia? How about you? Oh, there's probably random little moments that we'll
keep popping up in my my YouTubefeed every now and then. And of
course I'm I'm such a fond fanof I'm so excited, I'm so scared.
(37:34):
I mean, that's that's a primequality acting right there. So I
got to keep that chest not aroundother than that. Yeah, all right,
fair enough? What about you,Jeff? Yes, you know what
I think. I think I thinkI got my phil back when I was
an Adolescentum, I don't feel theneed. And I saw clips from the
(37:58):
reboot and it like a car alive action cartoon. To me, it
looked really it looked cheap like.Whereas the first one looks like a sitcom
from the late eighties early nineties,this one just looked cheap. It looked
like a YouTube video to me.So I buy the bell New Class or
the one from a couple of yearsago. The one from twenty twenty,
the New Class. They were usingthe same sets and everything. Yeah,
(38:21):
yeah, okay, I have seenthose those in those Yeah, it's and
I think you have to say alot about the cast that they put together
because that initial cast they were all, you know, pretty pretty charismatic kids.
Because if you watch the New Class, it didn't it's it's not as
entertaining. Even so yeah, Ithink I'm I think I'm good. If
it's on and I'm in the room, I'm not gonna run out of the
(38:44):
room, but I'm not going toseek it out, so all out there.
Yeah, I mean, if you'rein the mood for some acid wash,
scrunchy keytar goodness, go for it. If you're of a certain age
and you feel nostalgic for junior highin early high school, yeah, you
could do worse. There we go. So that will do it for this
(39:05):
edition of the Saturday Morning Supercast.Until next time. I'm Jeff, I'm
Corey. I'm so scared. Okaywith that, It's time for college sports.
So let's let's go to the Max'srehab. Yes, let's now,
Well, first we need to goto the Max. We need to split
a basket of fries and then oneof us. When we walk in the
(39:30):
door, the audience is going tolike just burst into applause. It'll be
great. That happens every time Iwalk into any room I don't know where
what you're talking about. Thank youfor listening, and don't forget to follow
the show on Facebook It's Saturday Morningsuper Cast and follow at Marvin Dog Media
on Twitter.
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the Way Back Machine
with a bowl of your favorite cerealto relive the cartoons that made it worth
waken up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning super Cast. Good
(00:42):
morning, and welcome to the SaturdayMorning super Cast, where it's always Saturday
morning and the cereal bowl is alwaysfull. I'm Jeff, I'm Corey.
I'm so excited. Yeah, therewe go, folks, And I'm so
scared that that was a little givingyou a hint about what we might be
discussing today. We're we're continuing ourdive into the anomaly of I guess,
(01:07):
the sort of an anomaly the semianomaly of live action Saturday morning sitcoms.
We're gonna be talking about the Iguess the I guess this is like the
one to beat right, saved bythe Bell? Yeah, sure, absolutely,
I mean, as Saturday morning sitcomsgo, I would assume. But
before we get into that, we'regoing to talk about another another phenomenon of
(01:29):
the nineties, late eighties, earlynineties. Yeah. So we talked about
family matters on the pilot episode awhile back, and we didn't touch on
Steve Urkel as a character very much, because he's not in the pilot episode,
thank goodness. However, lest anybodyforget just what a pop culture juggernaut
Jilliel White's character was. In nineteenninety one, he got his own cereal
(01:53):
called urkle Os and it lasted exactlythe year nineteen ninety one, and that
was it. You can't find anythingabout it being on shelves after that or
anything. So um the show premierHe premiered on the show at eighty nine,
so within two years he was hewas so popular that he had his
own cereal. Do either of youremember this cereal being on shelves for that
(02:15):
twelve month period? No, nota bit did I do that? No
me either. I vaguely, Ivaguely remember hearing the name, Like when
I read the name when I wasdoing research, I thought, Okay,
that sounds vaguely familiar, and Iwondered why if it was something I would
have tried, And when I foundout so so, folks. They're basically
(02:36):
they were oh shaped rings that lookedlike fruit loops and had the same consistency,
but they were strawberry and banana flavored. You had one pinkish red one
and one yellow one. I guessthey were pinkish red and yellow. Um,
which is not a combination that appealsto me. What about you,
guys? Now, I know sometimesyou guys, I guess maybe olidia if
I'm remembering correctly. Well, sometimesslice up banana to put in your cereal
(02:59):
or did I make that up?Uh? No, you did not.
That is fact. Okay. Isthere anything about the combination of strawberry banana
flavored basically fruit loops and appeals toyou? I would say no. And
here's why. Historically, Strawberry Chemicalmass produced fake strawberry, usually fars okay,
(03:23):
And you also have the sliced,freeze dried space strawberries in products like
special K. Right. Fake bananahistorically does not work well. Um.
Actually, just the other day Itried something that was supposed to Oh it
(03:45):
was a pepperich farm but it wassupposed to be like a banana swirl bread
loaf bread, and I tried it. My mom really liked it. She
happened to have this loaf just kindof on a whim. She saw it
and thought, oh, give thisa shot. She really liked it.
Banana bread is big in my parentshousehold. I tried it, and I
(04:10):
was just slept in the face bychemical banana. So I see the banana
specifically as being a potential Achilles healright, saying, well, we've discussed
before that I can't stand banana inany way, shape or form. So
this is a hard, hard nofor me. Corey. What about you?
Anything about this appeal to you?Yeah, I kind of like both
(04:32):
of you guys. Fake banana.Artificial flavor has never really been a winner
in my book. But you know, the other flavors I'm not necessarily against.
Yeah, strawberry, I could getbehind it if it was just strawberry.
We've talked about before, like thestrawberry honeycomb that I really like.
But yeah, I and I'm tryingto figure out So this makes perfect sense
(04:54):
from a marketing perspective. You know, we've been talking the last few shows
about you know, tie in cereals, and this certainly makes more sense than
Wishing Stars with Jimmy Crickett. Ifyou're gonna, if you're gonna zero in
on one character, Steve Urkel isdefinitely the one to do it. At
ninety one was right in the thickof Urkelemania, So I completely understand.
I think the merchandising tie in makestotal sense. Family Matters was huge the
(05:17):
Friday Night Um oh what was thatcalled? Thank you? Um? That
was huge. So having a tiein product with all of that makes total
sense. Um. Once again,I think this suffers my strawberry and banana,
I think is what I'm wondering about. Well, okay, that's a
(05:38):
two valid questions. One why strawberrybana? Two Again, we're just recycling.
It's kind of lazy cereal making.We're recycling shape, we're recycling a
concept. It just looks like reworkedfruit loops. It's kind of like and
Corey back me up in this.It's kind of like back when Nintendo Supernintendo
(06:00):
Genesis was the thing, and theywould they would release a movie tie in
video game and a lot of timesthey would just take an existing game and
slap a do paint job on it. Oh yeah, kin sir, absolutely
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what he said. That's sort of
what it reminds me of. Umno oh, no, I get that.
Yeah. I'm assuming we probably allhad sort of the same mileage out
of Steve Urkel because we're all roughlythe same age. Um. I thought
(06:23):
he was funny to begin with,but after about an episode and a half,
I thought, okay, this I'veseen enough, and I think where
we all pretty much on the samepage about that. Yeah, I would
say so yeah, and it becauseit sort of got more heavy handed as
the show went on, and Iespecially got lost and left behind when the
(06:44):
whole like uh Stefan or Kell thingthat was that was great because they gave
Jalil White a chance to show hisrange. Sure, yeah, so so
much range, so deep, umso well, And then I would always
get annoyed as a kid when majorcharacters would come on and a sitcom and
(07:11):
immediately get um live studio audience applauseon their very first entrance applause. Right,
that bothered me for some reason,Like it bothered me with this.
It even bothered me in like classicTV kind of situations, like when the
Fawns would make his first walkout appearancein an episode of Happy Days and the
(07:32):
studio audience would always you cheer anapplaud that annoyed me. Oh yeah,
I'm with you there, Yeah,I'm with you there, Like why are
they excited? He just he showedup right, are at home or we
at home expect to do a plautor anything, and then yeah, um,
so I get that completely. Sothe other thing, the thing that
(07:54):
I really am surprised about is effectthat the ceial didn't last, because again,
he was such a fan, especiallyif kids, little kids loved him.
I went to church with a kidwho did, who walked around with
his pants pulled up, saying,got any cheese all the time, just
because of Steve Urkel. So Ihave to imagine, do we think this
would have been a little more successfulhad they chosen a different flavor combination than
(08:18):
strawberry and banana, because I don'tknow many little kids who like banana flavored
anything if they have the choice.Yeah, I think they may have had
a bit more mileage. But it'sreally tough to say, because I think
kids back then kind of ate anythingbecause the mass marketing was huge back then.
That's true, agreed from the parentperspective, I could see parents being
(08:41):
more eager to buy it if itwasn't such an irritating, polarizing character tie
in character, right, Yeah,irritating and polarizing, that's that's a perfect
description for Steve Urkel. This is. The banana is one thing, but
appearing with strawberry just doesn't seem wedidn't know, again, if you're aiming
(09:01):
it at kids, because strawberry isI've always thought of as more of an
adult flavor. Maybe maybe I'm theweird one there. I mean, obviously,
you know, strawberry quick is athing, but when I think of
strawberry cereal, I'll think about itbeing not quite as sweet and so especially
pairing it with with banana, Idon't know. I don't know that I
would say strawberry is more of anadult flavor. I would definitely say more
(09:22):
tropical fruits are adult flavors. Sowhen we get into things like um,
pineapple, mango, papaya, kiwi, coconut like basically all the pina colada
flavors, the tropical drink flavor,those, yeah, those strike me as
adult flavors. Um, strawberries andbananas I think are super kid friendly.
(09:46):
But I think if most kids areexperiencing banana, it's because they're eating a
banana, not because they're having weirdbanana flavor. Mass produced products right,
oh boy, the boxes the boxart for lack of a better term,
of course, obviously, all featuredSteve Urkel, and if you go to
(10:07):
mister Breakfast dot com, they haveprobably the most famous one, which is
Steve Urkel decked out in like almostlike Uncle Sam regalia. He looks like
a band leader or something, andhe's got like, you know, red
and white striped pants and there's alittle circle on it that says Erkele for
president. Um, and we reallydodged a bullet there. Presale promotion of
(10:28):
the box referred to it as afun circle shaped product, which sounds about
as generic as you can get.Yeah, exactly so. And again,
folks, the reason we kind ofwanted to talk about this is because it
was something that was, you know, aimed at kids from a from a
sitcom to kind of match up wesaved by the Bell, But um,
we never got a saved by theBell cereal that I'm aware of. And
(10:48):
I was surprised by that when Iwas doing my research. Um, so,
is there there's Is there anything aboutthis that would appeal to you now
if they were to rerelease it otherthan the fact that it's tied into Steve
Urkel. Yeah no, absolutely not. Yeah, I'm out. Okay,
yeah, me too. There's nothingfor me here, Yeah, met me
(11:09):
too. But I would love tohear what our listeners say about it,
So, especially if any of youthat are listening remembered erk Rolls and actually
had abal I'd love to know justhow they tasted. I can't imagine it
tasted very good, because again,if they were good, they'd be on
the shelves longer. But I reallywas surprised at the fact that it only
lasted a year, because again,this was right in the middle of Erkelemania.
(11:31):
I don't know how it's tell usto describe it. So we're going
to take a short break and comeback to discuss that that television opus,
Saved by the Belly? Did Ido that? Okay, we are back
and okay, so we're gonna talkabout Saved by the Bell. But did
(11:52):
either of you know that it startedout as a Disney Channel sitcom starring Hayley
Mills. Yes, I did.I watched most most of Good Morning,
Miss Bliss. Well there were thirteenepisodes. Yeah, largely catching it back
when a Disney Channel, when itwas still that separate paid cable subscription.
(12:13):
Kind of an interesting precursor now thatwe think about it, to all of
these separate streaming services we all weall have, right, So, back
when Disney was not just part ofyour regular cable or dish package or now
it's own separate streaming service, whenthey would do those Disney free preview weekends,
(12:33):
that was always a big deal becauseit meant some of the blank VHS
tapes would be coming out and wewould usually be finding a because they would
throw some decent movies up during thosefree preview weekends. So what Matt,
the briefe household would probably be recordingon VHS something it was showing. Huh
(12:56):
yeah, And so I'm I feelfairly calm eident I have probably caught the
lion's share of Good Morning, Missbliss Um during I remember We'll see and
we had the Disney Channel. Icame home one day in the fourth grade
and Dad had decided we didn't havecable before then we got channels ten and
(13:16):
twelve, ABC and CBS, soif I wanted to watch the A Team,
I had to go to my grandparentshouse. Um, but I came
home one day and all of asudden, I turned on the TV and
it's a Disney channel. I'm going, what's going on? Dad? My
dad had had cable hooked up andgotten used the Disney Channel, and so
I remember watching the I remember watchingthe pilot. I know, right,
it's very unlike him, but Iremember watching the pilot because it had a
(13:37):
Healey Mills in it. And Iwas a big fan of The Parent Trap
and The Parent Trap two, whichI think came out in eighty eight,
and this was eighty nine and apart of eighty nine. That movie is
perfection. Any it holds up toit holds up to um totally death.
Brian Keith here, here's Brian Keithwas forty years old when that film was
(13:58):
made, five years younger than Iam. Now. Think about that the
next time you watch it. Butyeah, it was said the difference there,
Good morning this bliss. Hailey Millswas was sort of the lead of
it, and it was set inan Indiana middle school. And then NBC
had produced the show for the DisneyChannel. It was the first time a
major network had produced a TV showfor a cable channel, so it was
(14:20):
sort of a trailblazer from that standpoint, or at least for a paid cable
channel. But then when Disney decidednot to renew it, they NBC took
it back and retooled it and madeit say by the Bell said it in
California, and it was they wereI guess they were in high school at
that point. They were all freshmenat that point, and added a few
different cast members. The original castdid not have Tiffany Amberthise and Elizaeth Berkeley
(14:43):
or Mario Lopez in it, butsay by the Bell if You're not familiar.
It was created by Sam Bobritt forNBC. It premiered in prime time
on August twentieth, nineteen eighty nine, on the Sunday Night and then started
airing on Saturday mornings after that asthe flagship series for vcs T NBC lineup,
and it's a lighthearted comedic situations,it occasionally touches on serious social issues
(15:07):
such as drug use, driving intothe influence, homelessness, remarriage, women's
rights, environmental issues, blah,etc. Etc. Series starred Mark Paul
Gossler, Dustin Diamond, Lark Vorhees, Dennis Haskins, Tiffany Amberthson, Elizabeth
Berkeley, and Mario Lopez. Itran for four seasons, airing its final
episode again in primetime on May twentysecond nineteen ninety three, a Saturday evening.
The show spawned two spinoffs, Sayby the Bell The College Years,
(15:31):
which was a primetime series, andSay by the Bell The New Class from
ninety three to two thousand. It'sbasically the same show, just follows a
new group of students at Bayside.There was also two TV movies, Stayed
by the Bell Hawaiian Style and Savedby the Bell Wedding in Las Vegas in
ninety two and ninety four, respectively, And I believe in twenty twenty there
was a reboot that aired for twoseasons. Did either of you watch the
(15:54):
reboot? No? No, okay. I a couple of people I know
that watched it said I really enjoyedthat. They said it's actually pretty good,
and I find that hard to believe. So I'll just have to take
their word for it. So mCorey, I'll start with you. What
is your experience with Say by theBelt. I'm assuming we've all at least
seen several episodes. Yeah, Ithink I've probably seen like a dozen episodes.
(16:15):
But I was never one who watchedit on religiously or anything like that.
I was watching different stuff at thetime, but yeah, I've seen
I've seen probably a good dozen ofthem, enough that you get all the
jokes that are made about it.I'm assuming, yeah, yeah, okay,
Olivia, what about you. Ican't say that we would actively seek
(16:37):
it out, but again, justkind of part of this Saturday morning background
noise. I in reading through theepisode synopsis, I know I've seen a
pile of these, so yep,we're pretty familiar. It's eighty six total
(16:57):
episodes, and I've certain that I'veseen all of them at some point because
for a long time, this showaired on in the afternoon in syndication,
and there for a while it seemedlike I could not turn on my TV
at home without saying by the bellbeing on, And so, like you
said, Olivia, it would justkind of be background noise. I would
put it on and just let itrun while I was doing homework or something
(17:18):
else. And I mean, let'sbe honest, I kind of had a
I had a crush on Elizabeth Berkeley, and especially after show Girls came out.
Really need a minute, oh yeah, oh yeah, really I would
have found show Girls to actually bekind of a h's this is how attractive
(17:41):
I find her, This is howattractive. I find her. It did
not diminish her beauty in my mindand in my eyes. So huh,
So, Corey, were you aKelly girl? Were you a Kelly Jesse
or Lisa Um? I think ifI probably had to choose, I would
be more of a Lisa kind ofguy. Okay, yeah, I think
(18:02):
so Kelly was fine. And youknow, yeah, I found leaves of
the most attractive. Okay, that'sfair and reasonable. Olivia, what about
you? If I had to askyou about the guys, were you?
Were you a Slater or a Zachor possibly a Screech or were you mister
Belding? You were mister Belding,weren't you? No? I appreciated the
(18:26):
fact that Mark, Paul and Mariowere pretty attractive people. I can't really
say that I had any kind ofdistinct fandom really about anyone on the show.
Okay, all right, So therewere a couple of things about the
show. Jenny Garth actually appeared asa nerd On't if you guys remember those
(18:51):
episodes where she appeared as a reallynerdy character who ended up hooking up with
Screech. Oh yeah, And allthey did to make her nerdy was they
put her in like pigtails and glassesand that was it. Yeah. Yeah,
Dustin Diamond, who played Screech,was four years older than the rest
of the cast. He was onlytwelve years old when he got cast,
and the producers had no idea thathe was a younger. He wouldn't have
(19:11):
been cast, and I guess theywere already in production before they figured it
out, kind of like what happenedwith Milacunas on that seventy show. I
don't know that he I don't knowthat he sort of lied by omission the
way she did, but anyway thatthat's what happened. But yeah, you
know, the show revolved around sortof Zach and Kelly's on again off again
(19:33):
and then Ac and the Slater beingin love with Kelly as well, and
at a certain point, like Ithink every character on the show dated one
another, with the exception of Slaterand Lisa, they never got together,
but everybody else did at certain points, so which which you have on long
running TV shows. There was asection where they they worked over the summer
(19:56):
at a resort that featured Lee aRemedy and um Ernie Sabella Carosi, Yes,
Ernie Sabella and I'll take this momentto a brag again about the fact
that I've met Ernie Sabella after performanceor Chicago. One night in New York.
Yeah, he came out carrying atelevision. I assumed he was taking
(20:17):
it home because he was ending hisrunning the show, not that he was
stealing it, but whatever. So, um, did you guys ever watch
say By the Bell the college years? No? Never did. I did
watch. I did catch a strayepisode or two, but by that time
I was old enough to then bekind of over over it and passed it
(20:41):
and done with it. That wasfor me. That was one of those
things. It was sort of likewatching Aftermash You sort of watch it out
of morbid curiosity because yeah, you'vegot basically, you get these three actors
because the I don't remember if anyof the female actors carried over, but
I know the three main male actorsdid, and they're playing basically doing the
(21:03):
same stick that they did, butthey're now in their twenties, with the
exception of Dustin Diamond, and itjust looks sad. Yep. So yeah,
it's just the whole premise of itis just getting really tired. Yeah,
right, And so we talked aboutthe serious issues they tackled Andy and
they did in their own ham handedway. There was an episode about abusing
drugs. We talked about the Oliviareferenced. If you haven't seen the show,
(21:26):
folks, go just go look itup on YouTube. Just look up
Jesse Spano caffeine pills because she getsaddicted, I guess to caffeine pills or
something like that. Yeah, Ithink so. I think that's exactly what
it was, wasn't it. Yeah, And she starts singing, I'm so
excited, I'm so scared. Theepisode, Jesse's feeling a lot of pressure.
She's studying really hard. She needshigh SAT scores, she needs to
(21:48):
get into Stanford. And at thesame time, the girl group of her
Kelly and was Lisa and then too, the three of them. It was
okay, so the three of them, we're supposed to perform somewhere, possibly
(22:08):
at the Max. And they weresinging I'm so excited and so in it
the very beginning of the episode.In one other spot, like you see
them doing some rehearsal with some blocks, you know, dance blocking kind of
stuff. And anyway, so yeah, she Zach discovers that she is abusing
(22:30):
caffeine pills, trying to stay upway too long, go away too far
without sleep, trying to accomplish allthese things like, you know, studying
for exams, practice with the girls, whatever, and then which leads to
the epic easy to find on YouTubebreakdown of I'm so excited, I'm so
(22:52):
scared. My favorite version of that, by the way, if you can
find it out there, is theone where they've slowed it down and it
starts off, it starts off atpitch at speed, and then it slows
down at the I'm so scared andher voice drops about an octave and a
half and it's it just hits theright way. Love it. That's hilarious.
(23:18):
Uh. They handled that. Theyalso handled drunk driving because they total
I believe it was either Lisa's caror something like that, Lisa's mother's car.
Okay, Yeah, thanks for beinghere, Olivia, because I don't
remember all that, and I thinksomebody gets hurt, either her or somebody
gets gets hurt like gets you know, gets a concussion or something, and
I remember the I don't remember itwas the the caffeine pills episode. If
(23:41):
it was another one that they actuallywere using illicit drugs. Somebody was,
but Brandon time was ahead of NBC. Do what no, go ahead?
Sorry. Brandon Tartakoff, who atthe time was ahead of NBC, did
a PostScript with the cast and atthe end of what they all said at
the same time, there's no hopewith dope. And of course they said
it in unison, so it soundeddirty and creepy and everything, but that
(24:04):
was a separate Okay, So,Corey, I know you're probably not going
to have an answer for this,but I have to ask, do you
have an episode that you remember fondlyas what might be construed as a favorite?
No, I really don't. Iwas trying to come up with something
earlier today. Yeah, I watcheda couple episodes on YouTube and just nothing
stood out. I was just kindof cream ching all the way through it.
(24:26):
Olivia, what about you? Itwould not be surprised to find that
you did have one. Yeah,Like I, Jesse's song in particular does
stand out to me, just becauseit's part of that kind of so bad,
so dated it's great sort of phenomenon. Right, there were a little
(24:47):
bits and pieces that that I remember, well, there were other episodes that
even in early nineties, Olivia wasactually straight up pissed off about. Like,
for example, season I think it'sthree, there's an episode called date
Auction where the school's trying to raisemoney for new uniforms for cheerleading, and
(25:18):
the guys you know, offer themselvesup for the date auction, and anyway,
a plus size girl bids on Zachand wins him, and then he
proceeds to be an absolute quod aboutgoing on this date with her, and
(25:38):
being a teen who I've struggled withmy weight in various points, teetering on
normal size or rack size, plussize it various points all through my life.
And anyway, I remember young teenOlivia seeing that episode and being absolutely
(26:04):
totally thoroughly pissed off that he wasjust being such such a jerk. And
then finally at the end he realizes, like it just he was being rude
and he should have just been honestwith her the whole time. No,
(26:25):
maybe instead of just being honest,realize that you've been acting like an absolute
tool and valuing people based on theirclothing size, which is garbage. Anyway,
that one stuck out, but justnot in a positive way. The
oh and then the episode that youtalked about Jeff is also season three and
(26:48):
is aptly titled No Hope with DopeOkay, yeah, and it's it is
absolutely one of those kind of likeheavy handed, very special episod so kind
of things. Um, there area couple other ones I think stood out
to me, especially when people wouldeither break up or get back together.
Oh yeah, yeah, cut DayI think is one of them. That's
(27:14):
where I think it's I think that'sJesse and later break up off the top
of my head. Um anyway,um, but um, and I can't
really say that there's like a specificepisode that I was like, yes,
this one, love it, withthe exception of Jesse's song, just because
(27:34):
I'm so scared. So yeah,well I do have a couple. Uh
and you guys know me, Youknow, I don't really I don't really
like many things ironically, Like ifI like something because I genuinely enjoy it.
There are times that I can appreciatethings from an ironic and an ironic
bent, But if I like something, it's because I like it. And
(27:57):
any episode where They're band was involvedthe Zach Attack. You guys remember the
Zach Attack. Oh yeah, Ido not. There was an episode where
they had a they have a bandCorey called the Zach Attack or I think
it's just called Zach Attack. Um. Zach of course plays lead guitar and
Ais sings, Kelly sings. Kellysings for him because he's not he's he
(28:22):
doesn't have enough of a blow didego right? And Slater plays drums,
screeches on keyboards, and I thinkLisa maybe does percussion or something. I
don't know that Jesse's involved. Butthere's this whole episode where they get a
hit single called Friends Forever. That'sa catchy tune. If you go look
it up, they'll look it up. It's a catchy tune and uh,
of course you know they they havesome success with it, and of course
(28:44):
at the end of the episode it'sall been been a dream. But there
was another episode where they played ata dance together and Slater was playing drums
and singing lead on how Am ISupposed to Live Without You? The Laura
Brannigan song that was a hit fromMichael Bolton. Yeah it was Laura Brannigan
whoever wrote it, And I specificallyremember that's when I realized, Okay,
(29:07):
I could have believed that it wasMartin Paul Gosseler singing Friends Forever. He
was a little high for his range, but I could have conceivably believed that
it was his voice. This wasnot Slater's voice, as it was not
Mario Lopez's voice at all. AndI remember Screech being dressed as a chicken
and yelling cockadoodle dudes as he whenhe introduced, when he was introduced or
(29:27):
something. I don't know. Shouldwe have a moment of silence for Dustin
Diamond? No, okay, Idon't know, though. I mean,
it was stage four lung cancer.I don't wish that on anybody, right,
No, absolutely not. I'm notsaying he made good life choices because
he didn't. I've heard plenty ofreports that he was an absolute miserable human
(29:49):
being to work with. But exactly, but again like cancer. U yeah,
oh, I did look at thatsong up just now. It was
how Am I Supposed to Live WithoutYou? Was co penned by Doug James
and Michael Bolton. Okay, Iwas thinking, I think maybe someone else,
I think maybe a woman had hada had recorded it in like the
(30:10):
mid eighties or something. That's whatI'm thinking of well it was it was
originally supposed to be recorded by airSupply. M M. That would have
been good. Yeah yeah rock yes, uh so supposed to be air supply
and um but uh they Clive Daviswanted a lyric change. Bolton said no,
(30:32):
and uh, let's see Laura Brannigandid have a recording of it.
Okay, that's that's okay, SoI did didn't completely make that up.
So there's that. Um. Soit's It's been interesting to see the career
path that the people in the showhave taken. Elizabeth Berkeley, of course,
has probably the most infamous career becauseof Showgirls. Mario Lopez has a
(30:52):
decent career as a as a TVhost now like a talk show host or
a game show host. Um,Tiffany and Berthson, I haven't seen much
of anywhere. She was on ashow called fast Lane. I think it
was with Peter Faconellie years ago.Have not heard from large askins here and
there. Yeah she Uh. Tiffany'sdone various like one and two season sitcoms,
(31:15):
right yeah, yeah, but she'sdone a lot of like dramas and
drama eds. But it's been alot of situations where it's only like a
one and two one maybe two twoseason um series. The kind of stuff
that you know shows up on wouldshow up on like you know, t
(31:37):
NT, right, not major network. Yeah, Mark Paul Gossler has had
I think, probably the I guess, the most longevity of anybody in the
most I guess high profile career ofanybody on the show. He was on
NYPD Blue for a while Franklin andBash, which I've not seen, but
I heard it was actually pretty good. Have you guys seen that at all?
I caught a stray episode of itat some point. He and brecken
(32:00):
Meyer were on that one. Um. Yeah, but yeah, he's had
He surprisingly has had like the bestcrew and by all accounts, apparently in
real life is is a very niceperson. So it was good. That
was good. You'd like for nicepeople to, uh to succeed. But
yeah, Dennis Haskins as mister Beldinghas has been playing that note and been
ringing that bell for for a longtime. Um, so what do we
(32:24):
think it is about Saved by theBell that made it successful where other shows
have not, Because we we've hadwe've had copycats at the time We had
a show called California Dreams. Itwas about a band. Um we've had.
There was a show called City Guyson a few years later that didn't
last. What is it about Savedby the Bell that that made it catch
on and caught our attention? Doyou think wasn't it kind of the first
(32:47):
to do it when you know City'sDreams that I think came afterwards, Yeah,
it was. It was absolutely.Yeah. We had we had shows,
we talked about shows in the seventiesdid it, But but to have
an actual sitcom with with these sortof production values, you know, primetime
production values and everything, I thinkit probably was. And the fact that
they had sort of a Benetton adof a cast, you know, they
(33:08):
had different ethnicities present and everything Ithink helped as well. US cute girls,
yeah, cute clothes. I thinkit was just it started it all.
And I think the fact that itwas so ubiquitous, you know,
NBC produced it, so they youknow, they owned all the rights and
everything, so of course they're goingto push it because any profit that comes
(33:29):
in goes straight to them, andso I think that's it has a lot
to do with it as well.There was an actress who came in and
I think the last season to takeJesse's spot. Um if I remember,
yeah, because you had Tiffany AmberTheson and Elizabeth Berkeley really weren't in season
(33:52):
four per se um, they hada right. They did appear in several
episodes that had been bumped for abumped forward from seasons one, two,
and three. Um that for thatthey that for Wikipedia was vague, didn't
use for some reason and that endedup getting ruled forward. And so you
(34:16):
would have them show up, buteverybody would noticeably look a couple of years
younger, right, and they wouldall they would use those from Good Morning,
Miss Bliss. They would use inthere and uh, Zach would there
would be like a blurb at thebeginning where Zach would say, yeah,
this is this is a flashback tosomething that happened before everybody else arrived at
the school or something. Yeah.But her, the character, yeah,
(34:37):
Leanna Creole's her. The character's namewas Tory, and she was sort of
a weird she she wore a leatherjacket. She was sort of more Slater's
type of girl. I always feltlike, yeah, if we're making an
analogy to Happy Days, she waskind of a leather Tuscadero. Yeah,
that's a good that's a good uh, yeah, that's a good. Good
(34:58):
analogy there Ano, Yes, that'sexactly what happened. Yeah, because then
saved by the Bell, she wassupposed to kind of be a foil against
Zach Zach, similar to how leatherTusca Darrow is supposed to be kind of
a foil and equal against Fonzie.Right. So, I think Corey,
I think you're probably right. Thefact that it was the first really to
(35:19):
do it, I think has alot to do with success. And I
think you know, NBC pushing itand putting it in uh you know,
syndication in the afternoon and everything.It sort of always stayed in the public
eye. It was, like Isaid, it seemed like any time I
turned my TV on, it wasthere. And you know, when we
were a teenager. Again, theshow was for what it was. I
think it was well done. Theactors were they you know, they did
(35:40):
their job. I was always annoyedby So I think it helped too that
yeah, I think it helped toothough, that they they they kind of
aimed it though in terms of interestages of characters, the content they aimed
at more toward that they upper adolescentand tween kind of gap that a lot
(36:05):
of Saturday morning content really did notaim for didn't service, right, And
I think that's just a big reasonthat it was as successful as well.
And it aired later in the morningwhen the kids had gotten up as well.
So yeah, so yeah, Ithink I think it filled um,
it filled a variety of different littleniche niche issues, and it tried to
(36:27):
stay kind of on message and relevantwith like the very special episodes, right,
yeah, agreed, And we hadthat, um and and and we
have had several of those each season. It wasn't that every episode was a
very special episode like you have withlike the Facts of Life or something like
that. But but there were plentyof them. But for the most part,
it was it was really innocuous problemslike, you know, Zach has
(36:51):
two dates to the dance, how'she going to juggle you know, two
girls or or what have you.Yeah. So, uh so I'm guessing
Corey, You're you're not going togo back and revisit any of this now
that we've discussed it. No,I really don't think so. Like I
said, I watched probably I thinkI watched three episodes over the last couple
of days just to kind of refreshmyself, and it was just like,
(37:12):
yeah, I now kind of seewhy I didn't really watch it when I
first came out, and I don'tsee myself going back again, right,
Olivia? How about you? Oh, there's probably random little moments that we'll
keep popping up in my my YouTubefeed every now and then. And of
course I'm I'm such a fond fanof I'm so excited, I'm so scared.
(37:34):
I mean, that's that's a primequality acting right there. So I
got to keep that chest not aroundother than that. Yeah, all right,
fair enough? What about you,Jeff? Yes, you know what
I think. I think I thinkI got my phil back when I was
an Adolescentum, I don't feel theneed. And I saw clips from the
(37:58):
reboot and it like a car alive action cartoon. To me, it
looked really it looked cheap like.Whereas the first one looks like a sitcom
from the late eighties early nineties,this one just looked cheap. It looked
like a YouTube video to me.So I buy the bell New Class or
the one from a couple of yearsago. The one from twenty twenty,
the New Class. They were usingthe same sets and everything. Yeah,
(38:21):
yeah, okay, I have seenthose those in those Yeah, it's and
I think you have to say alot about the cast that they put together
because that initial cast they were all, you know, pretty pretty charismatic kids.
Because if you watch the New Class, it didn't it's it's not as
entertaining. Even so yeah, Ithink I'm I think I'm good. If
it's on and I'm in the room, I'm not gonna run out of the
(38:44):
room, but I'm not going toseek it out, so all out there.
Yeah, I mean, if you'rein the mood for some acid wash,
scrunchy keytar goodness, go for it. If you're of a certain age
and you feel nostalgic for junior highin early high school, yeah, you
could do worse. There we go. So that will do it for this
(39:05):
edition of the Saturday Morning Supercast.Until next time. I'm Jeff, I'm
Corey. I'm so scared. Okaywith that, It's time for college sports.
So let's let's go to the Max'srehab. Yes, let's now,
Well, first we need to goto the Max. We need to split
a basket of fries and then oneof us. When we walk in the
(39:30):
door, the audience is going tolike just burst into applause. It'll be
great. That happens every time Iwalk into any room I don't know where
what you're talking about. Thank youfor listening, and don't forget to follow
the show on Facebook It's Saturday Morningsuper Cast and follow at Marvin Dog Media
on Twitter.
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