90: A.C. Slater Was Gay for Zack Morris… for Five Seconds

“The Zack Tapes” (December 2, 1989)

What’s gay about Saved By the Bell, aside from Slater’s singlets and Tori’s leather jacket? Well, there is one episode that very briefly demonstrated that same-sex attraction was a thing — on Saturday morning, no less. It’s all he more surprising because the new Saved By the Bell manages to make amends for all the things the original series did wrong except feature any kind of same-sex love. And yes, we’re doing this episode because we really dug the reboot anyway.

Watch the little-seen original pilot for Good Morning, Miss Bliss here, and watch the very un-Saved By the Bell opening credits here.

The Neverending Story theme as performed by Kids Incorporated is as weird as Glen remembers.

Watch Leanna Creel appear alongside her triplet sisters in The Cell, the one movie they made together that didn’t star Hayley Mills.

Also check out these promo photos of Tori, Jessie and Kelly all in the same place at the same time, thereby nullifying the Tori Paradox.

Listen to Go Bayside, the SbtB podcast that inspired Talking Simpsons, which in turn inspired this show.

The outro track for this episode is “Go for It” by the little-known Los Angeles girl group Hot Sundae.