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Mark-Paul Gosselaar is looking back on the Saved by the Bell storylines he wishes had gone differently.
In Sunday’s episode of the Pod Meets World podcast, the actor spoke with Boy Meets World stars Rider Strong, Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle about a “tough” season 1 plot involving his costar Lark Voorhies‘ character Lisa Turtle.
The actor, who played Zack Morris on the ’90s sitcom, recalled the episode “The Lisa Card,” in which Lisa panicked after going over her dad’s credit card limit. In an effort to make the money back, Zack charged the boys in their class $1 each to kiss her “without her consent.”
“I was basically whoring out Lisa Turtle,” he told the Pod Meets World hosts. “I charged people to kiss her without her consent. That was a tough one.”
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The star noted that they felt the need to include a disclaimer at the start of the podcast episode saying, “We do not condone this. We’re here just to discuss it.”
He also reflected on another problematic storyline he felt uncomfortable with. In the season 3 episode “Running Zack,” his character claimed to be Native American and appeared in a traditional headdress.
“Seeing Zack Morris in a full headdress… that was one we had to be a little sensitive on,” the actor said. “There’s things that you just would not film these days.”
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This isn’t the first time Gosselaar has spoken up about the Saved by the Bell storylines that haven’t aged so gracefully.
In a 2020 episode of his own rewatch podcast, Zack to the Future — which he cohosted Dashiell Driscoll, who was a writer on the Peacock reboot at the time — he said he felt “conflicted” about the Lisa episode.
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“It wasn’t as carefree and innocent as the last episode,” he said at the time. “But maybe it’s because I’m watching it through these eyes and not the eyes of a 13-year-old or the audience that watched it back in the ’90s.”
He also acknowledged: “We’re not gonna say that we don’t see some of the morally abhorrent or dated situations and responses to certain things.”
All four seasons of Saved by the Bell are available to stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. Seasons 1 and 2 of the Saved by the Bell 2020 reboot can be streamed on Peacock.
