Saved by the Bell: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, and Elizabeth Berkley Reunite for a Memorable Class Reunion

The nineties were a whirlwind of crazy hairstyles, questionable fashion choices, and television sitcoms.

With comedies like Friends, Seinfeld, and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ruling over the decade, fans of pop culture were thriving and for good reason. The nineties were overwhelmed by some legendary programming that still manages to resonates with modern-day viewers.

That being said, very few sitcoms choose to focus on the younger generations watching.

Cheers gave us an in-depth look at what it takes to run a bar, and Full House depicted the hilarious undertones of a makeshift family thrown together by circumstance. However, few tackled the teenage high-school experience with as much humility and earnest as Saved by the Bell.

Bayside High’s most notorious students and troublemakers, Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack Morris), Mario Lopez (A.C. Slater), and Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie Spano), stopped by Fan Expo Canada this year to celebrate the show’s 30th birthday with a class reunion we won’t soon forget!

Childhood Inspirations

In a decade of excellent television and film, it’s no surprise to hear the stars of Saved by the Bell, a show that is very much the root of many fans nostalgia for the nineties, were inspired by the pop culture that surrounded them when they were younger.

“I was just a fan of television in general. I was consuming everything and I loved TV. So I remember growing up there was a lot of Three’s Company, The Jeffersons, Different Strokes, The Brady Bunch, and Facts of Life. It was an era of great sitcoms, great theme songs,” said Lopez.

For Gosselaar, there was one aspect to Zack’s character that got him particularly excited about working on the show.

“When I got the script for Saved by the Bell and saw that Zack was talking to the camera I was like ‘oh my god, I get to play Ferris Bueller’ and I was such a fan of Ferris Bueller — I loved that movie. To play on a show that kind of had an element of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was pretty cool for me,” Gosselaar explained.

For Berkley, it was a particular eighties dance flick that ended up ruling over her childhood and interior design choices.

“I had a ridiculous obsession with Flashdance. I grew up in Michigan and right before I moved to Hollywood to do the show, I had a little dance studio in there and everything. That was the anthem of my childhood,” Berkley recalled.

With the mention of Flashdance, Lopez recalled something about Berkley’s friendship with Jennifer Beals that brought the actress’ obsession full circle in the best of ways.

“She happened to be my best girlfriend and maid of honour at my wedding. Life is funny, right?” exclaimed Berkley.

Becoming Hair Icons

If there is anything we remember about the cast of Saved by the Bell, it was their outrageous — and iconic — nineties hairstyles.

“It seemed like Mark-Paul and I had a lot more hair maintenance than the girls, to be honest,” admitted Lopez.

“My routine was just going through products like shaper hairspray by the caseload,” Berkley added.

Gosselaar, however, didn’t get off as easy as his co-stars when it came to maintaining Zack’s dreamy blonde locks.

“I had to get mine dyed every 2 weeks. I’d have to go and sit in a chair. You guys would be walking by, and I would have the foil in my hair or a cap with the knitting needle where they pull strands of hair and then add dye,” recalled Gosselaar.

“We would do 22 episodes and then a hiatus, and every hiatus we thought our show was cancelled. So we would go back to school, say our goodbyes, and then I would be into Vanilla Ice or whoever at the time, and I shaved the sides of my hair. One year it was a leopard speckled thing because my hair was based on what was kind of happening in the 90s.”

However, no one’s hair had quite the fan following and mysterious intrigue that A.C. Slater’s signature mullet did.

“My hair was its own character,” agreed Lopez.

“Mario was secretive. He had a secret crew that came in. We still don’t know where he got it done — I don’t think we’ll ever know,” Gosselaar explained skeptically.

With 30 years of mystery surrounding his character’s hair, Lopez made a point of coming clean to his castmates about the whole process during the panel. Not only did the hairstyling usually take place at his home before he got to set, but the secret crew everyone insists existed actually consisted of the actor’s close family and friends.

“It was either my mom or my mom’s friend, Elsa,” revealed Lopez in a shocking twist.

Life After Bayside High

Berkley’s career did not slow down after saying goodbye to Jessie. During the panel, she discussed the roles she pursued after Saved by the Bell and how those ultimately made her a stronger person and a more versatile actor.

“Hurlyburly was probably my favorite creative thing so far. I was replacing someone, and I had two days to learn the play. It was intense, but Ethan Hawke played the lead, and I played his love interest. That was on Broadway for quite a few months. It was really inspiring and terrifying,” Berkley explained.

As for feeling boxed in or typecasted by her role on the sitcom, Berkley explained that was never an issue thanks to one specific role.

“I think doing Showgirls right after kind of broke it out. If you come out of a volcano with glitter and not much else you’re breaking out. After that, I really had to fight for new opportunities, but it made me stronger.”

The actress built a diverse platform for herself and then shared that outlet with young girls who she wanted to help get through those awkward high school years. Over the years Berkley has visited schools across America to facilitate girls-only “Ask Elizabeth” workshops, and she spoke about her desire to continue to be there for these communities.

“I created a 2-hour interactive workshop that I facilitate in middle schools and high schools. It’s now in its 12th year, and I’ve worked with hundreds of thousands of girls around the world — to bring intimacy and connection for these girls is my mission.”

Lopez, on the other hand, went in a different direction with his career after Saved by the Bell. Most teenagers today know him not as A.C. Slater but as Mario Lopez, interviewer, host, and man who loves to make cameos on all our favorite shows as himself.

“I do have a pretty impressive resume of playing Mario Lopez. I counted and it was like 12 different shows. They were always TV shows I enjoyed or shows a buddy was on though,” said Lopez with a laugh.

And it looks like Lopez will continue to do what he does best as the new host of Access Hollywood and the show’s daytime counterpart, Access Daily. The actor and TV-personality still holds on to his love for television and expressed his gratitude for the ability to interview people in the industry whose craft he continues to admire.

“I’m a big fan of entertainment so I feel very blessed and fortunate to do what I do and talk to all these fascinating people,” Lopez explained.

Gosselaar has continued to leave his mark on television with TV shows such as Pitch and The Passage.

Unfortunately, all of Gosselaar’s recent projects, while extremely promising, have been cursed by early cancellations. The actor spoke briefly about the turmoils the modern-day generation has to deal with that he is thankful he didn’t have to worry about during his teenage Saved by the Bell days.

“I think that the current generation has it a lot tougher than we did because there’s a thing called social media now. They are way more savvy than I think we were. We were just having fun, every season we said goodbye to each other, and I had no idea what the ratings were for our show. We were up against Bugs Bunny,” stated Gosselaar.

“It was a super awkward period in my life right. It was like 15 years old, you’re going through hormones, and all of it was on film. All these awkward moments you guys enjoyed but for us, it was like oh my god, this was my teen years.”

He went on to admit that he is blown away by these young actors and the opportunities they set out to create for themselves in this changing industry.

“This girl that I recently worked with was 11 when we started filming and 12 when we finished, and she’s very savvy of the business, what fame means, and where she wants to go with her career,” he recalled.

“Now people get into the business like ‘I want to direct I want to produce I want to write, I want to be a part of the industry.’ Where with us, if you were a TV actor you stayed in television, and you sometimes broke out into film. Now you see a lot of successful TV actors become immediate film actors and vice versa.”

A Possible Revival

With revivals and reboots of all our beloved TV shows becoming a constant, there is speculation that Saved by the Bell will go beyond Jimmy Fallon skits and return to television once again. During the panel, the cast did comment on the matter and whether or not this project could be a possibility for them.

“Obviously we couldn’t be in high-school still so you’d have to be creative with the premise. Who knows — you never say never,” noted Lopez.

“There are still talks, and if something came up with actual legs I’m sure all three of us would be on board to be a part of it. Nothing has come yet, but we would like to,” Gosselaar revealed.

If you were hoping to see Saved by the Bell return to television, the cast continues to keep an open mind about the matter. For those afraid this is one revival too many, only time will tell if this sitcom should be brought back from the depths of the nineties.

Bizarre & Wacky Storylines

Some fan used this panel as an opportunity to get to the bottom of Saved by the Bell’s trickier plot holes.

More specifically, why Zack’s love life was plagued by random disappearances and hookups that never seemed to have much context. Gosselaar took the questions in stride by raising a few of his own about the series that no one seemed to question.

“How about the fact that the show started in Indiana and then came out to the Pacific Palisades — like nobody questioned that. There are so many moments like that. I don’t know, Elizabeth and I dated on the show and then there was Kelly,” said Gosselaar.

“I mean it was just crazy. Your in this environment where there’s only so many relationships and people to recycle, and so that might have been the reason why.”

Gosselaar explained that looking back on this show thirty years later, there is a lot that will make viewers scratch their head in confusion and not all of it involved Zack’s love life.

“I mean I look at it now and Zack Morris was Native American Indian — I mean it was like what? Dude, I had a headdress on, it was so inappropriate.”

Lopez also touched on moments where storylines were specifically altered to cater to a very specific demographic.

“I had a pet chameleon that died, and it was supposed to be a puppy. But they thought the puppy would be too sad and too downer for kids if it died. So they made it a chameleon because nobody’s going to feel sorry for a chameleon. It’s the same with the caffeine pill. They couldn’t be coke or crystal meth — which is much more relevant,” Lopez admitted.

“Again, it was Saturday morning so very little kids.”

And that young audience would always be a priority for the show, given the unique time slot they were given to work with.

“There’s a lot we could have done. We were very aware of our young audience, it being a Saturday morning. So we were sort of limited and then our executive producer was a very strong born-again Christian at the time, so he was very conscious of the audience and who he was,” explained Lopez.

“I think that’s part of the innocence that made it sort of charming and resonated with a lot of people. Not many high-schools were as idyllic, clean, and nice. So it’s sort of an escape.”

What They Loved Most

From the casting to the development of the characters, Lopez praised the show’s production for their open minds and unique ways of introducing authentic pieces of himself into Slater’s story.

“When we first joined the show, they had us write down a bunch of different stuff that we were interested in, hobbies and what have you. That’s why I was wrestling, playing the drums, and all this stuff because that wasn’t in the character. My character was supposed to be a little more of a street kid. Then they incorporated that into the character. I kind of liked that they did that,” Lopez recalled.

“What I liked about Slater is they weren’t necessarily looking for like a Latin guy to play the role. They casted blindly for that role, which I thought was really cool because that’s the way it should be for people that look like you and me. Just telling universal stories with universal meaning.”

“I just loved Jessie’s passion for people and causes,” Berkley noted.

As for Zack, his time-stopping abilities always stood out to Gosselaar as the most difficult and most rewarding part of the character for him.

“That was actually hard to do because we opened up the show with that. I remember I had to stand and talk directly to the audience, which was not easy to do as a thirteen-year-old. And then having us goofing around and I would have to time out and hear Mario snickering in the back. It wasn’t easy,” revealed Gosselaar.

“But then you would have to hold in an odd position and the odder the funnier it was. Working on that show in front of a live audience was kind of fun and we played off the audience.”

Attending Fan Conventions

For fans, conventions offer them a chance to celebrate the projects they love with the people that helped bring those projects to life. For actors of the industry, like the Saved by the Bell cast, conventions offer a chance to connect with fans in a unique and respectful environment. 

“I think any time someone comes up to you and tells you that they appreciate what you did or you touched them, that’s extremely flattering and you feel really good about it,” admitted Lopez.

“There are not too many opportunities except when you’re on the street or at dinner where you probably don’t want to be approached. So it is nice in this environment to be approached by people that follow your work or follow a specific project and you can have a discussion,” Gosselaar explained.

“It is a really cool format to be able to have because we don’t get to do that very often in our day to day lives. To meet people who enjoy your work is a great experience.”

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