Mark-Paul Gosselaar Talks ‘Saved by the Bell,’ Hopes for a ‘Franklin & Bash’ Reunion | GalaxyCon

Among the celebrity guests at this year’s GalaxyCon Raleigh was Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who took the stage to answer questions about his career from a lively crowd.

He discussed his iconic role as Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell, the tragic cancellations of Pitch, The Passage, and Mixed-ish, hopes for a Franklin & Bash reunion, and his upcoming projects.

On Saved by the Bell:

Gosselaar said one thing he remembered about his audition for Good Morning, Miss Bliss (which later became Saved by the Bell) was that it was with Dustin Diamond.

“I do remember the audition was with Dustin Diamond, and he was trying out for Screech. He was substantially younger than I was,” Gosselaar said.

“I remember him being in the room, and I just remember thinking, ‘That’s Screech.'”

“It was a good process and that was just life-changing for me because I wasn’t expecting to be an actor,” he said, noting that before that role, he’d always thought he’d go into the military.

He also remembered his mother helping him color his hair blonde. Many fans will know this, but blonde was never Gosselaar’s natural hair color. “That was dyed for six years. It’s amazing that I still have hair.”

As for the character of Zack Morris, Gosselaar said he wasn’t anything like him growing up. “I was just playing what I thought was cool back then, because I was not really a cool kid growing up. I was just a normal kid who played with his friends and did Motocross.”

He also talked about the popular Zack Morris is Trash series on YouTube, which was created by Dashiell Driscoll, who eventually wrote for the Saved by the Bell reboot. 

“I always knew he was a piece of shit,” Gosselaar said about Zack.

“By the way, the relationship between Kelly and Zack is so toxic,” he added. “You shouldn’t look up to them and go, I wish I had a relationship like that. They were always fighting. Zack and Kelly compared to Jesse and Slater, like if you watch the show, and we talk about this on my podcast, called Zack to the Future, Jesse and Slater had an amazing relationship. They were in love.”

Zack to the Future podcast:

Speaking of the podcast, which Gosselaar co-hosted with Dashiell Driscoll, he said he wasn’t sure whether or not that project would continue.

“We stopped at 50. That seemed like a good place to stop,” he said. “We might pick it up, but it might be under a different banner. The one downside is it takes a lot of our time, and we put a lot of effort into it.”

Upcoming Projects:

Gosselaar shared that he’s currently filming two projects, one for ABC and one for NBC. 

“Found is going to be on NBC,” he said. “It’s a procedural about finding lost people. Basically, there’s about 600,000 missing people. The majority of them are people of color, and people who have had no money, and this show is about a firm that basically targets those people that need to get the exposure that don’t have the means to have a PR team to put these photos out there and generate a buzz to try to find people.”

“I can’t talk too much about my character because it’s a bit of a surprise,” he said. “But it is a bit of a departure from characters that I’ve played in the past.”

“I’m doing a show for ABC as well called Will Trent. And that’s about the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, and I just play a father on that. His daughter’s been abducted. Good times, guys,” he laughed.

Heartbreaking cancellations:

Gosselaar talked about several other past projects as well, calling Pitch one of his favorites. He gushed about working with that cast as well as the cast of The Passage, and noted his surprise over the cancellation of Mixed-ish.

“I thought I was going to retire off of Mixed-ish, because you’re coming in to play with the same people that do Black-ish.” 

“If you’re not watching a network show when the show airs that night, networks take notice,” he added. “If you like a network show, watch it on the night it comes out.”

Of course, another tragic cancellation was that of Franklin & Bash. Gosselaar said he’s stayed in touch with co-star Breckin Meyer and that they have actually tried to bring the show back in some way. 

“Breckin [Meyer] and I have remained friends. We’ve developed some things as recently as last year. We had a show that was bought by ABC, not for us, it was just a story about something that happened in our life. And as recent as about three months ago we pitched another show. So we’re always trying to find something to do together,” Gosselaar said.

“We have one [project] in development that we would love to get off the ground where we are in front of the camera, different characters from Franklin and Bash, but still that dynamic of us being partners.”

“We’ve been trying to get the rights to Franklin & Bash,” he said. “It’s really frustrating because we know there’s an audience for them; we know there’s story to be told. We left that show on a cliffhanger and that was not our intention to end the show like that. We thought we were coming back next season.”

“We’ll try to get it again,” he added. “We would love to get it up and running in some capacity.”

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