12 Things We Learned From Lifetime's "The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story"

Image via Complex Original

The best (unintentional, of course) laughs from the flick were courtesy of a soulless and skeptical NBC executive working closely on the series with producer/developer Peter Engel. If it were up to this unnamed woman, the show would've been lily-white, set in high school forever, and sans episodes that tackled Important Teen Issues. Her first shining moment: responding to Lark Voorhies' killer audition with, "Lisa Turtle is supposed to be a Jewish-American princess." Thank God for Peter Engel.

Can you imagine Saved by the Bell without the evenly gender-divided cast? Without Jessie Spano and the Type-A flavor she added to the group, her winning banter with Slater, and, most importantly, no 'caffeine pills' episode? In the show's original pilot script, Jessie didn't exist, but Elizabeth Berkley impressed Peter Engel and his team so much in an audition for Kelly that he created the character so both she and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen could come aboard.

Dustin Diamond's memoir accuses the cast of the type of hedonistic behind-the-scenes behavior you'd expect from teen stars, but according to the TV movie, Lark had no such fun. In fact, her family's Jehovah's Witness religion prevented her from openly pursuing a budding relationship with Mark-Paul Gosselaar, allowing Tiffani-Amber Thiessen to swoop in and form a hyphenated match made in heaven.

Instead of socializing with his fellow castmates, Dustin found friendship in a lurking struggle-actor, a mysterious Asian guy who became his vice guru but never made it farther than "extra." Just when poor Dusty thought he'd found a real friend, it turns out dude was, of course, only using him to try and advance his career. The lesson? There are no true friends in Hollywood. 

Mark-Paul's mom expected him to adhere to a pre-fame allowance of $20 a week; meanwhile, Dustin's dad was even worse than portrayed, apparently. On Twitter last night, Image Comics founder Robert Liefeld recounted witnessing Mr. Diamond flaunt his control over Dustin's hard-earned bread in a comic store he tended during the show's run.

Dustin was far from a nerd, IRL. Not only did he channel his loner rage into some Bruce Wayne level karate sessions, he even treated a heckling fan of the show who tried him at the movies once. No Zacks or Slaters were needed to get the bullies off of his back in the real world.

"Well, the network didn't kill us—but the hormones might."

That abominable, so-bad-it's-great line is the type of fun we were hoping The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story would provide. It's also the only worthwhile contribution the faux Dennis "Mr. Belding" Haskins makes to the entire flick. A disappointment on all fronts.

How's that for a fun fact? Before Jennie Garth landed the role of Kelly Taylor on a little show called 90210, she read for another Kelly, in another California-set high school. Clearly, things worked out pretty well for her, on a real "one door closes, a better door opens" wave. And, of course, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen would eventually go on to become her 90210 co-star.

The only person who consistently had nice things to say to Dustin Diamond was storied NBC entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff. Two key scenes feature Tartikoff offering reassurance and guidance to Dustin that he clearly wasn't getting elsewhere. He was even OK with giving Tartikoff's young daughter set tours while she referred to him as "Screech" instead of his government name. News that the two Tartikoffs were injured in a serious car crash definitely didn't help with Dustin's downward spiral.

We owe the best, most validating moment of the show to two lame girls who over-invested in, and over-related with, the Bayside gang. Earnest comments from two fans made Elizabeth Berkley realize kids were relating to the show and inspired her to push for storylines that tackled Big Issues that would resonate even deeper with the audience. Also, Dustin Diamond found this scene as hilarious as we all still do to this day.

It wasn't easy being Dustin Diamond's hormones while filming Saved by the Bell. Whereas Mark-Paul Gosselaar was volleying between female cast members and Mario Lopez kept rotating groupies, Diamond couldn't get much further than bringing girls backstage only for them to ask about Gosselaar and/or Lopez. His luck changed, though, when Tori Spelling joined the cast as Violet, Screech's equally nerdy love interest. The kiss they shared in front of the cameras also happened to be Diamond's first-ever legitimate smooch. Indeed, life imitated art.

Judging from a few Twitter reactions, some people were actually surprised to see Mark-Paul hitting the bottle to make those locks shine. Does anybody watch Franklin & Bash? Of course Mark isn't actually blond. Other anti-shocks: Mario Lopez was a smarmy douche who regularly chose female fans to bring backstage and Elizabeth Berkley has big career plans to be taken seriously as an actress, which didn't quite pan out. (See: Showgirls)