The Great
Pumpkin.
- HOME
- YOUTUBE
- ARTICLES
- VIDEOS
- THEATER
- CLASSIFIEDS
- VHS COVERS
- CEREAL BOXES
- GAME BOX ART
- READ ALONGS
- PODCASTS
- FORUM
- FAQ
- POINTS STORE
Don't mess
with the bull.
JOIN!!!
Retro TV Romance: Zack & Kelly
As a kid there were two ways to learn about romance. The
first was watching your parents and frankly, nothing was more disgusting than seeing
old people get all mushy and kissy-faced. So that left the second option,
weekly episodes of our favorite TV shows. Here played out in dramatic style
were the ins and outs of love and dating in a very entertaining form. So let’s
start out by exploring the romantic adventures of the hottest couple at Bayside
high school, Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski.
Saved By The Bell was a strange mix. Mostly the producers
gave us goofy one-off shows about Zack’s get rich quick schemes or the
occasional death of a salamander, but the one thread that carried throughout the
series was Zack’s pursuit of gorgeous cheerleader and all around goody-goody,
Kelly Kapowski.
At first Zack was just trying to out-maneuver A.C. Slater
for her hand, then he desperately moved into subliminal mind control. At one
point they did get to fictitiously play man and wife during a Home Economics
project, but Zack finally won out for real by sheer persistence when Kelly
agreed go to prom with him.
It was the magical night the young Mr. Morris had been
waiting for, but was interrupted by Kelly’s father’s layoff from work. Not to
be deterred, the couple celebrated at a lunch table outside the gym with casual
clothes and passionate kisses. On the
verge of becoming an official couple, Zack gets googly eyes for the new school
nurse, Jennifer, who getting wind of his foolishness, uses her maturity to
scare him back into Kelly’s arms.
The lovebirds have their first fight over Zack’s paranoia of
Kelly cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend and he has to woo her back through
an apology skit featuring the disturbing image of Screech in her cheer outfit,
next to Slater in spandex ballet attire. Then there was that time Zack had to
kiss Jessie as part of Snow White and the 7 Dorks, which led to a full-on make
out and broken hearts, that were healed through embarrassing white kid rap.
At this point the show moved from light-hearted teen comedy
to 90210-esque drama. Kelly actually does cheat on Zack, with an older college
guy named Jeff, who was her manager at The Max. Next thing you know Kelly is in
tears apologizing for hurting Zack at the same place they shared their special
moment, while Slater and Jessie croon a sappy duet. Then the guys get fake
IDs to crash a 21 and over dance club only to find Jeff out with a girl more
age appropriate. Kelly finds out, breaks up with Jeff and ends up with nobody,
leaving Zack in the friend zone.
After graduation, when Zack, Slater and Screech went to
college, Kelly was nowhere to be found. When Tiffani Amber-Thiessen finally joined
The College Years series we were hoping for a rekindling of romance and we got
it, but not without the familiar ups and downs of Kelly dating an older college
Professor and Zack going to great lengths to break them up. Ultimately Zack
proposes and the couple finally ties the knot in Las Vegas during a TV movie
special, which officially brought the story of this group of Bayside alumni to
a close.
So yes, one of the greatest and longest lasting Retro TV Romances where everything worked out in the end. The truth is that Mark-Paul Gosselar was just a stand-in for
all teenage boys that wanted to get close to Tiffani Amber-Thiessen in her
regular look of floral printed jean shorts and shoulderless miniskirt
ensembles. It certainly led me to believe that dating would be a lot more
complicated than it was.
So what was you’re your favorite Zack and Kelly moment?
Vaporman87 Posted on Apr 01, 2016 at 01:32 PM
I only caught Saved By The Bell intermittently, so I was not up on all the ongoing drama. I would get in right in the middle of something, not really understanding everything that had gone on prior to my viewing. That being said, it was easy to see that the producers had fun playing up the relationships between the six of them. Specifically Zach and Kelly, Slater and Jessie, and Screech and Lisa. It's nice to get a breakdown of the whole romance and how it eventually turned out, for those of us not privy to that.
With the holidays here it's a joyus time of year normally. However with the year of 2020 things have been one event&...
In the span of only a few months, the summer season is over. We've had our fill of a vacation in the heat, but it's back to the drawing b...
Years ago, on one of my first yard sale trips, I stumbled across a tabletop pumpkin blow mold for one dollar. I had no idea what it was, but I kne...
From the late 1990s to early 2000s, the Kids WB block on the WB channel became a Saturday Morning/weekday afternoon powerhouse of animated shows, and ...
Now you might be wondering: Who is Agent Pixel? If you grew up in the early 2000s like I did, you probably already know the answer. But if y...