NonProductive -- [adult swim] and Saved by the Bell... a sign of things to come?

[adult swim] and Saved by the Bell… a sign of things to come?

By now, most of you are aware that [adult swim] has seen it fit to drive us all insane by showing “Saved by the Bell” during its late night lineup on Cartoon Network. To some, this was a good joke, to others, a sign of Adult Swim’s intense hubris, but to me it was an act of war.

Let me explain: This is not just another case of me overreacting to something relatively simple and benign – despite what my therapist says – this is a clear and well thought out theory on the nature of Time, Economics, and Nostalgia as played out by 1980s teen idols.

Maybe I should begin with a description of “Saved by the Bell” both to tantalize and horrify our readers.

The show we all now know as “Saved by the Bell” started its life as “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” and aired on the Disney Channel in 1987. In those days, it followed the life of a group of junior high kids from Indiana. Many of the aspects of the later show had yet to be introduced, and the only characters that carried over were Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins) the principal, Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) the cool kid, Screech (Dustin Diamond) the nerd, and Lisa (Lark Voorhies) the fashion ~~whore~~ diva. The other kids in the class were Nikki (Heather Hopper) who was the smart/passionate girl and Mikey (Max Battimo) who played Zack’s best friend. Please understand that I had to do research to uncover these names – it’s not like I’ve been obsessing over the series every waking moment until I can see Nikki’s shocked expression inside my eyelids from the episode where she released all the science lab frogs and everyone got angry at her and she learned a valuable lesson – honest.

[Good Morning, Miss Bliss with lost cast members Mikey and Nikki. Mikey is the kid with the Members Only Jacket and Nikki is the one with the Side Pony Tail]

Milo (T.K. Carter) rounded out the cast as the friendly assistant vice principal, and of course, the namesake of the series was Miss Bliss… our very own Haley Mills.

You all probably remember the series now. Maybe not the name, or the characters, or the Indiana-ness – but you sure as hell remember seeing Haley Mills when you were a kid and being totally confused out of your 10 year-old mind.

The show was cancelled on the Disney Channel, and then picked up by NBC who retooled it; removing some characters, switching it to high school, and moving the whole deal over the California and Bayside High. They continued to air the Miss Bliss episodes in syndication with new intros of Zack “reminiscing” about his alternate reality existence. I can tell you, as a kid this messed me up something awful. I mean, I’m just now getting used to the idea that TV isn’t reality, so you break the fourth-wall too much with Young Franky and you get a very confused and paranoid person.

Not that it had any long term effect on me. No sir.

Anyway, the show eventually included such favorites as A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez) the jock, Jesse (Elizabeth Berkly) the nerdy fema-nazi, and adorable Kelly (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen) the popular girl. It went on for about a thousand years and spawned all sorts of confusing spin-offs regarding summer vacations, island getaways, marriages, college, and new classes. Before writing this article, I had no idea that the Saved by the Bell Multiverse was so extensive. Hurray.

As I said, the show moved to NBC, was aired on Saturday Mornings, and dealt with serious teen issues like addiction to caffeine pills and Z Cavaricci pants. Everyone seems to have a feeling about this show, and yes, I admit, I used to watch it a lot in syndication. But that’s hardly my fault – it’s on practically every hour of the day somewhere in America.

But that’s not the horrible part about “Saved by the Bell” being aired on Adult Swim. No. The horrible part is all about TNBC.

Did that last string of letters scare you? Have any idea why? I’ll tell you why – it’s because in the heart and soul of any person that would bother to read this far into an article with a title like “[adult swim] and Saved by the Bell… a sign of things to come?” there is a small area dedicated to the painful memory of the day that Saturday Morning Cartoons started to die. And that part of your soul knows the evil that was TNBC.

You see, the success of “Saved by the Bell” was a large part of what prompted NBC to cancel its Saturday Morning Cartoon lineup in favor of teenage-themed shows under the T(een)NBC banner.

As if “California Dreams” and “Hang Time” weren’t bad enough, NBC wasn’t satisfied with just irradiating us with crap shows – no – they also started to take away our valued cartoons.

In 1987, one year before the dawn of “Saved by the Bell” on Saturday Mornings, NBC aired the following cartoon shows: “Kissyfur”, “Disney’s Adventures of the Gummy Bears”, “Smurfs”, “ALF” (the animated series), “The Chipmunks”, and “The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley”. In the following few years, many of those shows died off – and were replaced gradually, menacingly, Blob-ishly, with live action teenager nonsense. Eventually, NBC would sell its Saturday Morning time slots to the Today Show.

Children everywhere wept.

If this strange cancer only affected one network we could have survived. We could have weathered the storm watching “Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies” or “The Real Ghostbusters”… hell, even the fake Ghostbusters would have sufficed – but it was not meant to be. Eventually, all Saturday Morning Cartoons would bite the dust.

So, the question remains… what does the airing of “Saved by the Bell” on a supposedly all Cartoon Network mean? Has [adult swim] truly lost its edge as some critics claim? Are good cartoons on their way out, destined to be replaced by corny teen romps and “Tom Goes to the Major”? Does anyone actually write “12oz Mouse” or does it merely congeal in a bathtub?

Years later, cartoons would come back to Saturday Morning – but it was never the same again. Ironically, most commentators lay the blame for the drop in what was once a classic part of Americana on the proliferation of cable channels, which offered a never-ending slew of shows made for children rather then forcing kids to wait until Saturday Mornings for a brief respite from boring television. How could the networks complete? Now, the cable channel designed for cartoons is slowly loosing ground to the real world – I’ve even seen live action films on the channel (like “Dumb and Dumber”). Sadly, that seems to be the way of many cable channels. Remember when the SciFi Channel aired old SciFi shows and not the same Stargate SG1 episodes and made-for-tv-crap over and over? Remember “Mystery Science Theater 3000”? Remember when the “Greatest American Hero” used to air on FX, before it started making all that (un)original programming about cops and grime and crossing that thin blue line or whatever. Remember “O’ Canada” and “Toon Heads” on Cartoon Network?

Well, don’t worry – the classics will move to a new network, like Boomerang, and by the time MTV gets to MTV9 – we’ll actually have a channel that plays music videos.

Relax, I know that [adult swim] has already taken “Saved by the Bell” off the air, and I know that it was just an elaborate programming joke – but damn it… I needed to write an article for this week!

I think I just tipped my hat.

Well, I’m about to go off to the Max and watch some old episodes of “Captain N: The Game Master” – later!

Frank Hablawi

April 13, 2006

Bonus Facts:

The Karate Kid cartoon also aired on NBC in 1989, but was never renewed. Coincidence?!

Also, my spell check wants me to change Z. Cavaricci into Avarice. Nice.

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