by Carls Life on Flickr
On Tuesday night, my friend Lisa sent me an e-mail with “Amazing clip!” in the subject line. In the e-mail, she included a link and wrote: “This is the best clip ever! Zack Morris brought back to life!” Knowing that Lisa can be a drama queen, I waited a full 36 hours before checking out the e-mail. When I did, I was amazed. I had no idea that Jimmy Fallon had dedicated a significant amount of his life to organizing a Saved By The Bell cast reunion. In my mind, the whole Tonight Show switcheroo has already been trumped by Fallon’s single-handed endeavor.
I’d always hoped to meet my childhood idol Zack Morris, and actor Marc-Paul Gosselaar’s brilliant in-character appearance on Fallon’s show kept my dream alive. For those of us born in the mid-1980s, Saved By The Bell gave us the scoop on high school from the time we entered kindergarten. And while no show is perfect (Chuck Klosterman famously critiqued SBTB’s “Tori Paradox” in his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs), I believe SBTB flirted with perfection.
Three Bayside Tigers cheers to Jimmy Fallon, The Roots, and the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon production team. Without further ado, here it is: