Saturday, August 4, 2012

DVD Review - Saved By The Bell: Seasons 1 & 2

Saved by the Bell: Seasons 1 & 2
Starring: Mark-Paul Gosselaar Mario Lopez, Dustin Diamond; Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Elizabeth Berkley; Lark Voorhies; Dennis Haskins
Studio: Lionsgate
Release Date: September 2, 2003
Number of Discs: 5
Running Time: 750 minutes




I use to watch Saved by the Bell when I was a kid, well I think everyone I grew up with watched it. The showed aired in the mornings, in the afternoons and of course on Saturday mornings. I would run home after school as fast as I could so I won't miss it, even though I had probably seen each episode three times by then. I quit watching the franchise after The College Years ended, though I do recall coming across The New Class a few times while channel surfing.

The series aired for years on TBS in the early mornings, but I never watched any of the reruns. The show has held up well over the years compared to other teen shows of the early 90s 

Saved by the Bell was a retooled version of the short lived Disney Channel series Good Morning, Miss Bliss. The characters Zack Morris, Samuel "Screech" Powers, Lisa Turtle, and Mr. Richard Belding transitioned over to the new show which premiered on NBC in August of 1989, becoming one of the most popular teen series of all time despite being critically bashed.

The character Zack Morris became the main character, which is the Bayside High School prankster/schemer. During most of the first season Zack and the new Bayside student, A.C. Slater, fight for the attention of the sweetheart cheerleader Kelly Kapowski. Zack always gets what he wants even if that means tricking the teachers or the principal, Mr. Belding. Normally, his sidekick Screech (one of the school's nerds) helps him in his schemes, when Screech isn't drooling over his crush, Lisa. And of course there is Jessie Spano, the school's know-it-all.

I guess there is a little bit of a debate on how many seasons the show actually had. Saved by the Bell aired for four seasons which represented their freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years, but the way NBC filmed the series was in five different batches, so technically there was actually five seasons filmed. The episodes were always aired out of order with the pilot airing later in the season, which involved Slater's first day at Bayside. When the series went into syndication, the episodes were slightly edited and aired in a different order, but still chronologically wrong. The Good Morning, Miss Bliss episodes were retooled for syndication with a new opening title of "Saved by the Bell" and a new introduction from Zack Morris to bridge the gap between the two series.

The Seasons 1 and 2 dvd set contains mixed episodes of the original airings and the syndication versions. The set contains 32 episodes and follows the syndication order and is missing a few episodes from the second season.

The episodes included in this set are:

Disc 1 - Dancing to the Max; The Lisa Card; The Gift; Fatal Distraction; Screech's Woman; Aloha Slater, The Substitute; Cream for a Day

Disc 2 - Pinned to the Mat; The Beauty and the Screech; The Friendship Business; The Mamas and the Papas; Save that Tiger; The Election; The Zack Tapes

Disc 3 - King of the Hill; The Babysitters; Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind; Slater's Friend; Screech's Birthday

Disc 4 - The Prom; Zack's War; Save the Max; Driver's Education; House Party; Model Students; Blind Date; Rent-A-Pop

Disc 5 - Miss Bayside; Jessie's Song; 1-900-Crushed; Running Zack; From Nurse to Worse

What a nostalgia kick I had while watching these old episodes of Saved by the Bell. I had completely forgotten about the kids' hangout The Max and Screech's robot, Kevin. One of my favorite episodes is on this set, Screech's Woman. Zack can't find anyone to go out with Screech, so with the help of Jessie and Lisa, he dresses up as a girl and goes by the name Bambi so he can try lift up Screech's self-esteem.

I recently joined the Premiere Blogger Program from Mommy Bear Media where you can find the best new movies on Dvd, in which I received this Saved by the Bell Dvd set courtesy of the program. The shipping was really fast, I think it took only two days to get the set. With every order you get free shipping! Some online stores charge a lot for shipping, so I was impressed with the free shipping on the order.

In less than a week, I watched the entire set by watching a few episodes in the mornings and a several at night. Some of the plots are a little silly, but the characters are fun to watch, and are more family friendly than most of current shows on television. You can buy the first and second season set for under twenty dollars. That's cheap for hours of entertainment that you can enjoy with your entire family.



1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the post and for being a great premier blogger for us!

    ReplyDelete

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