Teen television series have long been an entertainment staple and few were as great as Saved By the Bell. The iconic NBC sitcom first debuted in 1989 and soon became a fixture of the network’s Saturday morning lineup. Following a group of high school friends at the fictional Bayside High School in Los Angeles, the series helped define a generation while offering up lighthearted comedy mixed with serious social issues. Over the course of the series’ four seasons, Saved By the Bell took on everything from death, homelessness, environmental, issues, women’s rights, and more. But it’s one of the series’ episodes taking on underage drinking — and specifically driving under the influence — that was perhaps the most uncomfortable, and it almost had a very dark ending.
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Airing 33 years ago on October 10, 1992, the tenth episode of the fourth season of Saved by the Bell simply titled “Drinking and Driving” highlighted the dangers and consequences of driving under the influence of alcohol. The episode saw Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Lisa (Lark Voorhies), Screech (Dustin Diamond), and Slater (Mario Lopez) go to a party as part of the celebration for the upcoming homecoming game. Lisa drove to the party in her mother’s car, but after the group drinks at the party, Lisa says she’s too buzzed to drive. Zack steps up and says he’s fine. He takes the keys and gets behind the wheel but as it turns out, Zack is not fine. The group end up in a car accident and while no one is seriously injured, there are consequences. Slater hurts his shoulder and is unable to play int he game and there’s significant damage to Lisa’s mom’s car.
Instead of simply coming clean, Zack and his friends lie and scheme to cover up what has happened. The car is towed to Zack’s house while they figure out how they can pay for the damage, which in turn leads to questions from Zack’s dad. Eventually, by the end of this “very special episode” the group comes clean about the accident and how they got into it and are punished, including a serious lecture from Zack’s dad about how their actions could have gotten them or others killed.
“Drinking and Driving” Was Almost Very Different
There’s a lot to unpack about “Drinking and Driving”. The episode was not the first time that Saved By the Bell had taken on substance issues. The episode “Jessie’s Song” from 1990 saw Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley) take too many caffeine pills which causes her to have a manic episode leading to much repeated even to this day line “I’m so excited, I’m so scared”. Then, in 1991, the episode “No Hope with Dope” saw a celebrity come to Bayside to film an anti-drug PSA but ends up inviting the kids to a house party where he offers them pot. That leads to the celebrity being outed for their drug use and the episode having a full-on PSA at the end of the episode featuring then-NBC president Brandon Tartikoff.
What makes “Drinking and Driving” different is that it was the only Saved By the Bell episode to feature alcohol, and it also almost had a very different ending. The episode notably went through several drafts before landing on the one that ultimately went to air, written under the alternate titles “The Third ‘D’ Is Deception” and “Beergate”. The “Beergate” draft in particular ended, not with Zack’s dad giving him a lecture about his actions but instead saw Zack turn himself over to the police.
That version of the episode featured no end credits music, instead the credits would have played over Zack’s mugshot in silence. While that ending is certainly much darker than what actually aired for “Drinking and Driving”, one can’t help but feel like it would have more effectively driven home the episode’s message that drinking and driving is not only wrong and dangerous but has serious consequences. As it stands, the only genuine consequences the friends faced in the episode were the financial responsibility of having to repair Lisa’s mom’s car, Slater missing out on playing the homecoming game, and all of them having disappointed their parents which, in the grand scheme of things, are barely consequences at all.
The Saved By the Bell episode “Drinking and Driving” is available to stream on AppleTV+.
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