<p>				<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-12340" src="http://blog.feelingthevibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/SBTB-Peter-Engel-Instagram-1024x1024.jpg" alt="Saved by the Bell interview with Peter Engel" width="800" height="800"></p>
<h1>Get an Inside Look at the Iconic Show Saved by the Bell from Creator, Peter Engel with Behind the Scenes Stories and Peter Reveals if the &#8216;SBTB&#8217; Cast Dated in Real Life</h1>
<p>If you&#8217;re like us and you grew up watching Saved by the Bell or you&#8217;re watching it in reruns right now, you absolutely have to love all those characters.  ;There&#8217;s nobody like Zack, Kelly, Slater, Jessie, Lisa, Screech and so many more.  ;They lived at Bayside High School in California, the quintessential lifestyle for a teenager.  ;It was brought right to our TV screens.  ;Who created that show?  ;The one and only Peter Engel.  ;Peter Engel was the executive producer of Saved by the Bell and a number of other NBC shows.  ;Peter sat down with us for a very exclusive interview to discuss his new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0997943106/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;creativeASIN=0997943106&;linkCode=as2&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;linkId=1c31198b6bec5cf3f560340079063fba" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">I Was Saved By The Bell</span>.</a>  ;He tells us about his journey, how he even became involved with NBC and how he knew just exactly what he wanted to do.  ;Read about the amazing stories behind the different episodes of Saved by the Bell and which one of us he thinks would have liked Zack or Slater.  ;That and so much more plus a really special video right down below.</p>
<p><strong>So please, tell us a little bit about you. ; Where you are from originally? ; Do you have a big family?</strong></p>
<p>I grew up in the west side of Manhattan. I was going to NYU Film School. ; I didn&#8217;t feel school was enough. ; I wanted to be in television. ; We had one of the first televisions in our neighborhood. I fell in love that night with one of the variety shows with Milton Berle. ; I was really shy at the time. ; I wanted to be a page at 30 Rock, not ABC, only at NBC. ; In fact I read an article online about two weeks ago that says it&#8217;s harder to work at NBC than to get into Harvard. ; One day I rushed out of class to take the subway up to 30 Rock. ; I barged in and said &#8220;I have to be a page.&#8221; ; They told me they only take applications by mail. I talked my way into seeing the top guy, which was not me because I was shy.  ;He said they got 14,000 applications a year by mail and we only take 7. ; I told him I was in film school and wanted to do movies. ; While I carried on, he asked me if I could start on Monday. ; So I started on the Tonight Show on Thursday night since I didn&#8217;t have school on Friday. ; I was a page, I was in! ; I had to turn down party invitations because I had to work. ; Years later from 1986 on, I was exclusive to NBC. ; That&#8217;s how I got into the business.</p>
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<p><strong>Watch as Peter Engel, Creator of Saved by the Bell introduces his interview on FeelingtheVibe.com ;</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fTYATuBpzN8" width="500" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Did you always see yourself as a producer?</strong></p>
<p>Definitely. It was a lifelong dream, that&#8217;s what it is. ; I wanted to do this from when I was 12 years old. ; It took me five years to write this book, <strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">I Was Saved By the Bell. ;</span></em></strong> ;It&#8217;s a huge holiday gift, it would be wonderful for anybody&#8217;s holiday gift.</p>
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<p><strong>What do you like to do in your free time?</strong></p>
<p>I am an avid reader. ; I have a huge book collection. ; I only read non-fiction though.  ;I have read so many scripts over the years that I needed something for me. ; Every month I read tons of books. ; I am in the gym every day, I love to swim as well. ; I always follow up on my political news.</p>
<p><strong>I have a funny behind the scenes story about Saved by the Bell.</strong> ; Dennis Haskins who played Principal Belding wasn&#8217;t included in the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002Y864Z6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;linkCode=as2&;creativeASIN=B002Y864Z6&;linkId=de804ba8d3dfc48463d415f1c3e9b8b4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Saved by the Bell Board Game</a>. ; It only had the kids since it was about dating. ; Dennis&#8217;s mother was coming to visit one night when the game had just been released and he said to me, &#8220;What am I going to tell her about why I&#8217;m not in the game?&#8221; ; I said, &#8220;Is she going to go in Toys R Us and browse around?&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002Y864Z6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;creativeASIN=B002Y864Z6&;linkCode=as2&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;linkId=51e764575ad1970b17098852e2985725" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img class="aligncenter" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&;MarketPlace=US&;ASIN=B002Y864Z6&;ServiceVersion=20070822&;ID=AsinImage&;WS=1&;Format=_SL250_&;tag=feelingthevib-20" alt="" width="338" height="338" border="0"></a></p>
<p><strong>After all of your years of experience, what would you say you know now that you wish you knew when you were younger?</strong></p>
<p>Good question. ; I was so naï;ve, I thought I was going to be a big producer, that it was just going to happen. I didn&#8217;t realize how many times I would get knocked down, how many times my heart would be broken. You are going to have more rejection and heartbreak but  ;it&#8217;s how you come back from it. ; I always tell people, if you&#8217;re going to dream you might as well dream big. ; It takes just as much work to achieve a big dream as it does to achieve a small one.</p>
<p><strong>Didn&#8217;t Saved by the Bell get bad ratings in the beginning of the show?</strong></p>
<p>No, it actually didn&#8217;t get bad ratings. ; We didn&#8217;t know our audience well enough. Saved by the Bell was up against the Smurfs. The research guys came out and said &#8220;we&#8217;ve found a new audience.. twelve to seventeen.&#8221; ; We didn&#8217;t measure them. ; We got more tweens than teens. So now what are tweens? A new word? Well it is now and we had more tweens on Saturday morning than the Bill Cosby Show which had teenagers in it. ; Once we knew that, it was explosive. ; There was no such thing as television for this.</p>
<p> ;</p>
<figure id="attachment_12353" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12353" style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://blog.feelingthevibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/13422197_1600637236933223_2971647000070858682_o.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-12353" src="http://blog.feelingthevibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/13422197_1600637236933223_2971647000070858682_o-1024x682.jpg" alt="Saved by the Bell pop up diner in Chicago" width="540" height="359"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-12353" class="wp-caption-text">A Dream come True for Bayside Fans.  ;Eat like the Bayside Gang at &#8220;The Max&#8221; &#8211; Pop up Diner in Chicago (Credit: www.Facebook.com/SavedbytheMax</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>So you created it. ; You are the creator, you really are the pioneer of that. ; </strong></p>
<p>We are trying to ;get &#8220;The Max&#8221; in different cities in America. ; It looks exactly the same. ; The one in Chicago has episodes of Saved by the Bell playing over every booth. ; Some of these shows I haven&#8217;t even watched since I was in the editing room with them. ; It brought back so many memories to sit in those crimson red booths at The Max how I used to when we would go over the scripts.</p>
<p> ;</p>
<figure id="attachment_12346" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12346" style="width: 499px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://blog.feelingthevibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/vlcsnap-2015-03-20-12h45m01s50.png"><img class="wp-image-12346 " src="http://blog.feelingthevibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/vlcsnap-2015-03-20-12h45m01s50.png" alt="Kelly, Screech and Lisa" width="499" height="374"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-12346" class="wp-caption-text">Kelly, Screech, and Lisa at &#8220;The Max&#8221; in a Saved by the Bell episode</figcaption></figure>
<p> ;</p>
<p><strong>People still love the show! ; Those that watched it when they were younger and teens of today. ; The show is still on!</strong></p>
<p>We are selling more T-shirts than we did 26 years ;ago.  ;Saved by the Bell is out on DVD now.  ;The kids did a reunion type of show when they went on Jimmy Fallon. ; My son works for YouTube and I called him to ask how many hits he thought we would end up with. ; He predicted 1 million. ; I said there&#8217;s no way! ; We ended up with 30 million hits.</p>
<figure style="width: 178px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ELKDDWM/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;creativeASIN=B00ELKDDWM&;linkCode=as2&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;linkId=a88418b9a26c1cfef4f3fed3c0c3c1fc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&;MarketPlace=US&;ASIN=B00ELKDDWM&;ServiceVersion=20070822&;ID=AsinImage&;WS=1&;Format=_SL250_&;tag=feelingthevib-20" alt="" width="178" height="250" border="0"></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Get the Complete Saved by the Bell DVD Series and relive the stories of Zack, Kelly, Slater, Jessie, Lisa and Screech.</figcaption></figure>
<p><img style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=feelingthevib-20&;l=am2&;o=1&;a=B00ELKDDWM" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0"><strong>Saved by the Bell was such a good wholesome show. If it was on today, how do you think it would be different?</strong></p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think it would make it as a comedy today. we were the first and the fact that I won the first diversity award. ; We cast color blind. ; There was a girl I knew, a Jewish princess from Long Island and the concept was that she moved to California. ; Lark Voorhies asked me to meet with her. ; My staff said who should we have her read for? ; I said &#8220;Lisa Turtle.&#8221; ; They said &#8220;but she&#8217;s not black.&#8221; &#8220;Well she is now.&#8221; ; We didn&#8217;t play upon the diversity but today it is so sensitive. ; I would have to do it as a drama. We made an episode called Running Zack about his Indian heritage. ; People got upset about it. ; That was exactly the opposite of what we were doing. ; Mark Paul had to apologize. ; We did it to make people feel inclusive.  ;&#8216;Bell&#8217; today would have to be a drama. ; Comedies are fun and you make fun but it wouldn&#8217;t work for today.</p>
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<p><strong>You have worked with so many different people. How would you describe working with teenagers on Saved by the Bell versus working with older more seasoned adults? </strong></p>
<p>&#8216;Bell&#8217; was the best! ; If something was wrong, the kids would stay and I would go even though it was my show.  ;They were absolutely magical. ; They worked from the first day. ; They never ever missed, ever. We ;were like a family together. ; Screech was so young. ; He started at 11 years old. ; I was the papa of everyone. ; When we went to Hawaii for the Hawaii movie, we had the parents, the kids, and the school teachers.  ;It was like a family going on vacation.</p>
<p><strong>You chose a great cast!</strong></p>
<p>Everybody dated everybody, except Screech.</p>
<p>I think Diana was a Zack girl and Kristen was a Slater girl. (As he referred to us)</p>
<p><strong>You got it.  ;How did you know?</strong></p>
<p>I could just tell.</p>
<figure id="attachment_12350" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12350" style="width: 436px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-12350" src="http://blog.feelingthevibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/slater-zack.png" alt="Kelly, Zack and Slater on Saved by the Bell" width="436" height="455"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-12350" class="wp-caption-text">From L to R: Kelly, Zack and Slater on Saved by the Bell</figcaption></figure>
<p> ;</p>
<p><strong>We know they put out a documentary on Lifetime about &#8220;Saved by the Bell.&#8221;  ;What was your take on that?</strong></p>
<p>I was the most boring character ever. ; I got to see the show before it was aired. ; It was just innocuous.  ;There was one thing I found out that I didn&#8217;t know. ; The critics in the LA times and in NY just destroyed them. ; They said Zack Morris was such a bad dancer. ; Well he was supposed to be that way, that&#8217;s how I wrote it. ; I didn&#8217;t know how the kids reacted to that and how devastated they really were when they heard the critics. ; The kids everywhere loved it though. ; People would come up to me all the time and say &#8220;my kids just love your show!&#8221; ; The critics tore them apart but we got them!</p>
<p> ;</p>
<p><strong>What has been your biggest and best memory of working on SBTB?</strong></p>
<p>One great ;memory was when we came to the beach club right up here. ; Hawaii and Las Vegas were great. ; I didn&#8217;t live here at the time. ; My kids were little and we lived in Brentwood. ; Another one was when I knew we were airing in 85 countries. ; No comedy had ever been in more than six. ; Every kid goes to school regardless of where they live. ; They wanted to see how California kids lived, how their fashions were, and we set them. ; My costume designer was 23 at the time. ; I said you&#8217;re going to dress them. ; We went to the Broward Mall in Florida for a tour. ; We were only on the air for 4 months. ; 10,000 kids on a Friday night showed up. ; The police had to come in a jeep to the mall to get us out. ; It was the most amazing experience. ; As Baby said to Johnny in Dirty Dancing, &#8220;I had the time of my life.&#8221; ; They were great kids. ; They were unusal. ; The were so professional that people forgot that they were kids. ; They will do things that kids do. ; I never let anyone yell at them from my crew or they were out.</p>
<p> ;</p>
<p><strong>Who is your inspiration in life?</strong></p>
<p>John F Kennedy. ; As a 20 year old, I worked as one of his campaign aids. ; I was never political before then. ; I was just out of NYU. ; I heard his convention speech at the coliseum in LA. ; I thought I could lick envelopes or answer the phones for him. ; I went down to the Roosevelt Hotel and I said, &#8220;I want to volunteer.&#8221; ; He said, &#8220;ok you&#8217;re in charge of all the first time voters, all the college kids.&#8221; I didn&#8217;t know how to do that. ; He said well we don&#8217;t have anyone to do this so if it&#8217;s not you, it&#8217;s no one. ; They didn&#8217;t have secret service then. ; Our job was to move him in and out of crowds. (The full Kennedy story is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0997943106/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;linkCode=as2&;creativeASIN=0997943106&;linkId=84e8b23efe40ae4ca1b48c77e833bde6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in the book</a>.)</p>
<p> ;</p>
<p><strong>When was the last time you saw the main cast of Saved by the Bell?</strong></p>
<p>I was at Mario&#8217;s surprise party about a year and a half ago. ; That night was the last time I saw more than one of them at a time.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Click the link below to buy your copy of &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0997943106/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;linkCode=as2&;creativeASIN=0997943106&;linkId=84e8b23efe40ae4ca1b48c77e833bde6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">I Was Saved by the Bell</a>&#8220;</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0997943106/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;creativeASIN=0997943106&;linkCode=as2&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;linkId=1c31198b6bec5cf3f560340079063fba" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img class="aligncenter" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&;MarketPlace=US&;ASIN=0997943106&;ServiceVersion=20070822&;ID=AsinImage&;WS=1&;Format=_SL250_&;tag=feelingthevib-20" alt="" border="0"></a><img style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=feelingthevib-20&;l=am2&;o=1&;a=0997943106" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0"></p>
<p><strong>When and how did you decide to write, &#8220;I Was Saved by the Bell?&#8221;</strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been working on it for 5 years.  ;It&#8217;s a journey.  ;A kid who had a big dream and how he found success. ; I didn&#8217;t want to do a Saturday morning show. ; The book is about all the heart break, all the victories, and all the fabulous people you meet along the way. ; I&#8217;m a story teller!</p>
<p> ;</p>
<p><em>The book will make an amazing holiday gift for all the huge Saved by the Bell fans out there.  ;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0997943106/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&;camp=1789&;creative=9325&;creativeASIN=0997943106&;linkCode=as2&;tag=feelingthevib-20&;linkId=1c31198b6bec5cf3f560340079063fba" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Make sure to pick up a copy at Amazon today! ;</a></em></p>
<p> ;</p>
<h2 style="text-align: center;"><strong>ALSO SEE THE FUN &#8216;SAVED BY THE BELL&#8217;  ;TRIVIA VIDEO ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL!</strong></h2>
<figure id="attachment_12354" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12354" style="width: 397px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L_WQCpizfM"><img class="wp-image-12354" src="http://blog.feelingthevibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/sbtb-trivia-youtube-thumbnail-1024x576.jpg" alt="Watch the Saved by the Bell Trivia Game Video" width="397" height="223"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-12354" class="wp-caption-text">Watch the Saved by the Bell Trivia Game Video</figcaption></figure>
<p style="text-align: center;">[<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L_WQCpizfM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Watch and Play along with our Saved by the Bell Trivia Game on YouTube</a>]</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"><img src="https://wud.tpx.mybluehost.me/website_9bd75fcc/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/FTV-Favicon1.png" width="100" height="100" alt="Feeling the Vibe" itemprop="image"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://feelingthevibe.com/author/feelingthevibe/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Feeling the Vibe</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><p>Editor of Feeling the Vibe Magazine. We have all the scoop on the latest celeb news, makeup tutorials, and so much more.</p>
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