When someone brings up Saved By The Bell, the memories that follow usually revolve around Zack Morris breaking the fourth wall or hitting on Kelly Kapowski, AC Slater’s muscles, Jesse Spano being a know-it-all and Screech pining over Lisa Turtle.
But there’s one important thing that’s generally lost in the sea of nostalgic memories about the seminal teen sitcom: Zack Morris is by far the worst character on the show.
It’s been 30 years since Saved By The Bell first hit airwaves and all those shenanigans Zack got up to on the show have become even more problematic.
Don’t let that blonde haired kid who talks to himself and says “time out” a lot fool you, he’s a Machiavellian jerk who will do whatever it takes to get his way and has no qualms doing some legally dodgy stuff.
In fact, the guy has done so much awful stuff Funny Or Die compiled all his misdeeds into a video series fittingly titled “Zack Morris Is Trash,” which is the perfect thing to help outline just why this blonde sociopath is, well, trash.
Manipulating people because of his teenage libido
When he’s not dumping his girlfriend to hit on the attractive school nurse, using subliminal messages to brainwash girls into sex or telling his girlfriend’s little sister to hook up with him (twice), he’s sabotaging his best mate’s date with a new girl before getting into a fight over her.
Hard to believe this ranks as some of the least problematic stuff he’s done in Saved By The Bell.
Putting his friends and girlfriend through hell and back
From getting Screech struck by lightning and auctioning off Lisa to pay off a credit card bill to getting Jessie hooked on caffeine pills and getting Kelly into a car accident, how on earth does Zack Morris still have any friends after what he’s put them all through?
And let’s not even get started on the time he tricked his friends into joining the army before bailing on them.
Doing and saying sexist, racist and generally offensive stuff
Hoo boy, where to even begin.
There’s the time he made fun of the homeless, fat-shamed a poor girl who won a date with him, was super racist to Native Americans, faked a terminal illness just to win a dumb bet and shattered the confidence of a girl who needs a wheelchair.
Need we say more?
Doing seriously twisted and illegal things just to earn money
There’s doing morally bankrupt things and there’s doing illegal things. But this being Zack Morris, he’s dabbled in both and how he isn’t in jail for some of the stuff he’s done is just mindboggling.
He’s stolen school supplies for his side hustle, kidnapped someone just to fix a chess game, caused chemical burns to his classmates, drove while intoxicated and even sold revealing swimsuit photos of underage girls.
The fact he’s not locked up in a supervillain prison cell on an island in the middle of nowhere with a Hannibal Lecter mask continues to baffle me.
