The First ‘Saved by the Bell’ Pilot Had a Star-Studded Cast

Most people don’t remember that Zack Morris, Lisa Turtle, Mr. Belding and Screech were created not for Saved By the Bell but Good Morning, Miss Bliss, a short-lived sitcom about a junior high school teacher starring Hayley Mills. Before producers figured out that viewers were way more interested in the students than the 40-year-old O.G. star of The Parent Trap, however, there was an even earlier incarnation of the series that featured what turned out to be way bigger talent.

In the 1986 pilot for Good Morning, Miss Bliss — ordered by NBC president Brandon Tartikoff, who longed to pay homage to an inspirational teacher from his own childhood — Carrie Bliss teaches a sixth grade class of future ‘90s TV stars. Brian Austin Green, later of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame, plays a strait-laced student with a penchant for suits who introduces himself with business cards and wrote an essay on how much he admires Ronald Reagan; Jonathan Brandis, who found teen idol status on seaQuest DSV, plays a troubled newcomer whose family tragedy leads him to act out in class; and Jaleel White, aka Steve Urkel, who only has a handful of lines but murders them all with his precocious comedic timing. Brandis, too, gives a standout, if possibly sadly prescient, performance as TV’s most anguished 11-year-old. 

As for Green, well, there’s a reason his most impressive post-90210 credit is The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

That’s not the only way the episode is surprisingly different from the incarnation of Good Morning, Miss Bliss that eventually aired. It was intended for NBC primetime rather than Disney Channel Saturday mornings, so a lot more time is given to Carrie’s home life, on the assumption that the viewers would include more adults than would eventually be paying half-attention as they sipped their coffee in the other room. It was also considerably more risque, featuring bizarrely lengthy subplots about Carrie’s new husband getting increasingly adamant about having morning sex and a student whose lust for her grows out of control, which she does very little to discourage, even remarking, “I like that kid,” after he compliments her legs. 

Incidentally, that kid is now a renowned TV director of Game of Thrones, Succession and Mad Men, among other prestige series, so things certainly worked out for him.

Unfortunately, along with the rest of the heavy hitters on the cast list, he got punted when NBC passed on the series after all. In the Disney Channel revamp, the kids got aged up, which meant Green, White, and Brandis were very temporarily out of a job. It’s hard to say whether producers took away the right lessons from feedback to the original Good Morning, Miss Bliss pilot. The post-Saved By the Bell careers of its young stars aren’t exactly sterling, but they did have a pretty successful little show for a while there. 

One thing’s for certain: Zack Morris should have worn more suits.