Behind the Scenes at Bayside: What Mr. Belding Didn’t Want You to Know About ‘Saved By the Bell’

Saved By the Bell was the top teen show for a certain generation when it started airing in 1989. The show’s producer Peter Engel was a born-again Christian who wanted Bayside High to be as clean and upbeat as possible…but that doesn’t mean that things were always so squeaky clean behind the scenes. Here are a few shocking things you never knew about the show and its cast.

1. There was no swearing allowed on set

To keep up with the wholesome image of the show, the executive producer Peter Engel made a rule that no one was allowed to swear on set. Mark-Paul Gosselaar later discussed the freedom of working on a movie without the restriction on cussing. “It was nice to actually swear on the set. It was like, ‘Ooh, I can say that?’ We weren’t allowed to swear on the Saved by the Bell set. We were very restricted. It had to be a very clean show, all the way around.”