Mr. Belding Was Everyone’s Principal

My daughters have an amazing elementary school principal named Mr. G. He’s warm and fuzzy, silly and friendly and sincerely attentive to the needs of both his students and their parents. That was not how principals rolled in the 1980s and 1990s — with one prominent exception.

Richard Belding (Dennis Haskins) ruled Good Morning, Miss Bliss‘ John F. Kennedy Junior High School in Indianapolis with more of a warm high five than an iron fist. The principal then applied the same principle to Saved by the Bell‘s Bayside High School in Los Angeles when he, Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies) and Samuel “Screech” Powers (Dustin Diamond) all inexplicably relocated from Indy to L.A. for the (classic) continuation series.

Now, I recognize that K-5 school administrators (Mr. G) have fewer serious problems to deal with than junior high (Good Morning Miss Bliss) and high school (Saved by the Bell and Saved by the Bell: The New Class) authority figures. That is not to say the job is easier, but there are more costumes involved. My own elementary school principal and vice principal did not receive the message about not terrifying the kids, and, if you are old enough to bother reading this, I’m willing to bet that yours did not either. While Mr. Belding often wanted to know “Hey, hey, hey, hey! What is going on here?,” half the time it was just because he felt left out. And every time he had a life lesson to impart.

Dennis Haskins, who played Mr. Belding on Good Morning Miss Bliss (the Disney Channel show with Hayley Mills playing Miss Bliss that aired in the late ’80s), its NBC continuation series Saved by the Bell (1989-1993) and its spinoff Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993-2000), died Saturday at 75. Haskins was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2018, though he tried to keep that private.

“It’s a tragic loss. Everyone loved Mr. Belding, and those of us who got to know Dennis loved him even more,” Haskins’ longtime agent Jay Schachter said in a statement. “He was a great person, and he loved, I mean absolutely LOVED, his fans. He always had time for them, no matter what. He was my client and dear friend for over 20 years, and I will miss him terribly.”

At some point in time, he would take on other roles — including Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), Mad Men, Hot in Cleveland, New Girl, I’m Dying Up Here, Robot Chicken and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But the line between Belding and Haskins completely blurred in the eyes of fans (and, it seems, in the eyes of Haskins and his agent). In this Saved by the Bell superfan’s mind, that was not a sad thing.

For years following their smash-hit Saturday morning show, most of the (other) stars of Saved by the Bell desperately tried to shed their characters from their public personas. Elizabeth Berkley, who played the brainiac do-gooder Jessie Spano (just keep her away from those caffeine pills!), would almost immediately strip down for Showgirls. Diamond, who played Screech in every iteration of the franchise, literally did with homemade, amateur porn and attempted to become a fighter. Tiffani Thiessen cut her hair a bit and joined the much more grown-up Beverly Hills, 90210. (She’s next starring in Disney+ series Coven Academy.)

As for Gosselaar, who was undeniably Saved by the Bell‘s breakout star, he just pretty much didn’t want to talk about it. (Gosselaar later came around on his iconic role a bit, donning a blonde wig and acid-washed jeans on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show.) But Haskins never really ditched Belding like that. Perhaps it was because he was the show’s oldest primary castmember, or maybe Dennis just loved being loved, which is not so different than Belding himself.

Mr. Belding just wanted to hang out with the Bayside gang, and he often did — even outside of school. Belding was a regular at The Max diner — which appeared to serve zero other adults — and he took the Tigers on elaborate class trips like skiing and white-water rafting. In one episode, when Belding’s wife kicks him out of the house, did he go crash on the couch of a fellow middle-aged pal? Nope, he bros out with Zack and AC Slater (Mario Lopez) instead. Yes, by today’s lens it’s all pretty inappropriate, but that is not how it played in the late ’80s and ’90s. Belding was a cool principal who the cool kids didn’t realize was cool.

None of that, by the way, was even Belding’s strangest storyline. In one episode, it is revealed that childhood friends Belding and (real-life NBC president at the time) Brandon Tartikoff once battled over a woman who would become the aforementioned Mrs. Belding. Tartikoff’s bizarre consolation prize was the NBC presidency (and that marijuana-smoking phony Johnny Dakota would never work again). Belding’s eventual exit from the Saved by the Bell franchise was meta as well. The character left Bayside High to become dean of the University of Chattanooga in Tennessee: Haskins was born in Chattanooga and played basketball for that same school. In 2000, he was named its “Distinguished Alumni.”

Belding was a good guy and, by all accounts, so way Haskins. How chill was the Big Bopper? Belding used to tell Morris, his frenemy (before that term was coined) who spent years antagonizing the man, that the student was like “the son I never had.” When the Belding character had a son, he named him Zack. (Haskins’ own son was possibly named after Dustin Diamond: Dustin Haskins was born in 1990, about two years after dad and Diamond began working together.)

Though Haskins left the Saved by the Bell universe, Belding never, ever left Haskins. Also a musician, Haskins released an album of cover songs in 2009 titled Karaoke With Your Favorite Principal Dennis. If that sentence was not weird enough for you, this one will be: Karaoke With Your Favorite Principal Dennis included a “Mustang Sally” duet with Hulk Hogan’s daughter, Brooke Hogan.