Dustin Diamond (Screech in Saved By The Bell) has died.

From Mirror.co.uk:
Dustin Diamond dead: Saved By The Bell star dies of cancer aged 44


From BBC News:
Dustin Diamond: Saved by the Bell star dies aged 44


Although "Saved By The Bell" was never really my cup of tea with regards to US sitcoms (not quite in the target audience age range) I seem to recall it was featured as part of The Bigger Breakfast 9am-12pm line-up for a time.

44 is much too young an age for anyone to lose their life to a nasty illness such as cancer.

Was a regular Sunday morning fix long before T4 too. Tragic news - and I was actually surprised how young he was considering it aired from 1989-1993 - you usually think of the stars of US teen shows being quite a bit older than the characters they are playing, but if anything he may have been younger.

Screech was the stand-out character from the sitcom. He wasn't the typically cast teen actor which made him even more unique on a format where the other leads were all model looking actors.

If he was 44 in 2021, and the show started in 1989, that means he was only 12 then! And being set in high school, his character would've been at least 14. Apparently them casting an underage actor was an accident - they misread his headshot and thought he was older.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_by_the_Bell

Dustin started recording the 'Good Morning Miss Bliss' series in 1987, so he was even younger than that when he first played Screech. He played the character all the way to the last recording of The New Class in 1998, so that's over a decade playing the same character! Not a bad run.

I first watched the series on Nickelodeon in the early 2000s reruns. They started playing 'The College Years' around the same time, and i must admit i found it odd even then that they played the series which was clearly meant to be a bit more adult on a kids channel.

The New Class ran until 2000, didn't it? Unless episodes were left sitting on the shelf for ages after being filmed.

I remember reading they split the last series of The New Class into two to allow it to run until 2000. It's bizarre watching that show in 2000, when it clearly looks like it's from the early 90s still.

From a TV Pres point of view, watching them recreate the sets of SBTB in the new Peacock show is interesting, however they've recreated them in the style of the original show, which is technically wrong because by the end of The New Class, they had redesigned the school and 'The Max' completely.

That's a shocker. Sorry to hear that news.

I definitely recall watching Saved By The Bell and I would guess it would have been during Sunday morning airings. Brekkie, do you have any idea when that would have been? I seem to recall similar types of US imports as well. There was definitely another SBTB-type US teen sitcom that I can't remember the name of right now. Seem to think it might have been set in an inner city (New York?) school. And I also remember watching "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" which I think was broadcast on weekend mornings too.

All hazy memories now though. I wouldn't be able to pinpoint which channels these shows were broadcast on. Later on, once I had access to satellite TV, I recall seeing similar shows like "Kenan and Kel" and "Sister, Sister". By that point I was starting to outgrow the genre and moving into more mainstream adult fare like Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends etc. Mostly thanks to Channel 4 and the wonderful Paramount Comedy Channel. I was glued to the latter around the turn of the century as it showed a lot of great classic US sitcoms.

Considering how very early 90’s SBTB looked, it certainly did well and its humour didn’t date too badly. I remember watching it on Nickelodeon in the early 2000’s and I believe it did very well for them, even though it was a decade old by this time.

Something which is usually forgotten is that SSTB started in TV-am in the UK, before it switched to Channel 4.

I'd guess mid-90s as I don't think I'd have been quite old enough in the early 90s. It was probably still on repeat once T4 came along and certainly got shown on The Bigger Breakfast and I think in the holidays before then.

C4 showed most of the Peter Engel shows like City Guys, California Dreams and Malibu CA. Was also USA High on C5. Think they were all shows from NBC Saturday mornings, but the sort of show that became redundant once they switched from kids/teen shows to "educational" content which tend to be Discovery style shows.

I think Doug was as well, unless I'm misremembering. I admit I never got the appeal of that, it just seems... bland. It wasn't bad as such, just didn't seem to have much happening. But it did well enough for Disney to pick it up for a movie and another 3 seasons after Nickelodeon cancelled it, so I must be missing something.

After much searching, I think I've found it: City Guys. No idea when or on what channel it aired in the UK but the theme song seems very familiar: