10 Saved By The Bell Plots That Are Certifiably Insane

2. Nobody Seems To Realize There's A Life Sentence For Kidnapping

(From "Save That Tiger") One of the first episodes to establish the war between Bayside High and their rival, Valley, "Save That Tiger" inexplicably has the highest stakes (well, and the lowest, it's complicated) of them all. Throughout the series, Zack goes back and forth about how much he wants to be taken seriously. Here, he wants to be seen as some kind of clown prince as Bayside and Valley engage in some kind of prank war. For some reason, everyone at both schools, including Valley's principal, is really, really invested in the outcome of the upcoming cheerleading competition and see it as the perfect event to be at the center of the prank war. It escalates from various pranks involving toilet papering to Zack and Slater dognapping Valley's (actual) bulldog mascot.

Now, obviously this is not a GOOD thing, but, it's a dog. When two Valley students decide to take their rival mascot after infiltrating Bayside wearing brilliant disguises (Bayside letter jackets), it's disproportionate retribution. Why? Bayside's mascot is Screech in a cartoonish Tiger costume. OK, look, Saved By The Bell was a sexless kids' show, so I can at least understand why the writers somehow didn't notice that the subliminal messaging episode super rapey, especially 25 years ago. It was certainly always creepy, and it's still dumb that they wrote it, but it's an episode that looks much worse now than it did at the time. Kidnapping was pretty much always kidnapping in anyone's eyes. A crime risking a LIFE SENTENCE. The Valley kids are treated as bad guys, but not even close to that degree. Thankfully, their principal tries to get them to return Screech, but instead they send one of themselves back in the mascot outfit, and somehow it leads to them losing the cheerleading competition for Valley. The moral of the story is...umm...there probably isn't one, actually.