Mark-Paul Gosselaar Knows This 'Saved By The Bell' Episode Was Racist: 'It Made Me Cringe'

Mark-Paul Gosselaar is reflecting on one of the episodes of Saved by The Bell and admitting that it made him “cringe”.

The actor, who shot to stardom as Zack Morris on the show, referenced the 1990 episode “Running Zack” in the newest episode of the “Zack to the Future” podcast.

The episode saw Zack doing a presentation ancestry, complete with a headdress on and paint on his face, and he had decided that he had a “distant Indian relative”, which was all based on a photo he found at home.

Click inside to see what Mark-Paul shared about the episode he now regrets…

“I cringed seeing myself portraying a white dude being Zack Morris, who is, like, the all-American, blonde-haired white dude in an Indian Native American headdress,” he said, about the episode that aired while he was re-watching the series.

Mark-Paul went on, “This is one of those that I don’t — I don’t remember putting on the headdress. I don’t remember putting face paint on. I don’t remember standing in that awkward way that I was standing where my arms are folded in, like, a very stereotypical way.”

Mark-Paul admitted that the episode was racist and stereotypical and would not get made today at all.

“We’re much more sensitive now, for good reason, that those things would not happen today. Like, this episode would never get made in current times, and rightly so,” he said.

Last year, Mark-Paul admitted he hadn’t actually seen an episode of Saved By The Bell, despite being its star.