Pod-Facination: An Interview With Go Bayside!'s April Richardson

A few weeks ago, I talked about the Go Bayside! podcast, and in the passing weeks it's only gotten better and literally turned into my favorite thing to listen to all week. And luckily for us, host April Richardson is not even yet done with Season One, and has five more seasons ahead of her. Richardson, stand-up comedian and frequent guest on Chelsea Lately, was gracious enough to answer some questions about the everlasting cultural relevance of Saved By The Bell, the podcast, and meeting Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

What was your motivation for making your SBTB love into a podcast? Other than your love of it, why did you want to share your conversations with the masses?
Well, first and foremost, it's entirely selfish: I watch the show on my own all the time, so I thought it would be fun to have friends join me. Also, I've watched it and picked it apart since I was a kid, and there's just so much funny stuff. One of my favorite things to do in life is to just critically pick apart and apply logic to the most benign things, so I always got a kick out being like, "Imagine that happening at an actual school! Holy shit!" And the show is such a pop-culture touchstone for people my age, and is just in the ether for a certain segment of the population, so I knew there would at least be that built-in audience of thirtysomethings like me who saw the show every time they turned on a television after school.

You mention that you have an un-ironic love for SBTB. When you first watched the show, what about it appealed to you? Did you find it actually legitimately funny?
First of all, I think I legit thought Zack was hot. And yeah, there were lines here and there that genuinely made me laugh as a preteen/teen. But honestly, I think I was drawn to its ridiculousness. It was like a Looney Tunes version of what I thought high school would be. But I did truly love it, and never ever acted like I was "above" it or "too cool" for it or whatever; there was no shame. I would absolutely go to school and be like, "Did you guys see that episode yesterday?" and genuinely and excitedly talk about it with people.

Pod-Fascination: Go Bayside!

Go Bayside!
If you were a kid of the 1990s, it was hard not to watch Saved By The Bell. Not only was it a Saturday morning staple, but after it was syndicated I think it aired eight times a day. Why did we continue to watch this show even though the gags were trite at best and much of what happened literally defied the laws of physics?

Comedian and uber-fan April Richardson has no shame about her love for the show. On each episode of Go Bayside!, she and a guest watch the show and guffaw at its absolute implausibility and buffoonery. April gets to the important questions, such as:

1. Why is Mr. Belding the only adult that seems to be around, and why does he inappropriately get involved in the kids' lives?
2. Despite there being an entire school of kids, why does everything happen to just the main characters?
3. Why do school functions always take place in The Maxx, a privately owned restaurant?
4. Why does this show shit on nerds so much? Have they heard of bullying?
5. Why is Kelly merely portrayed as a trophy girlfriend of Slater and Zack?
6. What in the world are these kids wearing?
7. How do these kids have so much time in the hall between classes?
8. How does Screech single-handedly build a sentient, fully-functioning robot that lives in his room, and NASA hasn't recruited him?
9. How old is Slater really?
10. Why do dream sequences need a hazy pink border around the scene?

Sure, lesser people would just sit back and enjoy the show fondly and not care about the impossibilities, but April Richardson is doing important work. Her infectious laugh and sincere rage over the rampant child endangerment are hard not to love. Some guests have never seen the show, which makes for an even more befuddled reaction.

April is doing the show in chronological order and at the time of publication is on episode thirteen. There are eighty-six episodes of the show, not to mention the College Years and the TV movies, so she'll be in business for several years at this point. Which is good news to me, because yelling "WTF!" at a Saved By The Bell episode never gets old.

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