Who was the hottest couple at Bayside High? If you grew up watching Saved by the Bell, it’s possible that you saw Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski as couple goals. Or maybe you were a fan of A.C. Slater and Jessie Spano’s chaotic love affair? Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who played Zack Morris on the show, recently picked his favorite couple, and it might surprise you to learn that it wasn’t Zack and Kelly.

“I would watch the show, because I did a podcast and we had to rewatch,” Gosselaar says during a panel at GalaxyCon Oklahoma City 2025. “[Pointing to Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley] You guys really did have really good chemistry on the show.  It was fun to watch you guys, because you guys would be in the background, and you would like giggling and touching each other, and stuff like that.”

Gosselaar admitted that he and his costar Tiffany Thiessen didn’t have that same physical chemistry, and it’s because unlike his character Zack, Gosselaar was terrified to touch her.

“Zack and Kelly never did that. Tiffany always had her boyfriend on set and so I was afraid to touch her. I was like, ‘Is it okay if I do that?’ Because he was always there, do you remember that? You guys just had this fun little banter always going.”

To be fair, Gosselaar’s nervousness didn’t stop Zack and Kelly from being one of the hottest couples on television Or maybe that’s how it seemed to elementary school-aged viewers like me.

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