Do you all remember that time that Rod Belding came to Bayside High School as a substitute?

At first, the students were surprised.  Rod was the younger brother of their stuffy principal, Richard Belding.  Richard was going bald.  Rod had long blonde hair.  Richard was boring.  Rod was exciting.  Richard was by-the-book.  Rod took chances.  Richard wanted to go on a boring class trip.  Rod wanted to take the students white water rafting!  When Richard called Rod out for the way he was running his class, student Zack Morris accused Richard of just being jealous of his brother.  You would think this would get Zack suspended but instead, the studio audience just said, “Awwww!”

But then, the night before the students were due to leave for their rafting trip, Rod told Richard that he had met a flight attendant and he was abandoning the students.

“Cover for me,” Rod said.

“I’m tired of covering for you, Rod.  Get out of my school!” Richard snapped.

That said, Richard did cover for his brother.  He said Rod had the flu and then he volunteered to take the students on their rafting trip.  Kelly Kapowski was so thrilled that she kissed Richard on the cheek, which one would expect to lead to Mr. Belding losing his job once word got out that he had physical contact with a student.  Instead, the audience applauded.

Zack asked Richard why didn’t tell the truth about Rod.  It turned out Zack had overheard the whole conversation.  Richard admitted that the students at Bayside got the less exciting Belding.

“We got the better Belding,” Zack replied as the audience awwed and applauded once again.

The audience was there because this was all an episode of Saved By The Bell.  In fact, “The Fabolous Belding Boys” was perhaps the best episode of Saved by the Bell, featuring excellent performances from both Dennis Haskins and Edward Blatchford.

The 2010 short film, Saved By The Belding, tells the story of a group of men who don’t understand that Saved By The Bell was just a television show and that Dennis Haskins and Edward Blatchford were just actors.  Hoping to help them regain some sense of reality, their psychiatrist takes them to the Hollywood home of Ed Blatchford.  Ed is excited to talk to his fans, asking them if they know him from his work in Last of the Mohicans.  The men, however, want to know is he really had the flu or if Richard was just covering for him.  Ed, realizing that the men don’t understand that he’s not actually Rod Belding, invites them to join him for dinner at a nice restaurant.  However, as Ed is heading to the restaurant, he runs into an old acquaintance — a flight attendant — who invites him to come have dinner with her.

Will Ed abandon his new friends?  And will Dennis Haskins once again have to come to the rescue?

Saved By The Belding is a sweet little film, one that views the cultural obsession with Saved By The Bell with both affection and wit.  (That said, the cultural obsessions does seem to be waning a bit.  For the first time in a long time, it’s next to impossible to find the show streaming online.)  Both Dennis Haskin and especially Ed Blatchford deserve a lot of credit for being good sports and appearing as versions of themselves.  Ed’s shock when Dennis appeared out of nowhere made me laugh out loud.

Check it out below and ask yourself who got the better Belding.