The Random Reporter

Last week, I interviewed actor Patrick Fabian, who’s playing the lead in Eli Roth’s latest scary movie, The Last Exorcism.

If the name Patrick Fabian doesn’t ring a bell, then maybe I’m explaining it wrong. For fellow pop culture geeks, Fabian is better known as (or only known as) Professor Jeremiah Lasky from Saved By The Bell: The College Years, that hot, young, sweater-vest-wearing educator who took a liking to little miss Kelly Kapowski.

He was so sexy, he successfully stole her from Zack Morris, a feat only previously achieved by that debonair college student, Jeff, in the high school episodes who was Kelly’s boss at The Max and kissed her after a shift of serving Cokes and curly fries, leading to shit hitting the fan with Zack. But, I digress.

Anyway, after chatting with Patrick Fabian about his upcoming horror flick, out August 27, I got to my real burning question: How pissed were Saved By The Bell fans when you kissed Kelly Kapowski and stole her from Zack?

The answer: VERY PISSED.

Fabian told me that at first, SBTB fan girls were all about him, sending tons of flirty fan letters to the set telling him how cute he was and how they wanted to enroll in his fake sitcom lecture hall.

But after he locked lips with Kelly — Zack’s Kelly, as far as any diehard fans are concerned — his fanbase quickly turned on him. He started getting bags of hate mail from women scolding him for making out with Kelly and breaking up TV’s beloved couple.

Fabian was shocked by the backlash, mostly because he was a bit older than the cast and the show’s demographic and never really realized what a power couple Zack & Kelly were in their female fans’ eyes.

But, on the bright side, male viewers totally gave him props for hooking up with Kelly.

Fabian says that to this day, he still gets guys shouting at him on the street and in the airport saying, “Dude, you made out with Kelly Kapowski!” When that happens, he feels a little better inside.