John Michael Higgins on why everyone picks on pop culture principals

With the possible exception of Professor X, most pop culture principals are depicted as perpetually single or eternally divorced bureaucrats who bumble through their days so full of misplaced good nature that students can practically turn cartwheels on their backs without them noticing. Perhaps no principal was more burdened by trying to be more of a “princi-pal” than a “princi-disciplinarian” than Saved By The Bell’s Richard Belding, who spent most of the show’s initial run trying to corral that crazy Zack Morris.