Saved by the Bell: The fate of Mikey Gonzalez

Sunday mornings beginning at 7:00 AM you can catch episodes of Saved By The Bell on MeTV until 9 AM. In the first season, there was a character named Mikey Gonzalez who was portrayed by Max Battimo. He was cute and witty with dark curly hair. At a glance, he might be mistaken for a young Mario Lopez who later played AC Slater in the series. When the show relaunched in season two with a California setting, Mikey was gone.

The former actor was born Maximiliano Cardenas Battimo in Argentina on August 31, 1974 and is currently an Argentine Hockey official. This may shock fans who believed the talented child was destined for greatness in front of the camera but life has a way of throwing curveballs. Max and his family moved to Los Angeles, California when he was 2 and he decided at a young age that he wanted to be an actor.

There is no record of any roles Battimo has played except for Mikey Gonzalez who was technically on the one and only season of Good Morning, Miss Bliss from 1988 to 1989. This series starred Hayley Mills as a teacher and featured SBTB characters Principle Belding (Dennis Haskins) Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) ( Lisa Turtle (Lark Vorhees) and Samuel Screech Powers (Dustin Diamond).

Good Morning Miss Bliss had its own theme song but every episode I have watched on MeTV begins with the familiar tune from Saved By the Bell. The original series was set in Indianapolis, Indiana at John F. Kennedy Jr. High School. There were only 13 episodes, but thanks to syndication replay "Miss Bliss" has had more of an impact on fans than the series that followed. Zack, Lisa, Screech, and Mr. Belding were the only characters who moved to Bayside.

There is no rational way to explain how a principal and three of his students all move across the country and end up in the same school but the writers probably did not think fans were paying attention to such detail. Thanks to the Internet viewers now pick apart every detail of what they missed during a favorite series original run. Mikey was a casualty of the behind-the-scenes drama that led to the name change because the show switched from Disney to NBC.

Battimo as Mikey and Heather Hopper who portrayed Nikki Coleman were fan favorites as was Haley Mills as Miss Bliss but they were all left behind. This decision rattled the young actor and changed the course of Battimo's future. He has been quoted as saying that once he was fired he was so troubled he told his parents that he never wanted to act again. In an interview with the NCAA Max said he was “kind of hurt that I didn’t get picked up,” and decided to take a break from acting.

He says he chose to be a "real kid" and have some fun and shifted his focus to Hockey. The former child actor was a Los Angeles Kings fan and began practicing Hockey every day. In time he shifted his focus to refereeing games and has been a professional referee since 2000. This job has taken Battimo throughout college Hockey, the AHL, ECHL, WHL, and WCHL. He has shared that this job has taken him as far as away as Asia for special games. He added that this is why it is good that he and other referees have become a “tight-knit group.”

Battimo says that fans occasionally recognize him as Mikey and that at least one coach has mentioned his Saved by the Bell connection to him during a game. University of Denver coach George Gwozdecky called Max over after a penalty, but instead of reprimanding him or discussing the game Gwozdecky smiled and said “Saved by the Bell, huh?” Although Battimo has left Mikey behind, syndication currently has him front and center each Sunday morning. Children of the 90s and their parents are having fond memories of the show and the relative innocence of it all.

Battimo was quoted as saying the following about SBTB/Good Morning Miss Bliss. We were all so young and innocent at the time," Battimo said. "It was right around the age when boys become interested in girls, but we weren't there yet. I don't think there was any sort of extracurricular activity. We would sneak to other sets. I can remember that the set of the soap "Santa Barbara" was adjacent to our studio. One day, we went missing and snuck onto that set, playing with the cameras. But they didn't scold us too much for that.