TV characters... where are they now?

Apparently Zach Morris, AKA "Preppy" from "Saved by the Bell," grew up to be a lawyer. He'll be on the new TNT show "Franklin and Bash." Looks like he is a real lady's man, too.

It makes sense, it's a natural progression for Preppy. I'm happy to see some continuity in my childhood fictional characters. Preppy wasn't going to grow up to be a firefighter, he was always destined to be a smooth-talking, womanizing lawyer.

How about some other characters?

Al Bundy from "Married with Children" has to be the biggest winner by marrying the amazingly hot Sofia Vergara on "Modern Family." He deserves it, I assume, for all the trouble Peg Bundy put him through. We haven't heard the backstory yet, but I'm sure Peg took Al Bundy for what little he was worth (not much money in the shoe salesman business) and Al had to rebuild himself from the ground up... and boy did he bounce (and I mean bounce) back nicely, somehow scoring the big house in Orange County with a much younger wife. Well played, Mr. Bundy.

I blame the parents, when it comes to Doogie Howser, M.D. What did they expect? When a kid misses out on his childhood -- from 6th grade to med school? -- he's going to rebel, eventually. So Doogie got out of medicine and tried to regain his teenage/early 20s by whoring himself out as Barney Stinson on "How I Met Your Mother." I'm sure Doogie-Barney will eventually find the proper path, but until then... well, it's a loss for modern medicine, really.




This one is less current, but I was always happy to see that after Bo Duke got done outrunning the law and moonshining with his brother Luke on "Dukes of Hazzard," he went on to marry a nice Kansas girl. Then one day they discovered a baby on their farm, apparently shot to earth on some crude spaceship, perhaps from a dying planet? That baby would become Clark Kent, Bo would become Jonathon Kent, and they would all live happily ever after on "Smallville."

This one is the most tragic... how did the lovable, cat-eating alien Alf go from friend to foe? Where did the relationship break down? In another TNT series, Alf returns as the star in "Falling Skies." And this time, he's not here on earth just for the pussy.