The Bayside High School, Class of 1993, buried a metal cylindrical time capsule beneath the football field opened by the class of 2003. The capsule contained only a VHS tape. Though VHS tapes would soon be obsolete, as late as 2005, 94+ million Americans still owned VHS-format VCRs. The last standalone JVC VHS VCR was produced on October 28, 2008.
The five representatives from the Class of 2003 paralleled their 1993 counterparts. Josh mirrored Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Duddy resembled Screech Powers (Dustin Diamond), and Robin mirrored Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley). There are also unnamed characters who channel A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez) and Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies). Conspicuously, no one from the class of 2003 corresponds to Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Thiessen). The classes' similarities accented when Richard Belding (Dennis Haskins) sighed, "Some things never change."
This episode takes place in 2003.
The date on the script is November 13, 1991 as found in the Dennis Haskins Saved by the Bell Television Scripts special collection at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The episode aired on December 5, 1992.
For the 2003 scenes, the production crew wisely kept things simple by keeping the setting in Mr. Belding's office. Looking back, for the most part, they unknowingly got everything near target. In 2003, the clothing and hairstyles remained relatively the same, with some differences, and many homes and schools were still using VCRs and Standard Definition television sets. However, they quickly became obsolete by DVD players and High Definition television sets.