Boy Meets World

About

Boy Meets World is a 1990s teen sitcom that follows the Corey Matthews (Ben Savage) as he goes through middle school, high school, and college. The show focuses on his relationships with his best friend Shawn Hunter (Rider Strong), older brother Eric (Will Friedle), girlfriend Topanga Lawrence (Danielle Fishel), and next door neighbor and teach Mr. Feeny (William Daniels). A show following Corey and Toganga’s preteen daughter, Girl Meets World is scheduled to premiere in the summer of 2014.

History

Boy Meets World was created by April Kelly and Michael Jacobs. It premiered on ABC on September 24th, 1993, and aired its series finale on May 5th, 2000, after seven seasons and 158 episodes. It found much of its fans in syndication, running from 2000 to 2007 on the Disney Channel and and from 2004 to 2007 on ABC Family.

Girl Meets World

On November 2nd, 2012, TVline^[2] broke news that The Disney Channel was developing a Boy Meets World spinoff titled Girl Meets World that would follow Corey and Topanga’s preteen daughter. On November 26th, Ben Savage confirmed that show was being made and he would reprise his role as Corey Matthews on his Twitter account.^[3]

I’m going to be a father! Well, on TV at least. The “Boy Meets World” sequel is officially happening!

— Ben Savage (@BenSavage) November 26, 2012

The same day Danielle Fishel confirmed on her Tumblr^[4] she would star on the show as Topanga. On January 28th, 2013 actress Rowan Blanchard announced on her Twitter account^[5] she would be playing the lead in Girl Meets World, the Matthews’ daughter Riley.

Following speculation as to whether other Boy Meets World cast members, like Rider Strong, would be involved in the project, Savage posted a picture from a future episode on Instagram^[6] on March 18th, 2014, which revealed there would be at least one major Boy Meets World reunion on the show featuring Strong, Betsy Randle (who played Cory’s mother Amy Matthews), and William Russ (who played Cory’s father Alan Matthews).

On April 10th, the first trailer for the show was released, featuring Fishel and Savage giving advice to their daughter and her friend.

Premise

Cory Matthews begins the show as a sixth-grader who lives in a suburban area of Philadelphia with his mother (Betsy Randle), father (William Russ), older brother Eric, and younger sister Morgan (originally played by Lily Nicksay, and played by Lindsay Ridgeway from season three unward). He navigates middle school, and high school with the help of his best friend Shawn, friend-turned girlfriend Topanga, and teacher Mr. Feeny. Situations faced by Cory range from the light, like worrying about a test or pulling a prank, to the heavy, like finding out a classmate is being abused by her father. Many of the heavier storylines are driven by Shawn, whose family is much poorer than Corey’s and lives in a trailer park. Throughout the first few seasons’ Shawn’s mom leaves, followed by his dad, leaving him in the care of a young teacher, Mr. Turner (Anthony Tyler Quinn). In the boys’ final year of high school Shawn moves in with his college-age half brother Jack Hunter (Matthew Lawrence). Another main character introduced in their senior year is Angela Moore (Trina McGee), Topanga’s best friend and Shawn’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. A lot of the drama in the show’s college years surrounds their relationship. Another major thread of the show is Cory and Topanga’s relationship. Though Cory is shown as disliking her the first season, they become a couple by the second season, and often refer to their courtship beginning when they were toddlers. Though they go through a few breakups their relationship remains a constant for the show, and in the seventh season the two are married.

Reception

Boy Meets World received a score of 8.1 on IMDB and a rating of 50 on Metacritic.^[11] The show was nominated for three Kids’ Choice Awards, winning one in 2000 for Favorite Television Friends (Strong and Savage). It was also nominated for three YoungStar Awards, winning one in 1998 for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy TV Series (Fishel).

Online Presence

All seven seasons of the series are available to watch for $1.99 each (or $24.99 per season) through Google Play.^[10] As of April 2014, Boy Meets World’s official Facebook page^[7] has over 1.5 million likes. Fans can also access episode guides and character sketches at the Boy Meets World Wiki^[8] and discuss the show on the /r/boymeetsworld^[9] Reddit thread.

Fandom

There are numerous fan-run Tumblr blogs dedicated to the Boy Meets World fandom including boymeetsworldgifs^[12], boymeetstumblr^[13], and boy-meets-world-quotes.^[14] Popular Tumblr tags fans use to tag their content include boymeetsworld^[15] and bmw.^[16] As of April 2014, there are over 14,000 fan art submissions submitted to DeviantArt^[17] tagged Boy Meets World and over 600 fan fiction submissions for the show on Fanfiction.net.^[18]

Related Memes

Feeny Call

The Feeny Call, refers to the repetitive chanting of Mr. Feeny’s (Daniels) name by Eric Matthews (Friedle) to get his attention. The chant is often performed at the fence that separates the Matthew’s yard from Feeny’s, but is performed in a variety of other places. It was first performed on an episode titled Singled Out^[20] which originally aired on November 1st, 1996.

On December 18th, 2006, YouTuber Striker4552^[19] uploaded a video titled “The Feeny Call,” which featured a supercut of Eric making the call throughout the seasons. As of April 2014, the video has gained over 1.8 million views.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References