I was interviewed as a Boy Meets World superfan in a January 2013 issue of the Canadian magazine Macleans. For the last three years this has been my fun fact whenever I have to introduce myself at a company icebreaker. Apparently there is no bigger fan of Boy Meets World on the Internet.
Boy Meets World, in case you were not a TV-binging latchkey kid in the 1990s, is a sitcom about a boy named Cory who is supposed to be fairly average in every way: average student, average nuclear family with 2.5 kids (literally, he has a brother all the time and a sister only some of the time, due to standard 90s sitcom continuity problems). Notable characters in Cory’s life include Mr. Feeny, the impossibly wise history teacher, who is also his next-door neighbor; best friend Shawn, who is from the Wrong Side of the Tracks and has Tremendously Important Father Issues; and Cory’s on-again, off-again girlfriend Topanga, who started out as a comical weirdo but morphed into a standard Pretty Girl Love Interest, for which I hated her.
It’s not a particularly notable show. Starlee Kine described its comforting blandness on the This American Life episode “Reruns”: “It didn’t even matter that I didn’t watch it as a little kid. I can imagine little kids being in really comfortable, carpeted family rooms and laying with their elbows propped up and watching Boy Meets World and feeling really safe. Because it’s like the safest thing in the world.”
Boy Meets World season one cast. Cory kneels in front, wearing primary colors red and blue to denote him as the hero, and holds the hand of his sometimes-nonexistent little sister, Morgan. Cool big brother Eric leans in from the left, while parents Amy and Alan hug and judge behind. Blazer-wearing history teacher/crotchety neighbor/stalker Mr. Feeny frowns imperiously, while Rebel Friend Shawn smirks and wears a tie-dye T-shirt with sharks on it like a boss. Not pictured: the love of Cory’s life, Topanga. She wasn’t that important in season one.
