The Boy Meets World cast has been honest about their experiences growing up on set and what happened when they moved on to the spinoff Girl Meets World a few years later.
In Daniel Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong’s new documentary Doc Meets World, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, the group reveals their decision to return to the Boy Meets World universe 14 years after the end of the first series. Girl Meets World, starring Rowan Blanchard and Sabrina Carpenter, aired on Disney Channel from 2014 to 2017.
In an interview with Fishel, producer Frank Pace recalled working with the show’s creator, Michael Jacobs. “Michael was fun for me to work with because he was a challenge. He was a nightmare for me to work with because he was a challenge. Same reason,” he says, describing his “never forgettable table read” at the beginning of “Girl Meets World.”
“Pod Meets World”
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Fishel said she blocked it because Pace reminded her of what allegedly happened, adding, “You blocked it because Michael is terrible. He just rounded up the whole young cast. He didn’t think they were upholding the ‘Boy Meets World’ tradition, and Rowan was crying, and Sabrina was crying.”
Strong, who directed 18 episodes of “Girl Meets World,” loved the directing part of the job. “It was so much fun to be on set and work with the kids, and it felt like I was reliving my childhood,” he says. But not everything was positive. “While I owe Michael a lot and always will, I needed to cut him out of my life. I needed him to know that I did not condone his actions.”
Fishel also explained that she told Jacobs early on in production that she felt very strongly about the storyline of Girl Meets World and saw the show as a great opportunity to focus on female friendships.
“I said, ‘If I’m going to do a show about 12-year-old girls, I don’t want the focus to be on relationships.’ I was a 12-year-old girl, and I spent my whole life focused on relationships, and it didn’t do me any good. It didn’t get me anywhere,” she recalled, choking up. “That’s not a good lesson. Not what I wanted for myself.”
Jacobs told Fishrell that the real love story would be between the friendship of Carpenter and Rowan’s characters. Then the pilot came out, showing the main character stumbling into a young boy’s lap, and the rest was history.
“Eventually, I got the courage to say something and started pushing back and confronting Michael and became very vocal,” Fishel says. “That didn’t work.”
“Doc Meets World” follows Fischel, Friedl and Strong as they reunite in 2022 for their podcast “Pod Meets World” and begin to reflect on their journey growing up on the sitcom. The group then took the podcast on a national tour. The doc is directed by Chris Levitus and Zane Rubin and produced by Alexandra Barreto.
