Former “Boy Meets World” castmates Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle are going back to school.
The actors have launched a podcast dubbed “Pod Meets World,” where they rewatch and review the episodes from the ’90s sitcom. For Strong, who played Shawn Hunter, he’s watching the series for the first time with his 7-year-old son.
“I watched some of the first season with my family when it was a big deal to be on a T.V. show and I was 13 and then I just got so insecure and weirded out by how I looked,” he explained. “For the most part I am discovering this show and so far. It’s pretty darn good.”
The castmates originally came up with the concept of the podcast back in 2019 while doing fan conventions.
“I had this idea a couple of years ago because we’ve been doing conventions before the pandemic and we’d get to meet our fans and realized that ‘Boys Meets World’ has had a very long life,” Strong explained. “People that have grown up with the show are now showing those episodes to their kids. So there’s this long tale of ‘Boy Meets World.'”
Once the pandemic hit, the trio got to work. However, they did so without the show’s main character, Cory Matthews, played by Ben Savage.
“We asked Ben if he wanted to do it with us. We thought we’d all have such a great time doing it together because we all have so much fun doing the conventions together and Ben just said, ‘you know it’s not for me,'” explained Fishel, who played Topanga Lawrence. “He’s focusing on the other aspects of his career and he’s doing really well with it. He said ‘it’s not for me’ and to ‘have fun’ and that’s what we decided to respect.”
Watching the 1993 T.G.I.F. sitcom in 2022 may show certain topics in a different light, which the alums are ready for. “I’m already anticipating that the eyes we have in 2022 and the eyes we have as adults,” Fishel explained. “For Rider and I, the eyes we have now as parents that there’s bound to be certain things that come up that we feel cringey about or that we look back on with different eyes.”
When it comes to cringey moments, Friedle looks back at this teenage self and is glad his acting chops as big brother, Eric Matthews, improved as the show progressed.
“I think ‘wow. I’m surprised I wasn’t fired every single episode,'” he laughed. “I had not yet learned how to be a natural actor in any shape or form. I kind of found my footing on the show.”
The first episode of “Pod Meets World” is out now wherever you get your podcast.