Growing Up In The 90's: A Boy Meets World Retrospective

The adventures of the Cory Matthews introduced a young generation to the world outside their doors in a sort of idealized reality. This video looks back at how this show came to be, changed throughout the years, and its enduring legacy twenty years later.

Check out @T1J 's video on Shawn and Angela

Intro/TGIF History: 0:00
Season 1: 7:48
Seasons 2 and 3: 22:59
Seasons 4 and 5: 43:49
Seasons 6 and 7: 1:09:00
Girl Meets World, and the future: 1:41:40

Join this channel to get access to perks:

[JoseBird]

Update: In a recent appearance on the Pod Meets World podcast, Trina McGee clarified that she did not write the article mentioned at 1:34:45. It was something put together by her publicist and husband, and it didn't reflect her real opinions at the time. Check out the podcast episode dated September 12, 2022, for more details.

[TJ]

i remember as a kid being devastated when cory and topanga broke up the first time, but watching it back, like you said they weren't even dating that long when it happened lol I think its just from watching the show so much over the years, you kind of retroactively apply your overall investment to the characters when you watch the old episodes again

[charlottehollingsworth]

The "I'll get as sick as you can get without actually dying" line has stuck with me for so long that I have drunkenly explained the scene to people at parties across the country.

[alyssasalvia]

Obviously the best Boy Meets World episode was the one where Shawn gets a really possessive girlfriend, and the Cory Shawn duo just acted like forbidden lovers the whole time they were apart

[Goomyx]

This show has aged incredibly well, imo. The episode about sex still stands out to me. I can't imagine any other kids show handling the topic of sex so blatantly and yet so maturely at the same time.

[carbonstealer]

"I love you all, class dismissed" made me start crying hysterically and idk why, good job for the way you portrayed it, thanks. I was having a really shit month and couldn't cry at all about it.

[chocolizard]

I think in the alcohol episode, you should have mentioned how there was a subversion with how Cory was drinking first and got Shawn into drinking. Cory's dad was quick to want to blame Shawn since he assumed it must have been Shawn's fault Cory was drinking. I think it gave a good message that sometimes kids don't mess up because of bad influences, sometimes they mess up because they mess up. Some parents are quick to see their kids as angels and blame others for their kid messing up. It also shows the negative assumptions Shawn faces, even from those who know him like the Matthews.

[mbanerjee]

Boy Meets World is the ONLY show I know that grew with its audience. The show is just as relevant today as it was when it aired.
Growing up, one of the episodes that really got to me was "Everybody Loves Stuart", where a young new professor played by Fred Savage hits on Topanga. This was the first time I'd ever seen sexual harassment on a "family show" where it was never played for laughs, but also how it was turned around on Topanga.

[slashandbones]

Corey and Topanga "seesawing between reality and fantasy" is a perfect description of how they wrote that relationship.

[goodgade]

"She's having my Baby back ribs" episode where everyone thinks Topanga is pregnant was one of my favorites, and the struggle with body issues was so relatable.

[thisguy]

Also, I have to say..the line "If I had to dream up the perfect girl.. she wouldn't come close to you." Is an all time great line and is one that I definitely used multiple times throughout my life lol.

[hellishlantern]

"Lose one friend, lose all friends, lose yourself." Ive lived my 29 years on this earth with that one quote burned into my memory due to how powerful the statement is

[versebuchanan]

As a kid whose dad bounced, mom was an alcoholic, and grew up in and out of HUD and section 8 housing in shit neighborhoods, it actually was really cool to see a character like Shawn kinda representing us wrong-way kids.

[itcamefromabox]

Due to how I specifically grew with it, this is one of the nostalgic shows i'm most strongly attached to. It's really weird but to this day I still watch it weekly, it's like comforting background noise 🤔 Same for Home Improvement, Saved by the Bell and Goosebumps lol

[Theninjakids]

I've always thought that Eddie wasn't Shawn's actual brother, but rather he called himself that, as the community of his trailer park all felt like one big family, as evidenced in the Thanksgiving episode.

[ffflusteredqr]

Thank you and T1J for highlighting Shawn and Angela! As a Black woman who just. . .didn't hang out with a lot of other Black people, and who was with a white guy in high school, Shawn and Angela being the show's beta couple is a HUGE deal. Props to Michael Jacobs for being a bit ahead of his time -- even if it isn't realistic yet, it's important to portray it as though it is.

I didn't even watch the show regularly, but I've never forgotten those characters or that pairing. Representation _does_ take the form of telling stories about that demographic (like Love Simon or Hidden Figures) but it also takes the form of people just existing, and that's what S+A was.

[thisguy]

Dude. Jose.

Coming from the guy on the last live stream who kept bugging you about Boy Meets World, and as someone who has commented on so many videos asking for *this* particular retrospective....thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

[pusheenqueen]

Honestly it's too bad Girl Meets World wasn't produced by a less restrictive channel. I feel like a lot of interesting themes could be addressed like in Boy Meets World but more varied and from a different perspective (what with the lead actor being a young girl growing up this time around) Obviously the Disney Channel is definitely more tween centered so they didn't really have the chance to talk about certain subjects the OG show could address.

[NinjaRodent]

Being born in the early 90's I was too young to have seen BMW during its original run but you better believe I watched every episode via reruns on the Disney Channel in the early 2000's. I must say this definitely took me back and flooded me with in intense level of nostalgia that I haven't felt in quite some time.

[WSK]

When Topanga is staying in Philadelphia, at the end of the Fourth Season, the reaction from that studio audience is the most genuine outpouring of joy, I have heard from a sitcom audience.