TGI-The Pilot

Danielle, Rider and Will are watching the very first episode of Boy Meets World. We meet Eric, Shawn, Cory, Mr. Feeny and and all the rest… except for Topanga!! Where is Topanga?!

Will and Rider bonded immediately and William Daniels (aka F-f-feeny!!!!!) became their mentor. Plus, introducing Rider’s son Indy and his take of seeing his dad with that weird hair and “too much shirts”.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome everybody to Podlet's world. I am saying he official
a PANGALORENS. And I am right or Strong a k a.
Shawn Hunter, and I am Wilfred l a k A.
Eric Matthews. How are you guys doing? You're ready to
ready to jump into the fight. Yeah, this was this
was an interesting experience. Um, it's funny though, like I

(00:38):
don't know how you guys feel, but I definitely remember
the pilot. Well, actually this is probably a different Well obviously, Daniel,
you weren't in the pilot, so it's a whole different thing.
But I shot the pilot two different times, and so
we did it before you were cast, Will and there
was a different Dad. So and in any case, the
pilot I actually remember more than probably any other episode.

(01:01):
So it was very bizarre to no lines, Like I
could actually like hear lines and be like, oh my gosh,
I have I remember that, but then also completely not
understand like what the show was about, because I was
still just very much a kid in the midst of
a show, you know. So there's a lot to talk about. Well,
let me let me tell everybody exactly what the pilot

(01:21):
episode was. It was season one episode one otherwise known
as one oh one um, and it was called the Pilot. Uh.
It first aired Septembe and uh. The episode is that
Corey is caught listening to the Phillies game in class
while Mr Feenie is trying to teach the class about love.

(01:42):
So they're talking about Romeo and Juliet and he is
listening to the Phillies game in headphones. Eric decides to
take his girlfriend on their very first day to the
Phillies game instead of Corey. So Corey is furious and
thinks that love is ruining his life, and he decides
to live in his treehouse. And um, that was my

(02:03):
watch hitting the very angrily, um passionate. He lives in
his treehouse that happens to overlook the backyard of their
neighbor and suffle online as to whether it's a side

(02:24):
yard or sideyard or the backyard. Right, Okay, we will
get into it then. Um. So he Corey's treehouse overlooked
the backyard of Mr Phoene's backyard because very important to
the show. Mr Peoenie is Corey's next door neighbor. And

(02:46):
uh and so yeah, well, how did you feel watching
the pilot? Um? Okay, So it made me very, very
anxious to go back into the world. I don't know
why I have no read I no reason. I can
pop up in my head immediately as to why I
was so anxious, pressing, pressing, play, But I was um.

(03:08):
And then as I got into the episode, I realized
one of the reasons why I didn't want to watch it,
and it's because I am the worst um And it's
not And again, it's not used to say. Well you
used to say to me. He'd be like, I didn't
learn how to act until the second season. Dude, I
said that and I believed it. But this was worst

(03:30):
because you've been saying this since we were Yeah, since
to act. But I was like, no, will's great, No,
it was I was by far the worst actor for
the entire episode, Lily, everybody was nailing their jokes. I
was laughing out loud at certain points, and then I
would come on the screen it was like, hey, what
am I doing with my hands? Which I had no

(03:51):
I was like, I will, I will walk this way
because I was told to walk this way. And then
it was like, say, oh, I will get into it.
It was no care came to be fair but I
could have invented something. You had four lines and were
the by far writer. I'm saying this, you were by
far the best actor on the episode, by far, the

(04:11):
best actor on the episode. And I'm including the adults,
maybe Bill, because Bill was Bill and you knew what
Bill was going to get and he was brilliant. You
guys are crazy. I was like, what am I doing? Look,
you were you were all. That's the thing is you
were already Sean, like you had that the character was
already there. You could tell there was some angst you had.

(04:33):
You were the only one who was natural in your
line readings, especially in the cafeteria scenes, like Sean was
already there. And then there was the rest of the show,
and it was like it was weird. That's funny because
I guess in a lot of ways, Sean was an
easy like I mean, you know, Sean was was it
was so easy to not be Corey, you know what
I mean, Like is so definedt and he's so anxious

(04:54):
and he's so like just outwardly freaked out about everything.
That to have his best friend be like reserved and
kind of cool, like it was an easy Like he
was such a good foil, do you know what I mean? Like, well,
he was an eleven year old stand up comic, right, right,
That's what it was. That's what I realized when I
was watching it. It was like, oh, the show is
about an eleven year old stand up trying to go

(05:15):
to school, which is what it seemed like to me,
like all like he was doing bits the whole time, totally,
and he does this thing that that was so funny,
like to not to realize now he you know, he
has that like uh and this is a classic Michael
Jacob's creator of the show. This is a classic thing
that he does as a writer and as in in
person too, where he sort of has a character just

(05:36):
state exactly the obvious with so much cynicism, like well,
I just hate everybody all the time. And like how
didn't the eleven year old say that was so funny?
Like it's so cute, right, And it's like I just realized,
like oh that, like Ben, I always thought that was something.
Well here in general, I was amazed at how much
of the show what Boy Meets World became, was already there.

(05:59):
I was blown away by how much was encoded into
the pilot because I truly believed in my head after
all these years that the show developed and changed, it
became this thing, which it did. I mean, it definitely grew,
but you could see the heart was there in the pilot,
and that was truly Uh. I did not expect that.
I really thought that the pilot was going to be like,

(06:21):
what is the show? And instead I was like, oh no,
it was all there, Like there was so much of
the show, was there? Yeah, I thought there were so many.
First of all, I'm not in the pilot. I do
not appear until episode four, so I truthfully don't remember.
I'm assuming I did watch it when the show aired
in in because I probably sat with my family to

(06:44):
watch the show that I knew I was going to
be on, But I don't have really a memory of
watching the pilot. Um, but I was amazed at how
much like all of the different layers. Like now, when
you watch a pilot, it's very much let's just meet
the characters. But this the storyline of Corey is learning
about love in school because of Romeo and Juliet, and

(07:06):
then love impacts his own life inside his family's home
because he's going to a baseball game that he's very
excited about with his older brother, and then he gets
ditched by his older brother, so now love means, you know,
something bad to him. Then he gets reminded that he
once ditched somebody he loved, that as he got older,

(07:26):
he may have ditched his father. He learns about that,
and then he sees Mr Feenie possibly get ditched and
hurt by love. And then in the end he realizes
he could have a different impact on his sister's relationship
to what love means. Like that is, and that's so
many different layers of of deep storyline for want a

(07:50):
kid show and to a pilot and a pilot in
which not that much actually happens. I mean, it's not
like he runs away and joins a circus. Here he
goes to the backyard, but it has such emotional stakes.
And I guess that's what I mean, is that the
tone of the show, the seriousness of it. You know,
like there's a period where there's not a laugh for
like a good ten twelve minutes where you know Mr

(08:11):
Feenie and Corey have that scene and detention that is
just pure wonderful writing and acting. I mean, Bill is
so good, He's I could not believe how amazing Bill
Daniels is in the show, and you realize that was
the defining character, and I, you know, this is we
have to tell this story, which is that um the pilot.

(08:32):
When we shot the pilot, when you guys weren't there,
we did a table read and the network hated it,
and the network immediately made Michael rewrite it. And Bill
Daniels said, I'm not doing this kids show and threatened
to quit. And Michael Jacobs rewrote the pilot from start
to finish. It was a completely different script. I would
love to get my hands on it. It's still involved
Romeo and Julia, but it did not have any of

(08:54):
this other stuff. And Michael Jacobs, the lore is that
he wrote it in one night, and I think that
might be who rewrote the entire pilot, only keeping certain
jokes and certain themes the Romeo and Juliet. But what
they delivered the next day was essentially, what what is
this pilot? And it's I think it's really really good.
And I was blown away by Bill's performance and his

(09:14):
commitment and the tonal shifts the fact that it starts
off as the sort of Dennis the Menace e God
that you know, that wiley kid and the grumpy teacher,
and then it goes somewhere else. It goes somewhere truly
deep and meaningful. It explores all those relationships, like you said,
the dad, the mom, the sister, the brother. And the

(09:34):
original pitch for this show, which everyone kind of forgets,
was what would it be like if the if instead
of following the older brother on Growing Pains, they followed
the middle brother. It was Growing Pains if it was
the middle of Because Growing Pains was a hit show
and Michael Jacobs was a, you know, an established television creator,

(09:54):
they wanted to create a show for Ben Savage, so
they partnered Ben and Michael and Michael then went to
the network to create a show for Ben Um with
his partners of Time, April Kelly Um, and the two
of them came up with the show, which was, let's
instead of doing the typical thing that's on television right now,
which is focusing on the older brother and a family
of younger kids, let's focus on the middle kid who

(10:15):
gets lost. And that's exactly what the pilot is, right.
He gets lost between his relationships with his teacher, who
also happens to be his neighbor. He gets lost with
his relationship with his dad, his sister, he's in between,
he's in that stuff, and it's such a great place
for a character to to sort of have to work
out from. One of the things that amazed me when
I was watching it was the genius that is, forget
Bill Daniel's performance, which is next level, the next level,

(10:38):
it's ridiculous, but the genius of having such a well
written teacher to where you can teach on a show,
I mean meaning all the shows that you watch, especially
kids shows. It was like the dad would in part
a lesson, or the mom would in part a lesson,
or one of his friends he'd learned something that we

(10:58):
boy means world literally had a teacher who could take
the lessons that he's teaching in school and teach them
so you could apply them to life. And it never
been done like that was always the teacher was always
the buffoon. Yeah, No, it was amazing. It sets this
structure up that I think existed throughout point each world,

(11:19):
but certainly in the early years, where you can you
can deliver abstract ideas, abstract lessons like in the mouth
of Finie. You can have things very declaratively stated love
means this, sometimes this happens in life, whatever, the sort
of you know, declarative abstract concept and then you have
that intention with Corey's messy life or all of our

(11:41):
messy lives. And and that's just a great structure for
a sitcom, right, because it allows you to sort of
make a thesis statement like this is the episode about
love and all its permutations and Mr Feedie is going
to always be right and and it's it's very almost
biblical in a sense. Right. It's like you have this
like abstract testament idea of like this is the lesson,
this is the rule about life, and Mr Phoeney can

(12:03):
sort of say it, and then you have just like
these little sketches of scenes where Corey is going, none
of this makes sense. What are you talking about? How
do I relate love to my brother and love to
my little sister and loved And he does and that's
just and you as the audience are inside of that
process and you're able to enjoy Corey, but you're also
able to sort of record in the back of your
mind like oh yeah, like there's there's there's something more

(12:23):
important going on here that I need to think about
it also showed though I thought it is very strange
because it also again we should talk about this little bit.
So there was an original pilot that was shot without myself,
without William Russ. They recast a couple of people. William
Russ is rusty, Rusty Rusty, Alan Matthew, Alan Matthews and

(12:46):
Matt McCoy was the original Dad I'll never forget that.
And Harry I'm gonna do this this poor man uh
An injustice. I want to say Brandish or brand She
was same, a fine actor. Just we've talked about this
in several things where he was recast because he just
wasn't tall enough. That's all it was. He was literally
the same size as Ben already. They knew Ben was

(13:07):
going to grow and they wanted somebody to be you're
a kid actor. They're always concerned with how tall, how
tall you are, because if you outgrow the people that
are supposed to be older than you, or you get
taller than the adults, are ruins because you're usually playing
younger than yourself. I remember one of our conventions I
ran into a fellow child actor grown up and they
were like, why would we all turn out so short,
and I'm like, because being short when you're a child

(13:29):
actor is such a benefit because you can be ten
years old and play eight or seven, you can be
older and play so you end up casting short people
shorter kids. And yeah anyway, so yeah, so that's what happened.
They they recast, and so we the pilot, if memory serves,
Reshooting the pilot was actually for me episode two because

(13:51):
the first thing that we did was episode two one
yeah one, uh was, which will be the next episode
we watched, was actually the first episode that I ever shot.
So going back to the pilot, the pilot wasn't even
my audition scene. Like my audition scene was from that
first episode, So going back and shooting it again was

(14:15):
was very strange, I know for you guys, because you're like, oh,
we've done this already, and then it was like, well,
we've got to go back and shoot the first episode second, uh,
to get everything kind of on the on the line.
But they also kind of saw where some of the
show was going to go because if memory serves, Lee
Norris is in the opening title credits, but he's not
in the episode. Yeah. Well, we had banked probably three

(14:37):
or four episodes before anything aired, So he was a
regular and was in the opening title sequence, which we
can talk about, the wonderful opening title sequence. Yes, let's please,
because should we start with the cold open? Yes, okay,
let's start with Corey feeney uh and me and Chauncey
Leo Pardy yep, who was the other best friend at

(14:59):
the time in the let. Originally, Corey was supposed to
have two best friends, Chauncey lor Party you guys might
remember from the sand Lot and um what else. He
was also did a bunch. Yeah, he ended up working
a lot, but it didn't end up standing on our show.
I think he was originally supposed to be another regular
best friend. And then throughout the first season, and we'll
talk about this, we kept replacing uh, the other best friends.

(15:21):
We went through several Yeah, it was gonna be Corey
and his two best friends, and Writer was one of
those best friends. And then there was like a rotating
third friend. Well, let's just say it. Michael just kept
firing all the kids that that were I mean, but
it's true. I mean, if we're gonna be talking about it,
we called it the death chair, the chair that Chauncey
is sitting in there, and it was every kid they

(15:44):
brought in. Some of them didn't even make it to that.
We've we've talked about this in the first episode we
did didn't even make it to this. The second run
thing that's that's not technically the death chair because we rearranged.
I think in the next episode it will the cafeteria
changes where different formation and then that him the death chair. Okay,
just who ever sat in the chair was gone. Keep
an eye on the death chair. So it's a simple,

(16:06):
simple little scene. We introduced Corey and Mr Feeney, who,
like their characters, are immediately well established. I thought, you know,
it's just so funny. I also just was astounded at
how direct everybody is with child, like Mr Fini's just mean,
it's just a brat. I was like, Oh, we're going
bold strokes, like right out of the gate. And then
that opening credit sequence it is so dated. Oh my god, Bunkers, Well,

(16:43):
I'm sorry, you want to talk about dated Before we
even get to that, can we talk about how the
big joke was a Steve Lawrence joke? Yeah, what exactly
what this is? Jo? No, no, no, Steve Lawrence was
he was he would come on and do like the
Steven eaty kind of things, and he was always late night.

(17:05):
They would bring him on and it was like, so
the build up of the joke between these three eleven
year old the latest, the latest, and it's like and
when you so you've gotten eleven year old throwing out
a Steve Lawrence joke and everyone going Steve Lawrence, it's
that's because I had no clue what I'm nobody did,

(17:28):
nor did anybody who watched the show. I will guarantee
you there was not a kid in America that went
they nailed that Steve Lawrence joke like that never happened
because it was just the most random, like are you
kidding me? They're doing a Steve Lawrence. Then during the
opening credits, which that song so Ray Colcord did the
music for Boys were all seven years he took a

(17:49):
couple of years ago. May He rest in peace. Was
just the sweetest, nicest man, and so you could do
any type of music you wanted him to. They would
bring him on and be like, well we're doing on
rock and roll show this, and he'd like immediately just
write and write a song. But that that theme song,
it's so long, and it just keeps going and going

(18:10):
through all these like transitions and like I just couldn't believe.
And then there's like literally a roller blade like coming
in and smacking Cory in the head, and it's like,
what iss off the band aid? Like he's gonna the
color It's like, you could not if you if you
hired a creative now to be like, go make the
most nineties open credits you can, they would pick that
color palette, those outfits and those computer graphics. Oh yeah.

(18:34):
Well it was also the start of obviously, with with
being called boy Meats World. It was the start of
us doing every photo shoot and every everything holding a globe.
We're always throwing a globe. Always here's your world, Like
all right, here we go. But I I distinctly remember
two things about the opening title sequence. I remember lying
on the They're like, we're gonna shoot the opening title sequence.
Now I thought they'd pull stuff from the show. They didn't.

(18:56):
They're like, all right, just lie on the bed and
flip through a magazine. But look up at us as
you're doing it. And I was like, so why am
I Why am I flipping through? And as this is,
you know, my first episode ever. So I'm not asking
any questions, but like that makes sense, Okay, got it. Um,
So I'm not looking at the magazine as I'm flipping
through it. And then the other thing I remember is Betsy.

(19:17):
Betsy was so funny she did that Betsy Rando played,
played Amy Matthews. She um finished it, and we when
we all got together to watch the pilot. I think
we all got together to watch the pilot. Maybe we're
some episode where we all got together to watch. And
she looked at me right as her scene she puts
the band aid on his head and she gives him
this look as she walks away, and she turns to

(19:38):
me in such a Hollywood way. She goes, that's my
please watch our show look. And it was just the
way she said it was so cool because she was
if you look at she gives this big smile and
she's like, oh, Corey, like this big kind of please
watch our show. And it was just every time I
watched that opening title sequence, it's so funny. You're like
throwing the paper airplane. And there was only two lines

(20:01):
in the script describing Sean. You know, you don't really
get much character description, but it was the thin, sly
best friend of Corey. That's kind of all we had
to go on. But you know, like I said earlier,
being you know, being being any sort of savvy or
like calm in the face of ben savages. Cory just
instantly created a character. But I do remember they wanted

(20:22):
me to be a troublemaker. That was like early on
discuss so like, yeah, when they give they gave me
a paper airplane and said just throw it like you're
gonna hit somebody and get away with it. So that's
my getting away with it. So when when did you
guys meet verse? And how long was it between the
first time you met and filming the pilot we all
now know as the pilot. I remember the exact moment

(20:44):
I met, I met you two. Oh my gosh, okay, writer,
you go first, let me hear from your POV. Should
we turn off Will's headphones? Yea. So we met in
the photo shoot for the season. Every season they would
have a photo shoot where they gathered the regular cast
together and get that season set of photos. They do

(21:05):
individual photos and the whole cast together. And we had
already shot the piety. It was now the show had
been picked up for thirteen episodes, which was half a season,
and they brought us, you know, we all were supposed
to meet, and we were in the makeup pair room
of the of the uh photo shot. Yeah, and just
immediately Will and I started talking into not shut up.

(21:25):
It was like I remember, we talked music. We talked
counting Crows day one, most nineties thing ever. We talked
because you were you were really into them and I
had just discovered them. We talked um, we talked about
we were both leaving at the oak Woods. I remember
immediately knowing that we were going to be neighbors and friends.
And I mean, I just you were older. You were
the coolest, coolest kid I had ever met, coolest person.

(21:48):
You had your own car, what was aras? I still
have it? A GTS I still have. And then you
had a sub Wolfer in it yea. And I think
like week one, not day one, but like week one
brought me in and played Paul's boutique, Paul Paul Revere
Two Boys, Yes, Paul Revere by Beas Two Boys, which
has this crazy bass sound that goes and it just

(22:11):
like blew my ears out. And we're sitting in the
car and I was just like, if I could ever
be sixteen, have a car and a subwoffer and be
as cool as Wilfred l Oh, my god, Yeah, you
were the best dude. I remember that exact. I was saying,
I'll never forget it. I was sitting in the makeup chair.
I was so excited to be there. I turned to
my left and there are. So I had met Ben

(22:32):
at the audition, So Ben came to the screen test,
and the screen test was between myself, your brother, older brother, Shiloh,
and Jason Marsden, who is still one of my best
friends this day and and played Jason Marsin on the show.
So I had met Ben before, but there you were.
I turned, I'm I can I can picture it. I
can picture what I'm wearing. I'm in jeans and the

(22:53):
shirt that I passed the poster every day. It's hanging
on my way, got the tight eye shirt on. Remember, yes,
you have the tied eye shirt on. And I turned,
and you know, I'm turning to my left and there
you are, and we started the first conversation. I'm still
sitting in the chair and the thing that scared me
the most about that day is I just met Rusty
had just met everybody for the first time. You and
I got along instantly, and then they're like, all right,

(23:14):
we're gonna put you all together for pictures. And they
put us all together and I put my arm up
around Bill Daniels Mr. Feenie, and he turned to me
and he went, don't touch Foenie. And I really shot
my hand back down and I was like, so now,
all of the pictures Bill that it was amazing, the
pictures so convoluted because it's like, was he in character

(23:35):
because he's not wrong, Like you shouldn't have your arm
around feeding you were trying to just be like friendly.
It's not wrong. But it's also so classic Bill to
just be kind of grumpy. Don't touch Poenie, don't just
like that, And every single picture that they have now
my hands are in my pockets and I am like,
I'm not touching anyone ever again. It was It was

(23:56):
amazing that first photoshoot day. Yeah, that was that is
are our intro to each other and to the world,
and it was Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy.
So writer did Shilo audition to play Eric. Yeah, he screwed. Actually,
he ended up not doing the network test. So Shilo.
The reason I got Boy Meets the World is because
Shilo had tested for the reason I was first brought

(24:20):
into audition for Boy Mets World because my my older brother, Shilo,
He's only eighteen months older than me, so we we
always kind of went out for similar parts, or we
are not that far apart. He had network tested for
Michael Jacob's previous show called Almost Hone, almost didn't get
the part, but between myself, Shilo, and Jason Marks so
so because of Shilo's association, I got brought in to

(24:42):
audition for Boy Meat's World, I ended up getting the part. Meanwhile,
Shilo went off and did a pilot on another network
with Ed Dector and John Straus, who became writers on
our show. They created a show called odd Man Out,
which also got rebooted five years later. Whatever, that's a
whole another story. But my brother was a star of
his own pilot and end that show did not get
picked up. And when you're a kid actor and you're

(25:03):
you're you're in demand, all the show's pounce like if
you're if your contract didn't get picked up. So Shilo
got asked to come in and audition for Eric. He
never actually did it. They asked him to screen test
for Eric or he got offered a show on NBC
We're called The Mommy's where he could just be one
of the sons on the Mom's, the older teenage son.
And he looked at the equation and you know, my

(25:25):
parents and we're all like, this is crazy, Like writer
is going to be on this TV show? Do we
want Hilotte audition to be on the same TV show?
And it was like, no, you just take the offer
on this other show. But of course that made our
lives incredibly complicated because that meant my mom had to
shuttle between two different sets. So yeah, so he ended
up not audition. And I'm not sure if they brought
in a third person or if it just ended up
being you and Jason Will, but Chilotte did not finally

(25:48):
being the two I think he so I met him
the first time because it was the three of us
reading okay, so maybe okay, so maybe he you know,
I don't know if he actually almost almost for Almost Home,
we did that and then it was I. It was
then between Jason and I because Shilo we heard had
Shilo had dropped out quote unquote of going to Boy

(26:09):
Meats Role. But again it was down you talked before
about how small a world it is. It was down
to the three of us twice in a row, and
Jason got got Boy Met Are, Jason got Almost Home,
and then I got Boy Meets World um, and Shilo
was doing the Mommy So yeah, so it was it
worked out. But I was with my dad in in
Los Angeles and I did not think I got the part.

(26:31):
I was a terrible read. Ben was there. Ben came
in and read with us. I was awful, and my
dad said, well, what do you want to do, kiddo?
You know, like, it's what do you want? I went.
I remember the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Hollywood,
and I was like, I want to go to the Rippley.
He's like, all right, fine, So we went there, and
until about ten years ago it was actually there. Across
the street from the Ripleys Believe It or Not Museum,
there was a bank of what was called um pay

(26:54):
phones kids, where you actually had to put in money
and dial a number and uh somebody else. KL five
four thousand appeared on the other How can I connect
your call? S appeared on the other side. And um,
I called my agent and my dad said, just call
your agent. Tell me you didn't get it, and we're
going back home. And I called my agent, said, you
got it. It's been picked up. You've got to you've
got to move to l A. And my dad and

(27:15):
I ran through the Ripley's Beauter not Museum and then
went and found the oak Wood because I had to
live in l A like two weeks later, something ridiculous
like that. And that was thirty years ago. So it
happened very quickly once it happened, and then you're at
the photo shoot, and then you're friends with writer and
then you've got this going, and then you're in front
of the audience and it's just it's then you're going
It's so the photo shoot happened before you, guys ever

(27:35):
even had a rehearsal day. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was
like a week before the week I guess. Okay, So
then by the time you get to rehearsal and you're
starting this this pilot episode, are you guys already feeling
like friends and family, like it's all you've already started
a bond. I mean, Will and I definitely yeah, I
remember Ben and I did not start upon Ben was

(27:59):
really into sport and I was not. And I remember
like a lot of the first early episodes, you know,
he he wanted to play basketball, like with the other kids,
and and there were always other kids because you had
extras to um. But but so I remember during the pilot,
and but also Ben was working a lot because he
was in so many you watch this pilot, He's in

(28:19):
so many scenes in every scene, and that's a lot
for a kid, So he would be gone. He was
sort of distanced, you know, like and and yeah, like
I said, he was very much in his own world.
He was very um. I remember him being just working
and being busy and needing to learn his lines and
also going to school. And he was sort of at
that point Hollywood royalty for us, you know, like because
his brother's show had been such a hit. He was

(28:40):
also the person who like knew what we were doing
more than any of us. Um. And so you know,
I know I didn't really connect with Ben. I would
say until like episode four or five did we start
really getting to know each other. I think in part
because I was just one of these other kids, you know,
like I wasn't part of the family. I think Will
you probably connected with Ben because you were part of
at the time the show, you know, it was it

(29:01):
wasn't supposed to be a school show. It was supposed
to be a family show, and so the priority was
given to the show, you know, the parents and you
Will and Lily, and so that was sort of more
the like core group. I was like an outsider. It
was like me and Chauncey Leo party who's then gone,
and then like you know, whoever else they brought in
that week that could potentially stay. But yeah, so it

(29:23):
was really I was just lucky to have Will, like
I know, we bonded right away. And then I love
school like I loved I already loved school, and I
loved my studio teacher David Colmbs. David David Colmbs, Yes,
David Colmbs. And he had been brought on because he
had taught Fred Savage on on Boy, I mean on
Wonder Years, so they brought him on and um, just
a genius spoke five languages, could teach on these subject

(29:45):
He was a personal tutor to the kids of the
Shaw of Iran remember us. He was a very eccentric,
interesting dude. And we'll have plenty of David Combs stories
I'm sure throughout the years, but for me, he was
really like just immediately, he was so smart and we
just imediately bonded. So I loved school and I love
hanging out with Will. Um. Yeah, it was, but it

(30:05):
felt very comfortable automatically. It's it. But you're right though,
it wasn't Corey and Sean. That wasn't a thing yet. Um,
you know it was. It wasn't until several episodes later,
which we'll talk about where you know, especially when Danielle
joined the cast, where it was really like, oh, this
is the show, Like that's when that's when the whole
thing kind of changed. And it was until then it
was us in those very strange clothes, um, which which

(30:30):
were just very I mean, that was one of the
things that struck me as we're you know, if we
get back, as we get back into the episode, so
we're past the opening title sequence, and opening to me
sounds like a right like music you would hear in
line at Disneylands, yes, exactly, or you're in a carousel
just going around and by the fifth time you're like,
stop that song. Y. Yeah. So this episode was written

(30:54):
by Michael Jacobs and April Kelly. Does anyone remember April Kelly?
I do, Yes, I do too, Okay, I remember her
little dog, yeah, and her Ferrari. Remember she'd always drive
up to the Ferrari. I think I met I think,
I do think I met April Kelly early on. I
do remember her. I remember what she looks like, and
I can picture an outfit. But then April Kelly just

(31:17):
kind of disappeared. She was here the whole first season,
wasn't she the first season? Yeah? And then she left
after the first season, and uh, as far as I know,
left the industry, but her name is on every episode
and she got paid for every single episode. Okay. And
then another thing I wanted to talk about is that
this episode, the pilot episode, was directed by John Tracy.

(31:38):
But then I'm pretty sure this is the only episode
of season one John Tracy directed. No, he came back.
He came back. Maybe couldn't because season one was all
David David David Trainer. Yeah, and David Trainer is a
legendary television director. John is too, but David is best
known for he did every single episode of that that

(31:59):
seventies show. Um, yeah, I have some great David Trainer
stories as we get into the season. But David David
was incredible. John I remember just being very funny, thick
Boston accent um, and he would he would yell and
sort of shout and like tell everybody way to go.
And his brother Kevin Tracy was also on the show,
UM as a camera coordinator. I believe now, at first,

(32:21):
if you look at the pilot episode, it's I noticed this.
It says the first thing. It says he was the
stage manager the first episode, Wow, okay, which he was
By the time I had gotten there, he already wasn't.
But I guess for that first episode he was the
stage And so does anyone know why John only directed
the pilot and not anymore in that first season? Was
there a story there? If there is, do we not
know it? Um? I think I think that's pretty typical.

(32:44):
I think it was typical for somebody to direct the
pilot and then move on, because the goal is a
director is to direct as many pilots as possible, not
to get stuck on a series, because when you direct
a pilot, you make money on every episode for the
rest of that show's life. So didn't need to in
a way, you know, like but I don't remember if
there was a reason that John did not come back.

(33:05):
But David Trayner was truly a genius. He was like
a classically trained Shakespearean theater director, and he really defined
the tone and the and the look and the field
of the show. So I think probably what happened is
David Trayner came on and they gave him the entire
first season in his contract. They said, like he probably said,
if I'm coming to do your you know show, and

(33:25):
you want my talents, I have to do X many episodes,
if not the whole season, like a certain guaranteed amount.
And so that's probably what kicked in. And then they
just had David Traynor, which was wonderful because he really
set an incredible environment for all of us. But in
my head, he is he's seven feet tall. I mean,
I remember him being six six seven. I think he was,

(33:48):
I mean he was, yeah, and he's so very thin. Yeah,
And so the way he walked across stage, he could
like go that you know, that cavernous stage with sound
stage we talked about, he could do the length of
it in what felt four stripes. It was it was
it was crazy and he I'll never forget what feeling
like such a dope because, um, we were doing the
first first episode, which turned out to be the second

(34:09):
episode that's aired, um, and uh I said something like, well,
you know how I did it in the audition and
in front of everybody's like, yeah, who cares how you
did it in the audition. I just remember being like, oh,
man like and he was never mean about he did
it with a smile on his face, but it was like,
oh jeez, I'm just gonna keep my mouth shutting do
what I'm told. Uh. So it was such a strange
environment to go because again it was just like you,

(34:32):
I didn't know any of any of of of making
television like this none. This is not how we did
any of the Nickelodeon stuff. So everyone just assumed I
knew what I was doing. And then it's just kind
of you're just going yeah. I mean, it's like David
started and you're just going that's David. Trayner would have
been the first person to teach us some of the
basics of sitcom acting, which are you don't have a
fourth wall and you have to like like, for instance,
you always have to stand, like if you're having a

(34:54):
conversation with somebody, you have to stand with your shoulders
open so the camera can see your entire fits. So
it's like if you notice everybody on Sitcom's kind of
stands at like an awkward angle to each other and
it feels weird. We make it look normal because you
get used to it as an actor and you but
you have to sort of force your body to do
something that's not natural, and you're not turning. You have
to turn the right way so you don't like you

(35:16):
don't square fifty fifty with people, you turn us slightly
out and then like, yeah, if you're gonna be talking
to somebody over to your right, you gotta make sure
you don't turn your head away from the car, like
all these basic things that of course, if you're a
season theater actor like Bill Daniels, you just know. But
for us, we had to be taught that, Like you
have to tell kids, like, it's not like you're really
talking to this person, you're performing talking to this person.
Here's the way to do that, you know. And I

(35:37):
remember David Trainer was so good at all those little
tricks and teaching us the basics of sitcom acting. Yeah,
So the first scene that we see after the cold
open is and and then the intro we see Corey listening.
It's they're performing Romeo and Juliet at the front of
the class and Corey is listening to the Phillies game. Um.
In this scene is the first time I really noticed

(35:59):
the how loud the laughs were. And I couldn't tell
if it was if it were those the sounds they
collected from the live studio audience or was the laugh
track just that loud because the laughs sound like they're
in your ear. I've heard this about Boy Meant World before,
like that that has an extremely loud laugh track compared

(36:21):
it does. And I think that is true, you know,
I mean, like, yeah, I think for whatever reason, you know,
maybe it's maybe it was a creative choice or somewhere
along the line, the show just got cranked up because
it is very loud. And yeah, I mean there, I'm
sure that there was some adherence to the genuine laughter,
but there was also a machine making the laughter sounds like. Also,

(36:43):
they didn't know us, the audience didn't know us yet,
So for the first few episodes, I think it's mostly
laugh track. I think until we aired, it was really
mostly laugh track because then you get fans, and then
the fans come in. But until then, Michael used always
he would always tell me that I'd say something or hey,
that joke, did land that whatever, and he always look
at me and goes To this day, I still can

(37:03):
hear him in my in my head saying, don't worry,
I have a machine that thinks you're hysterical. And so
that's what he would say, I have a machine that
thinks you're hysterical. And it's like, okay, well that's Can
we talk very briefly about the girl who is lying
on the on the desk. She was amazing, yes, and

(37:25):
why did we never see her again? Because she was
the best other than you, she was the best child
actor of the lot. Yeah. We used to quote her
for years. I remember Ben and I would say after
each other, you touched me with that knife, you better
be great. I remember I literally wrote that down. I'm
taking notes and I'm like, why did she disappear? She
was awesome? Like it's just a revolving cast those first

(37:48):
few episodes, you know, like and it's true, like you
want the thing about a show like this is you're
when you're you know, and this is to Michael's credit,
you don't want to make too many decisions ahead of
time ESPEC show when it comes to cast. You wanted
to be an ensemble. You need to see where there's chemistry.
And I think that that is in part of physical thing. Chemistry,
Like you need to like do these people just work together?

(38:10):
Do they respond to one of do they make each
other smile? Is there a twinkle in the eye when
two people? Sometimes it's just not there, you know, and
sometimes like and I think that they you know, we
can't keep trying these first four or five episodes. You're
gonna see this, you know, some kids come in with
two lines, one kid coming and then like somebody like
Leonora's can't comes in and it's just the dynamic clicks.
Or when Danielle when you came in it was magical.

(38:31):
It was more magical and it was like, oh. And
that was also the same episode where they finally fired
the third best friend. And I remember David Trayner, great
director and so supportive. They gave me all of this
guy's part. So I showed up for work that day
and my part went from like two lines to like
five scenes and a whole bunch of work on, and
I was so nervous, and David Traynor grabbed me and
pulled me in front of the whole crew and say,

(38:53):
can I just say, for the record, this is long overdue.
Can everybody give writer a big round of applause? Remember
was going to do this this week and he deserves it,
and everybody applauded the whole crew, and I remember just
being like, Okay, I got this. And you know, that
was the episode that the show came together, because I
remember with the audience that week and we'll talk about
it when we get to it, but like they reacted

(39:14):
so much to the Tapanga character in contrast to the
Corey character and in contrast with the Seawn. It just
all came together. That's when the show started. We had
episodes before, but that is when the show started, in
my opinion, and because it wasn't just Corey and Topanga,
but it was also Corey Sewn. I mean that was
the show then evolved and became We've talked about the
two boy meets worlds where then Eric kind of had
his own thing going on, and but the three of you, especially,

(39:37):
that was the start, and that was you know, you're right,
it was kind of getting there took took a few episodes,
but once it did, then it was kind of often. No,
this is clearly a show about a teacher and a student.
And yeah, this episode absolutely compelling. I cannot believe how
compelling Bill Daniels was. He's so good, I mean, now
so good. You guysn't notice he's shaking his handshaking. I

(40:00):
didn't notice it. I remember, I remember from when I
was a kid, and I remember seeing it, but I
did not notice it in the episode. I noticed in
the episode because Ben and I were obsessed with it,
because of course we were scared kids, and he was scary.
He was this professor, intimidating, and he had a professional manner.
He would show up memorized. He was so old school,
you know, we knew him from night writer or whatever.

(40:22):
We had like visions of this great actor, and on
tape night when the audience showed up, we could tell
that he was nervous. Maybe he wasn't, maybe he was
just shaking hands. I don't know. I mean that happens
to actors. But I remember Ben and I being obsessed
with that, and like whispering to each other. Did you
see his hands are shaking? And in some ways, I
think it made us feel better because it was like, oh,
if this guy who was so scary to us, Mr Feenie,

(40:46):
if he's nervous, it's okay that we're nervous, you know.
In fact, it's almost cooler that we're not shaking. You know,
we can sort of have this authority as kids, like,
look at us, We're we're cool with the audience. I
remember that so distinctly, and like just hit me like
a lightning flash. When I saw Bill's handshake, I think
it's in this this scene because of the way he
grabbed a radio, I could see his handshake. I was like, oh,
that's right. I remember just always watching that. Does anybody

(41:09):
now that is one of the questions I had. Does
anybody know how old Bill was when we started? Well,
ninety three, the year was ninety three? He is now
so twenty nine years right, yeah, exactly thirty from five
would be sixty five and then add one sixty six.

(41:29):
How much of the pie do I get to eat?
Is the question? Um? So okay, alright, so all right,
he's already like sixty mid mid sixties. Okay, by that
time he looked great. By the way, the young girl
playing Juliet is named Kristen Moore. She deserves her flowers.
The young talent we we didn't get to see again,
her name is Kristin Moore. So she was phenomenal. She

(41:52):
really was great. She had a couple of lines. If
you get if you get one line and you get
a solid laugh on the one line, you get that
pretty impressive. Absolutely, so that was great. So in the
scene Ben gets detention. We learned that Ben gets detention
and then Corey gets detention. It's gonna be really hard
for us to go back and forth between Ben and I.
I will do it all the time. I'll try to

(42:12):
correct myself when I do what should we call them? Should?
We should? We just stick with character never going to
be able to do We're never going We're gonna go
in and out both the time. So Corey gets detention,
he goes home, and this is where we meet Eric Matthews. Yes,
we do well. First, can we just very quickly talk
about how times have changed? And they showed a knife

(42:32):
fight in school essentially, I mean, doesn't it immediately cut
to shooting. That's later we're shooting at the video shooting
at the video game, but it's it's somebody holding somebody
else down on a desk, trying to stab him, and
the principle comes over like okay, I mean it's like
it's a different time. Um. But then we meet Eric Matthews.
Yeah yourself, dude, you were great. No, No, I was not.

(42:56):
Why do you think you're so? It was because the scene,
the scene at the end. So the first scene, it's
not it's very stiff, obviously, and I have no idea
what to do with my hands, and it's very awkward
the first scene. But the seconds the scene where I
come back and I'm acting, and I'm like, news flash,
I'm not cool. It's the worst thing ever. You're so

(43:18):
hard on yourself, like sit, kids, sit, come acting. It
wasn't much better overall, but it was just in this show.
I mean I remember literally like I finished it last
night and I was like, every single person in that
show was better than me, every single one. I think
you're just way too hard on yourself. Because I better.
I don't get me wrong, I certainly got better, but
that first episode that was painful for me too. It

(43:42):
was like I am acting now and I have to stay.
The only thing I'm missing is literally looking down for
the tea on the ground to where to put my feet,
because they they give you these little tea marks to
where mark. You're just uncomfortable, dude, But it doesn't really
play that way. I'm sure you're you're projecting your discomfort.
I don't know. I just met that. Like I said,
the writers didn't know who Eric was. You were sort

(44:02):
of a stock old all the deeds and one I
remember the only the only time I was ever mentioned
in a review at all at the very beginning. So
we did. There was one table read we did where
we had just aired. It was the table read right
after we first came out, and Michael read um reviews

(44:23):
in front of everybody. Oh I remember the reviews. The
one he said about Bill Daniels was for thirty years.
Oh no, what about Bill Daniels was great? He said, uh,
you know Bill Daniels. Mr comes to Mr Feeney and
then the quote ended with a great actor stoops and
I remember Bill putting his head in his hands and
all of us laughing, and Bill probably felt. And two

(44:46):
Emmys for st elsewhere at this right and he's coming
onto this kids show he must have felt, and a
sitcom to like, he had not done multi camera sitcom,
and like, you have to remember, this is hard for
people to wrap their heads around these days. But back then,
you were either a TV actor or a film and
if you were actor or stage of course, but Bill
was kind of all of those things. But TV was

(45:08):
kind of the lowest here. If you wanted if you
wanted to make no money but do quality work, you
were a theater actor. You wanted to you know, if
you wanted to be famously the best was movie actors.
And then for being a TV actor, especially a multi
camera sits, a sitcom TV actor, and then a show
sitcom TV actor, Oh my god, he was. It was

(45:28):
like working the drive through. Can I read you a review? Please? Okay? So?
David zero Wick of The Baltimore Sun wrote, predicting Nielsen's
success for Boy Meets World, dot dot dot is not
a particularly daring or incisive call. It's mainly based on
scheduling and stars. Then he continued, forget quality, these are

(45:49):
kids were programming for on Friday nights. Here's where you
have to give ABC some credit for going an extra
mile and adding William Daniels to the cast as Corey's nemesis,
his sixth grade teacher, Mr. Peenie. The confrontation between the Hey,
I'm just a kid Corey and the arch and starch
Feenie makes this series something an adult doesn't have to
feel ashamed of watching amazing. He ultimately gave it two

(46:12):
and a half stars out of four, but said I
won't argue with anyone who wants to give it three stars. Okay,
there's something that's better, because that's gonna say. I think
the only one I heard was that with that I
was mentioned at all was the older brother is a
cardboard cutout prop. That's the only one I remembers, kind
of just stand in for Yeah, no, I play the

(46:34):
r you are archetypal older brother. Yeah. I mean, in
some ways we all are in these early days, except
for Ben and Bill, you know, which was a great dynamic.
It was a dynamic, great dynamic between the two of them,
It really was. But um, I just remember shooting in
that bedroom scene, and if I'm I could be wrong,
I was thinking about this last night, but I think
our beds constantly switch alight, which is whatever the episode

(46:59):
was was like, now that's Corey's bed, well, now that's
Eric's bed. Now that's Corey's bed, Now that's Eric's bed, um,
And it just kind of went back and forth over
and over, and it was always like entrances and exits.
Man like Eric walked into room, do not move hands,
say Corey line walk out of room? Can we get
to scene three? Can we please please? Scene three? We

(47:21):
go downstairs, We've got the parents. Yeah, we meet the
family for the first time. We finally meet the family
and uh a full house reference. Yes, it was. Yeah,
so I thought we didn't do that to like season five,
but no, it's really funny that. Yeah, it's like, oh
my god. I couldn't believe it. And Lilly was Lily.

(47:44):
I remember Lily as kind of being like, jeez, it's weird.
She's just spouting the lines and it's not to me.
It was like, oh, it's not really work. When you
watch it, she's adorable and hitting some pretty great beats.
What was the line at the end where she said
where she says, I'm I remember. I don't even remember

(48:04):
because I wasn't there for the pilot obviously, so I
don't remember ever hearing Lily say it, but I remember
that she one of the things she says, a line
she says during the tea party with Ben at the end.
You guys all quoted, you repeated the way she said
it all the time, and I think I wrote it,
you know which one? Oh my gosh, I'm gonna need

(48:25):
to find it. But it was like, I'm I'm not
telling there. She had some reading during that line. Gosh,
I wish I wrote it down, but I I hear
Ben and writer saying we used to make fun of
her voice because it was some Yeah, well, you know,
it's so funny what you like. I totally remember what
you were saying. Will about there was the same because
when you're it's hard to remember that. When you're a kid,

(48:47):
a lot of what you do is compare yourself to
other kids, and especially younger ones, and you're so proud
of yourself for not being that dumb younger kid. And
I remember comparing myself to Lily and thinking, well, she's
not a real actor, wish, but she's like five, she's
good and she's amazing. And I was like, but I
remember being so smug, and I think that was part
of being twelve, or I was so Ben was only twelve,

(49:10):
and I think it was part of our like, well,
at least we're not just like you know, because it
was hard. It's hard to get a six year old
to say lines and to stand you have anything right.
I mean, I look, I have a seven year old,
I know, and like so the idea that she was
able to deliver what she was doing is incredible. But
at the time, I was just so proud of myself
for being like, well, I know how to read and

(49:32):
hit my marks and I know how to really how
to read. Isn't that ridiculous, But that's what you do
when you're a kid. You're just so proud of like
ninety six year old exactly. No, she was. But that's
the thing I look back at that now. She was
exactly what she was supposed to be. She was adorable,
she was hitting the lines, and she was a great
foil to Ben. And that that the scenes where she

(49:53):
just all of a sudden where she will get into it,
but where she grabs the doll and throws it and
then just offers him the chair, all that stuff is great. Yeah.
I mean, I I think this is a really great
opening scene too, for Betsy and Rusty, Amy and Allen
talk about two like wonderful parent characters. Like just right
off the bat, they have a great dynamic. You feel
the love in this family. Just want to be part

(50:14):
of the family. Yeah, immediate. It's like it's so comforting,
it's so welcoming, and yet it still has that level
of irony, right like self awareness. That's that's like the
sort of boy meets World. Michael Jacob's magic is that,
you know, it does the predictable thing, the very sweet
loving but then everybody is just just sarcastic and ironic enough,
just like singing each other enough, you know, and like

(50:35):
especially Rusty as the dad is just you know when
when when you come for this big like Corey moment
where he later where he's like, Dad, I left you,
and like the way the Rusty just kind of plays
it off like I'm cool man. It's good. Yeah, it's
per they did. But it's also it's such a typical
thing in in sitcoms about kids, and it was done
here too, but it was done in a much I thought,

(50:57):
a better way, better written way. At the end of
the day, it just comes down to the writing. There's
there's always the sense of someday you'll you'll understand kid,
Like you get that in every show. Someday You'll understand kid.
But it didn't come off like that with this episode.
It wasn't it was like, it wasn't other people telling
I mean, even though it was it was Corey. It's personalized,

(51:18):
like it becomes this journey with me and that's like,
we'll get into it. But when you see Phoeny get
ditched on his dinner, it's like, oh, he's humanized and
he you know, he's no and and for Corey to
have it's it's exactly played out so that like you'll
know when you're older, is played out in story and right,
that's what I mean. So it's not that kind of
sitting them down. You'll figure this out when you're Can

(51:38):
we eventually talk about Phoene just making a salad. We'll
get to that, okay. Um. So in this scene though,
this is this is the scene where we find out
that the family already knows that Corey has detention, and
he's like, how do you possibly already know that? And
now we find out as the audience, Oh, he stuck
his head over the side of the fence and told
me and you learn as the audience. And by the way,

(52:00):
that's all they say. It's not made a big deal
about like drafts. The teacher lives next door. It's just
that's it. The audience learns, Oh, Phoeney stuck his head
over the fence. He lives next door, so that the
side of us on the side fence. That's what we
learned right from there, which is pretty amazing. Their backyards
to each other. Who ms directly opposite the front door.

(52:23):
You go into the front door on the left side,
through to the kitchen and go into the backyard. Then
they're not neighbors. He lives, he lives behind them. It's
still a neighbor, my friend. I guess, alright, you get
the same four we have. So then we go back

(52:47):
to school. We learned about detention. We go back to school. Now,
this scene I thought was a little was really interesting,
so I thought it was going to again watching it
for the first time in twenty nine years, maybe maybe
the first time ever. I don't have a memory of it.
I thought. When Corey says to Sean, hey, should we

(53:08):
go to the game on Friday? Let's go, And Sean says, well,
what about detention and he's like, don't worry about that.
In my head, I thought, oh, now the rest of
the episode is going to be he ditches detention. They
come up with a scheme to go get tickets. No,
none of that. And uh. Also the first first forgotten

(53:29):
sibling is reference I talk, I make a joke about core.
Uh Chauncey's character being an only child. Yeah, like he's
lucky to be an only child because he has bought
a hot launcher. I don't know what or he brings it.
I don't know, but I but I was immediately Wait,
so Sean was already established as not an only child,
which then gets completely forgotten as the seasons go on. Right, yeah,

(53:52):
so you you didn't like your lunch because you must
have been I'm assuming the second child. So second child
problems you get forgotten because there are too many other
things to think about. And Chauncey has a delicious lunch
because he's an only child. Um, but yeah, just the
opposite of girl, I'm sorry, I always wanted to buy
my lunch, Like if somebody made you lunch that like,
you wanted to buy lunch a school, didn't you. It's

(54:12):
a whole different thing. I'm just I'm just that's it
was a weird joke to me because I was like,
I would rather have bought lunch at school than have
the sandwich that I felt like. I thought, Yeah, but
I don't know, I think that's a class distinction that's
different in cities than suburbs. Maybe, I guess may think
if yeah, I think if you're in the city, your
your parents just pay the cheap launch or you get
the free lunch, and then if you have really loving parents,

(54:34):
they like make your lunch. But it's like which you are,
like vegetarian crappy was like such a source of ship.
Oh man, I would always get the hot pizza lunch
at the exactly anyway something shiny um. Yeah, So that

(54:56):
that whole. But Danielle talked about this at the very
big getting about continuity for our show, and it was
just all over the place all the time of who
had siblings, who didn't have siblings, where did you live,
who did you live with all this stuff. Writer had
a very good point, to Michael's credit, you don't really
want to get attached to anything. And if in sitcom land,

(55:17):
if something is funny, that is king whatever is funny,
and so if it made sense to have a joke
that Writer is not as well taken care of because
he's got siblings, make that joke, and five episodes from now,
we want to say that Writer is an only child,
will do that too. That's I mean, that's the evolution
of Sean too, because like, you know, I took over

(55:39):
for some other actor and they gave me a sister
for that episode. Then they forgot about it, and then
it was really just like one trailer park joke that
established that Sean lived at a trailer park. And I
will find it. I can't wait to see it because
I remember it was just like an offline It was
just an offhand, like one line joke that then became
this like recurring joke that then became the drama. The

(55:59):
central draw of Shawn's life is that he's so poor
and that his parents have abandoned him at different times,
and that he you know, complicated, and that we ended
up developing this entire history out of what really started
as they make fun of the poor kid joke at
some point, you know, And I can't wait to see it.
All right, let's go to the treehouse. Yes, I don't
think I ever. That's the one thing that went through

(56:20):
my head is I don't think I ever got to
do a single scene in that treehouse. No, I don't.
I don't think I did really either. It wasn't very big,
but by the way, we don't use tree houses enough
on shows. It was beautiful, so cool, really cool, really
really cool, really different for a set, Like I thought
it looked great. I just was like, why don't Why
is there not another one of these? So I watched

(56:41):
this episode with my son, Um, and uh, maybe now
is a good time. I recorded a conversation with him
before and after, and the reason I bring it up
is because I think I didn't get this on tape
when we were we talked on with my microphone. But uh,
he was blown away by the idea that everything was
shot inside. When I told him that, like, even when

(57:02):
we're in the treehouse that's on a stage, we are inside,
and he could not get over that. That was like
the most shocking thing that ever happened. It was like, wait,
so you never went I was like, no, dude, that's
the way he should film a TV show. It's everything inside.
And this scene was especially confounding because you're outside in
the treehouse. And I guess, like, maybe we assume everybody
knows that, but probably not, especially not kids. Right when

(57:23):
they watch a show, they believe in the reality of
its outdoors. Um. But yeah, she has never seen an
episode of Boy Meats World, right, Not completely true. He
had watched one episode after we had done a taping.
We did one of these charity rewatches last year, and
so it was cute up on Disney Plus. So the
next time he turned on Disney Plus there was an episode.

(57:43):
He was like, let's watch your show, and we did,
and it's from like fifth season. I had no recollection
of it. He thought it was so weird and he
never wanted to do it again. But now he's been
watching sitcoms, he's been watching multi camera shows, and I
realized it's kind of appropriate for him to watch it,
and so I sat down with Indie. I asked him
a little bit before we started, and then we talked

(58:05):
a little after. Um, and so I put it together
a couple of minutes. Um, and this is a clip
I am calling too much shirts great, what do you
think the show is about? A dude? What are your
favorite TV shows right now? I don't already have like
a favorite right now? Nicky Ricky, Dicky and Tricky and

(58:27):
Dawn the Heat Nicky Ricky, Ticky and Dawn, And I've
already finished. What about thunder Man's? Did you finish the
thunder Man's? Yes? So I mostly watch Terry Kids A
big hit. Well, I think maybe that's a good indication
that you'll like this show. But I haven't seen it
for thirty years, so I don't know how I'm going

(58:50):
to feel about it. What do you think I'm gonna
look like? He is? So? Thanks man? No, yeah, I
don't think I had freckles by that time. I had
freckles when I was your age, but they were gone
by the time I started the show and was shiny makeup?
Were you and maup? Get back to you and let's
watch it. Any initial thoughts into it? Was good? You

(59:20):
didn't laugh? I never do that to any of them.
What was good about it? I don't know. I did
thank you with it? Oh? Yeah, sorry? Was your favorite part? Yes,
I have a small part, though I didn't really do much.
He did it a lot. What did they do? He did?
Said high? And you had the same spot every time

(59:41):
you talked in the cafeteria. We never liked got up. Well,
I was in the classroom to Yeah, but you will
always sitting whenever you talked to you was sitting, That's true.
I don't think I stand in the entire pilot. I
thought I sounded weird. My voice sounded like shaky to me.
I like, all right, what did you think of a
storyline with Corey? He's the main kid? He was all

(01:00:04):
about him? What are you talking about? You saw me?
I'm just sitting there only about you know. Come on?
What about the teacher? What do you think of him?
He was weird? Why because he musta Do you think
he's a good teacher? Why not? He's mean? Oh he

(01:00:25):
thought he was mean? Huh Yeah? Well what about the parents?
Did you think they were good parents? Yeah? But you did? Dad?
You're cheesy? Cheesy? What way you just think? What about Will?
What about Will? Is the older brother? Was how is
he me? He thought he was mean to? Did it

(01:00:47):
look like Will looks now? No? Yeah, it doesn't look
anything like him. All right? What did you think of
our clothes and stuff? Do you watch shirts? Shirts? Yeah?
They were really big, weren't they. Does it seem like
old fashioned? Yeah? Really? Did it feel like like that's

(01:01:11):
what it's like to be a kid these days? Too cool? Well,
do you do you think you'd want to watch anymore? Sure? Yeah,
And I have to say he has been begging to
watch it every Phoenies mean interesting that you picked up
the Phoenies mean kind of he did, because Phoenie is.
I was amazed at how strict he is and how

(01:01:31):
like authoritarian and but yeah, it was so funny to
realize that that my son was really seen it through
Corey's eyes. And actually the fact that he didn't even recognize,
like he didn't even know Corey's name, I think as
an indicator that he just saw Ben as a sort
of avatar, do you know what I mean? He put
himself in Ben's shoes, like he he thought the brother
was mean, the teacher was mean, because that's how Corey

(01:01:54):
sees the world, right, like that's how it starts. And
he didn't you know, he's seven, so he's still kind
of in the zone where I think if he's introduced
to a character and they're like Mr Masters, get off
of my face, which is like what Phoene says to him,
He's like, he's not gonna get come back from that
very easily. Now I have a question, was he right?
Did you not stand throughout the entire episode? I think so. Yeah.

(01:02:14):
After he said that, I was like, I don't. I'm
only sitting in the cafeteria and sit in the classroom.
So yeah, And I think it's like that for the
first season until until the Coreys altern of the Friends episodes,
I'm always just like, you know, I mean, in a
weird way. I was sort of like this, what are
the characters in the Muppets whether on the box watching? Yeah,

(01:02:35):
I was kind of like that, right, Like I was
just Coreries like sidekick in the cafeteria while we eat,
because I just remember always having to eat and act
the worst. You're good at it, though you are a
great eat too much. I actually ate if you watch
Bill Daniels, he's just like push his stuff around on
his plate. That that's an actor thing. That's an active thing.
You see that in every show. I literally watched it

(01:02:56):
last night in mash where all the characters are pushing
around the That is like a big actor thing. You
just use you move your fork, but you don't actually
eat smart and you're just chowing down. Michael rationalized that
once why you were doing that is because you were
poor and it's the only place you got food. And
You're like, it sounds like a rationalization. He's like, yeah,
I just made that up. Yeah, I I find a

(01:03:17):
moment where I don't have to speak for a while
and then take a bite there so that in the
background somewhere people see that I am eating. It makes
you think that I must be eating the rest of
the time. But then that's the only time I really neat.
But I'm not in the pilot, so what do I know.
It depended. It depended on the episode and how fat
I was towards the end, where I was very, very fat.
I'd eat whatever they put in front of me. But

(01:03:38):
so Phoene serves himself a salad which for two people,
A salad for two which is what he made. By
the way, it was the starter. I think he had
a multiple course meal. Yeah, by the greens. There was
nothing else in the salad. He didn't even slice a tomato.

(01:04:00):
The man for I mean, it was like, help us.
I'm pretty sure it was supposed to imply that he
had a full meal, and it was. It was the starter.
Now I have a question, have we has has. I
know it was obviously the pilot, so it's the first time.
But was that angle into Phoene's house ever used again? No, never,

(01:04:22):
We never saw that again, kind of peeking into Phoenie's home. No,
there's a scene later where I think Ben and him
sit outside of Phoenie's home and have tea together or
talk coming up. And but those were even very few
and far between. You went in the house once when
it became the with the de lou to see how
lickt it is. I mean, you guys are in the
house once. That's the one time we got to see

(01:04:45):
inside Phoenie's houses when Corey and I turned his house
into a B and B, and I remember it was
really excited to finally be and it suddenly had two stories,
which doesn't I don't think makes sense based on the outside.
But yes, but that is that's the only time we
actually saw that from into the you know, into Phoene's
home was just that time of the pilot. Okay, I
was curious about Yeah, I don't think we'd ever seen
that again. And I thought that looked really great too.

(01:05:06):
We have another uh he Corey makes a comment in
this treehouse scene about America's Funniest Home Teacher, and I
was like, wow, in the scene in this episode we
have a full house reference and an America's Funniest Home video. Yeah, yeah,
he didn't The only thing he didn't do is turn
to the camera and go watch us on ABC Friday
at eight. I mean it was like they did. They
threw it in where they could. Well, if you keep

(01:05:26):
it in the family, that makes sense. So this is
the scene where we all of a sudden our heart
strings pull for Phoenie and we realized that he has
been stood up and that he is a little heartbroken
about it. And now we've humanized this very stern teacher.
Um and yeah. Then the next scene we're in with
UH with Betsy and and well I guess Amy and

(01:05:49):
Corey Uh in the bedroom and this is where she
tells him that they're bringing in a renter too little scene,
So you guys will did you notice the thing? What's
the what's the switching of the beds? No? No, no,
But Ben used to always say, we never wrote not

(01:06:09):
only that, but it's also the duck hunt gun has
no chord in one scene, and then the next scene
has a chord and it is plugged in. So Ben,
could I say, how come come? So whenever they wrote
the line how come the first season, he goes and
we used to tease him so much like comb you
say it like that best second used to always bug

(01:06:32):
literally wrote that down. And that's why the second I
heard it, it was like all the memories came flashy
back of you just being like, then, who come you see?
H oh my god, yeah that was that, and the
and the belt pulling which must have come later. He
did this like kind of always grabbing at his belt
to pull up his pants. That plus hokem ye, oh

(01:06:53):
my god, oh my gosh, he'll keep it. We'll keep
a hol comb tally going on the first season, I
didn't know to sit and now now I'm going to
pay attention to it. Uh So we learned that, you know,
Corey once abandoned his dad as he got a little older,
and get adding in another layer makes Corey think. And
then we get into the next scene, which is the

(01:07:15):
detention scene, which to me is just of every scene
in this show was such a standout because of Bill Daniels.
I I what and what luck that we had Bill Daniels. Seriously,
I mean not only that, because we also know that
there was for a while we weren't going to have
him and he was going to leave. And the fact

(01:07:36):
that leave that for Bill to tell us. To hear
that from Bill, I wanted for that story. But he
is so compelling. Now, did anyone else have a problem?
And I get why they did it. I totally get
why they did it, and it was necessary to do it.
But the fact that he's such a stern teacher and
there's nobody else in detention. Again, I got why they
did it. They wanted the scene just between Feenie and Corey.

(01:07:58):
I totally understand that that's what it needed to be,
but I found it it's to me, it was like,
there's no the entire school, there's nobody else in detention
but Corey. Oh, you know, it's funny. I didn't think
about it as being that this is the detention for
the entire school. It was just his class, just for
Phoene's class, and that there were other teachers running other
detentions in the school. That's what I didn't think about

(01:08:20):
it as such a spectacular scene. It's amazing. You know,
the real risk of this scene is that there's not
a laugh for you know, five minutes straight and and
that you know you're going to dip into sentimentality, which
I think Boy Meat's World did very often. But I
couldn't believe how how serious it was and how willing
it was to become a drama show essentially for an

(01:08:42):
extended scene between two characters and man like that. Like
like I said, when we started, I could not believe
how much of boy Meat's World is already encoded in
this episode. And I think it's because of this scene.
I mean, they must have just knew they had nailed
it when they shot the scene and you could see
it and be like, oh, this is I want to
endlessly watch these people change each other. You know, we
Bill doesn't speak at the beginning. That's the amazing part

(01:09:04):
about it is Bill doesn't speak. You know that Ben
is doing his kind of stick and and Bill is
doing everything while staring down at the page, and it
still works. It's the bench stick is actually one of
my favorite parts because, as Ryder mentioned at the very
opening of the show, Corey's character is a little braddy
and you're a little bit like, is this a likable kid?

(01:09:27):
And one of the things I loved is that you
see him push the button and keep pushing the envelope
and pushing the envelope, and then even though he's out
the door, he comes back in like I'm never gonna leave,
Like you and I both know you're in control. I'm
still ultimately a good kid. And I don't know. Yeah,
and you did and you didn't even need to say it.

(01:09:48):
You you saw it, you knew it. You now already
love and know this kid is a good kid. Um,
I don't know. I just I loved it. I love
that beginning part. And then when Phoenie finds out that
Corey was spying on him or that had seen him
and that he was stood up, the change, the sternness

(01:10:10):
with which Bill does that scene, it was I mean,
it was just so compelling. I was absolutely eyes glued
to the TV. But also perfect teacher where he uses it.
He turned it into a teachable moment. I'm going to
take this moment and I'm going to teach what I
tried to teach you with Romeo and Juliet. I am
now going to teach you right here because of this.

(01:10:31):
And it was it's such a great turn and it's
such it's it's it just shows such depth of the
Phoenie character, which is, while you spied on me, you
think this happened in my life. I'm not going to
explain what happened in my life. I'm gonna use this
to teach you about something. And it was just it's
set the stage for every every other teachable Phoenie moment
that you still have, which is another question we always get,

(01:10:53):
which is what what moment you know, what did you
learn from Bill or what did you learn from Phoenie?
And it was always moments like this where it's that
teachable and it was incredible. Just one of my favorite lines, ironically,
is when he says during Bill's monologue moment, he says,
you come and you go. You come into my class
and then you leave me. And you know, he's basically

(01:11:14):
saying like I only get you for one year, which
turns out to another when Elevation show. But yeah, he says,
you know, the time spent with me, I don't know
if you learn anything or not. And it's like, if
only we could tell them, like, you know, you're gonna
be there for seven years, You're gonna be going to
college with these kids. But he's also he's talking about
I mean, he's were at the end of the day.
You have to remember we're doing a kid show, which

(01:11:35):
is what t G I F was and what this
was specifically geared towards. And one of the main characters
is talking about Shakespeare and Chaucer and some of the
greatest poets and writers of all time and using that
as a teachable It was again the idea of the
teachable moment coming from a teacher, which is something that
the joy that Boy Meets World could do as opposed

(01:11:57):
to I learned the lesson from my dad. I learned
the lesson from my mom. It's just kind of you've
seen it before or the teacher was a buffoon. So
the teacher teaching is just such a wonderful thing to
watch all all the time. So yeah, that was I'm
like you, Daniel, I just I couldn't move my eyes
away from that scene because incredible, amazing, amazing. Okay, So
then Corey goes back to the house and he apologizes
to his dad for ditching him, and writer, you mentioned

(01:12:19):
it briefly earlier, but the the how casual Rusty is about,
Oh what you know, No, that's cool. I I get it.
It's the circle of life. Um, he's just just what
a he's such a cool dad. Yeah he was, which
is why I think my son called him cheesy because
he was cheesy because he's probably taking a dig at

(01:12:40):
me in that moment. Like, Dad, you try and be cheesy,
You try and be cool like that all the time,
and I fail. Yeah. I love this scene, and I
love how Rusty is so relaxed and like not precious
about anything, as Rusty always is such an amazing actor.
And then Lily so good, like he's just wonderful. And

(01:13:01):
that's such a cute scene. You can see Corey finally
changing right, like he's doing the things now, he's talking
to his dad, he's hanging out with his sister. It's
a It's a really great little scene. I thought, I'm
not a huge fan of of of Runners. I get
that not all runners are good, but I wish that
the no, don't hug me was a thing that kept going.
I thought that was a great moment and I thought
that's one that could have come back later in the show. No,

(01:13:24):
I think that's the only time it happened, and I
think it was great. So yeah, yeah, Well the next
scene we have Corey and Eric get to resolve their
little conflict. Corey encourages Eric to call his date Heather
um and which I think is really sweet. It's a
nice little wrap up that now he wants his brother
to be happy. He wants him to have that, even

(01:13:46):
if it means pain for himself. He wants his brother
to be happy. And then he goes downstairs and he
has tea with his little sister and it's it is
so cute. Was she tosses the doll. I love that.
I thought that was such a wonderful moment where she
just tosses the dollars like the doll because if you
go back in the entire episode, a lot of scenes

(01:14:07):
she's cradling it like a baby and feeding it and
it's the most important thing to her, Corey, do you
want it up there? To keep you saying? And the
second she gets a chance to be with her brother,
she discards it and here's the chair for you. It
was great, Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's a very
cute scene between the two of them. And then we
learned in the tag. I thought this was very funny
that in the tag we learn oh you thought Mr

(01:14:28):
Feeney was stood up. Absolutely not. He's not a loser,
you know nothing at all. It wasn't a date. It
was his sister. I thought that was a really I
was going to travel a very long way for a
really light meal. It's like, hey, George, I drove six hours.

(01:14:50):
Could you have thrown some chicken in this? Like? Thanks? Please?
Just greens something. Yeah, I thought it was just it's
very It's funny to me, like he that they could.
They didn't want to leave it that he did actually
get stood up. They wanted to clarify he didn't. Well.
I think it was also it was also kind of
clarifying that at eleven, you know, think you know, you

(01:15:12):
don't really know. That's a good It brings us back
to where Corey started, which is that he knows nothing.
He knows nothing. You got to come back next week
to see him learn again something else about we all
learn together. Yes, Well, speaking of which, we will be
back next week. We will be watching the next episode,
which is season one, episode two. It's called on the
Fence and yeah, I'm I'm excited to see it. I

(01:15:35):
I feel like I was very interested in the pilot.
I thought the pilot was way better than I was
expecting it to be too, and so I'm thrilled. I'm
thrilled to see what this next episode was, which we've
learned in this episode. Will that is actually the first
episode you guys all taped together. I think so, yeah,
I think this was the one. So I'm excited to
excited to watch that. And uh, yeah, you guys have

(01:15:55):
any closing thoughts, I think we I think just saying
it was a lot better than I remember it being,
and I'm glad it was. It was. Yeah, it was
a great episode. And man, Bill Daniels can act. That's
what That's what I took away from this. Will sign
us off. We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Beats
World is an I heart podcast producer hosted by Daniel Fisher,

(01:16:18):
Wilford Hill and Righter Strong. Executive producers Jensen Carpet and
Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Daniel Romo, producer
and editor, Tara suit Batch, producer, Lorraine Gurez, engineer and
Boy Meets World super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song
is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram
at pod Meats World show or email us at Pod
meets World Show at gmail dot com.