A boy meets the worldDanielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle look back at what might be the show’s most beloved and revered episode: the hilariously funny “And Then There was Shawn.”
The 1998 episode, which aired during A boy meets the worldseason five, has been included on multiple lists of the best 90s sitcom episodes and the best Halloween episodes ever in recent years. A nod and tribute to teenage slasher movies like Scream and I know what you did last summerwhich were huge at the box office at the time, the episode features the show’s teenage cast terrorized by an unseen killer while trapped in custody, and features a guest appearance by scream queen Jennifer Love Hewitt.
“This is consistently regarded as perhaps the best episode in the A boy meets the world history and it is a mess” Fishel, 43, said on the latest episode of the trio’s reunion podcast. The floor meets the world.
Danielle Fishel, Ben Savage and Rider Strong in ‘Boy Meets World’ 1998.
Disney
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“And Then There Was Shawn” is so popular with fans of the show that Fishel, Strong and Friedle devoted three separate episodes of their podcast to it, culminating in their well-timed Halloween recap, which aired on Thursday, October 31.
But as the hosts noted, “And Then There Was Shawn” was not actually Halloween episode, which originally aired in February.
“Can you imagine putting on TGIF — in February — when you’re, like, 9, 10 years old?” Strong, 44, said of the episode, which features several of the show’s main characters being killed off in — spoiler alert — what turns out to be an extended dream sequence. “This must have been so upsetting.”
“You read comments from people who are like, ‘This hurt me,'” Friedle, 48, noted.
“This scared the hell out of a lot of kids,” Fishel agreed.
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Jennifer Love Hewitt and Will Friedle in ‘Boy Meets World’ in 1998.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
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“I mean, there are some episodes that, like, stick with you after all these years,” Friedle said. “And I think for a generation of kids that was it. I mean, this really messed them up. I love it.”
Despite the unexpected scare factor, the trio also praised the episode for featuring some of the best jokes and gags of all time. One particularly darkly funny moment found guest star Richard Lee Jackson’s Kenny — in a timely reference to the oft-killed South Park character — falls to the ground with a pencil stuck in his forehead, leaving a line on the wall behind him. Ben Savage’s Corey points to the top of the marker saying, “We’ll always remember he was so tall.”
“Is it possible that this is the most perfectly conceived prank of all A boy meets the world?” Fishel asked on the podcast, while Friedle claimed he was “up there with anything on.” Seinfeld or Friends or Everyone in the family.”
Another highlight, according to the showrunners: Strong’s character confesses that he’ll “get as sick as he can without actually dying,” after another character notes that in horror movies, only virgins survive the carnage.
“This episode was on a whole different level,” Friedle enthused, noting later that the reason everyone’s performances in the episode are so funny is because “things we only did in rehearsals for each other they decided to do for the show.”
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Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Ben Savage in ‘Boy Meets World’ 1998.
Disney
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Apparently, the cast was short also however, a lot of fun on set. According to Friedle, Strong and Fishel, the episode marked the first and only time in a long time A boy meets the world director Jeff McCracken yelled at them when they couldn’t stop laughing during a certain shot.
“We totally deserved it,” Fishel recalled. »We couldn’t stay together. We were so unprofessional.”
McCracken, she said, stormed off the set, “as soon as he was around the corner, we all burst out laughing again because it was so shocking and so out of character, and we physically couldn’t stop laughing.”
“Sorry, Jeff,” Fishel added. “You know how much we love you. If we could go back and do it again … we’d probably do it the exact same way.”
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Source: HIS Education