minkus

Prompted to explain conception in a classroom scene during the second-season episode “Pairing Off,” Cory humorously and succinctly sums up the appeal of the series’ early goings: “The first sperm to reach the egg wins. It gets a medal, you name him Cory, you push him out the door, and nothing makes sense for the rest of his life.” For kids used to televised peers who were more Zack Morris than Doug Funnie, the characterization of Cory was relatable and refreshing. Little did we know he was also recycled from the spare parts of Richie Cunningham and Dobie Gillis. Strong’s Shawn Hunter played the Fonzie to Cory’s Richie, a rebel type with a surprising amount of emotional depth beneath his leather jacket. (Unfortunately, this also means Shawn is the source for most of the show’s “very special” episodes; I wouldn’t recommend the one where the Matthewses save him from joining a cult.) The Cory-Shawn dynamic is another element that helps elevate Boy Meets World out of the TGIF ghetto, where best-friend characters like Full House’s Kimmy and Family Matters’ Waldo acted as decent foils to DJ and Eddie, but never provided much of an explanation as to why the main characters befriended them in the first place. Though it would eventually be supplanted by Cory’s romance with Topanga (Danielle Fishel), the unbreakable yet frequently tested bond between him and Shawn forms the show’s true emotional core.

Of course, the Cory-Topanga relationship has additional points against it due to its ties to the series’ oft-cited disregard for continuity. Despite being a new-age nuisance in the show’s first season, Topanga is later revealed to be Cory’s undisputed soulmate—with the retconned first kiss in a sandbox to prove it. And online chatter about the series rarely occurs without a mention of English teacher Mr. Turner’s unexplained disappearance or the rotating cast of high-school thugs that torment Cory and Shawn. (My personal favorite: Adam Scott as Griffin “Griff” Hawkins.) Still, no fan has been able to popularize a Boy Meets World equivalent of Chuck Klosterman’s “Tori Paradox,” the critic’s stupid/brilliant Saved By The Bell theory, which posits that a briefly seen, never-mentioned-again Elizabeth Berkley/Tiffani Thiessen surrogate was actually the series’ most believable aspect, because memory often tricks us into inflating the roles of life’s secondary players. Perhaps that’s because the series so often beat its viewers to the postmodern punch. For all its traditional sitcom trappings, Boy Meets World was surprisingly self-aware: In one of the last scenes set on the show’s familiar hallway set, Cory and Shawn run into Stuart Minkus, a nerdy overachiever unseen seen since the first season. Apparently, he was just on the side of John Adams High School that existed beyond the camera’s view—where Mr. Turner’s classroom had been conveniently relocated as well.

As a kid watching Boy Meets World, these inconsistencies were maddening. As an adult, I see evidence of showrunner Michael Jacobs and his team having fun with the constraints and inconveniences of their medium. They faced their biggest challenge when the kids graduated from John Adams, presumably leaving behind teacher/mentor George Feeny (William Daniels). Having already promoted Feeny from sixth-grade history teacher to high-school principal between seasons one and two, the writers had no problem testing the series’ shaky realism by drafting increasingly implausible reasons to keep the character around. Ridiculous though his academic ascension may be, Feeny is a crucial part of the show’s latter seasons, where his presence (and Daniels’ performance) kept the wheels from falling off completely. His farewell to his charges in the series finale even lends some poignancy (and a few winks to the audience) to the principal cast’s sitcom-mandated departure for New York City. Though it occupied a sphere of television that was frequently crass and cartoonish, Boy Meets World managed to strike a balance between humor and genuine emotion that could actually earn such a conclusion.



Returning to the series with the perspective of someone who’s lived through those teenage years as opposed to someone heading into them (and with a tip of the hat to Klosterman), those inconsistencies can also be another relatable aspect of the series. Memory is frustratingly subjective: What’s to say that two people as perfectly suited for one another as Cory and Topanga can’t have a brief period of mutual loathing that masks their attraction to one another—especially during pre-pubescence’s befuddling march of off-kilter emotion and confusing physical response? And while it’s not as conveniently arranged as the revolving door that brought Harley Keiner (original formula), Griff, New Harley, and Harley (original formula, again) in and out of Cory and Shawn’s lives, the procession of people who lace the hellish lining of our middle- and high-school experiences tend to blur together into interchangeable, larger-than-life characters after a decade or so. Although, a Griff-like, er, grifter would certainly be harder to forget if he had placed you at the center of a big-budget con that involved a professional wrestling personality, a Baywatch babe, and the velvet throat of Robert Goulet.