Girl Meets - Episode 102

Pod Meets World

The Pod Meets World team recaps the second episode of Girl Meets World, diving into Cory's tech-free classroom assignment and analyzing its i

Key takeaways

• The creators of Girl Meets World were deeply inspired by fan enthusiasm and wanted to honor the legacy of Boy Meets World while evolving the story for a new generation.

Main topics

• Girl Meets World episode recap
• Teacher Cory's tech-free classroom assignment

Notable quotes

"I promise with the entirety of my heart that we will make Girl Meets World with the same honesty, innocence, and intelligence that you learn to expect from Boy Meets World."

Conclusion

The episode underscores how fan passion shaped the revival of Girl Meets World, while also

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, Speaker 8 (0:26) I'm obsessed. Speaker 4 (0:27) I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (0:34) I survived nine months in captivity. and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (1:09) Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Each week we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers Speaker 7 (1:17) and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show. We've Speaker 5 (1:23) had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stiller, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (1:36) On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (2:30) I signed in. I had to redo a new password, but I was able to go back to my old Tumblr account and I signed in for myself to find the Tumblr article that I wrote about Girl Meets World because I wanted you guys to understand this was what the intention of the show was before we started. And Speaker 3 (2:53) have you Speaker 1 (2:53) shot the pilot or you had done nothing yet? Speaker 3 (2:55) Or rehearsals or where were you in the process? Speaker 1 (2:58) Where this is before we had even shot the pilot. Let me see if I can see. So there's still, Speaker 7 (3:04) this is still. This Speaker 1 (3:05) was written November 26th, 2012. Oh, Speaker 3 (3:10) geez. Way before. No. Yes. Oh, yeah. So this is when it was just announced. Just announced. And people were. Yes. I had just gotten engaged. And you Speaker 7 (3:19) and I found out in 2014 they were doing it. Yeah. Remember? Yeah. Speaker 1 (3:25) I have not read this, so I don't actually, I haven't read this since I've signed back in. So I also don't know what I'm in for, but I do have a vague memory of it. Girl Meets World. First of all, let me say that you, the fans of Boy Meets World, have been awesome. That word is often used incorrectly by people, including myself, on a daily basis, but you have truly been awe-inspiring. You. Yes, even you are the reason that Girl Meets World will be made. I do not know how many Boy Meets World cast members will be returning for Girl Meets World or how often, if and or when they do appear. I am going to do my best to not speak for others with this open post. But because I have known Michael Jacobs, Ben Savage, Ryder Strong, Will Friedle, and Bill Daniels for 19 years, I know we share many of the same feelings regarding the seven wonderful years we spent making Boy Meets World. Those years were among the most warm, hilarious, insightful, educational years of my life, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. Oh, I said world. Another thing I wouldn't trade for anything is the integrity and the heart with which Boy Meets World was made. I promise with the entirety of my heart that we will make Girl Meets World with the same honesty, innocence, and intelligence that you learn to expect from Boy Meets World. I say this because making the decision to do the show involved more conversations than you could possibly imagine. These conversations were with the people I mentioned above because they were all instrumental in creating and maintaining the heart of Boy Meets World. The first comment out of every person's mouth was, let's only do it if we think we can create something as special as we did with Boy Meets World. Meets World. When the news leaked that Girl Meets World was in the making, literally days after I first heard about the project myself. Oh, that's right. Michael had called me and within 72 hours, news about it was announced, which you didn't Speaker 3 (4:57) go pitch it with him. Speaker 1 (4:58) No. Speaker 3 (5:01) No. Speaker 1 (5:01) He says it was Corey's idea and that Corey brought it to him. Speaker 3 (5:07) I think that's true. Speaker 1 (5:08) And then he basically developed it with them. Speaker 3 (5:12) He Speaker 1 (5:12) didn't want to bring me in on it. Then I would have had to have been Speaker 3 (5:15) co-creator. Speaker 1 (5:18) It's the reason he didn't bring me or Ben in. It was just then he got it approved and then he had to sell it to us. Speaker 1 (5:26) Literally days after I first heard about the project myself, Michael Jacobs and I had a conversation and we talked about how we were both so blown away by the reactions from all of you. We felt honored. We felt nostalgic. We felt touched by the excitement in your comments, tweets, Tumblr, and Facebook posts. But most of all, we felt inspired. We felt inspired to bring these characters back to life and to tell you more of their stories. Michael said to me, Danielle, when I read what people say Boy Meets World meant to them, it makes me so very proud of all of us. I think it's important for us for as long as we are fortunate enough to have this opportunity to do Girl Meets World, that we all look each other in the eyes every so often and make sure we know we have something of value to offer the audience. I think we have that with Girl Meets World. I say that so I can say this, Girl Meets World is a new show. It isn't Boy Meets World brought back to life, but in current day. It will have familiar faces, familiar themes, and familiar messages. It will also have new faces, new themes, and new messages. Boy Meets World never spoke down to the audience, and we are going to do our best to never do that with Girl Meets World. But please keep in mind that there will be episode one of season one of a brand new show. We started at the same place with Boy Meets World, but we evolved and we evolved quickly. For those of you who knew and loved Boy Meets World, please allow this show to evolve as well. Stick with us. Give us a chance. In the meantime, a sincere thank you to every one of you for all of your tweets. I read them all every day. It's killing me to not even be able to talk about it. Even those of you who asked us not to do it. There were only a few of you, but I know why you don't want Girl Meets World to happen. And I appreciate that Boy Meets World meant enough to you that you don't want to see its legacy tarnished. I can assure you we don't want that either. Your love, dedication, and appreciation means more to us than you could ever know. And it will be the driving force behind our passion to make the best show we possibly can make. Thank you for giving us the chance to do it again. Danielle. Speaker 3 (7:04) What do you think your version of Boy Meets World was at that point? Like what was in your head? Because had you watched the show enough to like carry it? No, Speaker 1 (7:12) I had only seen like random episodes every now and then I would turn on the TV and it would be, you know, a rerun would be playing and I'd be like, oh, it's the cult episode. I'm going to sit and watch this one. You know, like every, I had seen passing episodes in my memory. Cause again, this is the conversation. This is one of the main conversations I had with Michael in my memory. the entire show circled around Corey and Topanga's relationship. Right. And their highs and their lows and they're breaking up and they're getting back together. And, you know, the French girl episode. And so what was in my mind was... When Michael called, but now we have this incredible opportunity to deliver lessons, but with a girl as the lead, a young woman as the lead. And so my number one thing. Speaker 3 (8:00) It really Speaker 1 (8:00) is a great pitch. Yeah, of course Speaker 3 (8:01) it Speaker 1 (8:01) is. Speaker 3 (8:02) It's fantastic. Yeah. Speaker 1 (8:04) So my number one thing was, as long as her entire storyline isn't about a boy. And it was, no, it's going to be about friendship. And there can be boys in the cast, but they're not going to be, it's not going to be romantic. And I was like, great. And then I read the pilot. Speaker 7 (8:23) Yeah. Yeah. I just remember when, you know, obviously feeling hurt and like, I can't believe nobody told me about this and blah, blah, blah. But then Michael taking me out to lunch and me saying, like with all the other writers, and I looked around, it was the same, all the same guys, which is great. From a nostalgia friend point of view, I was like, I get to see all these people that I love. And I looked at Michael and I'll never forget. I said, it's called Girl Meets World, Michael. Don't you think there should be girls on the writing staff, women on the writing staff? And I said, don't you think they'll be able to have the voice of a woman or a girl better than you? And he went, well, I wasn't a 65-year-old man, but I wrote pretty well for Bill Daniels. And I just remember being like, oh, he doesn't get it. Like, he just, he doesn't get it. It was weird. Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:11) No, I had the same conversation with him, but about you being a writer, because what he's in the conversation where he first told me about the show and it was like, so is everybody in? And he was like, well, you know, everybody wants to do different things. And he was like, like, Will wants to write. And I was like, oh, my God, that's awesome. And then I said, and of course, you're because he had already told me that, you know, Manel and Nelson. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. I said, well, you know, of course, you have to be able to bring in some women writers, too. And he goes, oh, I'm not doing that. Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:40) Yeah. And I was like, okay. All right. Anyway, I did think that was interesting. I'm amazed Speaker 7 (9:48) that was written two years before the show aired, which is crazy. It was a long time. So wait, it didn't air until Speaker 1 (9:54) 2014? We shot the pilot in November, no, October of 2013. Speaker 1 (10:02) Because it was... Right Speaker 3 (10:04) before your wedding then? Speaker 1 (10:05) Right before, right before or right after? Right before my wedding. Speaker 7 (10:10) Your weddings. Speaker 1 (10:12) Or right before, after my wedding. Speaker 7 (10:14) October Speaker 3 (10:15) 17th was our wedding. Ours. Yours and mine. Separate. Your wedding. It was the 19th? No, maybe it was the 19th or 20th of... I don't remember when your wedding was. No. And Alex and I, because it was right after her birthday. Her birthday is October 16th. So I think it's the 18th is the official. Cause we did the weekend of her birthday was also our wedding weekend. So the actual wedding day was that Sunday. So I think it was the 18th or 19th is the actual. Maybe Speaker 1 (10:45) yours was the 19th. Cause mine's not ringing true. My first wedding's not ringing true as October 17th, but I don't remember. Speaker 3 (10:51) It's either the 18th or 19th. Speaker 3 (10:56) And I think it was just, I Speaker 1 (10:58) think we shot the pilot right before then. So anyway, welcome to Pod Meets World. This is season one, episode two of Girl Meets World. It originally aired July 11th, 2014. Speaker 7 (11:16) 11th, one month before my birthday. Come on, Ryder, give it up. 11th, brother. Speaker 1 (11:21) We didn't say our intros. We didn't say hi. Oh, sorry. Welcome to Pod Meets World. I'm Danielle Fishel. I'm Ryder Strong. And Speaker 7 (11:27) I'm Will Friedle. Speaker 1 (11:28) Doing a different show is totally throwing you. I Speaker 3 (11:30) know, Speaker 1 (11:30) it's throwing you off. You don't know what to say. It's not as good as Speaker 7 (11:33) the original Pod Meets World, but hopefully we'll figure out what's going on. It's probably overwritten and overproduced. And I know some Speaker 3 (11:39) of you have said we shouldn't have continued. I asked you, but I promise I read your comments. I Speaker 7 (11:45) read Speaker 3 (11:45) your comments. But I read your comments and I promise you. We need to know that you Speaker 1 (11:50) can talk to us directly and that we will incorporate your notes. Next Speaker 3 (11:56) episode, I'll read what I posted about Girl Meets World. Oh, I Speaker 1 (12:00) can't wait. Do you remember Speaker 3 (12:01) when I posted? Kind of. I don't Speaker 1 (12:03) know Speaker 3 (12:03) anything about this. No, Speaker 1 (12:04) I don't Speaker 3 (12:05) either. No, I said I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to have anything to do with it, and here's why. And Michael was mad. Oh, yeah, everyone was mad. Was Speaker 7 (12:11) he Speaker 3 (12:11) mad? Was he mad? It must have been right after the pilot. It was right around the time that I got married. I don't know. I'll check. I'll try and know what the date was. So around the time that we shot the pilot. I thought, but maybe I did it way earlier. I don't remember. Did you ever go Speaker 1 (12:23) back and say like, sorry, I wrote that blog post. I'm now directing more episodes than any other director and I'm going to guest star on it? No. You mean to the public? Speaker 7 (12:32) Yeah. No. No. I'm sorry, but I still go back to, and I know it's a total ego thing, and I own that, but how you pitch a Girl Meets World and you don't have Uncle Eric living with them, helping to take care of the kids, is the biggest comedy miss ever. It's like you saw Eric with all the little kids on Boy Meets World. He was so good with little kids. Why you wouldn't have him? Like, no, I'm going to stay here for a week. And the joke is that he's been there four years, and he's helping to raise the kids. You missed out on so much comedy that way. Yeah. Speaker 3 (13:04) Why Speaker 1 (13:04) didn't they? I mean, I guess they were like, it has to be kids. Just money. Speaker 7 (13:09) Maybe Speaker 1 (13:09) Topanga could have been overseas working and it could have been the two brothers raising the kids. Speaker 3 (13:17) Just get rid of all the women. Get rid of all the women entirely. Speaker 1 (13:20) Just eliminate the girl-meets-world raised by all men. It's boy-meets-world. Speaker 2 (13:37) Our town is small taters by most standards, right? But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. Speaker 4 (13:42) What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Speaker 8 (13:49) Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia. But Speaker 4 (13:58) they weren't just planning houses. We Speaker 2 (14:00) need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody. The Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal? A Speaker 4 (14:08) podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment. God need men to rule. Great. And decides to fight back. Do not use my hard work to sell your bull. They're Speaker 2 (14:21) not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test tube. They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration. Speaker 4 (14:31) Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to Our Town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (14:48) The synopsis, Corey's homework assignment inadvertently brings Riley and Lucas closer together. It was directed by Joel Zwick, a legendary TV director with one massive movie under his belt as well. One of the most profitable films of all time, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He directed over 30 Laverne and Shirley episodes, Mork and Mindy, Bosom Buddies, 100 episodes of Perfect Strangers, almost 100 episodes of Full House, Step by Step, Family Matters, and Most Important to Us. Dozen episodes of Girl Meets World. Speaker 7 (15:20) Legend. Television legend. Speaker 1 (15:22) Uh-huh. It was written by Michael Jacobs back on the title page. Something we did not see back in the original series. Speaker 3 (15:31) Two in a Speaker 7 (15:32) row. Really interesting. Speaker 1 (15:33) Why Speaker 7 (15:33) do you think that is? Speaker 1 (15:35) Money. Speaker 7 (15:36) Is that what it is? Yeah. Speaker 1 (15:38) The Disney Channel cable contracts are nothing like... primetime television contracts. And so Michael's, whatever his quote was from back in the day was not being met. Speaker 2 (15:54) Right. Speaker 1 (15:55) Our, you know, money quote from boy meets world was not being met. Speaker 7 (16:01) No, of course. Speaker 1 (16:02) Um, and so this was literally just a matter of what other ways can Michael. Just Speaker 7 (16:10) another stream of income because, yeah, we did 158 episodes of Boy and He Never Once put his, not a single time, does it say written by Michael Jacobs. Because Speaker 1 (16:17) he was Speaker 7 (16:17) getting Speaker 1 (16:17) so much money elsewhere, he didn't need it. Speaker 7 (16:20) Right. And Speaker 1 (16:21) so he gave those opportunities to everyone else. But in this situation, he looked at it like, I want it. Speaker 2 (16:26) Interesting. Speaker 1 (16:28) Guest starring Danielle Kennedy as the librarian. She's appeared on TV shows like Parks and Rec, Two Broke Girls, nine episodes of Narcos as Ambassador Noonan. And she most recently played Agnes Festersen on the TV version of The Burbs. And Speaker 7 (16:42) weirdly, apparently her daughter and Susan grew up together. Speaker 3 (16:47) Oh, really? Speaker 7 (16:48) So apparently this woman and she Speaker 3 (16:49) popped up on screen. She's like, oh, that's Speaker 7 (16:52) that's Mrs. Kennedy. Like she's like, I know. Yeah, I know her daughter. We grew up like, oh, God. So I'd like Susan like knew her kid. Yeah, that's funny. Isn't Speaker 1 (17:01) that Speaker 7 (17:01) weird? Yeah. What a weird world. Speaker 1 (17:04) And then Taylor Ashley Holliman is Maisel, most recognizable from a three episode arc on The Office as Jada. She also appeared on Baskets, New Girl and Don't Trust the Bee in Apartment 23. Speaker 2 (17:22) Our town is small taters by most standards, right? But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. Speaker 4 (17:28) What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Speaker 8 (17:34) Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia. But Speaker 4 (17:43) they weren't just planning houses. Speaker 2 (17:45) We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody. The Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal? A Speaker 4 (17:53) podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment. God need men to rule. Great. And decides to fight back. Do not use my hard work to sell your bull. They're Speaker 2 (18:06) not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test tube. They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration. Speaker 4 (18:16) Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to Our Town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (18:27) I'm Munga Shatigular, and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. Speaker 8 (18:47) I learned about some rad science. I can Speaker 2 (18:49)