Rider Strong: Disney Wouldn't GMW to Go as Deep as BMW
by Ryan Schwartz
January 10, 2017


"Girl Meets World‘s" Rider Strong was the first to let slip that the "Boy Meets World" follow-up had ended prior to Disney Channel’s official cancellation. Now, the actor best known as Shawn Hunter is speaking out against what he sees as the kiddie network’s interference in the overall vibe of the spin-off.

In a new interview on the podcast Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, Strong tells guest host Samm Levine (of Freaks & Geeks fame) that Disney Channel didn’t allow series creator Michael Jacobs to get quite as dramatic as he would’ve liked to on GMW.





“I think what Boy Meets World and Girl Meets World tapped into is that there’s actually a huge segment of that age group, you know… the target age group from 8 all the way up to 16ish, that is very melodramatic and that does see life as ‘It’s all fun,’ and then the rug gets pulled out from under you,” Strong explained, defending the melodrama that seeped into both sitcoms.

“I think Michael Jacobs, to his credit, really wrote well for that age group, and he still does. We’ve had some very dramatic episodes of Girl Meets World. I don’t think as dramatic as Boy, mostly because we’re on Disney Channel and they won’t allow us to. I think had Michael had his way, Girl Meets World would have swung just as extreme.

When you do a tonal shift like that — I think Boy Meets World missed the mark almost as often as it nailed the mark, honestly — for some people that tonal shift will never work.”





As an example of something “more intense than Girl Meets World has ever done,” Strong referred to BMW’s infamous Season 4 episode, “Cult Fiction,” during which Shawn joined a cult, found God and Mr. Turner lapsed into a coma — all in the span of 22 minutes.

(Though Turner was briefly mentioned during Season 5’s high school graduation episode, his fate wasn’t ultimately revealed until GMW Season 2.)





In a statement to TVLine, the network said:

“Disney Channel is committed to presenting age-appropriate, entertaining, optimistic and empowering stories for our core viewers, age 6-14, and we’re proud of the heartfelt and comedic stories that Girl Meets World brought to fans for over 70 episodes.”

http://tvline.com/2017/01/10/girl-meets-world-cancelled-rider-strong-disney-channel-criticism-interview/

We knew this was going to be the case when the show was first announced for the Disney Channel. They did as well as could be expected with their limitations.

The writing on GMW was very cheesy. I do think that they couldn't push the envelope as far as language and storylines because of Disney.

We knew this was going to be the case when the show was first announced for the Disney Channel. They did as well as could be expected with their limitations.
I have to agree with you and Rider Strong on this. A lot of people who were kids back around the turn of the millennium saw the reruns and incorrectly believed BMW was a Disney Channel sitcom as well.


One specific episode was pretty heavy-handed, but I actually expected something more from it. In "Girl Meets the Great Lady of New York," we find that Nigel (a background character) is descended from family members who fled the Khmer Rouge genocide. We also find Zay was descended from slaves who were kidnapped from Ghana, but I expected Lucas' family to be their former masters. We also find that Farkle's great-grandfather was a Jewish kid from Denmark rescued from the Nazis by a bunch of Christians, but I expected his family to have been on the side of the Axis during World War II, and that his family might've been keeping this secret shame under wraps.

Should I have put a spoiler tag on that?

We knew this was going to be the case when the show was first announced for the Disney Channel. They did as well as could be expected with their limitations.

I'm willing to bet that the majority of their viewership was composed mainly of the BMW fan base. When they started targeting a younger audience, they lost them, hence why the ratings were declining.