As a general concept, Pod Meets World has been a way to see Cory, Topanga, Shawn and Eric through a 2020s lens. Over nearly five years, the hit rewatch podcast has had Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong going through each episode of the iconic TGIF series, from behind-the-scenes stories to modern-day analysis of their lives both on and off-screen. And the trio would be the first to tell you how shocked they are with the success the project has provided.
“We didn’t feel that we were popular while we were on the air,” Friedle recalls in an exclusive sitdown with Parade. “When Boy Meets World was on, I always called it the Wings of TGIF. Everyone’s like, ‘I loved Wings the two seasons it was on.’ Wings was on for 400 years. We always felt like the show that just kind of kept going. So we didn’t realize we were all that popular.”
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“And I think when we started to do the podcast, one of the things that was startling to me was everyone coming out with, ‘This was the show of my childhood. This was the thing that was so important to me.’ And so it wasn’t till 30 years later that I think we all realized just how special the show was to a lot of people.”
Fans will get a peek into that special dynamic in Doc Meets World, a new documentary that has its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival on Saturday, June 6. The film depicts the tour the three went on in 2025 in honor of the 30-year anniversary of the hit sitcom, while also weaving through a number of interstitials and talking heads about not only the podcast, but the personal lives of the hosts as well.
“That was sort of after the fact,” Strong surprisingly reveals about the making of the documentary. “So Chris Levitus and Zane Rubin, I’ve known them for years. But we’ve never talked about the Boy Meets World part of my life. We were just good friends. And so when they started filming us and following us on tour, they started gathering our stories, our personal stories. And that’s when they were like, ‘We should go back to your childhood home.’ So they really were the impetus to go investigate a little bit more. It happened organically. They sort of pursued, ‘Oh, let’s tell the whole story of your lives, essentially. It’s like the podcast.”
Related: ‘Boy Meets World’ Stars Give Rare Insight into Major Fall Out with Former Co-Star: ‘I Haven’t Given Up On My Friend’
Pod Meets World has given fans the wonderful opportunity to see what the trio has been up to since the show concluded in 2000 — and more importantly, who we’ve become. But it does beg the question: Considering they’re the foremost experts on their characters, what do they think Topanga, Shawn and Eric would be up to today?
It’s a lofty task. Luckily, they have a bit of a cheat sheet courtesy of the sequel series Girl Meets World, which checked in on the Matthews family in the mid-2010s. In the Sabrina Carpenter and Rowan Blanchard-led series, Topanga was a successful attorney on a path to becoming a judge. But Fishel herself doesn’t feel it would be her ultimate destination.
“She was supposed to go on to be a judge at some point,” she says. “I don’t know that Topanga would be a judge. I don’t think she’d want to take that route. I think Topanga would really be doing pro bono work at a law firm where that she was a partner. Or maybe she started her own law firm, you know, with a very specific goal in mind. And hiring like minded people where the goal was to help people. I absolutely think that’s where her path would have been.”
Over the course of Boy Meets World, Eric explored a wide variety of careers, from weatherman to retail worker to photographer. Girl Meets World got him to the realm of politics, as he was elected mayor of St. Upidtown at the Canadian border. By the end of the series, Mr. Plays With Squirrels had gone to Washington, elected Senator. But, like many of Eric’s jobs, Friedle doesn’t think that panned out completely.
Related: ‘Boy Meets World’ Star Rider Strong Reveals the Actor He Didn’t Want To Join the Cast
“Eric was impeached from the Senate,” he states simply. “He was really excited because he loves peaches. It did not turn out the way he thought it was going to. And he now probably lives on a farm growing those peaches that they didn’t give him at his hearing.”
Strong has his own fruitful ending for Shawn, and he doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel much. In between the two shows, Shawn had traveled the world as a writer and photographer. And, after dealing with his unresolved feelings for old flame Angela (Trina McGee-Davis), he began to develop chemistry with Katy (Cheryl Texiera), the mother of Maya (Carpenter). The two would get married in the show’s final season.
“I actually think where Shawn ended up on Girl Meets World was pretty great,” Strong admits. “He ends up with a happy ending. Married, adopting Marya, that’s great. That is a wonderful thing.”
Regardless of what their fictional counterparts may be doing nowadays, we’re so happy to have Fishel, Friedle and Strong all back in our lives, letting Boy MeetsWorld fans get to see the show through completely different eyes — and introducing it to a whole new wave of devotees.
Related: Danielle Fishel Names the ‘Boy Meets World’ Star She Thinks Would Shock Fans on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ (Exclusive)
