Trivia / Girl Meets World

• Adored by the Network: Granted, not only was it one of Disney Channel's most popular shows, but its Boy Meets World heritage gave it a higher profile than what a Disney Channel show might've gotten otherwise barring a sudden superstar breakout ala Hannah Montana or Wizards of Waverly Place. On the other hand, a lot of fans (particularly from other shows) felt this push came at the expense of the rest of the network. For example, the series finales of both Jessie, a show that had gained the network's highest ratings until GMW arrived on scene (and consequently itself a previously adored darling of the network), and I Didn't Do It, a show that had been struggling but had a sizable fandom nonetheless, ended up being buried in the middle of "Girl Meets Texas".
• The Cast Showoff: Sabrina Carpenter sings a song as her Mae Clutterbucket persona in "Girl Meets 1961". (That wasn't her playing the guitar, though.)
• Channel Hop: In a way - while Boy Meets World aired on ABC, Girl Meets World aired on Disney Channel.^note Duly noted, when Boy Meets World debuted, ABC was part of the independently owned Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. The Walt Disney Company, owners of BMW's producing studio Touchstone Television (now ABC Studios), did not acquire ABC until 1996, with the sale being finalized between production of the third and fourth seasons. Disney Channel and ABC Family have aired reruns of BMW in the past.
• The Character Died with Him: Julius Carry, the actor who played Angela's father in the final season of Boy Meets World in 1999-2000, died in 2008; when Angela returns in Girl in 2015, she reveals that her father has also died, roughly 2011.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Trina McGee has stated some of her negative opinions on "Girl Meets Hurricane," the episode where her character (Angela) made a guest appearance — particularly how she was portrayed and her serving to sink one ship in order to promote another.
  • Rider Strong was critical of the executives at Disney Channel forcing the Lighter and Softer tone compared to the original series, feeling that it held the show back.
• The Danza:
  • August Maturo as August "Auggie" Matthews.
  • Ava, Auggie's "friend" that likes to tell him what to do, is played by Ava Kolker.
  • Sarah Carpenter, Sabrina's sister, plays a background character now officially credited as Sarah. "Girl Meets Commonism" reveals her last name is Carpenter.
  • Likewise Darby Walker, the girl who sits next to Lucas in Cory's class, who is dating Yogi in "Meets The New World" and makes rather expressive faces, is played by Darby Walker.
  • It's later revealed all the students who are extras retain the first and last names of the actors and actresses portraying them (examples being Sarah and Darby, but there are some exceptions).
  • In "Girl Meets Friendship", Ricky Garcia has a last name variant where he played one of Lucas's friends from Texas, Asher Garcia.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Sabrina Carpenter, was almost 14 when the pilot was filmed, playing 12-year-old Maya. She turned 15 before season 1 wrapped, with Maya being barely 13.
  • Averted with Rowan Blanchard as Riley, as she was 12 playing the 12-year-old Riley in the pilot, and she was always the same age as her character. This is actually a case of Older Than They Look, as Maya doesn't look any older than Riley.
    • "Girl Meets Master Plan" reveals that Maya has recently turned 14, which may or may not be a Retcon by the writers.
  • Sabrina Carpenter's older sister Sarah played a background student in some episodes at the age of 18, yet blends in well as a fellow middle schooler.
  • Played straight with Peyton Meyer and Corey Fogelmanis, though Meyer's the only one whose age difference between actor and character is physically noticeable. Meyer looks so much older than the other three that Lucas was revealed to have been held back a year in the season 2 episode "Girl Meets the Secret of Life" to justify it.
  • Invoked with "Girl Meets 1961". Blanchard, Carpenter, Meyer and Fogelmanis all play one of their characters' great-grandparents. However, if the great-grandparents were the same ages as their respective actors, that would mean they should have been playing the kids' grandparents, as they would have been in their 40s during the 1990s, when Cory & Topanga were themselves teenagers.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • "Girl Meets Smackle" is directed by Ben Savage.
  • Rider Strong (along with his brother Shiloh) have directed a large number of episodes (increasingly the series' bulk) including "Girl Meets 1961" and most of the first half of Season 2.
  • William Russ (Alan Matthews) directed "Girl Meets Hurricane".
• Follow the Leader: The show's initial success may have led to the greenlighting of a revival of another TGIF sitcom, Fuller House, which was announced shortly after GMW premiered.^note However, whereas GMW is more of a Spin-Offspring show, Fuller is a straight continuation of its original series, and indirectly led to an influx of classic sitcoms such as Roseanne, Will & Grace, and even Disney Channel's own That's So Raven being revived in the same manner, many years after their original series ended.
• Hostility on the Set: Trina Mc Gee (Angela) reported that she did not get along with the other cast members. The main reason Angela was written out and never appeared in the finale? Her co-stars didn't want her in it. The cast members have responded that this isn't true. Mc Gee also brought up how she was subject to racism, such as Friedle referring to her as "Aunt Jemima" because he saw her wearing a red scarf.
• The Other Darrin: Josh Matthews, played by Daniel Jacobs (creator Michael Jacobs' real life son) in the last few episodes of Boy Meets World, is now portrayed by Uriah Shelton.
• Out of Order: "Girl Meets Belief" and "Girl Meets Commonism" has Farkle in his pre "Girl Meets Yearbook" fashion style, despite Yearbook making it clear the change was permanent. A lot of episodes have been aired out of order with a lot of characterization seeming to revert when an earlier episode was pushed back in the airing order. Watching the series in production order, the stories and characterization are a lot tighter and the evolution in relationships seems to flow better. "Girl Meets Brother," is one in particular that stands out in Season 1 as it was the 15th episode aired but the 5th produced and is a little weird to see Auggie's reaction to Riley/Maya considering the episodes that aired before it.
• Recycled Script: Some of the plots are recycled from Boy Meets World, but this is both a given and a justified case since both shows are coming of age stories.
• Role Reprise: Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel in particular, but most of the original cast have some sort of a presence. In several cases, this has involved bringing back the original actors from retirement: Will Friedle (despite a successful career as a voice actor) hadn't had an on-camera credit since 2005; Danny McNulty (Harley) literally had no credits whatsoever between his last appearance on Boy Meets World in 1995 and his return to the role of Harley nineteen years later, and JB Gaynor, who played T.J. "Tommy" Murphy, left acting in 2005 at the age of fifteen before coming back to reprise his role, his first ^note and probably only, as he's studying to become an accountant credit as an adult actor.
  • Special mention to the season finale, when the entire Matthews family returns as Topanga debates taking a job to London. This includes both actresses who played Morgan, appearing on-screen at the very same time. They don't even try to justify it.
• Screwed by the Network: Compared to when the series first premiered (see Adored by the Network above), the series significantly fell off the network radar from the combination of ratings starting to decline and its Periphery Demographic starting to slowly abandon the show, as many of them saw it as less a proper sequel or even Spiritual Successor and just another Disney Channel Kid Com with Boy Meets World characters in it. Spreading out the episodes with long breaks in between, and grouping (sometimes randomly) episodes tightly together to spill across non-prime nights (such as across an entire week), didn't help out, either, and may have contributed significantly to the audience drop-off.
  • To further build on this, the show was doing solid ratings of around 2.20 million viewers but fell dramatically to the 1.6/1.7 range after the holiday hiatus in Season 2, finally returning in January with episodes that were noticeably aired out of order (including "Girl Meets STEM", the 19th produced that season but the 26th aired, and "Girl Meets Communism", the 6th produced that season but the 28th aired) due to differing hair styles, characterizations, and relationship moments. The final season was hampered by multiple week hiatuses in October, November, and December, making it hard as a viewer to know when episodes were even airing. By the time the series was announced as canceled, the show changed the final episodes to air at 6:30 PM ET/3:30 PM PT from its traditional 8:30 PM ET/5:30 PM PT time slot.
• Scully Box: Maya is the shortest one of the cast, and is usually wearing some impressive heels.
• Sending Stuff to Save the Show: Since the show got canceled by Disney Channel, fans have been endlessly requesting that Netflix would pick up the rights to the show to continue it (complete with it's own hashtag for the campaign, #GirlMeetsNetflix), asking Disney Channel to release the rights so it can be continued there, and some even ask Hulu to pick it up.^note Except the show is a hit worldwide for its life lessons, so sending it on Hulu is not a good choice as the service is only available in the US and Japan. As of now, it's on the Fate Undetermined level, as Netflix is planning to do talks with the channel to continue it. Even some internet sites noticed the big efforts the fandom is doing just to have the show continue. Sadly, the ploy failed as creator Michael Jacobs took to Twitter to proclaim that he wasn't able to get another company, Netflix included presumably, to pick up the show.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Corey Fogelmanis as Farkle looks exactly like a child of Lee Norris' Minkus. In-Universe when the original cast meets him they are stunned silent, including a Running Gag of asking for his birth certificate to confirm he isn't a clone or robot double.
• Underage Casting: Background character Yogi, who dates another background character, Darby, is played by 10-year-old Nicholas Jabonero. Yogi is supposed to be 14 on the show. This casting choice explains Yogi's relationship with the much taller Darby.
• What Could Have Been: Early on Riley had a older brother named Elliot in the pilot (and no younger brother - who was named Louis at first before it was changed to Auggie after the actor who plays him), Maya's last name was Fox instead of Hart, and Farkle was named Shamus Farkle, not Farkle Minkus.
  • In other early descriptions Riley also had a cousin who was supposed to take up the Wacky Guy slot much like Eric did. He was dropped after questions about his parents made the character too complicated to explain.^note He would have either had to have been Eric's or Morgan's son (both actors had declined to appear on the show at this point due to scheduling conflicts), or they would have had to bring back Topanga's "sister that never was", Nebula.
  • In an interesting example of this trope, Topanga was described in early promotional material as the proprietor of the Local Hangout, a pudding shop, instead of the high-powered attorney she had set out for New York to become in the first place. The fans revolted, and the writers seemed to back down; by the time the series premiered, she was firmly established as a lawyer. However, the show eventually found a way for her to at least co-own the Local Hangout after all (changed to a Ukrainian bakery - although the "Ukrainian" aspect is quickly dropped and was probably only included so that Special Guest Cloris Leachman could do her "old country immigrant lady" voice from Malcolm in the Middle), by buying into it to prevent her own law firm from turning it into a froyo parlor. However, Topanga still doesn't run the place herself, leaving that responsibility to Ghost Extras that Topanga and Mrs. Svorski hired off-screen.
    • This actually came back in season two, as Mrs. Svorski passed away and she left the store to Topanga and Cory in her sort-of will. According to Mrs. Svorski's will the store is modernized and renamed Topanga's. However, Topanga did not quit her lawyer job, and instead of keep hiring Ghost Extras they decided to hire Katy, Maya's mom, to manage daily business at Topanga's.
  • According to a Twitter Q&A with the writers, Zay would've been Promoted to Opening Credits in Season 3, but Amir Mitchell-Townes decided to remain a reoccurring character.
• Word of Saint Paul: in a response to a fans question, Will Friedle stated that the reason why Eric was angry towards Feeny, was because the latter didn't vote for him to be mayor of St. Upid town. Feeny tried to explain that he couldn't vote for Eric because he wasn't a resident of the town, but Eric didn't care.
• Written by Cast Member: Will Freidle is the writer for the final episode in the Meets Mr. Squirrels trilogy. This means an episode has been written by the actor playing the character the episode revolves around!
• Write Who You Know:
  • Sabrina Carpenter's real-life sister Sarah plays a character name Sarah.
  • A behind-the-scenes example: many of the episodes directed by Rider Strong are also co-directed by his brother Shiloh (especially the ones where Rider also appears in front of the camera).

---