Are you aware that I'm only 11 years old?
I've already met the world.
It's your turn.
Boy Meets World and Fresh Prince were,
essentially, the formative shows of my entire childhood.
Despite the animation content on this channel,
despite the office videos, it is really
these two shows that generated so much interest for me
in writing and directing.
As Weird as that sounds and both of those are
shows that I think come around maybe
once in a generation or, in this case, kind of separated
by 10 years twice.
On the surface, Boy Meets World, however,
is a sitcom that's very, very simple.
On the surface and underneath, it's
a sitcom about a boy and the group
of friends who navigate a simple town, in a simple school.
But underneath all its simplicity,
the show was able to do something
that so many pieces of entertainment fail at.
It was able to place you with this group of kids
as they grew, and, importantly, as you did too.
From 1993 until the final episode on May 5, 2000,
we followed Cory Matthews, as our vessel,
into this very, very long journey.
He was your average, everyday sixth grader
at the start of the show's run.
And by the end of it, he was returning as an adult
to the very same classroom, seeing the very same teacher
that was essential in shaping and molding
Cory just as much as, maybe, the audience's lives.
But to fully understand his impact here following
seven seasons of Cory, Shawn, Eric, Topanga,
you would have had to be invested
in this show from the start.
That is something very unique.
Building an attachment to characters
is something that every writer hopes that you do.
But accomplishing it comes through one simple element,
relatability, whether you can see yourself or the people you
know on the screen.
The connection a writer wants you to have watching a show
that ages with its core audience is a show that changes
the way you view it as it runs.
As you mature and deal with more life situations,
boy Meets World, for instance, does the same.
The show found a way to consistently meet
the viewer on the same playing field, which
allowed it to never feel stale and, essentially, make
each new season a completely new show with new life lessons,
new social dilemmas, making it increasingly more adult
as these kids became adults.
What this means is that a show does not
continue to require a need for nostalgia.
Essentially, you don't need to go back
and watch the first three seasons
and see yourself as a kid again.
Instead, well, your first introduction to cigarettes,
for example, might be Cory's as well or vise versa,
which makes you feel like you're a part of this process.
That's the point of a show about people
instead of about concept.
Boy Meets World mastered this.
But aside from this factor, what made the show special enough
to warrant keeping that show going long enough to see
these characters grow, as well, It
did the opposite of what some other shows may have done
and what we've seen other shows do.
And I just touched on it.
These kids didn't have a secret power, double life,
or a survival guide to help them navigate school or life.
Instead, they were completely and utterly alone
in the world, average, nothing to guide or help them
outside of people, average people.
In this sense, you could be this person.
Your friend could be like one of them.
You may have had a teacher like Feeny.
And so once again, that relatable immersion
comes into play.
You can place yourself in this world because it was real.
You recognize It.
It was a group of kids dealing with life through these years
of their lives, just as you were and the people around you were.
And this was only accomplished because the show understood
what it was and didn't stretch itself too thin,
despite some of Eric's antics in the later seasons.
For the most part, this is an incredibly grounded show.
There was no moment where you have Ashley Banks on stage
becoming a superstar in one episode or Vivian becoming
a ballroom dancer.
It was not that.
As much as I love Fresh Prince, it
wasn't always about relatability in the same way
that boy Meets World maintained focus.
That focus being on things that resonate acutely
with the audience, perhaps more than any other kid
and teen show on TV at the time or since.
It understood its audience and in turn was able to adapt.
Instead of an episode of our first kiss,
we got an episode about consummation.
Instead of an episode about mommy grounding Cory,
it became an episode about mommy not agreeing with his marriage
choices.
That's a big risk, especially because you're,
essentially, alienating the original intended
audience, right.
That's what networks are always so afraid of.
Once you have an audience, it's about keeping it.
It's almost never about bringing in a new one with Boy Meets
World.
But in a traditional show, that's all it's about, right.
How can we bring in more people?
How can we bring in new faces, new eyes?
Boy Meets World was absolutely unconcerned with this reality.
Bringing in New people didn't mean
bringing in the same people that started watching season one.
It meant bringing in people that may be at a point in their life
where season three made sense or four or five.
And that requires an immense amount
of talent in a writer's room because they don't just
have to understand a sixth graders mentality.
They have to understand a seventh, eighth, ninth, college
student, and so on and so forth.
You'd be hard pressed to find someone who grew up in the 90s
who was not only a fan of the show
but who wasn't heavily affected by it in some way
and use some lesson to deal with the similar themes presented
to them in their lives.
Boy Meets World aired on ABC, a network
owned by Disney by the way, that wasn't as heavily restricted
to just being for kids or cartoons.
That's important it allowed that growth.
Clearly the show was a massive hit for the company.
It completely shaped the landscape for kids and teens
journeying through adolescence in that era.
So much so, that 14 years later after Boy Meets World
ended Disney decided to bring the show back in a way
that they felt will be fresh.
A revival series called Girl Meets World.
It will focus on Cory's daughter, Riley,
and her friends and family and everything we would come
to love about Boy Meets World.
But despite the way this video started,
it's really about a change in the industry, specifically
in television and really in film as well.
See in Girl Meets World, we'd see all the original show's
cast members make cameo appearances,
or bit roles to support the new show.
And it did a fair job of standing on its own.
It was a good show.
A good show meant to bring in new viewers.
But a good show that also was meant
to appeal to the people that enjoyed Boy Meets
World to begin with, a dose of nostalgia.
But Disney changed.
Television changed.
Film changed.
Disney didn't feel like it could recapture the same lightning
in the bottle with Girl Meets World
that boy Meets World did because Disney didn't want
to take the risk of expanding its subject
matter with its audience.
Rather than following Riley after the first three seasons
into a new generation of issues, into high school and college,
Disney decided to not age-up the characters
or the show's past middle school,
giving the show those three seasons
and canceling it by the start of 2017,
despite good ratings and good reviews.
Since Girl Meets World was on Disney Channel rather than ABC,
Disney felt that going any further
will be pushing the series outside of their target
demographic.
Old fans, new fans, you name it we're
displeased with Disney for this move
and campaigned for networks and streaming services,
like Netflix, to step in and help keep the show alive.
Save it.
Let it see out its full potential.
But, problematically, as most of you are already aware,
Disney is incredibly controlling with their IP
and most of the time would rather
see it die than let it into another's
hands sometimes for better and, in this case,
probably for worse.
Girl Meets World, much like Boy Meets World,
gave us a depiction of an average kid growing up
through everything.
And the show Girl Meets World was
praised for how well it did the same thing for an average girl
as Boy Meets World did for a boy.
On speaking about shocking cancellation was,
Janelle Okwodu, reporter for Vogue, was quoted as saying,
"It meant one less realistic depiction on-screen of what it
means to be a young. " So what does all this have to do with
changes in the industry?
Well, there was a time when companies understood
that their audience was the most important thing in the world.
The audience they have now, not necessarily the audience
they might have in the future.
Specifically in television, this meant
shows that understood and got better
as they went because they were aware of what
was expected, not just of them but of their characters.
There was a time when it wasn't so risky to age
a show up for a new audience.
When it wasn't so risky to respect
your characters and your audience
enough to grow with them.
There was a time when it wasn't risky to stick
with something that worked and something people loved.
When an extra percentage in a profit margin
didn't overwhelm all of that and the thought
processes of networks and Studios.
That time isn't now.
That time is long gone.
And that means that the impact of shows like this won't exist.
Boy Meets World gave us this realistic look
into what it's like to grow up.
It gave us something to relate to, to feel comfortable within,
and Girl Meets World did the exact same thing, albeit,
without the risk.
And it's easy to look back fondly
on a show like Boy Meets World.
What it represents.
How well it translated to the age of its audience
and continued to translate in the legacy it left behind.
That being average can be special.
That you don't need to be someone you saw on TV doing
things you couldn't do.
You didn't need a quirk to stand out
from the rest of your peers.
You didn't need to be rich or have superpowers.
Just because you didn't have things figured out
didn't mean you weren't good enough.
It was OK to just be good.
Unfortunately, today in art, television and film
being good, being loved, it's not celebrated quite so much.
It gets you thrown out with the trash
and something new replaces you.
I don't love that message.
Not for artist.
Not for kids.
Not for adults.
But just know if you're lost in the sea of all
of that on streaming services on DVD,
there's still a boy and a girl out there meeting the world
with you.
It might be worth taking the journey with them still
all these years later.
Class dismissed.
Well guys, this is it for today's episode of Nerdstalgic.
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And as always, hopefully I'll see you guys in the next video.
Well done, Mr. Matthews.