[intro music]
Welcome to the Kill Count, where we tally up the victims in all our favorite movies.
I'm James A. Janisse and today we're looking at Avengers: Infinity War,
released in 2018 by Marvel Studios.
Infinity War is the first part to a giant culmination that Marvel has been building to since 2008's Iron Man,
where we finally get to see-
Okay, I'm- I'm sorry.
April fuckin' Fools.
I'm not doing an Infinity War Kill Count today because I'm not doing an Infinity War Kill Count ever.
Like, EVER ever.
You can stop requesting it.
But quit whining, I DO have an actual Kill Count for you today-
kinda-
'cause today I'm looking at "And Then There Was Shawn"
a 1998 episode of the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World.
Boy Meets World ran for 7 years following the nebbish every-boy, Cory Matthews
from middle school all the way to college.
His life partners along the way included his eventual-wife, the super-smart Topanga
and his best friend, Shawn, whose personal life involved a lot more struggles
but nothing that couldn't be helped by the sage advice of their teacher-turned-mentor, Mr. Feeny.
And you know what? You can't really talk shit about this show,
'cause what other family sitcom featured a guest spot for my favorite wrestler of all time, Mick freakin' Foley?
"Where am I?"
"And Then There Was Shawn" aired during the show's 5th season,
when the characters were on the verge of graduating high school.
Specifically, this episode sees Cory and Topanga temporarily broken up
after Cory's flirtatious encounter with Linda Cardellini
and Shawn having a real hard time dealing with the change in equilibrium.
Although it aired in February, this always seemed like a Halloween episode,
probably because of all the horror movie references and characters gettin' killed.
That's right, I said "kills." How many?
Well, let's find out and wander down this road that we call The Kills. It's what we're doin'!
[The Kills music]
The episode begins with Shawn Hunter, played by Rider Strong - which is somehow NOT a porn actor's name -
having to sit between Cory and Topanga because of their relational strife.
He tries to pretend that he's not bothered by this lovers' quarrel
but when rando classmate, Kenny, asks to borrow Topanga's giant pencil,
Shawn turns into an attack dog and yells at Kenny to back the fuck off.
This causes poor, beleaguered George Feeny to grow impatient with his class.
"Shut up!"
He even waves a pair of scissors around and says a swear.
"This class will not be more interested in the romantic goings-on of its students than it is with whatever the hell I'm teaching!"
They actually had to censor that when they re-aired this on the Disney Channel.
Feeny, you so naughty!
A creepy janitor named Freddie interrupts the class and points at everyone threateningly
and that breaks Feeny's last bit of patience, so he ends up giving detention to our principle cast plus Kenny.
Ope, watch the boom mic up top, y'all.
After he leaves them to their own devices, Shawn gets up so he can go to his locker and get his... cheese product...
"Well, if we're gonna be in here for over an hour then I'm going to my locker to get my cheese product."
Yo, we talkin' Kraft Singles or like Cheez Whiz?
You lookin' to make a leanin' tower of cheeza?
But Shawn can't get to his cheese product because that door is locked.
"He can't do that! It's against the Geneva Detention Convention!"
Solid joke.
Creepy Fredster walks by again, giving the first of this episode's unnerving handheld shots,
and then he squeaks his dustbin away
officially upsetting Angela, who I think at this point in the show was Shawn's girlfriend?
I dunno, they were always on-and-off.
Either way, she lays claim to the title of Scream Queen
after a bloody message on the chalkboard is revealed.
[screams]
Shawn says he knows all about horror movies, essentially declaring himself the Randy Meeks of this show,
and surmises that Mr. Feeny is behind all these obvious horror tropes, including...
"Our soon-to be first victim."
"Me? Why me?"
"Well, Kenny it's certainly not gonna be any of us, what're you thinking?"
But Kenny's not enough, we're gonna need more characters around if we want a respectable Kill Count here.
"Howdy-ho!"
Comin' in hot with that early-era South Park reference is Cory's brother, Eric,
alongside Shawn's half-brother, Jack.
But they're not in danger just yet, we've still got Kenny to take care of.
Which happens right after the lights are turned off.
[screams]
"No, no, no. You scream when the lights go OFF. To scream when the lights come ON takes away from the first scream."
[screams]
Angela's subsequent screams were in reaction to Kenny,
who they find dead with that giant pencil through his head.
I usually make a joke here to keep the kill graphic onscreen long enough to read,
but I'll let Cory take care of it this time:
"We'll always remember he was that tall."
Great work, dude.
Oh, and in case you want more early South Park references, Eric's got them aplenty.
"Oh my gosh, they killed Kenny!"
Everyone runs into the hallway, where the lights flicker and spooky music plays
and they're unable to Scooby Doo themselves out of the building
since all the doors are locked and chained.
Shawn tries to call out the tropes,
though he and everyone else misses when a masked person runs behind them,
and when Feeny appears out of nowhere, Shawn congratulates himself for correctly guessing the killer.
Except, wait a minute...
that Feeny dead!
"Oh my gosh, they killed Feeny!"
Yep, Feeny's dead from some scissors in the back, which was actually foreshadowed earlier in the episode.
"Mr. Feeny, I'm sure if you recall the pain of being stabbed in the back by a girlfriend."
Clever writing, Boy Meets World.
Back in the classroom, Shawn says that virgins tend to live
spelling relief for some characters and doom for others.
"I'll get as sick as you can get without actually dying."
They hear the janitor's squeaky dustbin and the others begin to suspect the custodian
but Shawn says that their suspicions are only condemning the janitor to death.
"You were wrong about Feeny and you're wrong about this."
"YOU were wrong to break up with Cory!"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Did any of this happen when you two were together?"
They run into the hallway again and find the dustbin, but no janitor.
[screams]
"You know, you are really good at that."
[weakly] "Thank you."
That is, until they look inside and find his body. Hope it's not on top of a bunch of water bottles full of chew.
Did y'all have that in your high school trash cans and bathrooms? Shit was gross!
Shawn says that with the obvious suspects gone, there's only one explanation remaining.
"The killer...is one of us."
"Like in The Killer Is One Of Us."
"Dun, dun, dun!"
Respect for the dun-dun-duns, Eric.
Suspicion sets in over everyone, including the, by this point in the series, flanderized Eric
who agrees to venture out by himself to look for an exit.
Instead, he finds a 19-year-old Jennifer Love Hewitt
fresh off her starring role in I Know What You Did Last Summer,
which had come out just four months prior to this episode.
Eric immediately begins making out with her - great lesson for kids there, ABC -
and is halfway to hickey town before they bother to make introductions.
"Eric Matthews, and you are?"
"Jennifer Love Fefferman."
The others come out and meet Feffy, even though not everyone's a fan.
[phone rings]
[screams]
[audience laughs]
"I'm sorry, you're-"
"Yes, girl, I am the screamer around here."
Speaking of Screams, better answer that phone, 'cause there a reference on the other end.
"Do you like scary movies? What's your favorite?"
Dumb-dumb Eric accidentally breaks the phone so they can't use it to call for help.
And then it's back to running around some more.
They end up in the library - where we get a classic killer POV shot -
and split up amongst the bookshelves.
Cory is scared and Feffy gives him a little cheek smooch, but then she's incapacitated after some books fall down on her.
Thanks Mr. Skellyface, that girl was expensive to have on set.
Feffy clings to life long enough for Eric to come to her side,
and the two of them go out together when the killer publishes a sequel,
another pile of books that comes down and finishes off both of them.
Jack sees that his best friend and roommate was killed
and, realizing that he can't afford rent without Eric paying his portion,
goes to throw himself out of the library window.
Angela steps out on the ledge and successfully talks him out of it, but it's too late by then!
Because the killer appears and pushes both of them off the ledge, killing them together
and making a pretty decent case for those annoying window locks at schools.
With everyone else dead, the show's three main characters are left to confront the skeleton-masked killer.
But the only thing this murderer seems to be interested in is getting Cory and Topanga back together.
That's because the mysterious villain of this episode has actually been Shawn!
Whaaaat?!
Dun, dun, dun?
This simple split screen effect revealing Shawn as the killer eventually fades back into reality
because turns out, this was all a dream that Shawn's been having in detention -
a latent manifestation of how upset he is over Cory and Topanga.
Shawn apologizes to Feeny and the rest of his classmates,
and says that without Cory and Topanga together, he feels like there's nothing he can depend on in his life.
It's a heartfelt moment in a show that was full of them,
and because of it, Feeny lets everyone go home from detention.
But as he and the others leave, turning the lights out behind them,
they fail to notice a masked figure who was hiding out in the classroom.
THERE'S the dun-dun-dun.
The episode ends with a tag wherein Feeny gets a bunch of correct answers out of students like Cory and Shawn,
and manages to stump the smartypants Topanga.
[laughs]
But that also ends up being a dream, and in reality, his students are so noisy and troublesome,
why he could just fuckin' murder them. COULDN'T YA, FEENY?
How many people died in Shawn's daydream about his best friend's sex life? Let's find out at the numbers.
Whoops.
I'll just-
grab that.
[The Numbers music]
Seven people died in "And Then There Was Shawn"
and with 5 male victims and 2 female victims,
this family sitcom episode ended up with a pretty standard horror movie pie chart.
With a run time of 22 minutes that left us with a kill on average every 3.14 minutes.
Oh hey, it's pi!
Did someone do that on purpose? Feeneh? Fe-he-he-heeneh?
I'll give the Golden Chainsaw for Coolest Kill to Kenny.
Yeah, he was a nobody, but tell me the last time you saw someone killed with a novelty pencil.
Dull Machete for Lamest Kill will go to Janitor Freddie,
whose death did not live up to his apparent namesake, Freddy Krueger.
And that's it.
"And Then There Was Shawn" was the 17th episode of the 5th season of Boy Meets World and aired in February 1998.
Hope you had as much fun with this silly episode as I did
and until next time, I'm James A. Janisse.
This has been The Kill Count.
April Fools!
Thanks a lot for watching this Kill Count.
I hope nobody was upset about this silly little prank I did.
I'm sorry if you really want to see me talk about Infinity War, I'm just not a huge Marvel fan.
I wouldn't be able to do those movies justice.
I have a burning passion for horror movies and I use that to make the Kill Counts.
I don't have that passion for superhero movies, I'm sorry.
Still, I hope this was fun.
Thanks, everyone. Be good people.