Danielle Fishel wishes Topanga and Cory never got married on ‘Boy Meets World’
Would Mr. Feeny agree?
Danielle Fishel, known for her role as Topanga on “Boy Meets World,” has expressed some discontent with her character’s happily ever after.
On the August 5 episode of the “Pod Meets World” podcast co-hosted by former castmates Rider Strong and Will Friedle, Fishel, 43, revealed that if she could change one thing about the show, it would be to alter the wedding between Topanga and her high school sweetheart, Cory Matthews (Ben Savage).
During a Q&A session, Fishel admitted she felt that the wedding wasn’t “the right choice” for the show. Her character Topanga proposed to Cory fresh out of high school, and Fishel thinks the choice limited their storyline.
“I think I might have her still do the proposal,” the actress explained, “and maybe he still says yes, and we go through the whole planning, and then we end up deciding it’s maybe not the right choice for us right now. And we still stay together. We don’t have to be broken up, but maybe we just save the marriage aspect for the end of the show and not spend the last, like, full year of the show married.”
The couple spent the show’s sixth season engaged before marrying in the seventh and final season. Topanga did briefly call off the wedding early in the last season, but the two quickly reconciled and married in the November 1999 episode “It’s About Time.”
“I know from my just my memories of it, after we were married, feeling like, well, now we’re married, and they had to come up with new, like, upping the stakes for us,” Fishel said. “And I remember not loving those stakes.”
She added that she felt like the show “could have gotten more mileage out of them being together, but not yet married.”
At 90s Con earlier this year, Fishel told People that Cory and Topanga were too young to get married.
“There are stories of it working out,” Fishel said at the time, “but I would say, on a whole, getting married right out of high school is not usually ideal.”
Despite her reservations, Cory and Topanga’s story had a happy ending.
Both Fishel and Savage reprised their roles in Disney Channel’s 2014 reboot, “Girl Meets World,” in which they remained happily married after 15 years, and raising their tween daughter Riley (Rowan Blanchard) in New York City.
The spinoff also starred Sabrina Carpenter as Maya, Riley’s best friend. It ran from 2014 to 2017.
The original “Boy Meets World” wrapped in 2000 after seven seasons on ABC.
Fishel, Strong, 44, and Friedle, 47, began co-hosting the rewatch podcast “Pod Meets World” in 2022.
The trio attended 90s Con in March alongside former castmates Anthony Tyler Quinn (Jonathan), Betsy Randle (Amy), Lee Norris (Stuart), Trina McGee (Angela), William Daniels (Mr. Feeny) and Bonnie Bartlett Daniels (Lila) as they took a trip down memory lane.
At the Tampa Bay, Florida event, the podcast hosts also announced a documentary they have in the works about their experience reuniting and meeting fans.
“We aren’t even sure if it’s ever gonna go anywhere or not. We’re not necessarily intending on doing anything with it. But like, Bon [Bonnie Bartlett Daniels] mentioned, this has been such an amazing group of people that we have been able to stay in touch with for all this time,” Fishel said. “It really kicked into high gear last year when we started the podcast and we started doing some live shows.”
“Even if we never air it anywhere, it’s just for us,” she added. “But yeah, we’re really excited about it.”
There was one notable absence at the mini-cast reunion, however.
Last year, Fishel, Friedle and Strong claimed that Savage “just kind of disappeared” from their lives.
“We didn’t have a fight. There’s no falling out. There was no animosity. He just woke up one day and decided ‘I don’t want this person in my life anymore,’ ” Friedle told Variety.
The distance from his former castmates coincided with Savage’s announcement of his career shift from an actor to a politician.
He had an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the West Hollywood City Council in 2022, and announced in March 2023 he was running to represent a Los Angeles-area district in Congress.
Friedle, who played the older brother to Savage’s character on the show, spoke about his relationship with Savage in an interview with The Post in February. He claimed there is no update in their communication.
“Ben is, you know, running for Congress, and I would hope he feels the same way that I feel about him, which is that I hope he’s just happy and healthy and enjoying his life,” he said.
