Everybody loves watching their favourite sitcom characters costume up for an evening of mischief — however the very best Halloween episodes are those that dare to assume exterior the field.
Boy Meets World’s “And Then There Was Shawn” matches that mildew. The season 5 episode, which aired in February 1998, was directed by Jeff McCracken and written by Jeff Menell and marked a artistic change in route for the sometimes formulated household comedy sequence.
The story follows the aftermath of Cory (Ben Savage) and Topanga’s (Danielle Fishel) breakup, which leaves their greatest buddy, Shawn (Rider Sturdy), reeling. When a spat a couple of pencil with classmate Kenny (Richard Lee Jackson) escalates, the trio — together with Angela (Trina McGee), Eric (Will Friedle), Jack (Matthew Lawrence) and Mr. Feeny (William Daniels) — discover themselves locked inside the college after a day of detention with a killer on the free.
With real soar scares, bloody deaths and infinite references to ‘90s horror flicks, “And Then There Was Shawn” took Boy Meets World to a spot no different community sitcom had gone earlier than.
“I bear in mind pondering it was probably the most bonkers factor on this planet,” Sturdy informed Leisure Weekly in August 2022, noting that whereas the present had carried out a “few episodes that went type of loopy” — like their crossover with Sabrina the Teenage Witch — he was by no means a fan of “breaking the foundations” of the present’s construction till studying the script for “And Then There Was Shawn.”
“I bear in mind loving this one from the get-go. We simply thought it was hysterical,” he stated. “I’m an enormous fan of horror movies. I used to be a fan of Scream and the revival of horror movies that was occurring at that second. So I simply bear in mind loving it.”
One thing else the episode had these different sitcoms didn’t? A cameo by Friedle’s then-girlfriend, Jennifer Love Hewitt, who had lately starred in horror blockbuster I Know What You Did Final Summer season.
“Love and I had been courting for some time by that time,” Friedle defined to EW about how her function happened. “I believe that was a 12 months and a half or two years into our relationship. I do know [cocreator] Michael Jacobs wished to have any person from the horror franchises. … So he requested me if I might ask her if she could be on the present. We had been very shut on the time, so she knew everyone on the solid, clearly, and everyone knew her nicely, so it appeared like a great match.”
Whereas the precise killer seems to be (spoiler alert!) Shawn himself — a reveal the solid felt was barely too “tacky” of a proof to suit into the episode’s spookier narrative — Sturdy, Friedle and Fishel nonetheless bear in mind the expertise as their “greatest” time on set throughout Boy Meets World’s run. McCracken, nevertheless, might have had a special expertise as director.
“Directorially, this episode was a catastrophe for Jeff. He was so sad with us,” Sturdy quipped. “It’s totally onerous to do single-camera jokes and results with a multi-camera crew. He clearly was making an attempt to do particular photographs and particular homages and bizarre little tilts, and I believe it was only a nightmare. We didn’t assist by continuously making one another snort and never taking the job significantly. I believe it was a very robust episode for Jeff.”
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