Boy Meets World star opens up on banned episode that featured Cory and Topanga deciding to have sex
Topics: Film and TV
Claire Reid
Featured Image Credit: Instagram @rider_strong / ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy
Topics: Film and TV
Boy Meets World star Rider Strong, who played Shawn, has revealed his disappointment during filming of a banned episode of the TV show.
If you grew up in the 90s then you’re most likely familiar with the coming-of-age sitcom Boy Meets World that aired on ABC.
Running from 1993 to 2000, many of us grew up alongside Cory (played by Ben Savage), Shawn (Rider Strong), Topanga (Danielle Fishel) and Eric (Will Friedle) as they went through high school and on to college.
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While the show was mostly family-friendly, there were three episodes that Disney decided to ban for seven years after it acquired the show.
Among the episodes in question, which all featured sex or alcohol, was season five, episode 22 'Prom-ises, Prom-ises', in which Cory and Topanga decide to have sex after prom, before realising they’re actually happy to wait.
Now, in a recent episode of the Pod Meets World podcast Strong has admitted that he was pretty disappointed in how the sex scene in 'Prom-ises Prom-ises' was treated.
On the episode of the podcast, which is hosted by Strong, Fishel and Friedle, the stars were asked by a fan for their thoughts on the banned episodes.
Responding to the question, Strong admitted that he had been ‘very upset with the adults on set’ while they filmed the episode as they failed to make any references to safe sex.
He revealed: “I remember really not liking the prom episode while we were taping it. I remember being very upset that entire week.
“I was very upset with the adults on set, the way that they were approaching this. Specifically because we were not discussing safe sex.
"The fact that we would not bring up Cory and Topanga using condoms or having a discussion about birth control at all, and yet the entire episode was about will they or will they not.”
Strong said he even spoke to creator and executive producer Michael Jacobs about his concerns, but wasn’t taken seriously.
“I remember just being so upset and I brought it up,” he went on. “I remember talking to Michael about it and saying: ‘Can we talk about this? Maybe you generationally don’t understand that, but we were growing up in the era of AIDS, this is something that we have to talk about. When you are discussing losing your virginity, you discuss how you’re going to do it and how to be safe about it.'
“And he completely blew me off and told me it was a ridiculous thing to worry about and that we don’t even need to discuss it. I felt, at the time, that that was incredibly irresponsible.”