Exclusive: Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel Officially Join Girl Meets World Pilot
Boy Meets World fans, meet the best news you’ll hear all day. TVLine has learned exclusively that Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel have officially signed on to reprise their roles as Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence in the red-hot Disney Channel pilot Girl Meets World.The potential sequel series (which TVLine first told you about earlier this month) picks up more than a decade after Boy Meets World ended its ABC run and finds Cory and Topanga happily married and raising their 13-year-old daughter, Riley (from whose point of view the story is told). The pilot is still in the very early stages of development with Boy Meets World creator and executive producer Michael Jacobs at the helm.
A nationwide casting search is underway for the role of Riley.

Girl Meets World
First of all, let me say that you, the fans of Boy Meets World, have been awesome. That word is often used incorrectly by people, including myself, on a daily basis but you have truly been awe inspiring. You, yes, even YOU, are the reason that Girl Meets World WILL BE MADE. J

I do not know how many BMW cast members will be returning for GMW, or how often they may appear if and/or when they do appear. I am going to do my best to not speak for others with this open post. But because I have known Michael Jacobs, Ben Savage, Rider Strong, Will Friedle, and Bill Daniels for 19 years, I know we share many of the same feelings regarding the 7 wonderful years we spent making BMW. Those years were among the most warm, hilarious, insightful, educational years of my life and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. Another thing I wouldn’t trade for anything is the integrity and the heart with which BMW was made. I promise with the entirety of my heart that we will make GMW with the same honesty, innocence, and intelligence that you learned to expect from BMW.

I say this because making the decision to do the show involved more conversations than you can possible imagine. These conversations were with the same people I mentioned above because they were all instrumental in creating and maintaining the heart of BMW. The first comment out of every person’s mouth was, “Let’s only do it if we think we can create something as special as we did with BMW.” When the news leaked that GMW was in the making, literally days after I first heard about the project myself, Michael Jacobs and I had a conversation and we talked about how we were both so blown away by the reactions from all of you. We felt honored. We felt nostalgic. We felt touched by the excitement in your comments, tweets, Tumblr, and Facebook posts. But most of all, we felt inspired. We felt inspired to bring these characters back to life and to tell you more of their stories. Michael said to me, “Danielle, when I read what people say BMW meant to them it makes me so very proud of all of us. I think it is important for us, for as long as we are fortunate enough to have this opportunity to do GMW, that we all look each other in the eyes every so often and make sure we know we have something of value to offer the audience.” I think we have that with GMW.

I say that so that I can say this: GMW is a new show. It isn’t BMW brought back to life but in current day. It will have familiar faces, familiar themes, and familiar messages. It will also have new faces, new themes, and new messages. BMW never spoke down to the audience and we are going to do our best to never do that with GMW. But please keep in mind that this there will be episode 1, of season 1, of a brand new show. We started at the same place with BMW but we evolved and we evolved quickly. For those of you who knew and loved BMW, please allow this show to evolve as well. Stick with us. Give us a chance.

In the meantime, a sincere thank you to every one of you for all of your tweets (I read them all, every day. It killed me not to be able to talk about it!), even those of you who asked us not to do it. There were only a few of you but I know why you don’t want GMW to happen and I appreciate that BMW meant enough to you that you don’t want to see its legacy tarnished. I can assure you, we don’t want that either. Your love, dedication, and appreciation means more to us than you could ever know and it will be the driving force behind our passion to make the best show we can possibly make. Thank you for giving us the chance to do it again.

Love,
Danielle

Years ago, I was on a train in Spain. It was four in the morning, and I was traveling by myself from Salamanca to Madrid.

A young man approached me and began talking rapidly. I don’t speak Spanish. He didn’t speak English.

I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. We went back and forth for awhile in a stumbling, half-sign-language conversation. Finally, right when he was about to give up, he got an idea. He pointed at me and said one word.

“Topanga?”

Call it the universal language of Boy Meets World.

For more than two-thirds of my life, I’ve had the good fortune to experience the incredible support of Boy Meets World fans. Complete strangers hug me on the street. I’ve been mobbed by school children on the subway. I’ve had tow-truck drivers recognize me and refuse to let me pay. I’ve had people buy me drinks in Louisville, in Hyderabad, in Accra…

And that’s just the people I’ve met in person. I can’t express enough gratitude to the BMW fans, who not only watched our show when it first aired, but who continue to watch it, spread the word, and even introduce it to their children. It’s an overwhelming feeling to have that kind of support for something we did over a decade ago. When I opened a Twitter account, I thought maybe I’d get a few hundred followers. It wasn’t long before thousands of people were checking in and sending me messages.

Boy Meets World was a defining aspect of my life, and I cherish those seven years. It was never just a job — on a personal level, many of my best memories and friendships were formed because of it.

So I am extremely happy for Ben and Danielle to be able to continue the story. At this point, I have no official involvement in Girl Meets World. There might be a chance to see some of the BMW cast in a guest spot, and I think it would be nice to find out where our characters have been all these years. But Girl Meets World will be, and I think it should be, it’s own show. It will be about Cory and Topanga, their daughter, and a new set of characters.

It’s the next generation.

And I, for one, can’t wait to see it evolve.

'Boy Meets World' Spin Off To Focus On Difficulties Of Raising Autistic Child
NOVEMBER 28, 2012 | ISSUE 48•48

LOS ANGELES—Delighting fans of the popular ’90s sitcom, producers at ABC announced Tuesday that Cory Matthews, Topanga Lawrence, and other beloved characters from Boy Meets World will soon return to the small screen in Girl Meets World, an hour-long drama that centers on the couple as they struggle to raise a severely autistic daughter. “Children of the ’90s rejoice: Cory and Topanga are back and better than ever as the parents of 13-year-old Riley, an autistic teenager whose debilitating disabilities prevent her from fitting in with peers, understanding basic instructions, or showing any affection for her parents whatsoever,” executive producer Michael Jacobs said of the new show, in which the family also copes with long periods of unemployment, their daughter’s medical expenses, and the loss of Pvt. Eric Matthews in the Afghanistan War. “We’re thrilled that Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel will reprise their roles from the original series, as both are skilled performers capable of portraying the deep personal anguish that will follow their characters as they navigate the harsh realities of 21st-century American life.” Jacobs also confirmed that noted character actor William Daniels would return to the series as retired educator George Feeny, who has been admitted to hospice care after developing Alzheimer’s disease.