Mr. Feeny is giving a lecture on evolution and natural selection. Through those concepts Mr. Feeny helps Cory to understand that he can either improve at basketball or be weeded out, a la Darwinism. That's a fuckin awesome lesson. How bout a Charles Darwin Bonus Badge.
Eric is working out to win back the 10th grade girls, who are more interested in seniors than they are in him. Surely if he made these poses in front of those girls he would incite a school-wide orgy. And he's wearing Chuck Taylors. Eric Matthews ought to be swimming in ass.
Mrs. Matthews is sewing a princess dress for Morgan, or hemming it I suppose... I don't know, Morgan is wearing it, Amy is doing something to it with a needle. The point is, they have this exchange:
Amy: "Morgan if you don't hold still you're gonna be the best princess with tetanus."
I guess I just made a pun with the word "point", and I apologize for that. Anyway, it's a funny joke, but it's also a smart joke- at least, it's smart from the reference frame of the target audience. Morgan doesn't ask what tetanus is, and there's no further elaboration. To be able to laugh at that exchange, we as the viewers have to already know what tetanus is, how it's contracted, and why it makes sense in the context of sewing. One particular bit of praise you'll almost always hear on the topic of Boy Meets World is that "it doesn't talk down to its audience", and this tetanus joke is a good example of that. The show doesn't hold your hand to make sure you know what's going on. It's like Community in that way.
There's a similar exchange between Alan and Eric shortly after.
Maybe "Schwinn" was more of a household name back in 1993, but to me at least, that's a smart joke. Both actors also had fantastic timing and tone there.
Back to the plot, Cory's feeling neglected because everyone gets distracted by something or someone else as soon as he tries to talk about his B team situation. He gets pretty upset and makes a big fuss, and then that one sad tune plays as he storms off.
Cory gets hyped about maybe getting to play in the next game, but it's an away-game and "second string don't go to away-games", so he's sad again. School ends and Cory returns to an empty house, building on that neglect he's been feeling, and so he watches TV.
How bout that second part? That's some meta shit right there. Hey shitty 90's sitcoms, Boy Meets World is better than you, and it knows it.
They waste a few more minutes but eventually Cory and Feeny cross paths. Somehow Mr. Feeny knows that Cory's family drove to the away-game to support him. The two banter about the role of families in evolution, and ultimately the wise sage drives his pupil to the b-ball game.
Exactly none of any of that makes sense. We were just told explicitly that second string players aren't even allowed to go to the away games, but this whole conversation transpires without Cory ever mentioning that critical detail to Mr. Feeny. It's understandable that his family didn't know, but what exactly is Cory's plan here? There's no bench for him to sit on, nowhere for him to go once he arrives at the game. And wouldn't his parents notice that there are no second string players on the court? The next scene starts with the whole Matthews family getting home, so some sort of witchcraft must have taken place in the interim, allowing them all to meet up somehow.
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Oh okay, three first string players fouled out of the game, so they had to bring in Cory. Again, the logistics behind that aren't coming together in my mind, but let's move on. Cory reconciles with his parents, but it's pretty boring.
Oh, that's the end? But nothing happened. "Cory was sad for like a day and then overreacted but then everything was okay. Basketball." That's the abridged version. There was definitely some smart humor, and overall it was pretty funny, so it deserves a Humor Badge. This episode was almost certainly aired out of sequence given the ever-futile attempt at giving Cory a second friend. That kid did actually show up a couple more times, but he's definitely not in any episodes after this.The out-of-sequence claim is supported further by the basketball thing in general. Cory has only ever expressed interest in playing baseball until now, a sentiment which goes unmentioned in this episode. Why didn't they just make it about baseball? Either way we'll never hear about it again.
0 for plot, 1 for humor, 0 for character development, 0 for life lesson.
1/4 with a Humor Badge and a Charles Darwin Bonus Badge.
Happy Thanksgiving and see you Friday.
The blinking neon long sleeve text over that top picture might be the funniest thing I've seen all day. I seriously laughed so hard it scared my dog!
ReplyDeleteWDAZ 8 zoomed off of Devils Lake-Grand Forks beside the ABC logo in the beginning of the WDAZ Opening @ 6:00 pm in November 5 1996!
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna guess you never played sports growing up.
ReplyDeleteCory might have liked baseball best but he loved sports in general, and kids didn't just play one sport growing up back then. They played them year-round. It's not just for fun. Cory was under peer pressure to do these things even though he probably would have regardless. That's kind of the whole point of the episode is that different people are at different stages of development from each other, even kids who were used to being good at sports. Cory had never been in a situation where a team was split up into A and B, as he had only played little league sports.
And three undisciplined kids fouling out in a game really isn't all that unrealistic. Maybe they ran into a team they couldn't defend that well.
And as a kid who grew up during this period, I can say for a fact that the way Shawn talked and dressed is similar to the way a lot of kids did. Surfer lingo was bing, so somebody saying surprise-o-rama isn't that farfetched.
You have some weird analysis that doesn't seem to put this show into the context of when it aired.
its 2023, im binging this, its like.... weird. i should go outside
ReplyDelete