Will Friedle is playfully blaming Melissa Joan Hart and Sabrina the Teenage Witch for the end of Boy Meets World.
“We were going to go to an eighth season if Sabrina was picked up and Sabrina was picked up, but then they jumped ship and went to another network,” Friedle, 47, explained on the February 23 episode of the “Brotherly Love” podcast. “TGIF essentially fizzled out because Sabrina left so they canceled Boy. So if Sabrina would have stayed…It’s usually Melissa’s fault.”
Fellow BMW alum Matthew Lawrence burst out laughing before playfully replying, “It’s always Melissa’s fault!”
Joey Lawrence, who costarred with Joan Hart, 47, on ABC Family’s Melissa and Joey, also played along adding, “She’s like Canada” before singing, “Blame Melissa, blame Melissa.”
After hearing about the discussion, Joan Hart, 47, decided to address the playful banter on social media.
“I’ve been trying to caption this all week,” she wrote via Instagram on Friday, March 8, with a clip from the podcast. “Any suggestions? @joeylawrence @matthewlawrence @andrewlawrence #WillFriedle.”
To prove there’s no ill will, Joey, 47, replied in the comments section: “Yep! When in doubt just blame you Melly!! 😂❤ .”
Sabrina the Teenage Witch told the story of Sabrina Spellman (Joan Hart), who discovered she had magical powers on her sixteenth birthday. While the show’s first four seasons aired on ABC from 1996 to 2000 during its TGIF lineup, the final three seasons moved to The WB.
As for Boy Meets World, ABC decided to cancel the series in 2000 after Cory (Ben Savage), Topanga (Danielle Fischel), Shawn (Rider Strong) and Eric (Frieldle) moved to New York.
In the years following Boy Meets World‘s run on ABC, the show went into syndication on a number of networks. The reruns caused a new interest in the series leading Disney Channel to order a spinoff series, Girl Meets World. The series premiered in 2014 and ran for three seasons before being canceled in 2017.
While the ‘90s may be long gone, many won’t forget Friedle’s short-lived romance with Joan Hart when they were teenagers.
Back in August 2023, Joan Hart appeared on Friedle’s “Pod Meets World” podcast where the pair reminisced on their dates.
“I was with you for, like, your 14th birthday or 15th,” Friedle recalled. “Remember we went to some place where it [had] those big tanks you could drive or shoot the tennis balls at? We went out for that, and we were, like, making googly eyes at each other. And by the end of the night, we were ‘dating.’”
Although the pair called each other “a few times on landline,” both parties decided to move on from their brief romance with different partners.
As Friedle joked, “It was a whirlwind romance.”
