Danielle Fishel Reveals How ‘Boy Meets World’ Creator Humiliated Her on Set

Boy Meets World is always a bountiful topic for nostalgic fans who grew up on a steady diet of ’90s sitcoms, and it’s also one of the latest to receive the podcast treatment featuring the cast discussing their experiences. A recent episode shared this troubling memory from Danielle Fishel, better known as Topanga, on her podcast Pod Meets World along with co-hosts and co-stars Rider Strong and Will Friedle.

Fishel looked back on her first day in a recent episode of the show, noting how it threatened to be her last due to Boy Meets World creator Michael Jacobs. The trio were joined by director David Trainer and talked about how the show initially had another actress cast to play Topanga but she wouldn’t work out in the end.

So Fishel got the part on Friday, and was ordered to be on set Monday ready to bring Topanga to life. That’s where Jacobs comes into the story and his lengthy notes sessions amid rehearsals for the first episode.

“I had never been a part of his marathon notes session. This was my first one because it was my very fist week,” Fishel says on the podcast. “Michael starts off the notes by saying, ‘Danielle, I’m going to give you your notes all at one time, at the end and I’m going to give everyone else their notes now, because if I made everyone sit here through all of the notes I had for you, we would all be here for hours and no one would ever get to go home. So you’re just going to wait for the end.’ From that moment on, my eyes welled up because you know, I’m now in front of everybody – all the producers, all the writers, all the cast and all eyes are on me for a second.”

Jacobs would eventually have Fishel’s mother get involved and outlined everything he wanted from her performance the next day. “What I know specifically was said is, ‘All I know is, if you don’t come back tomorrow doing this entirely differently, you are also not going to be here,’ referencing the girl I had replaced,” Fishell said, adding that even talking about the moment was leading to her breaking out in sweats.

The encounter led to Fishel wanting to impress Jacobs and keep him happy, not focusing so much on the performance outside of that. This worked with Jacobs, though. Fishel notes he asked everybody to give her a standing ovation the next day, some random praise peppered in, and an end to all threats about being fired from the show.

Still, Trainer weighed in from his perspective and from his experience working with Jacobs for years. “I worked for Michael for years on multiple shows. This is a hateful story,” Trainer said. “There’s many wonderful things about him, but there’s hateful things. This is one. To hear this, you’re sweating? I’m really pissed. It’s enough to make me want to sign off of this podcast. I don’t want to be associated with anything that guy is associated with. This is just not how you do things. I’m glad it became a hit, but this is disgusting.”

Now most fans couldn’t see anybody but Fishel in the role. She was part of Boy Meets World for its entire run, later returning to star in the sequel spinoff Girl Meets World.