This crossover is small and minor and yet in geek TV terms it is the Rosetta Stone of ABC's TGIF lineup, the missing piece that ties all the TGIF shows together.

   TGIF was ABC's family friendly block of sitcoms. Occasionally as a stunt these shows would crossover (invariably these crossovers seemed to involve Family Matter's Steve Urkel). Now May of 1996 was a big time for the folks at ABC. You see they had recently been bought by Walt Disney. Disney wasn't stupid. If you own a network you own a very big tool for promoting yourself. For example take the Disney World theme park. Wouldn't it be great to be able to hype that to all the families in America, get them wanting to go to Disney World? Hmmm... where on ABC is there a block of shows aimed at that audience? Well lookee lookee at Friday! What if we did some episodes about TGIF characters going to Disney World? Perfect!

   The weird thing is they didn't do a full night event. They only had two of the shows head to The Magic Kingdom. Step By Step was a sort of 90s version of The Brady Bunch. Patrick Duffy's character Frank Lambert married Suzanne Somers' character Carol Foster. They each had kids and they all had to learn to be a big happy wacky family. They started the Disney fun with a two parter where for mom and dad's anniversary the family heads to Disney World. The next week part two aired right after the Boy Meets World Disney show. Which FINALLY gets us to the meat (what there is of it) of this crossover.

   Boy Meets World was your typical kids growing up and learning about life and love sitcom except the characters were all played by trained mice. I wish. Actually the lead character Cory Matthews was played by Ben Savage, younger brother of Fred Savage the star of another classic kids growing up show, The Wonder Years. In the episode in question, Cory's girlfriend Topanga takes a trip to Disney World. Knowing that nothing turns on a chick like chasing them after them uninvited when they are on vacation, Cory follows her there and hilarity ensues with Cory trying to romance Topanga and her thinking he has feelings for someone else. Hahahaha. Ahem.

   At this point you should be about ready to bury a pickaxe in my head as you shout, "WHAT ABOUT THE ^*#$($ CROSSOVER?!?!?" Here it comes. I'm warning you, it's not much. During the episode Cory meets a girl named Dana and played by Staci Keanan. Staci Keanan played Suzanne Somers' daughter Dana Foster on Step By Step. Now oddly enough they don't mention Dana's full name on Boy Meets World. Technically Staci Keenan could be playing another girl entirely who just happens to be named Dana and who just happens to be at Disney World on an episode airing between two episodes of Step By Step set at Disney World. Yeah, sure. Still this crossover is a bit puzzling. There was never any hype about it. It wasn't a major deal. Why did they even do it? And not even bothering to say her full name. What the heck's that? Were the Step By Step people gonna sue them or something? "You can have Staci act on your show but you better not have her play Dana Foster or it'll be Boy Meets Lawyer!" I don't get it.

   But like I said, even though this crossover is just a little one, it is important in the big picture. All the other various TGIF crossovers had helped cause two big groups of connected shows. Two groups. Forever it seemed there should be SOME crossover to link the two. I always assumed with dread that it would be Urkel related. I was wrong. This is that crossover, the Rosetta Stone of TGIF linking the two disparate groups. Okay so maybe it wasn't that big of a deal. Sue me I'm trying to build some mountain of excitement out of this molehill.

Other Boy Meets World Crossover Links
Boy Meets World and Girl Meets World
Boy Meets World and Sabrina The Teenage Witch

Other Step By Step Crossover Links
Step By Step and Family Matters

Click here to return to main Crossover List

Buy these shows on Amazon.com and support this site at the same time! Check out Boy Meets World and Step By Step on DVD!






Poobala.com Main Page/ Email Me