Boy Meets World (1993-2000)
Sabrina The Teenage Witch (1996-2003)
Teen Angel (1997-1998)
You Wish (1997-1998)
Type: Crossover
Group: 30
ABC had a long running hit with its family friendly Friday night "TGIF" programming block. It was a series of four kid focused sitcoms. In 1996 the lineup had been Family Matters, Step By Step, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Boy Meets World. But for the the 1997 season both the aging Family Matters and Step By Step moved to CBS who tried to use the shows to start their own Friday night family block. To replace these established hits ABC decided to try and replicate the success it had had with Sabrina with two new fantasy/magic teen sitcoms: Teen Angel and You Wish. Two new untested shows though weakened the drawing power of the night, especially with CBS competing against them with their own former hits. How to get people to stick around and try all the shows out? Hey, I know. What could be better than a big crossover event linking all the shows with a common plot? Oh wait. How about a GOOD crossovere event linking all the shows in a common plot. Maybe next time. Lets take this show by show...
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCHThe "fun" started on Sabrina The Teenage Witch. Sabrina's title says it all. Based on the long running Archie Comics character, Sabrina told the story of a teenage witch growing up and getting into all sorts of magical trouble. In this case the trouble started when her talking black cat Salem swallowed a Time Ball which causes Sabrina's show to flip from the 1990s back into the groovy 1960s. Sabrina has fun in the looser freer time until women's lack of equality in the 60s kind of makes her realize the 60s wasn't all roses. She tries to fix things but, oh no, Salem won't give up the ball and runs away. Sabrina chases him and the ball through all the other shows that night. Hahaha. And hilarity tried to ensue as Salem kept messing up what decade each show was set in! Imagine! No, don't. Next...
BOY MEETS WORLDBoy Meets World was another show with about kids going to school and learning as they grew up. Think The Wonder Years but in the 90s, a bit more sitcommy and with Ben Savage instead of his older brother, The Wonder Year's Fred Savage. Ben played Cory Matthews. Topanga was Ben's girlfriend. At the start they were young and she literally just his friend who was a girl but as time went on, and by the time of this episode, she became his actual girlfriend. Shawn was Cory's best friend. So of course the perfect plot for this show would of course be to throw the cast into the wore torn 1940's. Cory was now a soldier leaving his best girl Topanga behind as he went off to war. He asks good friend Shawn to marry his girl if he should be lost in the war. Because of course it's not like she would have anything to say in the matter. Going off to war, in a stunningly expensive battle sequence rivaling Saving Private Ryan, Cory was blown to bits saving a platoon of... oh who am I kidding. They never left the same old redressed sets and by the end Sabrina chased that darn cat into the next darn show.
I should point out that this was the second week in a row Sabrina made a visit to Boy Meets World. The previous week had found Cory's brother Eric getting in a fight with his college roommate Jack over the fact that Jack's girlfriend practices witchcraft only to then unknowingly end up on a date with a witch himself: Tabitha from Bewitched! Okay it was Sabrina. Now back to that whole time ball silliness...
YOU WISHOkay, this was your typical Genie show ala "I Dream Of Jeannie". I guess they figured Sabrina was a teen take on Bewitched so why not a teen take on the other classic magic sitcom? Only in this case they changed the Genie to a guy and his master was an entire family with an uptight mom who was against them using Genie's magic powers. This by the way is the stupidest plot contrivance ever. Why do people in sitcoms always get Genies who can grant their every wish and then refuse to use them? What are they idiots?
Anyway, Sabrina and Salem blow through and changed this bad rip off of a 60s TV classic into a bad rip off of every bad 50s family sitcom. Yep, they became Leave It To Beaver, Make Room For Daddy and Don't Annoy Your Sister all rolled up into one. You'd think the freaking GENIE might be able to fix everything but he is magically changed into a beatnik ala Bob Denver in The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis. For a full half hour they and the audience were trapped in this 50s sitcom. Trapped like rats in a cage, gnawing at the bars and inwardly screaming out, "When Lord when?!?! When will ABC just kill me and let the pain end???" Whoops. I mean for a half hour the audience laughed itself into tears... tears of pain and... maybe I should just move along.
TEEN ANGELTeen Angel used the classic premise of a Guardian Angel watching over teens and using his magical powers. Okay, it wasn't a classic premise. It was used only a couple of times before (Out Of The Blue, The Smothers Brothers Show) and it had always flopped bad. The series started with main character teen Marty DePolo dying. Hahaha. Teen death! Always a crowd pleasing laugh getter. Anyway, he comes back from heaven assigned to be his best friend Steve's new guardian angel. Unfortunately Steve was an atheist and at that point the premise fell apart (Yes I'm lying!).
Anyway, Sabrina shows up chasing Salem, they all get blowed back into the 1970s (shudder of horror) and the era of disco. Oh yeah. Angel Marty puts the moves on the witch (might I point out this is just wrong on many levels).
In the end time was put back in order but millions of viewers were still forever robbed of two hours of their lives.
Other Boy Meets World Crossover LinksBoy Meets World and Girl Meets World
Boy Meets World and Step by Step
Other Sabrina The Teenage Witch Crossover Links
Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Clueless
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