The 3 Boy Meets World Episodes That Were Banned By Disney

For many tweens and teens growing up in the mid-to-late-1990s, Friday nights meant a bucket of popcorn and sitting down in front of the TV for a night of ABC’s “TGIF” programming lineup. Shows like “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” “Sister, Sister,” and “Boy Meets World” catered to teens while still being family-friendly enough for primetime network TV, but occasionally they delved into topics that were a little more adult to actually have something to say to their teen audiences. “Boy Meets World” eventually ended up in syndication on The Disney Channel, along with several other “TGIF” favorites, but there were three episodes that originally aired on ABC that Disney Channel refused to air themselves. 

Banned episodes are nothing new in the world of television — heck, “Frasier,” “Family Guy,” and “Friends” all have episodes that were banned from airing in one form or another — but the three that were prevented from airing on Disney Channel are a little frustrating because it feels like a kind of conservative censorship that ultimately harms the young audiences it seeks to protect. Even though the episodes weren’t perfect, they spoke to issues that teens actually deal with and had positive messages overall, but the folks at Disney just weren’t having it. 

The first episode that Disney Channel banned was season 5, episode 15, “If You Can’t Be With the One You Love,” which featured a storyline about Shawn (Rider Strong) and Cory (Ben Savage) drinking some whiskey because Cory and his long-time girlfriend Topanga (Danielle Fishel) broke up. The episode feels like a “very special episode” that tries to preach about the dangers of drinking, and Strong said on the “Pod Meets World” podcast that he took issue with the episode because it resorted to some old-school scare tactics. After some goofy bits with the teens drinking and causing trouble, Shawn ends up acting “as if he’s a 45-year-old alcoholic who’s like I can’t stop, but I gotta keep doing this. And I don’t think that’s realistic for somebody who’s tried alcohol once.”

It’s not the worst episode of “Boy Meets World,” but it does try and condense a complicated conversation about teen drinking and alcoholism into under a half-hour. Episodes about teen drinking are pretty common on teenage sitcoms, but this is definitely one of the sillier ones. Despite being strongly anti-alcohol, Disney decided to ban the episode, likely just because it dealt with alcohol at all. The other two episodes they banned dealt with another subject particularly touchy to Disney: sex. 

Another episode to get the Disney axe was “Prom-ises, Prom-ises,” which was episode 22 of season 5, following the teens as they dealt with prom night expectations and whether or not to have sex for the first time. On another episode of the “Pod Meets World” podcast, the cast revealed that the episode made them uncomfortable — and not because their characters were considering having sex, but because there wasn’t a single mention of contraception. In the end, Cory and Topanga decide to wait and not have sex, and the whole thing is treated very carefully so as not to rattle mid-’90s ABC censors. The other sex episode to get cut was the season 6 episode “The Truth About Honesty,” in which Cory and Topanga decide that they do want to make their relationship physical, while Shawn and his girlfriend, Angela (Trina McGee) realize that they aren’t comfortable with their current relationship arrangement. 

Like “Prom-ises, Prom-ises,” “The Truth About Honesty” is cautious in dealing with sex and the teens sort of talk in circles around it. However, it does show the importance of communication between young couples, who frequently aren’t on the same page when it comes to the physical side of their relationships. There aren’t even sex scenes in the episodes, and it’s frustrating that even a mild discussion of sex was deemed worthy of censorship. Teens are going to have sex whether adults like it or not, and showing them healthy expectations and relationships is helpful, not harmful. Sex scenes and discussions of sex are important and necessary, even if they’re a little ham-fisted sometimes on family sitcoms in their attempts at teaching good lessons. Censorship never really helps anyone, and that’s the case with these three “Boy Meets World” episodes.