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Boy Meets World star Rider Strong is opening up about one of the show's most controversial episodes — controversial enough to be banned by Disney — the alcohol-themed episode "If You Can't Be With The One You Love."
On the "Pod Meets World" podcast, Strong, along with Boy Meets World co-stars and podcast co-hosts Danielle Fishel (Topanga Lawrence) and Will Friedle (Eric Matthews) talk about the episode and how uncomfortable it was to film. The podcast episode's description even reads, "We’ve reached yet another historic milestone in the gang’s Boy Meets World rewatch: the first episode 'banned' by the Disney Channel! It’s a polarizing storyline that has even Rider feeling uncomfortable almost 30 years later."
Strong recalled, "I was probably seventeen the first time I tried alcohol, so it's probably right right before this or whatever. But I remember Ben and I talking about like, 'How do you play drunk?' And like having conversations about it, and he nails it."
Rider added, "Like having to remember, Well, I remember Alan and Michael when we were doing the exterior scene telling I guess they were telling us to do less, because I remember having a whole conversation about like how do we play drunk? And I just remember Michael going, 'I'm drunk right now, I'm drunk right now.' And we were like, 'What? And he was, you know, his point was, you don't have to play it, you don't have to do anything. And but I'll never I'll never forget his face, like yeah, I'm drunk right now? How do you how can you tell? And we were like, 'Oh, I guess okay,' you know. But Ben, I thought Ben did a great job."
Despite his effort to act intoxicated for the episode, Strong added of filming, "You can tell too, I'm just half-a**ing it episode. I'm so miserable."
Listen to the "Pod Meets World" podcast on iHeartRadio.