‘Boy Meets World’s Will Friedle Says the Feeny Call Was ‘Taken’ From Him, But That’s Not Why He Won’t Do It Anymore

Actor Will Friedle’s Boy Meets World character Eric Matthews became best known for one thing — the Feeny call. In many scenes with William Daniels, who played George Feeny, Friedle would let out a breathy “Fee-heh-hee-nay!” much to fans’ delight. However, the actor won’t do the Feeny call anymore. Find out why.

Will Friedle came up with Eric Matthews’ Feeny call in ‘Boy Meets World’

During the premiere episode of the Boy Meets World rewatch podcast “TGI-Happening,” Friedle, Danielle Fishel, and Rider Strong addressed some of Boy Meets World fans’ most frequently asked questions, including why Ben Savage isn’t part of Pod Meets World. They also brought up the Feeny call, which Friedle came up with himself. 

“Other than saying ‘Feeny’ with an exclamation point in the script, the Feeny call was mine,” he said. “I created that… I just made that my own.” 

Boy Meets World fans reading this can probably hear Friedle’s famous Feeny call in their heads. Ironically, Friedle said he didn’t know it was “a thing” with fans until the show ended. 

Will Friedle says the Feeny call was ‘taken’ from him after ‘Boy Meets World’

Fans still often ask Friedle to do the iconic Feeny call, but the actor took the phrase out of his repertoire. “There’s a number of reasons I don’t do the Feeny call,” Friedle said. “I was upset with the way the Feeny call was taken from me, which is the absolute truth.” 

He continued: “When they started Girl Meets World, Michael [Jacobs] — I’m not trying to bash anyone in any way, shape or form — and he apologized to me for this — without calling me, without letting me know, without doing anything, he just popped in a tape of the Feeny call to Rowan [Blanchard] and Sabrina [Carpenter] and said … ‘You’re both doing this when you meet Mr. Feeny.'”

Friedle takes full ownership for the Feeny call and the way he delivered it on Boy Meets World. He didn’t think it was “very cool” of Girl Meets World showrunners to take the Feeny call without asking. 

Will Friedle ultimately ‘passed the torch’ to the cast of ‘Girl Meets World’ 

Friedle further explained his discussion with Jacobs about using the Feeny call in the spinoff without his permission. “He’s like, ‘Look, I didn’t even think of it that way, you’re right, I should have [asked],'” Friedle recalled. 

Together, they decided the actor should do a “passing of the torch” to the cast of Girl Meets World. “I went in front of the audience … I did it one more time, and I passed it on to the girls,” he said. 

‘Thundercats’ voice actor Larry Kenney inspired Will Friedle to pass on the Feeny call 

Friedle was inspired by Larry Kenney, who played the original voice of Lion-O in the cartoon Thundercats. When Kenney sent Friedle a clip of someone asking him to do Lion-O’s “Thundercats, Ho!,” he said: “I will do it one more time for you, but then it’s Will’s.” Friedle voiced Lion-O in the 2011 Thundercats reboot. 

Friedle did just that. The Feeny call lived on in Girl Meets World, which ran on Disney Channel from 2014 until 2017.

Pod Meets World is available on iHeartRadio and everywhere podcasts are heard.