4-5 Shallow BoySummary by: Laura Orginal Air Date: 1996-10-18 Writer: Jeffrey C. Sherman Director: Jeff McCracken Capsule Summary: Eric's ex writes a nasty song about him. Extendo Summary: Eric finds a perky girl singing happy songs about sunshine outside the wilderness store. Alan tells Eric the girl has been scaring away customers, and he tells Eric to go get rid of her. Eric thinks she's cute, so he takes her out to lunch.
The girl, Corinna, tells Eric her uncle at a record company would give her a deal if she was edgier, but she's just too cheerful to make edgy music. In addition, Corinna really likes Eric, and tells Eric she wants to spend the rest of her life with, "and all our lives to come". Eric, exhausted after a day of listening to her being nice and happy and bunny-rabbitty, tells her he doesn't want to see her any more. Upset, Corinna makes her first minor chord, and immediately composes a song about how much of jerk Eric is (the "Shallow Boy" of the title).
A short time later, Cory and Shawn bring Eric a CD Corinna has put out containing "Shallow Boy" and another ditty called "Eric Matthews, You're So Vain You Probably Didn't Know The Song Before This Was About You." Not only that, the song is doing successfully on the radio. Morgan loves her third song, "Maladjusted Woman-Hating Loser-Freak."
Later, Corinna asks to meet Eric for lunch, and takes notes about what he says. Eric realizes Corinna needs him for material. He takes advantage of the situation by rekindling her interest in dandelions and kitty-cats.
Topanga is baby-sitting, so Shawn tells Cory to go over and visit her while she's on the job. "The two of you, alone, in a stanger's house?" Topanga is glad to see him at first, but begins to get annoyed when Cory makes friends with the kid, wants to keep him up to play Nintendo and wants to let him watch "The Friday Night Line-up". (In-jokes abound when the kid talks about his favorite show's move from 8:30 to 9:30, which had just happened to Boy Meets World at the time.)
The next day at school Topanga is really angry at Cory for being a bad future parent, and all Cory wants is a god damn taco. Distraught, Cory starts reading up on parenting. Amy tells him this is unnecessary; you mostly learn from experience.
Topanga comes over while Cory is baby-sitting Morgan and witnesses him reading to her and sending her to bed. She brings him tacos as a peace offering, and tells Cory she's realizes that he's right about them being young and not having kids for awhile, and by the time they do, he'll probably be a good father. Jesus, Topanga. What tipped you off? Quotes: "Morgan! Have we learned nothing from the purple duck?" --Cory "Can I handle that? Yeah, I can handle that. Or fail to do so. So can you give me some money, cause I gave her all of mine." --Eric "Great! Now I'm a woman-hating maladjusted loser-freak!" --Eric Highlights:
- Mr. Feeny asks the kids to tell them what issues most concern their lives.
Topanga: "I think the biggest problem facing our society today is the breakdown of the American family."
Shawn: "You always gotta go after Shawn."
Topanga: "Well, I just think that other issues like crime and the decline in education--"
Shawn: "Hey, hey, lay off me!"
- Cory: "Lock up your daughters, the hormones are gonna be a-flyin' tonight! So you believe me?"
Shawn: "No, but you're very sweet."
- The incredibly bored dad of the kid Topanga's babysitting tells Cory of the couch, "Lie down on it, you think you're dead."
- Corinna tells Eric she once has a goldfish that died. "Suicide was it?"
- Eric tells Corinna, "I don't know how to say this, so I'm going to choose my words very carefully... I think you're a psycho. I want to get as far away from you as I possibly can."
- Cory when Topanga talks about their future child: "I mean I knew I was a good kisser, but wow!"
- Cory when Topanga demands, "You would feed tacos to our child?": "Four for 99 cents, he's gonna be taco crazy."
- Cory when Topanga asks if he knows why she is mad at him: "Yes, me, something I've done, or haven't done, but done but didn't do properly."
Oh, for Gay! Morgan, who loves Corinna's songs and can't believe Eric is her brother, belts out "Maladjusted Woman-Hating Loser-Freak," which contains the line "And he doesn't like girls cause he's afraid of them, I think he likes boys if you know what I'm sayin'!" Oh, for gay!
Episode Themes: Cool Eric, Cory and Topanga Trouble Rating: 3. Topanga grates in this episode, but I'll let it slide since Cory's funny and most of the episode is about Eric. You do have to deal with Morgan singing, though. Back | Back to Season 4 Episode Guide | Next | |
