11 Guest Actors You Forgot Were On Boy Meets World

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The '90s was a complicated time to be a TV teen. While the kids of "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Melrose Place" were entrenched in constant scandalous teen drama, a gentler, more family-friendly version of teen life was drawing in audiences on ABC. "Boy Meets World" ran for an impressive 158 episodes, from 1993 to 2000, and remains a pop cultural touchstone — albeit not quite as potent of one as its cattier primetime counterparts — to this day.

Like every memorable sitcom, "Boy Meets World" knew how to pick a guest star, and several of the actors who showed up across its seven-season run went on to be pretty dang famous. In a few cases, people who were already big-name actors at the time also dropped in on the kids of John Adams High. If you watched the show at a young age, though, you'd be forgiven for not recognizing the industry veterans and fresh-faced up-and-comers who popped up in "Boy Meets World." Here are 11 of the best of them who you may have missed:

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Future "Parks and Recreation" and "Big Little Lies" star Adam Scott might actually be one of the only actors on this list "Boy Meet World" fans will remember, as he actually had a recurring spot on the show across two seasons. Scott played the bully Griff Hawkins, who was always pulling dumb stunts and once got four years' worth of detention. Despite his prankster legacy, in the sequel series "Girl Meets World," Griff actually ended up getting an award named after him — the Griff Hawkins Totally Cool Award.

Scott apparently still has vivid memories of his time on the show, including one awkward moment in which, as he told the show's cast on the podcast "Pod Meets World," Rider Strong apparently rejected his hug and high five after wrapping on season 2. Strong had no memory of the encounter, which Scott (hilariously) says ended with his co-star running away. Whatever happened is clearly in the past: nearly 30 years later, the cast welcomed Scott back to chat about the show with open arms.

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The late actress Brittany Murphy made every project she was in better, and "Boy Meets World" was no exception. In two season 3 episodes, she played Trini, Topanga's best friend who ceaselessly annoyed Cory (Ben Savage). Endearingly obnoxious, Trini spends much of her screen time whacking a ketchup bottle, sipping repeatedly from a drink, and chewing gum in the background of shots. Like most Murphy characters, she's adorable, with a zany fashion sense, a big red scrunchie, and a vaguely Bostonian accent.

Murphy appeared on "Boy Meets World" in 1995, a few months after making her breakthrough appearance in the teen classic "Clueless." She would later appear in great movies like "Uptown Girls," "8 Mile," and "Girl, Interrupted," but her life and career were cut tragically short when she died of pneumonia in 2009. "She was amazing," Strong told Entertainment Tonight when talking about Murphy in 2022. "She did two or three episodes, and I just remember us all being like, 'She is an incredible actor.' Such a sweetheart. So nice to have on the set."

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By the time "Boy Meets World" hit the airwaves, the Savage family was already famous thanks to child star Fred Savage's indelible turn on the sweet coming-of-age series "The Wonder Years" and in movies like "The Princess Bride." It was his brother Ben who took the starring role in "Boy Meets World" as Cory Matthews, but Fred popped up in one later-season episode of the show, playing a college professor who wasn't as he seemed. He also directed two episodes of the series in some of his earliest work behind the camera.

In "Everybody Loves Stuart," the elder Savage played Stuart, a seemingly cool teacher who the kids initially liked before he put the moves on Topanga (Danielle Fishel). Cory punches him out a window and almost gets expelled for it, and the creep teacher is never seen again after his lone season 6 appearance. Unfortunately, life would imitate art years later when Savage was fired from the new "Wonder Years" show after harassment allegations surfaced against him and he was investigated for workplace misconduct.

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Before doing her primetime residencies on shows like "Ghost Whisperer" and "9-1-1," Jennifer Love Hewitt appeared in one of the most entertaining episodes of "Boy Meets World." She played a suspicious newbie at John Adams High in the surreal episode "And Then There Was Shawn," a very funny spin on the classic Agatha Christie slasher. Jennifer Love Fefferman, or "Feffy," is a prime suspect when students start getting picked off by an unseen killer, but she ultimately becomes a victim of the murderer herself when she gets crushed by a pile of books in the library.

Hewitt's role here is pretty tongue in cheek, as she was dating series star Will Friedle at the time of her appearance and spends most of her runtime coming onto Eric (Friedle). On the "Pod Meets World" podcast (via People), several cast members were surprised to rewatch a scene in which the pair intensely made out right after meeting, a moment that felt out of line with the rest of the comparatively tame show. "Whose idea was the sexual assault?" Friedle asked director Jeff McCracken, calling the moment "jarring" and "uncomfortable." Still, Hewitt is a fun addition to a special episode that breaks the rules of the show's reality.

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With "Felicity," Keri Russell's haircut became front-page news, but you can spot her pre-"Felicity" bushy curls in the season 1 episode "Grandma Was A Rolling Stone." In 1993, Russell had just begun acting (her only prior role was in "Honey, I Blew Up The Kid"), and she guest starred alongside "Golden Girls" favorite Rue McClanahan in an episode in which Eric falls for Mr. Feeny's niece. Russell plays the niece, Jessica, and the pair share a smooch that was apparently Friedle's first-ever on-screen kiss. "Our teeth bumped. I was mortified," Friedle told his co-stars when recalling the experience on an episode of "Pod Meets World." Russell has come a long way since, earning four Emmy nominations and starring in great shows like "The Americans" and "The Diplomat."

The episode also saw the introduction and sole appearance of Eric and Cory's grandma, played by McClanahan. The actress was already by that point known as Southern seductress Blanche Dubois, Vivian from "Maude," and Aunt Fran from "Mama's Family" by the time she popped up on the show, playing zany, sparkly grandma Bernice. The character makes a great first impression, bringing the family weird gifts like a shrunken head and a cactus, but she's eventually revealed to be a bit of a flake. True to her unfortunate reputation, Grandma Matthews never comes back after this episode.

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A year before making her breakout turn in "Freaks & Geeks," Linda Cardellini appeared in "Boy Meets World," playing one of the show's best non-Topanga love interests for Cory. She appeared in three episodes of the show (plus in flashback in a fourth) as Lauren, a girl who worked at a ski lodge that the John Adams High kids visited on a field trip. She and Cory, who immediately sprained his ankle, hit it off and hung out for most of the trip, and she later went on a date with him that went pretty well. Still, by the time she made her second appearance in the show's fifth season, Cory's heart firmly belonged to Topanga, and she didn't stand a chance.

Cardellini would go on to play several memorable roles, from geeky investigator Velma in the 2002 "Scooby-Doo" movie to angsty teen Lindsay Weir in "Freaks & Geeks" to sunny murderer Judy in "Dead to Me." Lauren takes up roughly the same space in "Boy Meets World" that Rory's nice college friend Marty did in "Gilmore Girls," in that she would've been a good but undramatic choice for a protagonist who ultimately — inevitably — chose a more passionate love instead.

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Topanga's parents, Jedidiah and Rhiannon, were recast throughout the series enough to give the Bobbys from "Mad Men" a run for their money. The pair had a pretty major plotline in the show, attempting to reconcile after Jedidiah's affair and ultimately getting a divorce, all of which made the revolving door of actors playing them extremely noticeable. "Better Call Saul" actor Michael McKean, who plays Saul Goodman's principled brother Chuck in that show, is the most instantly recognizable actor to take on the Jedidiah role, which he played for just one episode. Other actors who played Topanga's hippie dad include Peter Tork and Mark Harelik. McKean has decades of great roles under his belt, and you might also know him from "A Mighty Wind," "This is Spinal Tap," or "Clue."

Meanwhile, Rhiannon was recast just once, with future "Desperate Housewives" star Marcia Cross taking over for "Nash Bridges" alum Annette O'Toole for three season 7 episodes. Cross' other major roles include "Melrose Place," "Quantico," and several popular soaps. Topanga's parents' separation made her temporarily jaded about love, but she ended up following through with her teenage marriage to Cory, and when her wedding finally came, Jedidiah — played by Harelik at that point — walked her down the aisle.

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The woman behind one of the most-loved blockbuster rom-coms of the 2000s once played a waitress on "Boy Meets World." Like some other familiar faces (see: "American Beauty" star Mena Suvari), Vardalos played two different characters across the series' run, popping up first as a waitress in season 6, then as a woman named Mrs. Gallagher just ten episodes later. It's the latter appearance that's more memorable, as it's Mrs. Gallagher who talks Eric out of adopting an orphan boy named Tommy when he learns that a more established family is also willing to care for the child.

Just three years after her "Boy Meets World" stint, Vardalos became famous for writing and starring in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," a shoestring-budget movie that made major bucks at the box office and inspired two sequels. Strangely, she's uncredited for her work on "Boy Meets World," which she did fairly early in her career — but after she had already voiced a character on the now-forgotten series "Team Knight Rider."

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The rare guest star who made a "Boy Meets World" appearance near the end of her career rather than the beginning of it, Phyllis Diller is instantly recognizable as fortune teller Madame Ouspenskaya. Diller added some chaotic humor to the Halloween episode "Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf," telling Cory that he's doomed to transform into a werewolf and – gasp! – kill Topanga. He doesn't, as it turns out he was bitten by a rabbit, not a werewolf, but the episode delivers the seasonal blend of spookiness and silliness that Disney-made shows would become known for.

Diller was one of the first hugely famous female comics in America, and by the time she passed away in 2012 at age 95, she was also known as an actress, artist, author, and musician. Diller lent her talents to a wide-ranging assortment of movies over the decades, from 1961's sex drama "Splendor in the Grass" to Pixar's 1998 animated favorite "A Bug's Life." Despite her silly demeanor and mystical garb, Diller was one of the more prestigious guest stars on the show, having received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Comedy Awards, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. For a generation of viewers, though, she may have been best known as the mysterious stranger who almost turned Cory into a monster.