Girl Meets World Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Girl Meets World Wiki
I'm wearing a cable knit sweater! I'm I'm wearing slacks! You turned me into you!
—Shawn to Cory in Girl Meets Upstate
I love your daughter...and I'm in love with you. I want us to take care of each other forever.
—Shawn proposing to Katy

Shawn Patrick Hunter is a recurring character in Girl Meets World. Shawn is the lifelong best friend of Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence. He had a tumultuous upbringing, having been abandoned by his mother, and multiple times by his father, who died just as he and Shawn were on the verge of reconciling.

At the end of Boy Meets World, Shawn moved to New York City along with Cory, Topanga, and Eric, but later left the city the same day Riley was born, and has since maintained a nomadic existence as a photographer and a writer for the "Hit The Road" website.

Shawn is portrayed by Rider Strong.

Personality

In his earlier years Shawn was a bit of a rebel and troublemaker, giving him a "bad boy" image and a bit of a popularity boost. He was occasionally given to stormy emotional outbursts, but his closest friends knew that these are due mainly to his familial circumstances, having lived much of his life with little or no parental guidance.

Shawn was also a bit of a ladies' man throughout most of his younger life until he met Angela Moore, whom he dated for three years until she left to go to Europe with her father for a year.

Of all the characters, Shawn endured the most in the way of loss including getting left by Angela, and his father, Chet, who left him on his own multiple times, but then died as he was trying to make amends with Shawn.

Relationships

Family

Chet Hunter

Chet is Shawn's deceased father. He died of a heart attack in the sixth season of Boy Meets World, but continued to appear as a spirit guide (whom only Shawn can see and hear) until the end of the series. His only appearance in GMW (again as a spirit guide) was in Girl Meets Hurricane, in which he pointed out to Shawn that Katy and Maya were letting their guard down to allow him to get closer to them.

Biological mother

Shawn's biological mother was a stripper who abandoned him and Chet right after Shawn was born. Shawn tried to find out who she was on the internet, but couldn't find any information on her.

Virna Hunter

Virna is Shawn's stepmother. Virna would often run away because she felt that she and Chet were bad parents, thus causing Chet to run after her to bring her back. Shawn didn't find out that he is not her biological son, until the final season of Boy Meets World.

Jack Hunter

Jack is Shawn's half-brother through Chet. Unlike Shawn, Jack was raised in an affluent family. The closest the two ever got in the series was when Chet passed away, and even then they were not very close.

Stacy Hunter

Stacy was Shawn's sister. She is mentioned in the BMW episode "Cory's Alternative Friends". She is now considered a continuity error in the series as she is never mentioned again, having been erased from the show's continuity. The writers have jokingly tweeted that Stacy and Topanga's sister have now became friends .

Eddie

Eddie is Shawn's step-brother (Virna's son). The writers describe him as "out there in the world somewhere."

Mike Hunter

Mike is Shawn's paternal uncle (Chet's brother), a mechanic.

Uncle Frank

Frank is Shawn's uncle with shady connections.  He made horse racing bets for Shawn and Cory when they were 12, and arranged cargo plane tickets for the two of them when they wanted to go to Disney World so that Cory and Topanga could reconcile.

Romances

Katy Hart

Wife

Main article: Katy Hart
See also: Katy and Shawn

Katy is Maya's mother. Shawn first met Katy in Girl Meets Master Plan, when he went to the Nighthawk Diner to scold her for missing Maya's 14th birthday, however, he soon found he had misjudged her. When Katy was $50 short in paying for Maya's birthday locket, Shawn paid the difference, asking in return only to take the family picture designed to fit inside the locket. Against Katy wishes, he told Maya the truth about the breakup of her parents' marriage. As a result, Katy and Maya became much closer, and Shawn Hunter now seems destined to become a part of the lives of both Harts. In Girl Meets Hurricane, Katy asked Shawn out and because Shawn had accepted that Angela had moved on, he accepted. They get engaged in Girl Meets Upstate and then get married in Girl Meets I Do.

Angela Moore

Main article: Angela Moore
See also: Angela and Shawn

Angela was Shawn's girlfriend until, in the BMW penultimate episode Angela's Ashes, she decided to travel Europe for a year with her father. In Girl Meets Home for the Holidays it was implied that Shawn was still single. In Girl Meets Hurricane Angela came to visit Shawn and revealed that she had married someone else.

Friends

Cory Matthews

Main article: Cory Matthews
See also: Cory and Shawn

Cory is Shawn's childhood friend and best friend. They first met in kindergarten along with Topanga on a field trip. While trying to impress her, Cory falls into the llama habitat and Shawn rescues him, forging a lifelong friendship.The three of them grew up together from then on, even once unwillingly predicting the future in first grade, saying to let Cory and Topanga get married to Mr. Feeny. Their friendship got stronger as Cory began to push Topanga away from the next 7 years beginning in first grade (which he would soon regret). Before their wedding later on, Shawn was made the best man but it led to many problems, and he had to sadly accept that Topanga was going to become Cory's new best friend, but even after this they still remained close.

Topanga Matthews

Main article: Topanga Matthews
See also: Shawn and Topanga

Topanga is Shawn's childhood friend. Like him and Cory, they were close friends, and shipped her and Cory together. This is shown in My Best Friend's Girl when he purposefully asks her out on a date to get her and Cory together and it works. In Hair Today, Goon Tomorrow Shawn says the one thing that was great about Topanga was she never looked in the mirror until then, (when she cut her hair) and she had this confidence on herself he liked. 

Riley Matthews

Main article: Riley Matthews
See also: Riley and Shawn

Riley is the daughter of his best friends, Cory and Topanga, whom he views as a niece. Shawn left New York the day Riley was born, and subconsciously avoided talking to her and later Auggie. But when Riley figured out that Shawn avoided looking at her because it only reminded him that he was still alone in life, Shawn determined to form closer bonds with them in the future. He has come to see her as Cory with Topanga's hair.

Auggie Matthews

Main article: Auggie Matthews

Auggie is Riley's little brother, whom he sees as a nephew. Although he treated him the same way as Riley, Shawn intends to do better.

Maya Hart

Stepdaughter

Main article: Maya Hart
See also: Maya and Shawn

Maya is Riley's best friend. She was the initial catalyst in the shifting of Shawn's relationships with the Matthews siblings, but then Riley schemed to have Shawn become a father figure in Maya's life.

When Shawn and Maya compared their respective upbringings to one another, especially that they had both gotten left by important people in their lives, the two begin to form a bond, which grows far stronger in season 2's Hurricane when Maya pressures Shawn into telling her she should dress differently; Maya is deeply touched by his words and begins to cry because he is the first person (outside of her mother) to care enough to say that to her; he backs up his words by buying Maya a whole new wardrobe.

During season 3, Shawn's fondness for Maya continues to flourish. He eventually becomes her stepdad when he marries her mother Katy, and then adopts Maya as his daughter in the series finale Girl Meets Goodbye.

George Feeny

Main article: George Feeny

Mr. Feeny is Shawn's former teacher and mentor his whole life. He sees how deeply everybody cares about him including Mr. Feeny and the Matthew's worrying about his safety when he joins a cult. When saying goodbye in Brave New World Shawn tells him he never gave up on him once, and won't forget him because he is the best person he knew.

Rachel McGuire

Rachel is Shawn's friend from college. She dated Shawn's half-brother Jack.

Eric Matthews

Eric is Cory's brother, who is also his friend.

Stuart Minkus Minkus is Shawn's frenemy from Elementary School. Shawn often used him as a target for his pranks but was usually outsmarted.  

Trivia

  • In the season three episode of Boy Meets World, "City Slackers", Shawn's middle name is revealed to be "Patrick."
  • Shawn was born in Ohio.
  • Shawn lived in Oklahoma before the start of the series.
  • Found his lifelong friend by helping Cory Matthews, after he had fallen into the llama pen at the zoo,  when they were five years old.
  • Shawn and his family once lived in a house only two blocks away from the Matthews, "Once in Love With Amy." But Chet losing his job, plus the financial ramifications of "Cherry Bomb Day," probably hastened their return to the trailer park with the rest of the Hunter clan.   
  • In the episode "City Slackers," Mr. Feeny mentions Shawn attended five different schools before he was twelve years old.
  • Shawn speaks at least five languages: English; "womanese," although he's only conversational in the episode "Torn Between Two Lovers (Feeling Like a Fool)"; French, in "What I Meant to Say," he says he's an idiot savant; Dutch, in "B & B's B'n B," to the Timmers; Italian, in "Easy Street," to Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Martini.
  • Shawn has trouble understanding his teachers in the earlier seasons of Boy Meets World, and he explains it is because he hears a strange buzzing sound whenever adults speak.
  • Shawn mentions NYPD Blue a few times once in "Once in Love with Amy" and another time in "Cory's Alternative Friends."
  • Shawn once appeared in an episode of Maybe This Time, another show by Michael Jacobs, (to watch click here ) in which, while sharing his trepidation with Cory over setting both the gym and cafeteria of Adams High ablaze, the pair meta-interacted with the main young female lead, Gracie, across her television set.  Later they are called back to their own show by the voice of Mr. Feeny ("Busted.").
  • He kept a pet pig named "Little Cory" throughout high school.
  • Shawn loves ice skating; this is one of the few things he and Jack have in common.
  • He has the contact information for Cory's Aunt Sheila (who allegedly "looks like an elephant") in his "little black book,".
  • Shawn likes the band Counting Crows, which Mr. Feeny reveals in "City Slackers."
  • Shawn is shown to be an excellent poet,as seen from the episode Poetic License: An Ode to Holden Caulfield and he says he has been doing it since he was young.
  • Shawn has a history with vandalism. This includes
    • Blowing a up a USPS mailbox because he had accidentally lit a cherry bomb and quickly had to dispose of it, but couldn't throw it because there were people around.
    • Urinating on a police vehicle while intoxicated.
    • Multiple incidents at John Adams High, including starting a fire in the lab, and flooding the basement. There are also apocryphal allegations Shawn started another fire affecting the gym and cafeteria.
  • He was unable to sleep without a light at night because of the headlights from the 18-wheelers shining in his window, from back when he lived in a trailer park, but had outgrown the habit by the time he shared a dorm room with Cory.
  • In "Cory's Alternative Friends," it is said that Shawn has an older sister named Stacy; however, she was never seen or mentioned ever again in the show, and Shawn only talked to her on the phone once.
  • In Girl Meets Popular, Shawn makes his first cameo appearance in Season 1 in a flashback of the first season of Boy Meets World, but he not as a character until Girl Meets Home for the Holidays
  • His father Chet Hunter was the first to tell a tale on Career Day (the first appearance of both Chet as well as Topanga's father), second was Maya's mom Katy Hart.
  • His father died and Virna revealed that she wasn't his biological mother in BMW episodes "Family Trees" and "We'll Have a Good Time Then".
  • Shawn has a stepbrother named Eddie.
  • It is shown at the end of Girl Meets Pluto that Shawn and Katy started to develop feelings for each other.
  • Shawn maintains a cabin somewhere in upstate New York.
  • He has a befriended a squirrel, living near his cabin, that he has named "Stevie."
  • In Girl Meets Hurricane, Shawn recieved help from the ghost of his father, Chet Hunter, in navigating his feelings between Katy Hart and a returning Angela Moore.
  • He and Cory have their own theme song for "The Cory and Shawn Show".
  • He proposes to Katy in Girl Meets Upstate and she accepts. They later wed in Girl Meets I Do.
  • Shawn tells Maya that he first met her at the age of 32; however, if one attempts to put together a crude timeline with known inconsistencies in mind, Shawn should have been 34 when he met Maya (as he is the same age as Cory and Topanga, having been born in the same year). It can therefore be regarded as a writer's error or another timeline inconsistency.
  • Throughout Boy Meets World, Shawn has spoken English, French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish. He credits this to him being an "idiot savant."

Quotes

I care about your mother, I hope that's okay.
—Shawn to Maya in Girl Meets Upstate

Appearances

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Specials

Gallery

Girl Meets World Logo
The image gallery for Shawn Hunter may be viewed here.

Videos

EXCLUSIVE_Clip_Shawn_Returns_to_Girl_Meets_World!

EXCLUSIVE Clip Shawn Returns to Girl Meets World!

Cory S3

You've found the next page in the Matthews' Summer Vacation Scavenger Hunt! Here is your next clue:


I don’t think we need to do that, Topanga. It’s not important, anyway! What’s important is our vacation together, as a family. We need to make new memories that are as good as our old ones!



Learn more about Matthews Summer Vacation.
We're currently on the LAST DAY! You can go to the starting page of the entire hunt here!

Advertisement