See Boy Meets World’s Mr. Feeny, Still Alive At 96 And Celebrating
William Daniels, the actor who played Mr. Feeny in Boy Meets World, is alive and well as he celebrates his 96th birthday.
90s kids will be happy to know William Daniels is still alive and kickin’ at 96 years of age! The actor, who is best known for giving Ben Savage a hard time on Boy Meets World, recently tweeted a picture of himself and his spouse, Bonnie Bartlett celebrating his 96th birthday. In the picture, the veteran actor is giving a big smile while holding up a cupcake decorated with numbered candles.
While actors younger than him, like Bruce Willis and Jack Nicholson, have essentially retired from the public spotlight, Daniels is still getting out there and mixing it up with fans. In another tweet from October of last year, the star best known for the role of Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World posted a video where he gleefully announced a convention in Rhode Island he would be attending in November of that year with his wife. What’s most surprising about the clip is just how much Daniels still sounds like one of his other famous roles.
If 90s kids mostly remember William Daniels from the crown jewel of TGIF, Boy Meets World, then 70s and 80s babies associate his distinctive baritone with the voice of KITT from Knightrider. Daniels played the voice of David Hasselhoff‘s futuristic talking car for four seasons on one of the most beloved 80s action shows of all time.
Somehow at the age of 96, Daniels still sounds just like he did when he voiced KITT for 84 episodes. If you close your eyes while watching the clip, you can almost hear him saying “Michael” in that condescending teacher voice the actor does so well. The same voice that the actor used to great effect as an actual condescending teacher on Boy Meets World for seven seasons.
But it’s not just William Daniels’ voice that has survived mostly unchanged into the actor’s tenth decade on Earth. It’s clear from the dry way he says, “We’re going to Rhode Island?” as if it’s the first time his wife has mentioned it that the actor’s deadpan delivery is still intact as well.
It would be reductive to take a career as robust as Daniels’ and describe it with just Boy Meets World and the talking car show. William has over 124 acting credits listed on his IMDb ranging from the obscure like 1994’s Magic Kid II to classics like St. Elsewhere. And William Daniels wasn’t just confined to television work either.
One of the actor’s best roles was as John Adams in the historical war film 1776. Daniels also had roles in the George Burns comedy Oh, God! and The Blue Lagoon. The Boy Meets World alum’s strangest credit, at least going by the title, is easily Father Damien: The Leper Priest.
Reductive or not, though Mr. Feeny and KITT are the actor’s two most prominent roles, Daniels voiced KITT in no less than six other projects outside of the original Knightrider ranging from The Simpsons to the more recent Superintelligence from 2020. Meanwhile, the actor played George Feeny a total of three times, including five episodes of the Boy Meets World sequel series Girl Meets World.
No matter the role, William Daniels is always an absolute treat to watch on screens, both big and small.
Happy Birthday Mr. Daniels. Here’s to 96 more years!
