The DeGrassi brand is a big one in Canada, and in parts of the States, too. It can refer to four or five TV series, some movies, books, even pencil cases and glittery nail polish. Today, though, I’m talking about just one facet of the franchise: DeGrassi Jr. High.
This 80s teen drama fooled a lot of people who thought they were watching a funny little show about kids. Instead, they got kick-assed by actual relevant topics: right off the bat, a 13-year-old girl announced she was pregnant. Later, characters would drink, use drugs, experiment with sex, question their sexuality and basically do things that real kids were really doing. This was possible because Canada has always had a much more mature attitude about television than America.
Do you remember when Brandon got drunk (on his first sip of liquor) and crashed his car off-camera, later to swear he Would Never Drink Again? That kind of 90210 heavy-handedness was largely absent from DeGrassi Jr. High. Later, when the show became DeGrassi High, the writers started dumbing things down, and by the end of it (a TV movie) it was a full-on Melrose Place tribute.
DeGrassi Jr. High was unabashedly Canadian, even after it started appearing on US TV in the late 80s. There was never any attempt to disguise dirty old Toronto as anything but. One episode features an attempt to buy beer at one of our Brewers’ Retail outlets, and nails it perfectly, stubby bottles and all. And there was a lot of sex-based humour; in one episode, Wheels thinks he might get lucky with Stephanie, but when he tried to buy condoms, the pharmacist is Stephanie’s mom. D’oh!
The show gave us some memorable characters. Joey Jeremiah, Caitlin, Snake, the twins, Spike, BLT (did you see BLT on the Lost episode What Kate Does? Yeah, that was him), Liz, Arthur, Yick … These were children first, actors second, and they looked it. Shot without makeup, in natural light, in a real school on a real street (a popular tourist stop in Toronto), DeGrassi Jr. High looked like a bad documentary, but felt like real life.
We all knew kids like the kids on this show. I’m a few years older than the actors, and by the late 80s I was out of high school and off to college, but even then, Monday nights meant everyone stopped what they were doing and tuned in for some DeGrassi. And we all knew someone who reminded us of someone on the show. There was a rock band called The Zit Remedy that knew exactly one song, and there was a band like that at my elementary school. We were called The Rhythm Method, and I am not making that up.
There’s a new series. I’ve never seen it, but I understand that it’s a direct sequel, with the original characters now the parents, and a new crop of young’uns. But every commercial I’ve seen makes it look slick and Hollywoody. Somewhere around here I have a DVD of the Kevin Smith appearances on the new DeGrassi: The Next Generation (love that title), so I guess I’ll have to watch at some point.
I found old DeGrassi DVDs, five episodes apiece, for a few bucks at a local store. I think I’ll pick them up for my kids, because as they get older, TV gets stupider, and I’d like them to watch something with heart.
– Kennedy, Starbase 66
