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Overview

Degrassi Junior High follows those who attend the titular fictional school, located in an North American town. The series deals with a wide range of subjects through its characters, including serious issues such as teenage pregnancy, abuse, bullying, racism, interracial dating, drugs, alcoholism, drunk driving, and eating disorders, as well as more mundane coming-of-age experiences, such as relationships, exams, and puberty.

Schuyler stated the series had a "double mandate to entertain and educate", and each episode was intended as a conversation starter. The series is set entirely from a teenage perspective. Additionally, adults have a small role in the series, usually never being present in a scene without a teenage character present, and the characters are portrayed navigating their own problems and making their own decisions, for better or for worse, with minimal adult intervention: "We're not looking for Father Knows Best."

The first two seasons encompass a full year, with some characters in Grade 7 and some in Grade 8, while season three takes place the following year, in which Grade 9, typically the start of high school in North America, is appended to the junior high school due to what the series describes to be , but in reality was a creative decision to retain the entire cast. In season three, the grade 9 students attend a nearby high school, Borden High, part-time. In the final episode, a faulty boiler causes a fire that destroys the school building forces the characters to evacuate from their graduation dance.

The series is not a sequel to The Kids Of Degrassi Street, despite sharing some of the actors from that series.

Episodes

Main article: List of Degrassi Junior High episodes

Season	Episodes		Originally aired
			First aired	Last aired
1	13		January 18, 1987 (1987-01-18)	May 3, 1987 (1987-05-03)
2	13		January 4, 1988 (1988-01-04)	March 28, 1988 (1988-03-28)
3	16		November 7, 1988 (1988-11-07)	February 27, 1989 (1989-02-27)

Degrassi Between Takes

Degrassi Between Takes is a half-hour documentary special that aired on 30 October 1989, a week before the premiere of the sequel series Degrassi High, on CBC. The documentary is a behind-the-scenes look at Degrassi Junior High, shot during the show's third season and narrated by Peter Gzowski. The special focuses on the development and impact of the series, with footage of the cast at the Gemini Awards, working on set, socializing in public and on publicity tours.

Cast

Main article: List of Degrassi characters (1987–1992)

Casting system

The Degrassi Junior High cast was drawn from a large pool of young actors who were a part of Playing With Time's "repertory company". It does not have a fixed cast listing and features a creditless opening sequence. Instead, the cast is listed in the closing credits, with the order of the billing changed based on those most important to the individual episode. The casting system for the show was designed so that every actor had "equal status", although eventually certain characters became more prominent and developed than others.

Degrassi Junior High features an age-appropriate cast, in direct opposition to the common practice of casting adult actors to play teenagers, a practice the Sydney Morning Herald's Brodie Lancaster described as a "rare occurrence" in the teen drama genre. During its development, Schuyler told the Toronto Star: "so much of the American stuff set in high schools is played by late teens and early 20s – and then some."

Additionally, many of the cast members were not actors previous to the show, a practice carried over from The Kids Of Degrassi Street, which similarly used untrained child actors. Because of the show's non-union status, they were paid a flat rate before shooting and receive no residuals. Crew members occasionally made background appearances as faculty and parents.

Primary and secondary characters

• Pat Mastroianni as Joey Jeremiah: A class clown and slacker with a humorous and extroverted personality. He performs in the band the Zit Remedy with his friends Snake and Wheels, and is extremely passionate about the band, despite their amateur quality, as he aspires to be a rock star. He has an on and off relationship with Caitlin Ryan starting in season three, which continues into Degrassi High and is rekindled in Degrassi: The Next Generation. His trademark attire consists of a fedora and Hawaiian shirts.
• Stacie Mistysyn as Caitlin Ryan: An activist who is passionate about issues such as the environment, though her efforts may sometimes do more harm than good. She has an on-again, off-again relationship with Joey Jeremiah starting in season three, which continues into Degrassi High and is rekindled in Degrassi: The Next Generation. In one episode, she has romantic dreams about her teacher, Ms. Avery, and suspects she is gay. She later discovers she is epileptic but doesn't take her medication out of embarrassment, resulting a seizure at a sleepover.
• Amanda Stepto as Christine "Spike" Nelson: A girl with distinctive punk style who learns she is pregnant in season one and decides to keep the baby, giving birth to daughter Emma between seasons two and three. Her pregnancy incites backlash from parents, who successfully have her removed from the school until she gives birth. She spends season three as a struggling single teen mother, trying to juggle her responsibilities with her studies. Stepto described Spike as a

  ... young teenage mom whose mixed up and confused. She feels alone because every guy she's dealt with has hurt her in some way. People would probably think she's crabby, but she's just insecure.

• Stefan Brogren as Archie "Snake" Simpson: Joey and Wheels' friend. He is the guitarist of the Zit Remedy. He is good-natured but awkward and is also risk-averse compared to Joey, often being dragged into his schemes. He and Melanie Brodie attempt to pursue a relationship, but it never quite works out. In one episode, his brother, Glen, visits Snake and their parents and comes out as gay, conflicting Snake and prompting his parents to disown Glen. Snake appears throughout every subsequent incarnation of the franchise, becoming a teacher and later the principal in Degrassi: The Next Generation.
• Neil Hope as Derek "Wheels" Wheeler: Joey and Snake's friend. He is the bassist of their band, the Zit Remedy. In season three, his adoptive parents are killed by a drunk driver, which leads to his personality changing for the worse, as he misses large periods of school. frequently fights with his grieving grandmother, and runs away to meet his birth father, who doesn't want anything to do with him anymore. His behaviour deteriorates further in Degrassi High.
• Anais Granofsky as Lucy Fernandez: A girl whose wealthy parents are never home and lives a bohemian lifestyle. Because she is almost always alone at home, she often throws parties attended by the rest of her class. In one episode, she shoplifts clothes, and while doing so with Voula, both are caught and Lucy is charged. In another episode, she fights off the advances of a predatory substitute teacher. She later becomes involved with high school student Clutch, to the detriment of her friend group, Schuyler described Lucy as "the embodiment of a latchkey kid."
• Nicole Stoffman as Stephanie Kaye, a popular girl who changes into provocative clothes when at school, and uses her new appeal to win the school presidency, forgetting to thank her childhood friend Voula for helping with her campaign. Her failure to follow through on her promises eventually causes a backlash from her classmates. She refuses to associate with her younger brother Arthur at school to maintain her image. Later, the divorce and custody battles of their parents, and her failure to pursue new student Simon Dexter sends her into a depression. Nicole Stoffman left the series at the end of season two to star in CTV's Learning The Ropes.
• Billy Parrott as Shane McKay, Spike's former boyfriend and the father of their daughter Emma. He faces opposition from his conservative Catholic parents as well as Spike herself, who harbors resentment toward him for his apparent lack of responsibility. In season three, he takes LSD at a rock concert, and is subsequently found under a bridge after having either fallen or jumped, sustaining severe brain damage. He appears in one episode of Degrassi High, and is revisited in Degrassi: The Next Generation, where he is played by Jonathan Torrens, as Parrott declined to return.
• Rebecca Haines as Kathleen Mead, a "snooty mean girl" who is academic rivals with Caitlin. Her best friend is Melanie Brodie. She is shown to have very conservative viewpoints, such as condemning Spike for her pregnancy, but is shown to have a very troubled home life and an alcoholic mother. In one episode, she develops anorexia and refuses to seek help until she collapses.
• Duncan Waugh as Arthur Kobalewscuy: Stephanie's geeky younger brother. He befriends Yick Yu in the first episode.
• Siluck Saysanasy as Yick Yu: Arthur's best friend. A boat person, Yick doesn't want to divulge his refugee background for a class project. For a brief period, he and Melanie Brodie try and date unsuccessfully.
• Sara Ballingall as Melanie Brodie: Kathleen's boy-crazy and naive best friend. She lives at home with her frugal single mother. She and Snake attempt to pursue a relationship but it never truly works out.

Development

Background and concept

Linda Schuyler, a schoolteacher, and Kit Hood, a freelance film editor, began collaborating to produce documentaries and educational filmstrips in 1976 through their company, Playing With Time, though initially their work was met with little interest and enthusiasm from distributors. In 1979, the pair created a short film based on the children's book Ida Makes A Movie. The short film was a success on the CBC, prompting the creation of several follow-up films that continued until 1982, when they were officially serialized under the name The Kids Of Degrassi Street. Following the lives of children in and around Toronto's De Grassi Street, the series received critical acclaim and won several awards, including an International Emmy in 1985.

Schuyler was dissatisfied with the lack of programming targeted toward adolescents, and sought to make a series for that demographic. In January 1984, Schuyler told the Toronto Star that they were "planning another series, Degrassi Junior High," and that they were "negotiating seriously with the CBC", and referred to the idea again to the newspaper in November 1985, stating: "The very last segment [of The Kids Of Degrassi Street] shows the kids graduating. Where are they going? Degrassi Junior High!"

Casting

The audition process was wider in scope to that of The Kids Of Degrassi Street. Whereas previously auditions were advertised on sandwich boards outside Playing With Time's office in Queen Street East, the Degrassi Junior High auditions were advertised in newspapers and in flyers distributed to many public and art schools across the Greater Toronto Area. The first to audition was Pat Mastroianni, who was eventually cast as fedora-wearing class clown Joey Jeremiah. Approximately 300 kids auditioned for roles in the show. 54 were ultimately selected, forming a pool of actors that was officially dubbed the Playing With Time Repertory Company.

As several actors from The Kids Of Degrassi Street were slated to return, Schuyler, Hood, and Moore pondered whether they should keep their original characters, or recast the actors in new roles. Schuyler was concerned that changing their characters would cause confusion for viewers, while Moore was in favour of the change, as it meant a clean slate. They called a meeting with the actors and presented them with the choice, and all of them agreed with Moore; "they wanted to leave behind the baggage, personalities and families of where they'd been," said Hood. As a result, many of the actors who were regulars on The Kids Of Degrassi Street at this time, including Anais Granofsky, Neil Hope, and Stacie Mistysyn, returned as entirely different characters to which they had previously played.

After the cast was finalized, they underwent a three-week acting workshop from May to June 1986, in which they were taught basic acting techniques and given seminars about filmmaking. These workshops were repeated annually before filming each season. Characters were developed based on the strength of their actors, and actors who showed promise would have their roles expanded.

Writing

Yan Moore was the head writer of Degrassi Junior High, and later Degrassi High, while the other writers were Scott Barrie, Kathryn Ellis, Avrum Jacobson, Michael Kennedy, Susin Nielsen, and John Oughton. They drew upon a variety of sources for inspiration, including their own teenage experiences, real world events, and "official idea sessions" with the actors, who would frequently confide in Moore and others about their real-life experiences, many of which were fictionalized, including Amanda Stepto experiencing public harassment and mockery for her hairstyle, and Pat Mastroianni attempting to commandeer the minibus that took the actors to the set.

The writers deliberately avoided real-world cultural references in an effort to avoid dating the show, instead creating fictional pop culture as a substitute. This includes bands such as "Gourmet Scum", movies such as "Teen Academy IV" and "Swamp Sex Robots", game shows such as "Quest for the Best", and soap operas such as "Days Of Passion". Real-life sex educator Sue Johanson played "Dr. Sally", who hosts a radio talk show similar to Johanson's Sunday Night Sex Show. This approach was abandoned for Degrassi: The Next Generation, for it was felt the technology of that series would date the show regardless.

Production and filming

The former Daisy Avenue Public School (pictured in 2009), located in the former district of Etobicoke, was used as the filming location for Degrassi Junior High.

Degrassi Junior High was filmed between July 1986 and December 1988. Episodes usually took two weeks to rehearse and two weeks to film, and the production of a season usually took place from April to December. It was shot on 16mm film. Each episode cost approximately $250,000 to $350,000 to produce; the first season cost $2.6 million.

A typical episode production cycle began with a readthrough, where the actors were allowed to extensively scrutinize and make suggestions to the script. When it came to filming, the cast would congregate outside the Playing With Time office to be picked up by minibus and taken to the set, where they would film from 9am to 6pm.

Measures were taken to make sure the actors rarely missed school, such as the use of an on-set tutor, and a rule that the actors miss no more than eight days of school in a month. Those with bigger roles typically missed three to four days a week. Some of the actors had trouble with their teachers because of the show; Pat Mastroianni said his geography teacher "didn't want to be understanding or lenient" and gave him a low grade.

The building used for the eponymous school was the Daisy Avenue Public School, now known as the Vincent Massey Academy, located on 68 Daisy Avenue in the former district of Etobicoke, Ontario. At the time of filming, the ground floor housed a Seventh-Day Adventist school, which meant that the majority of scenes were shot on the second floor. The interior was modified, with rows of lockers added to otherwise empty hallways, and a fake door to represent the principal's office. The site, which was sold for development but ultimately not demolished due to backlash, is now a campus of the Vincent Massey Academy child care centre.

Scenes outside the school were shot in the Greater Toronto Area. Locales often seen include the Queen-Broadview Village, which contained the real De Grassi Street as well as a building similar to that of Vincent Massey's, Dundas Street Junior School, which coincidentally served as the location for the school in The Kids of Degrassi Street, that served as a background double; this was done to make it appear as if the neighbourhood was near the school, when in reality it was not.

Various real life stores and other locations are shown and mentioned in the series, such as the Shoppers Drug Mart location on the corner of Queen & Carlaw Streets. Other locations, such as the Degrassi Grocery corner store, and the Broadview Community Health Clinic featured in the episode "It's Late", no longer exist. Earl Grey Senior Public School in Toronto, where Linda Schuyler was a teacher in the 1970s, served as the setting for Borden High School, where the grade 9 students of season 3 attend part-time.

Opening sequence

Degrassi Junior High's "documentary-style" opening sequence begins with a stop-motion live-action scene of a person picking up a group of textbooks, labeled "History", "Geography", "Math" and "English", and walking away. It mostly consists of what Cinema Canada's Anne Weiss described as "a barrage of images - of faces in closeup, of papers falling out of lockers, of kids running out of classroom doors, and moving through the crowds of the hallway," juxtaposed with images of students with blackboard-esque transitions. The opening sequence does not highlight any character or credit the cast members. Reviewing each opening sequence throughout the Degrassi franchise, Seamus Kelley of Den of Geek was critical of this: "The opening needs to be a little cheat sheet to all of them. Give us a little clue to their personality. Here we’ve just got some random smiling and a set of twins that are ALWAYS in the same shot together."

Music

Lewis Manne and Wendy Watson were the composers of the music in Degrassi Junior High, including its opening theme, which features Watson on vocals. The theme song, which is composed in the key of C major and is driven by synthesizers and guitars, begins uncertainly: "Don't think I can make it/Don't think I can take it/I wonder what I'm gonna do." The lyrics then turn positive as the narrator sees "someone smiling right at me", Weiss opined it had a "chirpy, almost inane melody." Kelley, who was critical of the visuals of the opening sequence, commended the accompanying theme music for its optimism and motivation and declared it superior to The Kids of Degrassi Street's brief, maudlin opening sequence.

Degrassi Junior High features music by a variety of Canadian artists, which is heard on radios and at school dances,

Release

Original broadcast run

Canada

The series premiered on CBC on 18 January 1987 and concluded after three seasons and 42 episodes on 27 February 1989. It originally ran on Sundays at 5:00 p.m. Starting from its second season, due to a budget squeeze, it was then moved to Monday nights at 7:30 p.m, and then later by then-new CBC programming chief Ivan Fecan, a supporter of the show, to primetime at 8:30 p.m, between the popular American series Kate & Allie and Newhart. Fecan viewed Degrassi Junior High as a standard for Canadian television writers; in 1988, he stated that there was "nothing bogus about that show", and that he wished that he had "20 more shows like it". When Fecan called Schuyler to inform her of the move, she reportedly disagreed, feeling that the series wasn't ready for prime time. She eventually agreed to the decision, under the condition that if the move was unsuccessful, the series wouldn't be cancelled and instead be moved back to its original timeslot. Following its move to prime time, the viewership increased 40 percent.

International broadcast

In the United States, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) debuted the series on 26 September 1987. On PBS, the show aired on Saturdays at 7:00 p.m. In New York City, the series aired on Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m. on WNET starting from 22 September 1987. On PBS, the first two seasons were combined into one 26-episode season. The third season, which was aired as the second season in the United States, premiered on 10 December 1988 and ended on 15 April 1989. The program was distributed through PBS member station WGBH-TV in Boston, who was a primary financial backer of the show. Due to PBS's lack of commercials, the American version featured more scenes than the original Canadian version.

By November 1988, Degrassi Junior High was being shown in over forty countries, including Australia, Greece, China, France, and the United Kingdom, where it was screened on the BBC starting from 5 April 1988. In the UK, several episodes were not broadcast in their regular timeslot, including "It's Late" and "Rumour Has It", which involved rumours that a teacher was gay. Although these episodes were later included on the youth program DEF II on BBC2, the second and third seasons were never broadcast. The series concluded its BBC run on 10 May 1988, with re-runs of the aired episodes from the first season continuing into 1989.

In Australia, the show debuted on ABC TV on 8 February 1988, as part of The Afternoon Show hosted by James Valentine, where it aired at 5:00 p.m. The series finale aired in Australia on 10 October 1989.

In France, Junior High and High were aired under the banner Les Années collège (The College Years) on Antenne 2 starting from 10 September 1988.

Re-runs and syndication

In Canada, the series re-ran on CBC starting from summer 1991. On 1 September 1997, the show began to air in re-runs on Showcase. In the United States, the series was rerun on Showtime starting from 14 August 1994, in its original 1987 CBC timeslot. Starting from 8 October 2005, it debuted on the Noggin block The N with a two-hour block, followed by standard re-runs. In Australia, re-runs aired starting on ABC from 1992. It later re-ran on ABC1's Rollercoaster and ABC2. By 2001, it had been syndicated in over seventy countries. In the United Kingdom, UK Gold screened Degrassi Junior High daily starting from its launch in 1992. Later in the mid-1990s, Degrassi Junior High later reran on The Children's Channel.

Novel adaptations

Main article: Degrassi Classic novels

Starting from 1988, a series of mass-market paperback novelizations based on Degrassi Junior High were released by James Lorimer & Co. Each book centred on an individual character and built upon their story arcs from the television series. Another Degrassi Junior High novel, Exit Stage Left, which follows the characters organizing a school play, is original. A thirteenth book, based on the characters Arthur Kobalewscuy and Yick Yu, was written by Kathryn Ellis, but remains unreleased.

In Australia, the books were published by ABC Books in November 1990, with more published in January 1991. Quebecois translations were published by Les Éditions de Minuit.

Home media and streaming

Degrassi Junior High has been made available on home video and streaming.

The series was only available by mail order to

In 1988, Screen Entertainment released season one to VHS in the United Kingdom.

In North America, WGBH released a 21-volume VHS box set in 2000, followed by a nine-disc DVD box set in 2005. The North American DVD release includes the 1989 behind-the-scenes documentary Degrassi Between Takes, all six episodes of the 1992 non-fiction docuseries Degrassi Talks, printable materials, wallpapers, and a pop quiz.

In Australia, Beyond Home Entertainment, under its Force imprint, released a seven-disc box set in 2005, which contained similar special features but omits the pop quiz,

Degrassi Junior High was officially uploaded to YouTube by Degrassi's official YouTube channel, as well as Canada Media Fund's now-defunct channel Encore+, in the 2010s, In July 2023, it was made available on Amazon Prime Video in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, along with the majority of its parent franchise.

Reception and impact

Contemporary critical reception

Degrassi Junior High received immediate critical acclaim upon its premiere. Many critics declared it to be superior to

Favourable reviews regularly came from the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Montreal Gazette.

Influence on teen drama

Despite a relative lack of acknowledgment from the mainstream, Degrassi Junior High has been described as the progenitor of the modern television teen drama series, and particularly as the inspiration for the genre's first large-scale success, Beverly Hills, 90210. A popular rumour, that 90210 producer Aaron Spelling originally sought to purchase the rights to the series, has been denied by both Hood and Schuyler, though both believed Degrassi Junior High to have influenced Spelling somewhat. The Guardian's Sarah Hughes suggested that Beverly Hills, 90210 was "Spelling's answer" to Degrassi Junior High. Other shows Degrassi Junior High is credited with influencing include Dawson's Creek, 7th Heaven, and Felicity.

There have academic studies on the comparisons between Degrassi Junior High and American teen drama series.

Cult following

Degrassi Junior High, as well as its sequel series Degrassi High, developed a significant cult following after their initial broadcast. The 1990s saw the proliferation of fan websites. One of these sites, Degrassi Online, maintained by University of Waterloo student Mark Aaron Polger, was particularly comprehensive, hosting multimedia and a collection of user-submitted fanfiction. Epitome Pictures, who were now handling the Degrassi series, sent Polger a draft statement of claim in December 2000, claiming he was confusing the public with his website. After he sent a press release to several media outlets and garnered the support of other fans, Epitome withdrew the claim. Polger criticised Epitome Pictures for showing a lack of gratitude for the online community's impact on the show's continued success. In 1996, Sharon Mulholland created the website Degrassi Update, which listed public sightings of cast members from the show.

On 24 August 1999, several fans hosted a small reunion event at the Centennial College where Degrassi High was filmed, and the cast reunited on the CBC youth show Jonovision, hosted by Jonathan Torrens, on 24–25 December 1999. With people from as far as San Francisco attending the taping, it became Jonovision's highest-rated episode and is now regarded as a catalyst for the development of the revival Degrassi: The Next Generation.

Pat Mastroianni, who had spent most of the 2010s appearing at fan conventions across Canada, later organized Degrassi Palooza, a convention celebrating the legacy of the 1980s Degrassi series and featuring a reunion of 26 cast and crew members, at the Westin Toronto Airport Hotel in mid-June 2019.

In popular culture

American filmmakers Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes are fans of Degrassi Junior High and referenced the series in several of their works. The pair discovered the series on PBS in the early 1990s while working at a convenience store in New Jersey. They initially dismissed it but changed their minds after being affected by the episode they watched. Smith expressed an admiration for character Caitlin Ryan, who inspired the name of a character in Clerks (1994). He attempted to cast Stacie Mistysyn in Mallrats (1995), but this was rejected by Universal Pictures, who wanted a better-known actress. In the film, Shannen Doherty's character wears a Degrassi jacket; according to Smith, Doherty had no knowledge of Degrassi, and was annoyed that the jacket, which she was allowed to keep after the shoot, had been altered. Smith and Mewes appeared as themselves in Degrassi: The Next Generation in 2005,

References

Works cited

• Cole, Stephen (2002). Here's looking at us : celebrating fifty years of CBC-TV. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-2251-4. OCLC 49796101.