DeGrassi

Whatever it takes

T-6 hours until the feature length DeGrassi movie DeGrassi Goes Hollywood premieres on the N network.

DeGrassi Junior High charmed its way into my life in sixth grade (that’s grade 6, Canadians) Health class.  It is the absolute best teaching tool I’ve ever encountered.  It kept me out of Canada until I was 25.

I just didn’t feel like getting teen-pregnant.  The teen pregnancy statistics in the Toronto metro area are alarming.  Or they were alarming, until I found out DeGrassi is not a documentary program.  Apparently, it is pretty difficult to find an Etobicoke junior high school where every student is dealing with their parents’ break up by drunk-driving to the middle school prom with their closeted-gay date, only to arrive and have a baby in the bathroom.  Especially when your production budget is $36 dollars, Canadian.  Don’t get me wrong they found one, but unfortunately nobody had an STD (although three people had pink eye).

What many people don’t know is that DeGrassi Junior High was preceded by The Kids of DeGrassi street which was, you guessed it, a series of afterschool specials from ’79-’82.  I think at this point we can all appreciate the impact early ’80s after school specials have had on my life.  It goes without saying that the kids of Degrassi Junior High eventually moved on to Degrassi High where more tomfoolery continued.  Most of it was c*nsored in the United States, which made episodes as confusing as post-code Hollywood films.  It’s too bad Raymond Chandler never wrote a novel about Erica’s pregnancy.

At first I was angry about the spin-off, DeGrassi: The Next Generation as I am about all spin-offs (I take a judgment-first approach to my tv-viewing. see: future angry post on Save By the Bell: the New Class).  Spike and Snake’s baby, Emma is the central character of the show.  After watching only a few episodes, I was hooked.

However, there have been some major disappointments:

Really Aubrey?  They just lost by 80 points; I don’t think that they are the best.  Not even second best… out of two teams.  Some passing drills might help…  or sports bras.  It’s too bad there’s no autotune for basketball.

But still, I’ll be watching tonight.  Whatever it takes.