The show actually started as THE KIDS OF DEGRASSI STREET. It spawned into DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH which later morphed into DEGRASSI HIGH which begat the DEGRASSI HIGH: SCHOOL'S OUT movie and then many years later begat DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION.

 

I discovered DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH by accident. I had gone out drinking with my friend Sandy one night and ended up crashing at her place. Sandy got up mad early and put on channel 13. Why channel 13? I don't know. Sandy didn't have cable yet ...but still.....what the Hell was she watching on channel 13? SESAME STREET? MR ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD? SHARI LEWIS AND LAMBCHOP? Who the f*ck knows! But as fate would have it DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH went on and I, half-awake and half-asleep and ALL hungover, rolled over and said "That sounds good. What are you watching?" and Sandy said "DEGRASSI" and from that moment I was hooked: After five minutes of watching DEGRASSI I could tell it was a good show. A damn good show!

 

DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH was an '80s Teens-In-Turmoil show done right. The kids were portrayed by real kids with little or no acting experience. And the kids were playing charactors who were the same age as they were in real life : None of that BEVERLY HILLS 90210 bullsh*t where a 27 year old man is playing a 16 year old kid. And the DEGRASSI kids looked like real kids, zits and all , unlike the polished model types you see on shows like BEVERLY HILLS 90210, DAWSONS CREEK and THE OC. Sure, they had some wild fashions going on (Spike's hair! Caitlin's headbands! Lucy's scarves!) but it was the '80s and people actually dressed like that back then, damn it!

 

Not only were the kids of DEGRASSI realistic, the storylines were realistic. And somewhat edgy too. When someone on DEGRASSI thought they might be pregnant it wasn't twenty minutes of "What if I'm pregnant? What if I'm pregnant?"  just  to have the charactor - Whew!- get their period in Act Three. Oh no: In the DEGRASSI world if you thought you might be pregnant chances were you were indeed pregnant. And then you had to decide if you wanted to keep the baby, give it up for adoption or have an abortion. There were no cut and dry happy ending answers. Problems weren't always solved in 25 minutes like on so many other shows.

 

There was something in the show for every one of us to identify with. Maybe we haven't all gotten pregnant in highschool or jumped off a bridge while taking acid but haven't more than a few of us gotten drunk before a school dance and then acted the fool? Tryed to buy beer with a fake ID? Tryed to lead people into thinking we weren't a virgin when we were? Hated a teacher or a parent?

 

So if you love yourself some DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH, DEGRASSI HIGH, DEGRASSI HIGH: SCHOOL'S OUT or DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION I'm sure you will enjoy this website.