Trivia / Degrassi

• Dawson Casting: A big part of the praise for Degrassi is its avoidance of this trope ever since the beginning. There have been some borderline examples of this however: Amanda Stepto was 16 when she was cast as the 14 year-old Spike, and the age gap would increase by a year as the second season of Degrassi Junior High was set in the second semester of the same year as the first season. Mike Lobel was 19 when he debuted as Jay Hogart in The Next Generation, and Munro Chambers was 20 when he debuted as Eli Goldsworthy later on.
• Executive Meddling: Has faced this on several occasions.
  • The series premiere of Degrassi High, "A New Start", in which Erica Farrell has an abortion, aired without any censorship or alteration on the CBC, but for its American debut, was edited by PBS to remove a scene at the end of the episode where Erica and twin sister Heather push past a group of anti-abortion picketers to make it to the clinic. While PBS claimed this was done to make the ending more "powerful and poignant", Kit Hood lashed out at the network for giving the episode a "happy, safe but incomplete" ending typical of American television and ordered his name removed from the credits.
  • Degrassi: The Next Generation episode "Accidents Will Happen", in which Manny Santos has an abortion, was not merely edited, but withheld from broadcast for three years, while it aired without censorship on CTV. Many American fans obtained the episode online via off-air recordings of the CTV broadcast, until it was finally aired during a late-night TNG special in 2006.
• Franchise Killer: Next Class is largely regarded as one by Next Generation fans, who felt Next Class to be a failed attempt at appealing to the zeitgeist of 2016 with its gratuitous social media references (e.g. episode titles named after hashtags) and more heavy-handed approach to its topics, a far cry from the perceived authenticity of Next Generation. While every iteration since Junior High has faced some form of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!, Next Class stands out because that sentiment is more or less popular consensus, and is generally regarded as an Audience-Alienating Era. Its cancellation in 2017 happened without fanfare and was only confirmed two years later, when Stefan Brogren casually tweeted about it.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Kirsten Bourne, who played Tessa Campanelli in Junior High and High, was already a fan of the show when she was discovered during a cast meet-and-greet.
  • Mike Lobel, who played Jay Hogart on The Next Generation, was a huge fan of Junior High and High.
  • Christina Schmidt, who played Terri MacGregor on The Next Generation, revealed on a podcast that she was also a fan of Junior High and High, and named Melanie as her favourite character.
• Referenced by...: Kevin Smith references Degrassi in several of his 90s films, such as Mallrats (where Shannen Doherty's character wears a Degrassi jacket).
• Throw It In!: In the "classic" era, the writers often took inspiration from events in the actors' real lives. When Pat Mastroianni attempted to joyride a company vehicle, a future episode of Junior High was built around Joey stealing Snake's parents' car. When Amanda Stepto experienced harassment in public over her punk hairstyle, Spike would get laughed out of a job interview.

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