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Degrassi Junior High
Overview
Degrassi Junior High is a Canadian CBC Television teen drama series that was produced from 1987-1989 as part of the Degrassi series. The show followed the lives of a group of students attending the titular fictional school. Many episodes tackled difficult topics such as drug use, child abuse, teenage pregnancy, homosexuality, homophobia, racism, and divorce, and the series was acclaimed for its sensitive and realistic portrayal of the challenges of teenage life. The cast comprised mainly non-professional actors, which added to the show's sense of realism. The series featured many of the same actors who had starred on The Kids of Degrassi Street a few years earlier, including Stacie Mistysyn, Neil Hope, Anais Granofsky, Sarah Charlesworth and others. However, their character names and family situations had been changed, so Degrassi Junior High cannot, therefore, be considered a direct spinoff. The legal counsel for all the episodes was Stephen Stohn who later became the executive producer of Degrassi: The Next Generation. The series was filmed at the unused Vincent Massey Public School in Etobicoke, Ontario.
Status
Ended
Created By
Linda Schuyler, Kit Hood
Network
CBC Television
Seasons & Episodes
Season 2
Episodes
Eggbert
Spike is given an egg to take care of for a week, to show her what taking care of a baby is like. Stephanie and Alexa are both attracted to Simon, the new student. Stephanie is jealous to see him and Alexa together at Lucy's party. Feeling guilty, Shane asks Spike if there is anything he can do to help her. She gives the egg to Shane and tells him to take care of it. Shane arrives at the party with the egg and starts tossing it around the room with his friends. Spike leaves, feeling upset, telling Shane how upset she is at him. Shane later tells his parents that he got her pregnant.
A Helping Hand...
Lucy takes a liking to her subsitute teacher. She is pleased with all the attenion he gives her. L.D. sees him look down Lucy's top in class and warns Lucy to be careful. Lucy tells L.D. that she is just jealous. Lucy agrees to stay behind after school and help her teacher. Wheels walks in and finds the teacher's hands on Lucy's shoulders. Lucy runs home and is comforted by L.D. The following day at school, the teacher asks Lucy if she'd like to stay after school again. ""Not in a million years"", she replies. Wheels has been making poor marks, so his parents make him tutor with Ms. Avery after school. This means that Wheels must quit the band until his grades are better. He also ends up getting glasses since part of the problem was he couldn't see the board well. Meanwhile, Joey and Snake find Simon playing bass guitar in the gym, and ask him to be the zits' new bass player.
Great Expectations
When a new student, Liz, transfers to the school; Joey takes an immediate liking to her. Rumours begin circulating that Liz is a wild girl, who likes to have sex and Joey wants to know if its true. While working after school on a project at her house, Joey asks Liz if she wants to have sex. Liz then kicks Joey out of the house and he later realizes how sorry he is, because he actually likes her.
Dinner & a Show
Shane tells Spike that his parents want to meet her and her mother to discuss the baby. When the five meet, Shane's Dad announces that his son will attend a private school. Shane tells his father that he isnt going away, and wants to be around when the baby is born. Melanie breaks a date with Yick by saying her mom wont let her go. Yick later discovers that Melanie lied, when he runs into her and Snake, on a date, at the movies.
Stage Fright
Caitlin learns that she has epilepsy and doesn't want her friends to know. While attending Susie's slumber party, Caitlin has a seizure and her friends find out. Caitlin loses the lead part of the school play to Kathleen and decides to drop out of the show. She later realizes that dropping out won't change her condition and re-joins the show. Meanwhile, a painfully shy Michelle is terrified to give a speech in front of the class. Joey teases her by calling her a mouse (quiet like a mouse) and making squeaking noises. When Michelle tries to get out of the speech by telling Mr. Raditch she has a sore throat, he doesn't fall for it and tells her to talk about something she knows. She gives her speech on her shyness, and everyone loves it. Afterward Joey tries to get Michelle to write his speech.
Fight!
Dwayne, the school bully, challenges Joey to an after school fight. After almost chickening out, Joey shows up to fight, but still gets hurt. Desperate to win Simon's affections, Stephanie asks him if he wants to help out with the school dance. She is later crushed when he tells her he is dating Alexa and isn't interested in seeing her.
Bottled Up
When Kathleen and her classmates prepare for their part on a tv quiz show, she invites them to her house to practice. She is embarassed when her mom appears drunk in front of her friends. Her mother later misses the taping of the quiz show, because she has been drinking. Kathleen later decides to speak to a counselor about her problems at home.
Sealed with a Kiss
Erica meets an older guy at the school dance and french kisses him in the school stairwell. She later feels ill, and thinks he may have given her mono. When he drops by the house to visit, Erica is too sick to go out. He asks her twin sister Heather to go for a drive instead, where he kisses her as well. Heather tells Erica what happened and they both go to the doctors office to see if they have mono. They are both relieved to find out Erica had just come down with the flu.
Dog Days
After her father decides to seek custody of her, Stephanie becomes depressed. This depression doesn't improve when her mother announces she plans to marry her new boyfriend. Arthur finds a stray dog and wants to keep him. His mother refuses this, but Stephanie tells Arthur she will cheer up and maybe this will make their mom change her mind about keeping the dog.
Censored
Caitlin overhears that the PTA want to throw Spike out of school because of her pregnancy. She then decides to write an article about it for the school paper. When Mr. Raditch refuses the article to be published, Caitlin decides to release an underground newspaper. The whole school receives a copy and applaud her efforts. The only other dissaprover, besides Mr. Raditch is Spike. She confronts Caitlin about not discussing this with her before publishing the article.
Trust Me
Snake's parents go out-of-town for the weekend, leaving him home alone. Joey and Wheels convince him to let them sleep over. When they oversleep, an underage Joey drives Wheels to an appointment in Snake's parents car. All goes well until they see another vehicle bump into the car while it is parked. They spend all their money getting the taillight fixed, only later to discover that Snake's father had broken it himself the week prior.
...He's Back
The substitute teacher from ""A Helping Hand"" (season 2, episode 2) is back, only this time is teaching Susie's class. Lucy warns Susie to be careful around him, but Susie doesn't know what she means by this. After the teacher touches Susie; her, Lucy, L.D. and Wheels report him to the principal.
Pass Tense
It's the end of the school year and Joey wants the band he formed with Snake and Wheels to perform at the graduation dance. It is then announced that the eighth grade class will return to Degrassi in the fall, as the school is adding an ninth grade. Mr. Raditch informs Joey that he has to repeat the eighth grade due to poor marks. Joey doesn't want to perform at the graduation dance after this, but Wheels and Snake convince him to. Also at the dance, Spike goes into labour.
Top Cast
Billy Parrott
Shane McKay
Roger Montgomery
Mr. Garcia
Cathy Keenan
Liz O' Rourke
Stefan Brogren
Archibald 'Snake' Simpson
Angela Deiseach
Erica Farrell
Deborah Lobban
Doris Bell
Irene Courakos
Alexa Pappadopolos
Amanda Stepto
Christine 'Spike' Nelson
Neil Hope
Derek 'Wheels' Wheeler
Anais Granofsky
Lucy Fernandez
Maureen Deiseach
Heather Farrell
Amanda Cook
Lorraine 'L.D.' Delacorte
