References To Popular Culture in The Show
The producers of the show deliberately tried to exclude any references to actual movies and music of the time so that the show would not become quickly dated. This resulted in the creation of movies, television shows and musicians for the show itself. Some examples of made up movies are Tender Beats the Heart and Teen Academy IV. Days of Passion is a fictional soap opera which stars teen-heartthrob Damon King. Quest for the Best is the only other television show in the Degrassi universe, which is based on an actual Canadian high school quiz show called Reach for the Top. Fictional bands in the show are The Gourmet Scum, and later The Savages.
In the episode It's Late, Wheels can be clearly seen wearing a Footscray Bulldogs sweater. What is unusual is that the sport, Australian rules football and its organisation, the VFL, at the time would have been unknown in Canada. Although the VFL staged several exhibition matches that year, the Bulldogs were not involved and were perhaps the least successful and supported teams in the league. The Australian Football League (Aussie Rules Football) actually had a cult following in Canada in the 1980s, as the games were televised on The Sports Network from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. Earlier on, in "The Big Dance" he was wearing a New Orleans Saints jersey; while the NFL is and was quite popular in Canada, the "Aints" at the time were perennially bottom of the league.
The Doctor Sally radio show is based on a call-in radio show entitled the Sunday Night Sex Show. Registered nurse and sex educator Sue Johanson was the host of the program which aired on local Toronto, Ontario radio station Q-107 between 1984 and 1998 and nationally until 2005. Sue Johanson portrays a fictionalized version of herself, "Doctor Sally", in two Degrassi Junior High episodes, and reprised the role on Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Read more about this topic: Degrassi Junior High
Famous quotes containing the words popular, culture and/or show:
“Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers another.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)