For many, the concept of Canadian Teen Television is completely wrapped up in that decades old stalwart Degrassi. Through many renamings, revivals, and recastings, it has held on to its position as lead export of Canadian youth culture. It is generally remembered (by those of us who think about these things) as the first teen drama, paving the way for a surge of American series focusing on ensemble casts of high school students throughout the 1990s.
It has seemingly always served as Canadian counter-point to the dozens of American shows that have populated this relatively young genre of television. And while it is, understandably, the longest running and most highly recognizable Canadian teen series to have ever existed, it probably shouldn’t be surprising to learn it is not the only one.
While major networks CBC and CTV have brought viewers several teen shows over the years, my memories of watching TV as a pre-teen and early adolescent always seem to come back to fragmented memories of YTV original programming. It shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that Youth Television produced a healthy number of youth-oriented series with teen protagonists.
Between 1997 and 2002, YTV broadcast at least eight original series that all featured ensemble teen casts (more, if you include a wider range of teen-focused genres). Following this boom in teen programming, a few more series were made, but after 2006, production just seems to stop, and as far as I can tell, very few original, Canadian series have been produced for the network since, and the few that have seem to fall into the category of teen/kid-focused sitcom.
This drop off of original Canadian content for youth makes me sad for a couple of reasons. The first is nostalgia. I remember the days when I would come home from school and watch whatever happened to be on YTV. I didn’t follow any particular show, but was happy to spend half an hour here and there at Breaker High, Student Bodies, Vampire High, Dark Oracle, or 15/Love. It makes me sad that today’s youth don’t have these outrageously Canadian, cheesy fictional high schools to frequent after coming home from their real-world place of learning.
There is something distinctly homegrown about this line-up, which is the other reason I’m sad to see it lacking compared to ten (to 15) years ago. These shows are all somewhat funny, silly, and lighthearted. The majority of them have some kind of supernatural element. It seems they left the Degrassi territory of real-world problems and straight-up drama to CTV, and called out to their younger viewers with Big Wolf on Campus and The Zack Files. It’s hard to pinpoint what’s particularly Canadian about a thing, but the fact that these shows were made in Canada by Canadians strikes me as a major factor. There just seems to be something Canadian in being silly, without being too showy; something heartwarming in the midst of the ridiculous.
Of course there are some fantastic imports available for youth audiences, but it makes me sad to think that all that wonderful, creative energy, producing so much television content for youth, has somehow dissipated, or migrated. It scares me that there is barely a job market for aspiring Canadian fiction TV producers. I see this all in the context of budget cuts and fewer original series in Canada, overall. In a world where our local television producers barely have funding to create original programming, can anyone take a risk on a series about a contemporary teen girl who is somehow also Guinevere of Camelot, two siblings who jump in and out of a prophetic comic book, or a high school where teen vampires are socialized to live with humans?
These wacky and ridiculous premises are what make YTV original programming from the turn of the century an absolute gem. It may be my nostalgia talking, but there’s also a heavy dose of indignation that me and my peers who were socialized alongside crazy, ridiculous teen television, might not even get the chance, as adults, to participate in the industry that brought us such entertainment as youth. I don’t want these kinds of shows to go extinct, and I really hope that the culture that produced them doesn’t either.
