High school shows and teen dramas
 

I'm sure everyone has watched a show of such genre/setting at some point or another in their lives, so let's talk about our favorites shall we?

When it comes to live-action TV, Parker Lewis gets my vote. Pretty funny show that sorta satirizes the whole high school drama genre, with the main lead actually being the most popular student at school instead of the "nerdy guy that gets bullied by jocks" or the "shy unpopular girl". It's a pretty funny show, and always worth a watch to bring back memories. "Synchronizing swatches". Who doesn't remember that line? :P

I watched a fair share of Freaks and Geeks as well, which was alright but kinda hit and miss, I'd say. I liked Sam and his group of friends. They were funny.

Also, anyone remember a tv show from the early 2000s called Popular, starring Carly Pope? I think it was the first HS show I've watched, so it kinda left an impression on me. According to wiki it got cancelled early in the 2nd season.

I'd talk about Life As We Know It and The O.C., but have only watched a few eps of those. The former was pretty alright from the bits I saw, and I don't remember much of the latter. A lot of things seemed to be going on in The O.C.

Then there's shows which I'm not even sure if they apply, such as Malcolm in the Middle and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Malcolm wasn't really about being a teenager, but more in a family's weird antics and situations they put themselves.

And when you venture into the anime territory, things are even muddier, since anime shows in HS settings usually aren't trying to emulate the HS experience. American ones might portray a very stereotypical image of HS, but I'd wager that their goal is to offer a sort of escapism with people being able to relate to the main characters, which tend to be unpopular at first and climb the "hierarchy" as time goes on. Anime/manga HS also offers escapism, but not so much in that sense, at least not from what I've seen. But mostly HS students doing funny and crazy stuff and/or living adventures.

I can see why the genre is popular. As a kid/teenager, I also liked watching about it, since those shows were always kinda relatable in one way or another, especially when it came to issues that every teenager goes through. As a guy in his mid-20s now, I don't care much for these types of shows anymore, other than occasionally watching a Parker Lewis episode out of nostalgia. It's kinda fun to watch an episode of a show like that and laugh at the dumb and shallow teenagers... who are played by people as old or even older than me :lol:

What about you? What shows do/did you like? They can be form any medium(live action tv, anime/manga, cartoons)

Saved By the Bell and Head of the Class. 'Nuff said.

DiGrassi Jr High.

Oh my gaaaahhhhhd, Parker F***ing Lewis. You and me should be roommates, guy.

I had a huge crush on Principal Russo. Don't judge me.

Why would I judge you for that? She wasn't exactly bad looking.

You've mentioned before that you enjoyed HS. Did you try to make the system work for you like Parker Lewis did, slight differences aside? :lol:

"Parker Lewis Can't Lose" was a documentary, sir, and the events happen in real time.

C'mon, you know it, guy. Look who yer talkin' to. :tcool: That guy and Uncle Jesse were my heroes. I got away with murder, cuz if you got swagger, you got everything. I didn't abuse the privilege but I only got in trouble about 10% of the time I actually should've, because I was "pals" with just the right number of people in positions of authority and knew how to talk my way out of things.

But yeah that show should have gone forever. We could all do a lot to learn from Parker Lewis. "Parker Lewis cannot lose. Therefore Batman can suck on that."

I guess HS can actually teach you how real life works after all, eh? Although teachers sure try to feed you BS hoping you'll believe it, but even the dumbest kids aren't dumb to such point.

Journalism was the easiest class I ever had. I'd had the same teacher two years in a row prior to that as a Language Arts teacher, so by then we were "pals" and I could just f*ck around constantly. Each quarter I'd turn in twice the required number of papers in each category, plus a bunch of movie and CD reviews and opinion columns, all by the end of the first week, so I'd ensured an minimum A+ grade plus extra credit. The main part of our grade was contributing stuff for the paper, and I'd just be like, "Just run any of that, it's fine," and everyone else would still be trying to figure out what to write about. Every couple weeks we'd have these silly "mandatory" papers everyone had to do and we all hated, mostly just busywork to make it more like a "real" class, and I just wouldn't do them. The teacher would get pissed because I was "setting a bad example", and I'd just point out that I'd turned in so much advance work that it was mathematically impossible for me to get lower than an A, and that maybe for showing so much initiative, I should be exempt from feeble-minded busywork. She hated that. She also hated that I'd ask for a hall pass to the bathroom, and me and my buddy Dan would go take 20-minute second lunch downstairs.

When I had her for an English teacher, I usually wouldn't read the book until the night before the exam, so I'd always fail the weekly quizzes since I had no idea what they were talking about. But I'd always ace the final test because I have an amazing recall memory, especially when things were fresh. So every week we'd get a quiz, and instead of bothering with it, I'd just write an essay about whatever I did the night before instead of my homework, usually some movie or something. And I'd actually get points for it because I'd try and sneak stuff in there to crack the teacher up, like something satirical or maybe a sly innuendo. Like she'd be grading papers and suddenly you'd hear her try not to laugh. :lol: So I'd get like 20 or 30 points out of 100 for "displaying creativity" or some sh*t like that. :lol: She's like "Can't you just do your homework?" and I'm like "This is so much more fun, though."

I figured out that the best way to get away with stuff is just to be perfect Just Enough to earn an extremely long leash. You can't screw around all the time, just enough to have fun with it.

HS wasn't as fun for me as it as for you, but nevertheless had its moments. Me and a couple of classmates cracked jokes during class and also never really studied or worried about tests, which were usually fairly easy to pass.

As for getting away with ****, I wasn't exactly a troublemaker, so no not really.

That ran from 1999 to 2000 and I didn't check it out until 2005, since DVDs were available. I rented them all from Netflix, and after I was done, I decided to seek out the yearbook edition on eBay, and I won one for a pretty good price. I'm just sorry I never got into the show at the time it was active, although I did see a bit of one episode at the time.

I was also big on Fifteen on Nickelodeon. Ryan Reynolds starred on that show as a teenager. I have a lot of the episodes taped, but they're really not in the best condition, unfortunately.

Only watched Saved by the Bell. The original with Zack.

I watched Smallville, The Inbetweeners, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars over the years. I'd talk about The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but I've only watched a few episodes of that show.

I also watched Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Kenan & Kel, but I don't think those shows count.

I didn't watch Freaks and geeks and Parker Lewis until the early-mid 2000s either. After all, I was born in 1990, so those shows aren't really from my time. It's just that they had reruns in the 21st century in a cable network.

If Sabrina does not count then I'd say that Fresh Prince counts even less.

Fresh Prince- ah, how could I forget that one?! Yeah, I'd say it counts. One of the better shows of its day, too! Also, I didn't know Ryan Renolds was on Fifteen. Dang! Is that where he got his start?

Yea, but in comparison with Sabrina. Fresh Prince had a lot less episodes set in HS. Many of them weren't set in it at all.

I guess it counts to some degree. A show can have more than one genre, after all.

I still watch Sabrina. Foxy bitches on that show, son.

I might have watched Parker Lewis Can't Lose when it was active, but not all that much. The first two seasons are available on DVD though, and I rented them from Netflix.

It looks like that is where he got his start. It's the earliest thing listed on his wikipedia entry. I don't know how well you remember the characters on Fifteen, but he played Billy Simpson. He's Canadian, and the show originated in Canada. It was where the first two seasons were filmed. Then production moved to Florida when Nickelodeon Studios used to be there, and the remainder of the series was filmed there.

Actually, I never watched it. It was "after my time" or in other words, I was busy with real life and making a living by then. I also didn't have cable after moving out on my own, and still don't, so it was never really in my radar. However, if it had been, I probably would have recognized that he'd end up a big name. Some young actors you can just tell.... I'm predicting the same for "Manny" from Modern Family. He's going to be a heart-breaker in a couple of years. I'm thinking a bit like Mario Lopez here.

Dang, and you had me thinking you knew a thing or two about it.

No, I'm just a bit of a fan of Ryan, LOL! Van Wilder and Waiting, man....