< Degrassi Junior High

Degrassi Junior High/Characters


Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High have Loads and Loads of Characters. Here are some of the more well-knowns: WARNING! Spoilers abound! ...but if that's not spoilerrific enough, here's a direct link to the character sheet of the adults on the sequel series.


Michelle Accette

Played by Maureen McKay

Melanie Brodie

Played by Sara Ballingall

Tessa Campinelli

Played by Kirsten Bourne

  • Chekhov's Gunman: An extra in Degrassi Junior High, ascended that status to become a recurring character in Degrassi High, and then eventually became a major character in The Movie.
  • Good Bad Girl: She actually seemed like a decent person until it came to relationships and sex.
  • Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted. She never tells Joey she was pregnant.
  • Your Cheating Heart: Cheats on her boyfriend Alex with Yick. This was way before she broke up Joey and Caitlin.

Clutch

Played by Steve Bedernjak

Simon Dexter

Played by Michael Carry

Heather and Erica Farrel

Played by Angela and Maureen Deiseach

Lucy Fernandez

Played by Anais Granofsky

Joey Jeremiah

Played by Pat Mastroianni

Stephanie Kaye

Played by Nicole Stoffman

  • Alpha Bitch: Although a much more vulnerable one.
  • Be a Whore to Get Your Man: The only way she feels she can attract boys is by dressing and acting like a total slut.
  • Big Brother Bully: A female example with the way she treats her brother Arthur.
  • Date Rape Averted: Avoided this from an older soap star with a horrible mullet.
  • Darker and Edgier: Her character after the first season. Her parents divorce and her lack of self worth leads her to consider suicide. She gets better.
  • Eighties Hair: Her hair might be the most dated element of the show.
  • Expy: She was the first Degrassi girl to change into more revealing clothing in the girls' washroom beofre class, a trick later used by Manny Santos and Alli Bhandari.
  • Funetik Aksent: She spells her name Kaye. K-A-Y-E. Calling her Kobalawski is just a Berserk Button.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: At her core, this is pretty much how she feels.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Once she cakes on the makeup, trashes up her clothes, and teases up her hair, she becomes the hottest 14 year old in Canada. Or so we are told.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: She pisses off everyone by the end of first season.
  • Ms. Fanservice
  • The Protagonist: She is the most prominent character during the first season of Degrassi Junior High and her story arc bookends the season.
  • Put on a Bus: To a private school in the last three seasons.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: The actress left the show and went on to star in a sitcom with former football star Lyle Alzado. This forced the writers to bring spotlight to other characters.

Arthur Kobalowski

Played by Duncan Waugh

  • A-Cup Angst: G-rated version: He hates being short.
  • The Artifact: Once Stephanie left, his character moved into the background. By Degrassi High, he was Demoted to Extra. Ironically this would also happen to Ashley and her brother Toby in Degrassi: The Next Generation. Their characters were very much based on Steph and Arthur.
  • Demoted to Extra: Along with Joey and Steph, he and Yick were the stars of Degrassi Junior High. But by Degrassi High, he is relegated to more of a background character,
  • Dogged Nice Guy: He has a major crush on Caitlin, but she makes it clear she is not interested. Other than that the poor guy gets no other romantic subplot. Which is saying something for Degrassi.
  • Geek
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: He was suppose to be part of a bullying plot during Degrassi High. But the actor had grown so large that it wasn't believable.
  • Those Two Guys: With Yick.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: Arthur and Yick were usually part the B-plot in every episode during Degrassi Junior High.

Luke Matthews

Played by Andy Chambers

Shane McKay

Played by Bill Parrot

Kathleen Mead

Played by Rebecca Haines

Rick Munro

Played by Craig Driscoll

  • Abusive Parents: His abusive father.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Caitlin and ultimately Kathleen.
  • Badass: Though it's more a reputation than anything.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Abruptly disappears after season two of DJH with only a passing mention by Caitlin in season three. He would be the first in a long line of Brother Chucks in the Degrassi franchise.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: His father beats him for giving Joey a soda.
  • Smarter Than You Look: Caitlin finds this out during the episode Smokescreen.
  • Troubled but Cute: The first of Degrassi's troubled cute boys that would continue with his Expy Craig Manning in TNG.

Christine "Spike" Nelson

Played by Amanda Stepto

Alexa Pappodopoulos

Played by Irene Courakos

Liz O'Rourke

Played by Cathy Keenan

  • Animal Wrongs Group: Hates Caitlin because she uses medicine tested on chimps for her seizures.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: With Spike.
  • The Quincy Punk: Averted. Although she has the look and attitude, she cares about issues like abortion and animal rights.
  • Rape as Backstory
  • Soapbox Sadie: Anti-abortion and pro animal rights. She is one of the few characters on television who is portrayed as pro-life, but not for religious reasons. She abhors abortion because her mother nearly aborted her.
  • Tsundere: To Joey early on, but after he tries to put the moves on her, goes to constant "tsun".

Caitlin Ryan

Played by Stacie Mistysyn

  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Rick and Joey
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Tries to call attention to how the parents are treating Spike's pregnancy. She ends up hurting Spike.
  • Ice Queen: Her portrayal after dumping Joey for Claude in Degrassi High. Joey even calls her an "Ice Maiden" at one point.
  • I Can Change My Beloved: She sometimes sees boys as projects to fix. Rick and Joey call her out on this.
  • Opposites Attract: Her and Joey/Rick.
  • Soapbox Sadie: Before Emma, there was Caitlin. Most of her plots revolved around her and some cause.
  • Skunk Stripe: Sort of; he hair isn't actually black, but she has medium to dark brown hair, and during season 3 of DJH, and the first season of DH, she had a blond wave in it.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: With Joey. Even though they are madly in love, no matter how hard they try, it never seems to work.
  • Tsundere: To Joey.

Archibald "Snake" Simpson

Played by Stefan Brogren

  • Awesome McCoolname: Snake. We never find out how he got the name.
  • Chick Magnet: He has many girls crushing on him in both DJH and DH (Melanie, Spike, Michelle, Amy, Allison). Subverted in The Movie where, for some reason, he was unable to get any girl and even made fun of because of this.
  • Cool Loser: In The Movie, he becomes a full fledged Butt Monkey.
  • Foreshadowing: In his very first appearance, running for student council against Stephanie, we see him standing on the steps of the school talking about what he'd change if he were in charge. Almost certainly nobody in 1987 knew what his being on the show would lead to, but the "..you won't recognize this school at all" scene at the end of The Boiling Point might be a deliberate Call Back.
  • Gentle Giant: Borders on Lovable Coward.
  • Heroic BSOD: He is, unfortunately, the one to discover Claude's body in the bathroom. Though he bravely reports it, he is still very traumatized by it and drops out of school for a week or two to recover.
  • Nice Guy
  • Precision F-Strike
  • Redheaded Hero: Well, sort of. He's basically one of the biggest characters on the show, and though his hair is more strawberry blond, this trope would still apply.

Claude Tanner

Played by David Armin-Parcells

Derek "Wheels" Wheeler

Played by Neil Hope

Yick Yu

Played by Siluck Saysanasy

Dwayne Myers

Played by Darrin Brown

Lorraine "L.D." Delacorte

Played by Amanda Cook

  • Girliness Upgrade: Averted. Although Lucy tried.
  • Ill Girl: Is diagnosed with Leukemia in season one of Degrassi High.
  • Put on a Bus: Her last appearance is during the first season of DH, and after that it's said that she's off adventuring with her dad after her brush with Leukemia. Lucy makes several video diaries for her, up until the very last episode of DH. However, none of this is present, nor is she in fact anywhere to be seen in School's Out.
  • Makeover Montage: Lucy gives her one and it makes her look much worse.
  • Soapbox Sadie: One of Degrassi's many feminists.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: This with most of her friends.

Alex Yankou

Played by John Ioannou

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