Degrassi High a look at Joey Jeremiah

On tonight's episode of Carlene Tonight- we start the year off with Celebrity Pat Mastroianni who played Joey Jeremiah on Degrassi High- the 80's sitcom that changed the way we learned about teenage life, sex, relationships and how it was to be a kid growing up in Toronto.

Pat talks about acting back then and how it didn't change his everyday life because he was able to separate life as a kid, and as an Actor.

Thanks Pat! for bringing back memories of our childhood when we use to tune into this show throughout our teenage years.

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Transcript

Carlene 0:02

Hi, I'm Carleen, and this is Carlene Tonight. Tonight we have with us Mr. Pat Mastriani, aka Joey, Jeremiah, and we have my co-host Matt. How are you guys?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

We're doing good. I'm, you know, I just survived my 49th birthday yesterday. Lies. Lies.

Carlene 0:31

Is it really? Oh yes, yes, yes. Happy belated birthday.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

That's all good. The wife and I literally just ate donuts and played video games all day.

Carlene 0:43

That sounds like a party, man. Oh my goodness. That sounds good. Yeah, yeah. What kind of donuts did you have?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

My sister-in-law had some fancy delivered donuts, like to my door. They were all these really fancy, super fresh and flavorful donuts, but there were just all these different flavors of cinnamon and maple and chocolate and um just the fanciest donuts I've ever seen. And I should they're they're somewhere around. I want to finish them off this morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

But yeah, so so Pat, how many donuts got eaten? How many? Are the are they all gone?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Oh, yeah, there's only like half a dozen, but I ate two. That was my birthday cake. Hey, hey, hey, that was my birthday cake, man. So I can eat as many as I want. I I get it. Once a year, it's it's totally cool, right? Yeah.

Carlene 1:28

What is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I love it. The good thing about being home all the time is I I try to be creative. So I wrote my autobiography this year. I I worked on a documentary for uh the Palooza reunion that we had last year, um, got that all out to into the marketplace. So I was able to create some original content, um, which is nice considering my industry completely shut down for the good better part of 2020. And even now, as the industry is reopening, um, you know, my friends who are are working behind the scenes, they're just it's not a good, safe environment, unfortunately, for them. They're they're being very, very careful, but incidences are are popping up. So um I I don't know what's gonna happen now that the vaccine is here, hopefully, God willing, things can slowly start to get back to normal.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

And it's interesting because Tom Cruise, there was recently a video that that went viral where he was like like using colorful language, but he was admonishing his crew saying, listen, they can't shut us down. This can't happen, which means you guys have to be obeying the protocol. And it's just it's so frustrating. I mean, I come from a from a um a music industry background, and the the entire live music industry is just like I mean, I know guys that are crippled. Um, I'm friends with Lady Gaga's guitarist, and he's like their entire tour was just grounded, like it's now what?

unknown 2:55

Right?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

So that's just that all these all these independent um entertainment venues, that that's what worries me. I mean, not only the small business people and everything with the shops and whatnot that that are unfortunately affected, but even the small and um industrial uh not industrial, but independently owned um music venues, entertainment venues. I have friends who are comedians and musicians as well. Um that's where they make their bread and butter. I mean, I my friends who who run giant comic conventions um or pop culture shows, um, you know, they have 30,000, 40, 50, 50,000 people in a weekend that join that gather together to celebrate pop culture. And I don't see that happening or coming back anytime soon. So, really, what we're doing now is is really the only way to interact with people properly, and uh, we'll just have to um hang in there and and uh get through it together.

Carlene 3:44

Yeah. For those of you listening, I know Pat from the talent agency I used to work at. So when he walked through the doors, I was like, oh my god, Joey Jeremiah.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

That's not true. She would say, uh, Mr. Mestran, please hold uh your agency to talk to you right now. So have a seat, and when they're ready to talk to you, I will, you know, let you through and up the elevator, you can go. So nine times out of ten, she would make me sit and wait for like an hour just to see my agent.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

An hour. An hour at least.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

And then she'd be like, hey, so uh what you doing? I think that was just her way too.

Carlene 4:31

Oh, your agent wouldn't make you wait for an hour. No way.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

That's amazing. Pat, here's it here's a question for you. I remember Christian Bale, after doing the Dark Knight series, came out and said, Listen, I never want to be called Bruce Wayne or Batman ever again. Does it ever get tiring, man? Not being called Batman, but being called Joey.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

No, dude, you know, like for the last uh since since 05, since 2005, when I left the Next Generation series, I had a decade where I just went off and did my own thing and I didn't even mention the word Degrassi or reach out to any of my co-stars and whatnot for almost 10 years. And then what happened was uh I got introduced to the convention world and I started meeting hundreds of fans uh across Canada that were just blown away that the show meant so much to them and um kept asking me what was the other gang doing, what were they up to? And I honestly couldn't answer them because I hadn't kept in touch with anybody, I wasn't on social media. Um and so I slowly started to reach out to people, inviting them to join the tour that I was doing across the country to say thank you to everybody. And you know, now it's a bit of an obsession because nostalgia is huge right now. I'm in the business of nostalgia. Um, you know, I I like I like I celebrate the show, I celebrate my cast members, I celebrate some of the creators and um people who work behind the scenes. Uh I love it because it's allowed me not only to step backwards in time, but to reacquaint myself with people that were very dear to me growing up in those early teenage years that are kind of, you know, they they mold your personality and they shape who you are. Um and now my room is my office is sort of cluttered again with Degrassi. So I've sort of embraced it again. But you know what? I know there will come a time when I will leave it alone and I will walk away and I will get back to what I normally do. But because of right now, the kind of industry that I'm in, uh I do pop uh culture events, I represent talent, I um appear all over North America. Um, I do speaking engagements, I do screening events now that I've got the documentary from the reunion, uh doing screening events. That was what I was supposed to be doing this year, was appearing with Stacey Mistician, who played Caitlin, um at venues across the country. But um little by little things will get back to normal. Right now I'm just having a nice time. What's been lovely and to help pass the time is engaging fans on social media, creating these events uh online uh and engaging with them, with uh with fans of the show and hearing their stories and hearing how the show helped them out through a difficult time in their youth. Um that that's been, I think, a real honor for me because back in the 80s and 90s there was no social media, there was no way to engage like we're doing right now. Um, we would maybe get the odd fan letter once in a while or a media interview for like the Toronto Star newspaper or something where they would praise the show, uh, you know, and and and that's how we would know that people liked it. But in terms of instant gratification from the fans, we never got any. Um, not like on stage when you do a performance and you get an applause. Um, I had no concept of how many people watched the show or enjoyed it or what they took away from it. Now, as I'm meeting them in real life, that's when the conversation happens. That's what Degrassi Palooza, the three-day event that I held back in 2019, that's what that was about. It was, you know, uh we had 300 people that gathered at this event to meet 25 casting crew and hear the stories and share our mutual experiences of what Degrassi meant to them. Um I mean, I I could go on for forever about this, but but what I mean is like, you know, the joy I get from hearing their stories and and understanding a little bit better why Degrassi meant so much to them and why it still means something uh special to them today, you know, as they're in their 40s or some are in their 50s. Um it was an old friend that they could rely on back in the day and learn and um not feel like what they were going through that they that they were alone, that that there were other people out there like them that they could um relate to. And and I think a lot of people related to the characters of the show.

Carlene 8:43

Yeah, so we were just talking about your character, Joey, and I just watched an episode and you broke Caitlin's heart, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

You did. You did the close out or was this an episode of just the regular show?

Carlene 9:00

No, this is you when you were like the first season, and this is like grade eight Joey, you know, you're just starting off and you know how delicate that Caitlin.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

She's gonna show it's funny because you like I mean, like because you mentioned schools out. Sorry, sorry for like for interrupting you, but I hadn't done a deep dive into that until recently and went back and I was like like that ended the show on a very uh there was a like it was a dour note. There was and it's funny because you make the comparisons, and I have some quotes here from you about the comparisons between 90210 and and Degrassi, which were both popular roughly around the same time. And when you go and you watch schools out, and it's like this the last 20 minutes of this show ends in uh like complete chaotic destruction. And like what happened?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Well, um, one of the writers that we had at Palooza uh answers that question rather nicely. Um, I'll try to articulate it, but basically he said that Degrassi never wrapped anything up in a nice little boat. It was never meant to be this cute little sitcom that at the end of each episode everything you know ended beautifully and everybody walked away all happy. That um that there was always consequences for choices that were made by the characters. Um at the time that we shot schools out, everybody was moving on, everybody was getting ready to go to university or do whatever that they were planning on doing. And even the writers and the producers of the show were kind of over the whole Degrassi uh thing. So I think they wanted to go out in a big bang. They were, you know, let's kill somebody, you know, that kind of thing. So um it was it was just it was a way that they wanted to end the show that made people go, holy crap, what the hell did I just watch? So I think because of the way the show ended, there was never any resolution. I think a lot of the fans who watched Schools Out went, what the hell happened to Wheels? What the hell happened to Caitlin? What the hell happened to Joey and Sank? And they wanted more. So because we didn't just continue the show or the series for another two, three, four, five years, and the show just kind of filled um died off. Um, we were at our peak and the show was doing really, really well in the ratings, and schools out was just this one super awesome finale that people were just like, What the hell did I just watch? And then you had the F bomb and all that other cool stuff. But you know, early 90s, uh at the age of 19, 20 years old, um, it wasn't, it was very, very different television that we were doing with schools out. It made it look so polished, it looked very Hollywood, and and um I really, really enjoyed that movie. Um, and and we celebrate it often because that's what started the whole Degrassi Tour was it was the 25th anniversary of Schools Out, and that's when Stefan's uh Brogren, Stacey Mystician, and Kirsten Bourne and I uh were screening the movie in theaters across the country, and and people came out in droves to watch. It was awesome to relive it again through their eyes as they watched it in movie theater. It was a lot of fun.

Carlene 12:11

Hi, I'm Carlene, and this is Carleen Tonight. We have for you altered by mom, A B list celebrity.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Just got up and went. I failed the test so miserably, I'm completely out of time. Like old chewing gold. It's gonna be clear just what I've become a belter the autograph. So you in a dream It flakes for eyes, you were looking through me at a forest, split us off between its everlasting buttons, guess it isn't true to become one when one of the two is a B-list celebrity in the autograph.

Carlene 15:17

Hi, I'm Carleen, and you're listening to Carleen Tonight. That was altered by mom. The song is called A B List Celebrity. Um, so I'm just wondering, what was it like to be Joey Jeremiah and then live your own life too as as pot? Like you're you did your, I guess they say middle school all through high school. You know what I mean? Like that's when you start identifying who you are.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Uh you you know, guys, it's it's like anything else. You know, some people take dance classes after school, some people, you know, take um piano classes or whatever. Acting and doing Degrassi felt like a summer camp or an after school gig. Um, you know, rehearsals and read-throughs and all that stuff took place after school. Um, most of the filming took place during the summertime, so the summer months when you were off from school. Um back-to-back episodes were rare where a lead actor would have one episode and then the immediate one afterwards. Like we would take episodes off so that we could either catch up on our schoolwork or or you know, make sure that we didn't fall behind. So if Joey was the lead in one episode, the next episode would probably be a twin storyline or something like that. Um, so it never felt like it took over our lives. It was just sort of a part of our lives. And the friends we had on this on the show were like our friends from school. So, you know, if if some of you after school would hang out at a friend's house or on the weekends go and do something, that's kind of what we would do. We would find out if there was a party going on or if somebody wanted to get together and go catch a movie. Um, it was all very innocent back then because we were teenagers ourselves. Um, the nice thing was is that um we stayed in touch immediately after the series ended for as long as possible, but then everybody kind of went their own ways. And with the whole reunion that's been taking place the last few years, I've welcomed a lot of these people into my home. I've gotten to meet their children, their their spouses, and and they're all completely different than you know, there's still parts of us that, you know, are like when we were 20 years old. But obviously, there's been a lifetime since we've last seen each other. And it's really, really nice to reacquaint with with everyone and see where they're at and and how they ended up. But um, again, I I'm really sad that everything happened the way it happened in 2021 or 2020 with COVID, because I was really excited to continue that reunion, that that reconnecting with with all of them. And and basically the only way to do that now is online or through emails and social media. But uh they're there, they're not going anywhere. Uh we have we've got you know what I mean? Like there's time, there's there's time to to reacquaint with people, which is really, really lovely, and that's what I'm looking forward to the next few years.

Carlene 18:03

Question about the fans, they followed you for so many years. Why?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Well, you know what, it's kind of like because we're now all reachable on social media and we have the the Degrassi Tour Facebook page and the website, there's a place to to gather, there's a place to communicate, and there's a place to mingle and and and talk to other like-minded uh people. For me, I always look at the the fandom uh and I call fans narbows and broomheads lovingly because that's what the crew used to call us. Um so I call the fans Narvoes and Broomheads because I I think for for many of them they were um looking for something they were missing in their own high school experience or in their own lives. And either the characters fill the void or the show itself helped fill a void. Um a lot of people will say to me or message me on social media, you know, Degrassi was the school I wish I had had gone to, or or the people on the show were the friends I wish I had growing up. And and when I see you guys on social media, when I see you guys make your appearances, it's it's kind of like a reunion, a high school reunion for me. Um, because you guys meant more to me than the actual people I went to high school with in real life, in my small town or in my wherever I grew up. Um, your characters and and uh touched me personally uh because I could either relate or I had a friend like a Joey Jeremiah or whatever. And so again, the fandom is is intense for many. It's it's like their own their own high school experience. They remember that more fondly than their actual uh real life high school experience. And you know, for for many people, they just enjoy the fact that through meeting us online, it gets to continue the their interaction with Degrassi. They there there is no new production or new content being made for Degrassi, but what we offer online is a small little taste of of um continuing. Like people love it when they see Stacey Mistician and I uh take a photo together because it's like ah, Joey and Caitlin are back together. So they get to live a little bit through our real lives, but you know, obviously that we're very different from our characters, um, and that's what Degrassi Palooza was all about was to show people that we're very different from our characters, although there are some similarities. Um, you know, over the years, Pat and Joey are have separated immensely, they're not the same person. But um, I I highly recommend if you're a fan of the show um and you haven't seen it yet, um go to the DegrassiTour uh.com website, get the link to the um Palooza documentary called uh Narbo's Guide to Being a Broomhead. And and there's there's content, original content there that fans can watch and enjoy. Um you can rent it or you can download it. It's whatever you want to do. It's very affordable. And like I said, it's brand new content that um, you know, of all of us telling and sharing our stories and our experiences. And uh it's a great insight into what it was like, not only for us on the show, but what it was like to have a reunion after 25 years. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

And you actually directed that, Pat, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Well, direct is a very it's a very generous word to use. Um we we had uh only three cameras um at the event. I wish I had more, I wish I had wireless mics, and there's a lot of things I wish I could have had, but it's better than nothing. Um I literally just shot the panels, I shot some moments um behind the scenes, uh, I incorporated some archival footage that we uh as as kids shot on set uh back in the day. So that is incorporated as well into the documentary. Um but it's just uh it's just a uh a reliving of all the panels and and um it's almost kind of like like this, like a podcast, but in in the in the settings of a of a convention. Um and it was just like I said, it was wonderful to have 300 people. Around the world show up for a multi-day event. Um, and for many of them, it was their high school reunion or pilgrimage to Toronto to come visit the actual filming locations and meet the cast and the crew and get that autograph or that picture or ask that question. Uh, it was a very touching moment for me because many people showed up, many of the cast, um, like David Armin Parcells, who played Claude on the on the original series, he drove in all the way from Detroit with his wife and showed up, and uh, none of us recognized him because he looked completely different. And I was like, David? And it was just like it was a reunion in the moment at the reunion, which was amazing. So um yeah, I I can't believe I pulled it off, and I can't believe we I didn't go broke doing it.

Carlene 22:49

So, question if if things get better as far as the vaccine is concerned, do you plan to have another reunion tour in 2020?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

No, no, and unfortunately, um, Carlene, it's it's I'm not allowed to do it. The people who own the trademark, the people that own the name and own the show now, I have no affiliation with them. It's a some corporation that owns it all. I'm not actually allowed to use the word Degrassi in anything. And I learned a very valuable lesson about trademark. They caught the lawyers contacted me and said, What are you doing? Well, why are you putting on an event? I said, I'm just here to celebrate my cast, my crew, one of the co-creators, one of the writers. And and they're like, Yeah, but you're using the word Degrassi. You're not allowed to do that. So I don't know if I'm gonna ever do something to that degree uh uh of a get-together, like I did with with, I I hesitantly say the word Degrassi Palooza, I call it Palooza. Um but to do a reunion without the support of the people who own the copyright was difficult because it would have been lovely to have their support. But I just did this as a quote unquote fan and put on this event to celebrate the show, to celebrate the people who created the show. And that was it. I even said it, it's a one-time event, it will never happen again. Um, unfortunately, we lost one of our co-creators, Kit Hood, only six months after the event. Uh, he unfortunately or suddenly passed away uh at his home in Nova Scotia. And so, you know, one of the co-creators is gone, unfortunately. But we have that experience of having him at the event and having him share his stories with us, which was absolutely wonderful to be able to see him one last time, but also to um celebrate him. And and and that's was that was my ultimate goal with this event was to celebrate the unsung heroes from the original casting crew and give them a moment in the limelight to to feel that love from the fans that I had been feeling for years at my uh during the tour. I wanted many of my other cast members uh and and creative team to to feel that experience as well. And they did, and they were very grateful for that experience.

Carlene 24:58

The one thing that I remember doing research on the show is that you know how like Seinfeld, Friends, all the other shows, they got royalties. And Degrassi is one of those that you guys, as actors, because even when the show is rerunning, there's no you don't make royalties off of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

No residuals at all? No residuals.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Not on the junior high and high. Uh that was a non-union show. We didn't have agents, and we basically signed our lives away as young performers, or our parents signed our lives away. Um, you know, at the time, we didn't know what we were doing. We obviously didn't know what the show would become or or how it would um live on for decades afterwards. We were just kids happy to be working on a TV show. Um, so back then, how I would describe it was um it gave me a career, it gave me uh a life I wouldn't have had uh if it wasn't for the show. And and you can't monetize that, you can't put a value on that opportunity that was given to me and other cast members. Um you know, so the royalties really didn't matter because we got this great career uh out of being on the show. Nowadays, it's like, nah, fuck that, give me my money, right? I got on my royalties, right? So the next generation things are a little different. You know, there's actors who have agents and managers, and the parents are a little more savvy, and you know, the next generation was a completely different ball game. Um, but at the end of the day, we're still not, you know, retired or making crazy coin off of royalties, even with the next generation. We don't make our livings on the royalties. Um, it's when it once in a while when royalties come in, it's nice, it's it's a little bonus or whatever. But um, you know, I I try to stay busy, I try to stay connected to to online and social media and promote the things I do. Um, if I'm not working as an actor, I'm working as an agent to other actors that do appearances at conventions, or I create my my little screening events and whatnot. And Stacy and I, uh Stacy, you played Caitlin. She and I have been having a blast doing these appearances across the country and um reconnecting, which has been really, really nice um after all these years. And uh I I continue, I hope that the nostalgic factor of the show continues for a little while longer because I hope COVID hasn't crushed it. We all at this time in the lives that we're having right now, I think we're all trying to look fondly backwards in time to a simpler time because we're all trapped in our homes and we can't, you know, gather with our friends and our loved ones. So we're binge watching, we're watching old shows and movies that made us feel comfortable in younger days and and from from you know our youth. Uh, I know I'm doing that.

Carlene 27:50

Um, so yeah, I watched Gossam's Creek. Oh, right. I didn't start watching that.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Oh man. Yeah. So we're all trying to reconnect to our youth in a simpler time and and and and you know, when life was good and and and not so crazy, and you know, we didn't have the internet and all that craziness. So um I hope that Degrassi can be a comfort for many people. I hope what we're doing online can be a comfort for many people, and and people are willing to engage with us and and tell us share with us our their stories. Um, and and I hope we can keep doing that for as long as possible. But eventually I will get over the whole Degrassi thing and and move on with my life. But uh for right now, it feels good and it feels right to do it. So I will do it for as long as I can.

Carlene 28:34

Joey, you can't let go. Like you just can't. Oh my gosh, I gotta say something. I watched an old episode with Stephanie K, and I always resonated with her. Yeah, I don't know that there was something about her being two people. Like she would like have this look at home, you know, when she's leaving home, she's got that good girl look, and then she would go to school, and then she's just like, you know, with her makeup on, and I was just I always thought that was so cool, but it was so bad at the same time because she became such a bad friend, you know. Right. Um yeah, and you used to dress like that at work.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

I remembered at the office you would wear the tube top you, you know, you'd have the tube top on at work and the neon colored short short skirt. What you were wearing booty shorts to wear where you got your style from.

Carlene 29:28

Oh my gosh. Do you believe it, Matt? Do you really say now hold on a second?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

I'm not sure, Carlene, if you're comfortable bringing this up, but I heard there was a nickname. There was a nickname, wasn't there?

Carlene 29:40

No, yes, there was. Pat used to call me something, remember? What sweet chat?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Okay, okay, this is unpack this for me because that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

You like that, huh?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

But look at her, she is adorable. Just adorable. I mean, fantastic.

Carlene 30:10

Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

You try to have fun with every you know moment you can in your day, right? So every little interaction with people that you have throughout your day, even if it's something small, like me calling the office to speak to my agent, and Carlene would answer. It's just nice to have a little moment with people. Um I think I learned that when I was doing my convention appearances, um, you would only have maybe one or two minutes with each person that would come, like they would stand in line, they would come up and they'd shake your hand and get an autograph or a picture and they'd leave. And we learned that that those moments were called micro moments in in the convention industry. Um, and and what I learned was that you only have a brief moment to make an impression uh that people are gonna walk away with and share that experience with their friends and and and people that they talk to when they leave the the event. So what I try to do is I try to remember every time I meet a new fan at a convention that this is their micro moment and this is something they're gonna walk away with, even if it's only 30 seconds or a minute, that they're gonna remember this experience. They've they've gone out through all the trouble of you know driving to the convention, parking, standing in line to get into the convention, standing in line to meet you. They've paid to get an autograph or a selfie taken with you, and and then they've done all that just for that 30-second moment with you. You gotta respect that. You gotta you know give back and appreciate that and give that moment of looking in their eyes and and and giving them that experience. And it's again, we call that the micro moment. And that's what I tried to explain to all my friends when we did Degrassi Palooza was like all these people have gone through a great deal of trouble and great expense to come to this event to meet you. Please give them that moment that they're gonna walk away with. And they did. All my friends, all when we did Palooza, they all did it, they were all fantastic with their with their fans. But I try to do that in my everyday life, even if it's a short moment that you have with somebody walking down the street or or you know at the grocery store or whatever, you know, we all have our lives, we all have our issues, we all have our baggage and the shit that we're going through in our lives and whatnot. If you can give somebody a 30-second micro moment that makes them walk away going, oh my God, that was so nice, or that was so amazing or unexpected, or that put a smile on my face, then that's a good thing. And now imagine if millions of people did that around the world every day and had micro moments like that every day, how much better this world would be. Um, you know, if we could all just understand and appreciate that everybody has their own thing and that that it's not about you. Everything in life is not about you. So, you know, a moment with with you calling in the office, going, hey sweet chocolate, how you doing? Like, it's silly. Oh, great, but it's something you remembered, right? It's something that meant something and it was a nice moment for you, and and and that's some that's fun, right? So um, I I hope to recreate many micro moments in the future with fans and loved ones and people once this whole thing ends with COVID. But yeah, we it's a it's a real thing, it's it's it's an amazing thing. And I'll tell you why I learned this. Kevin Smith um taught me a valuable lesson because he said to me on stage in front of 5,000 people, he said, Pat, we met many, many years ago, back in 1990 in Vancouver when I was uh a student, a film student, and you were doing an appearance with with a couple of other Degrassi members. And I came up to you, I stood in line, and I and I came up to you to get your autograph, and I said, I want to be a filmmaker one day. I'm a writer and I hope to make my own movies. And and Degrassi, you know, is exactly the style of filmmaking that I want to do in terms of writing for characters and whatnot. And he just looked like a normal guy to me, right? And and and even though I don't remember this moment, he remembers this moment. He said to me that I blew him off, and I said, Yeah, good luck with that. And he literally was like, Oh, okay. But honestly, I said, Kevin, I would never speak to somebody like that. But he said to me, No, no, you were not rude to me, but you were dismissive in the sense that, oh, you're just another guy who wants to be a filmmaker. I'm like, dude, I wouldn't do that to you. So he had this banter back and forth, but he remembers his micro moment differently than obviously I did. And he took away from that experience as like, well, you know what? He doesn't believe me in me. Screw him, I'm gonna do it anyways. And he obviously pursued his career and did very, very well, created clerks and all that fun stuff. And I joke with him to this day. I'm like, dude, I could have been in clerks. Is that what you're saying? I could have been Ben Affleck. And he's like, nope, yeah, right? Yeah. So, you know, we we've bumped into each other many, many times over the years, obviously. He came and did his experience on Degrassi. Uh, I think his little revenge to me was to split up Caitlin and Joey when he had his uh Jay and Silent Bob Dude Degrassi experience. So ultimately he got his revenge on me by by breaking up Caitlin and Joey. Um, so but I think it's funny, it's all good. Like it's all we all joke, we laugh about it today. But yeah, he he told me that his micro moment with me pissed him off enough that he won't and he went off and he's a really great director. So really he owes his entire career to me, if you think about it.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

You heard it here first.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

I'm just saying, I'm just saying.

Carlene 35:28

But they they do say that thing that first impressions are everything. So that the first impression that you give someone, I guess it it goes a long way. Like even years later, he still remembers that, like he's not letting go of it, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:42

So exactly, and and he's already told me, like, he has no grudges against me about the whole experience, but I'm like, dude, so now I'm very aware and I'm very conscious of every little moment I'm having with people, even though I'm tired, even though it's been a long day or whatever, like it's so hard to be aware, but you have to in our industry when you're in that environment uh of conventions and appearances and whatnot. So I try harder than I did in my youth. And I and again, not to run on, I know we we have limited time, but you know, I had my micro moment with Michael J. Fox a couple of years ago at Fan Expo, where I got introduced to Mr. Fox after uh a long day of meeting fans. He was doing his thing, and uh one of the organizers said, Would you like to meet him? I'm like, dude, are you freaking kidding me? He's my idol. Like I grew up wanting to be him as an actor. Um, he is really the ultimate performer for me in terms of what I was trying to emulate. And so I basically got to meet him, shake his hand, say thank you, and tell him that he you know motive or inspired me as a young actor. Um, and I emulated him on Degrassi Junior High. That's why Joey had a skateboard. Uh, a lot of my mannerisms on the show, and a lot of things I did character-wise were based on in my head going, how would Michael J. Foxx play this? How would Michael J. Fox play Joey Jeremiah? And that's how I, because I I didn't know how to act. Nobody you know taught me how to act. I just was on the job learning it as I went. I had the ability to memorize dialogue, which was a gift, and unfortunately, I no longer have that gift. But at the time, I knew how to memorize, I knew how to hit my mark, I knew how to, you know, walk through a scene, but how to actually act and be in the moment were things I had to learn on the job. And and my Michael J. Fox was sort of like you know, the guy I would look up to as this short Canadian actor. I was like, oh, I'm just like him. So I tried to be like him, and I was a big fan of Back to the Future. Who wasn't? Who wasn't, right? Yeah, but did you did you own a DeLorean? No, no, did you? I I I literally bought a DeLorean because I freaking loved the movie so much, and and I wanted to be Michael J. Fox. So I literally would sit in the DeLorean and drive around in the DeLorean and be like, I'm fucking Michael J. Fox. So like that's how much he meant to me as as not only an uh as um a mentor, but just you know, everybody wanted to be in Michael uh everyone wanted to be Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, right? So um, but I had the car for a few years and then I sold it. So that's what we do with DeLoreans. You you you you are the keeper of the DeLorean for a few years and then you give it to the next sucker who takes care of it. Pay it forward. You pay it forward.

Carlene 38:28

Oh my goodness, a DeLorean. Wow. Hi, I'm Carlene, and this is Larger Than the Rib Spy, altered by mom.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Is it worse to be hurt in the heart or the brain?

Carlene 38:42

Or the mind, I don't mind, but I'll sing just the same.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

It's a pain in the head, in the ass, it'll pass.

Carlene 38:50

Is it truth, is it lies? Do we grow or we die?

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Do we drown or get shot? Maybe choke on the smoke.

Carlene 38:57

Maybe hang by our necks. What the heck? All the same.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Do we hug, do we kiss? Do we even exist? Are you pissed? Are you mad? I can't tell what this is. Cause my heart is larger than the ribs. Larger than the ribs that contain it. My heart, it's larger than the ribs. Larger than the ribs that can take. My heart, it's looking for a heart. Looking for a heart that will take care. It's larger than the ribs that can take care.

Carlene 39:54

Oh no, that's the foam. That's the cat in house.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Got the dunk, we have fun. I can sleep in the dark.

Carlene 40:02

It's the dark one to treat.

SPEAKER_03 40:04

It's the arm. It's too good. I would take the face on the face, but I would wear it. Larger than the ribs that contain it. My eye is larger than the wrist. Larger than the ribs that contain it. My eye. Look at the eye.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Larger than the ribs.

Carlene 42:12

Hi, I'm Carleen and you're listening to Carleen Tonight. Tonight we feature Altered by Mom. The song is Larger Than the Ribs. The band's been together since 2016, and you can check them out on Spotify, on Facebook, and Twitter. I'm Carleen and this is Carleen Tonight. We have Pat Masciani of Degrassi talking about his life on the show, his career, and now life during COVID inside.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Exactly. I I was hoping that I had something here for you, but I don't. I I'll have to look for it later. Um I had these little well, I had these little Stephanie K um buttons.

Carlene 43:02

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

I have the vote for Stephanie K buttons.

Carlene 43:10

Oh my god, that is just awesome.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Now that you now that you've told me that you're a huge fan of Stephanie K, I'll have to like uh send one over to you.

Carlene 43:20

Yeah, I'm I'm your fan too, Joey. You're always the cool kid, you know. That's right. Like Joey's so cool, but even though he's like nerdy with these crazy little one-liners, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

You know, that's Yan Moore. All that's all Yan Moore, our head writer. He wrote all those silly little one liners, and um, you know, whenever Joey would talk in the mirror, like, oh, you're gonna be the coolest guy at Degrassi, like all this weird crap. I'm like, where does he pull this stuff out of his ass? Like, honestly, he came up with so many cool one liners for the show that um, and a lot of things that stuck, you know, a lot of things that people Remembered about certain characters, and like that was all him. And that was definitely one of the things I wanted to celebrate when we did the reunion was that you know Ian Moore, this one man, created this universe, this world with all these dynamic characters. And yeah, he had other help people help with the writing, and the producers were involved as well, and even the actors themselves contributed to the development of their own characters. He still had to write it all. He still had to create these amazing storylines and plot lines that sometimes span over seasons, not just one or two episodes. But you had the spike storyline all the way from junior high throughout high and whatnot. He had some amazing vision and was able to create the base of the story arc and then hand it over to us where we would sort of put our own spin on things and our own performance and our own take on what he wrote. And it somehow all meshed in really, really well with the vision of the director and the other people that worked on the show to ultimately make this sort of you know CBC, homegrown, simple kind of you know, show that wasn't polished at all. Like, you know, you talk about 90210, they had it all polished and they had the beautiful actors and the beautiful clothing and the nice cars, and everything was was slick and sharp, where our show felt very inner city, grungy, you know, people walk to school. But but again, we looked like normal kids in a high school as opposed to everybody being blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful. You know, we've had every race represented on the show. Um, and and the nice thing was is that they weren't just the tokens, they were, you know, characters with with serious storylines, like the Yik Yu character or you know, the Diana character that's struggling with her older brother who's trying to keep her from going out to after school with her friends, like things like that. Because um, and we we had that conversation uh at the reunion event. Like, did Degrassi do enough uh to represent different cultures and different um backgrounds? Like, yeah, we had black, white, all that stuff, but there's a lot of in-between uh as well. And did we do enough uh to to highlight those things? And I think we did okay, you know, we could ever every show could do better, but I think we did okay for the time that we shot the show in and the budget, and and the you know, we were a 22-minute show when you take away all the uh commercials and whatnot, a 22 to 23 minute show that tackled all these heavy duty topics week after week. Uh, and that's all Yan Moore right there. And and and uh that's why I gave him the Narbo Award uh at the uh event. I had a friend of mine create a locker, a bunch of lockers, and we called it the Narbo Award, and uh presented it to him for a lifetime achievement. Uh and he was just like, I had to keep it a secret because if I told him prior to the event that I was gonna do this, he wouldn't have come. That's how shy he is. For the guy who wrote so much and put so many, so much dialogue in the mouths of all of our characters. Uh, the guy's the man of few words uh in real life. So uh God bless him. And uh I was just happy to put a spotlight on him uh at the event.

Carlene 47:17

Yeah, it's the creative minds, right? Those are it really is, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:21

We get the glory, we get the glory because we were the faces that people saw every week, but there was so many people that worked behind the scenes that helped make this show really what it was, and and that that was, you know, even the people that were in charge of the art department and the clothing, the costumes and whatnot, um, they had a big role to play on the show too. Because if you look at the grassy, if you look at you know, all the banners and all the way the style the show had a sense of the style uh and the wardrobes that we wore, that was all them. Like, you know, we didn't pick our wardrobe, we didn't um dress ourselves. That was them doing all that. Now we gave them shit half the time for it. Like, you know, do you have to shop at Value Village? Do you have to go to Goodwill? Can you not buy some name brand stuff for us? Yeah, this wasn't in the budget.

Carlene 48:06

Oh no, so we didn't even see, I didn't even know that, right? The things that, like, you know, that you guys are wearing. Wow, tight budget at that time. But that show was ahead of its time. You brought, like you said, there's so many things that were brought up on that show. You know what I mean? You learn about AIDS and having, you know, having a baby when Spike got pregnant, like all those things. You touched on like everything. And we, like you said, if you weren't in a household where your parents taught you those things or spoke about it, like you learned about it on Degrassi. And you know, it was it was an educational show.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Yeah, because at that age, when you're 13, 14, 15 and up, like you may not have all the information. You may not, you may feel with your friends that you know what you're talking about, or if your friends are sharing their own personal experiences, they may not have all the information. So at least when our show discussed a certain topic or issue, we tried to give a well-rounded and balanced idea of what we were talking about so that you had both sides of the story. Uh, and people could then walk away from that and make their own decision if it was right for them to drink or do drugs or whatever. We weren't trying to be preachy, we were just trying to give you all the information you needed. That's why the twins, the twins were a great pair of characters to have in any episode, and that's why they were usually floating around being friends with uh Lucy or Spike or or um Stephanie Kay or whatever, because they were the yin and the yang of the storyline. If there was something going on, you'd have one twin saying, Oh, that's a great idea, and the other twin would say, Are you sure you want to do that? Like they were the a perfect balance for any storyline so that we could um discuss both sides of any issue that was uh so if you watch this series now with that in mind, you'll see, oh my god, the twins are always you know the different opinions of of this of a certain topic.

Carlene 50:00

Matt, do you have any more questions for Brad?

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Yeah, I was gonna ask. Now he made a brief mention, uh, Pat, you made a brief mention about Kit Hood, and I wanted to ask your thoughts on because from what I read, like there was a little bit of flack for him getting this thing made, as well as with the topics that you know you guys were covering, that was considered to be a little bit, again, cutting edge on the forefront, maybe not palatable by certain people. What was it like working with him?

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Kit Hood was the captain on set. You know what I mean? Like he ran the ship and he gave the orders. Uh, he was an actor's director because he came back, he came from England with a theater background, uh, he was a child uh actor uh in the theater, and so he understood character development, he understood pulling performances from his actors, and he knew how to articulate that in a way that a young actor could not can understand. Um one of the things he taught us was to be in the moment and not to act, but to react. So he taught us the skills onset that we needed to do what we did. Um, sometimes he would try to manipulate us. So, for example, if my character needed to be extremely serious in a scene, but I was feeling giddy that day and I couldn't do my performance without laughing, or I couldn't keep a straight face for whatever reason. Because at the time I was still blown away that I was an actor, and I would sometimes stop in the scene and in my head going, Holy fuck, all this is happening right now, and it's focused on me. And I would giggle, I would think it's funny that like all these cameras are here and all these people are working, and I was like, Oh my god, I'm actually an actor on a show, and I would get giddy and I would you know not be able to keep a straight face. So Kit would get mad and he would like you know berate me and be like, Pat, stop it! And I would like get all serious and be like, oh my god, and then like so he knew how to have a conversation with a teenager to make us understand, to make us better performers, but he was firm, but he was a good, good director. And um, you know, in terms of he didn't do any of the behind-the-scenes stuff with the accounting and the producing, that was all Linda Schuyler, but Kit was the guy on set that made everything happen on set. So um, to have that energy, to have that positivity, to have that creativity was was awesome. Like he was really the driving force when it came to being on set and filming and and and what he was able to pull out of all of us as actors. Um, unlike and that and that was something that I wanted to make sure the world knew and understood was that you know, he really was the creative and driving force uh of the entire uh junior high and high series. And obviously, schools out, he was um the man behind that as well.

unknown 52:51

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Yeah. So I do hope that, you know, unfortunately, we weren't able to honor him this year in Toronto. We wanted to do something that was not public, but we wanted to be able to invite our cast and our crew and and the people who who were around back then to have a moment to to celebrate him and memorialize him in Toronto with his family. But unfortunately, because of COVID, we could we couldn't do that this year. So I do pray that in 2021 we'll be able to have some kind of gathering uh as a as a group, as a family, and and celebrate him the way he should be here in Toronto.

Carlene 53:28

So cheers to 2021, everyone. Well, we are running out of time, Pat. Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks, Matt, for joining me. And I hope that you know the rest of the year goes well for you. And hopefully 2021 will be the year that things will get better, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:52

Let's do it, please. I hope so, guys. I really do. I really do. And I hope that everything works out well for for for you guys and and for this podcast. I hope it gets a lot of views. Uh, you know, thank you so much for letting me be on um and and for putting up with me. But uh the last thing I'm gonna say to everybody watching at home right now is thank you so much for taking the time to to share with us today and watching this podcast. I hope you walk away with a little something that you didn't know about us before. Um, but yeah, check us out on on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter. Uh the website is DegrassiTour.com. And if you get a chance, uh maybe watch our little documentary, The Narvo's Guide to Being a Broomhead.

Carlene 54:34

Yes, and that's please. Please watch the documentary, purchase it. It's cheap. It's affordable, right? Oh, it's at 49.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Are you kidding me? Who doesn't have$3.99? You can rent it for 48 hours and watch it that way. It's a fun little journey into the past and uh definitely a throwback to a simpler time.

Carlene 54:53

Definitely. Thanks, Pat. Take care. Thanks for listening to Carlene tonight.

SPEAKER_03 54:59

My heart is larger than the ribs, larger than the ribs that contain it. My heart is larger than the ribs, larger than the ribs that contain it.