(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Entertainment Weekly's Family Room Blog | The Family Room | EW.com
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20121027184248/http://family-room.ew.com:80/
EW's Special Coverage

Family Entertainment

Oct 27 2012 12:55 PM ET

'Degrassi' react: Happy 300th episode!

Tags: TV
degrassi.jpg

So this is how Degrassi celebrates its 300th installment: not with a giant Issue Episode, but with a fairly low-key half hour about beauty pageants and suspected drug use. It was far from the show’s most intense episode ever — but there was still a lot of good stuff here, from Maya’s pageant makeover to Adam and Audra’s touching conversation.

Let’s start with the former. Following in Manny’s footsteps, quiet Maya got a pageant-ready new look, courtesy of Tori — appropriate, since Tori and Manny are related in real life. (They’re played by sisters Alex and Cassie Steele). For some reason, both Maya’s sister Katie and her boyfriend Cam laughed when they first see her sans specs — weird, since she looked totally adorable. Just look at that photo! Dumping the guy at the end of the episode seemed like a good move for Maya, although you know it’s just going to open the floodgates for more love triangle drama between her, Tori, and Zig. Not that love triangles are a bad thing. (Again: See Manny.)

Meanwhile, Adam tried his best to forget Becky Baker — newly returned from “brainwashing camp” — by bulking up and attempting to join the volleyball team.

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 26 2012 02:47 PM ET

A school shooting! A trans teen! Kevin Smith! 'Degrassi' creator shares her top 10 episodes

degrassi-shooting-2.jpg

(Or “favourite,” if you’re feeling Canadian.)

In honor of the teen drama’s 300th episode — which airs tonight on TeenNick — we asked Degrassi creator Linda Schuyler to name her 10 favorite Degrassi installments ever. Her list is a welcome trip down memory lane for longtime fans — as well as a great primer for those who have no idea that Drake’s real name is Aubrey Graham.

1. “Mother & Child Reunion” (season 1)
The first-ever episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation — now known as simply Degrassi — acted as a bridge between the new show and Degrassi High. It both caught viewers up with old friends — Caitlin! Lucy! Spike! — and introduced several new kid cast members, including Spike’s daughter Emma and her friends, J.T., Toby, and Manny. The drama: As Degrassi’s classes of ’91 and ’92 reunite, Emma discovers that a boy she’s been chatting with online is actually a full-grown, would-be rapist. Yep; Degrassi went there from the very beginning.

2. “Shout” (season 2)
In part 1, mean girl Paige is date raped at a party. In part 2, she sings a super intense song about rape during a Battle of the Bands with her girl group, PMS… as her rapist watches from the audience.

3. “Accidents Will Happen” (season 3)
Fourteen-year-old Manny discovers that she’s pregnant after having unprotected sex with two-timing Craig — and, after thinking long and hard, decides to get an abortion. Due to its sensitive content, the episode aired in the U.S. over two years after it was first shown in Canada.

4. “Pride” (season 3)
After Ellie refuses to continue being his beard, Marco finally comes out to the rest of his friends — only to be ostracized by Spinner and beaten up by a group of homophobes while en route to a hockey game.

5. “Whisper to a Scream” (season 3)
Poor Ellie’s got a father in the army and an alcoholic mom. She starts coping by cutting herself. Luckily, Paige is there to nudge Ellie into getting the help she needs.

6. “Time Stands Still” (season 4)
After being doused with paint and feathers at a quizbowl game, bullied Rick finally snaps and brings a gun to school. He shoots Jimmy in the back, paralyzing him — and is killed when Sean tries to disarm the shooter. Degrassi‘s most intense episode, or Degrassi‘s most intense episode?

7. “Lexicon of Love” (season 5)
A two for one special! Kevin Smith reappears for the premiere of his new (fake) movie, Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh?, while Paige discovers that she’s got more than friendly feelings for her gal pal Alex.

8. Degrassi Goes Hollywood (season 8)
Originally shown as one two-hour movie, this four-parter follows Manny as she pursues her dream of being an actress (and, of course, clashes with Paige along the way). There’s also some juicy stuff with star-crossed Craig and Ellie, who just can’t seem to ever get their timing right.

9. “My Body is a Cage” (season 10)
Say hello to the next next generation. Degrassi learns that new kid Adam is actually transgender, transitioning from being female to being male. He struggles to find acceptance from his classmates and his family, even briefly reverting to dressing as a girl. Eventually, Adam finds friends who embrace him for who he is. This is the episode that won Degrassi a Peabody last year.

10. “Never Ever” (season 12)
Quirky Imogen discovers that her father isn’t just eccentric — he’s suffering from early onset dementia. She also reconnects with her estranged mother.

Which episodes would you add to Linda’s list?

Follow Hillary on Twitter

Read more:
300 episodes? ‘Degrassi’ goes there. Creator Linda Schuyler shares the secret to its success
‘Degrassi’ react: Things fall apart
Drake graduates from high school

Oct 26 2012 01:03 PM ET

Talking Angela gets her own app: EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

If you’ve got a little one, chances are you’re familiar with a cute talking feline by the name of Angela from the Tom Love Angela app or the video for the duet “You Get Me,” which has gotten more than 50 million views. Now Angela will get her own free app early next month, in which she’ll not only repeat what you say, but also process it and respond. In the app, which is set on a Paris street, the chatty and social Angela will talk shopping and fashion, and encourage fans to open and read fortune cookies with funny messages. And following the pattern of the other Talking Friends apps, in child’s mode Talking Angela will repeat what is said to her in her fancy voice, while poking or petting her will elicit a number of reactions like sneezing and more.

Take a look at the exclusive trailer after the jump.
READ FULL STORY »

Oct 25 2012 03:30 PM ET

Musical trailer for book 'My First Ghost' -- EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

My-First-Ghost.jpg

Some kids are scared of ghosts, others live for the thrill of a transparent friend.

For those who have kids who fall into the second camp, the new picture book My First Ghost (complete with a ghost inside!) is sure to be a treat, not a trick.

In the style of My First Pet books, authors Maggie Miller and Michael Leviton wrote a story about caring for your very first ghost, singing about a friend “you can’t see or touch.” Along with colorful retro video of kids hanging with their invisible friend, the song declares: “Buy the book with the ghost inside, and your house will be officially haunted.”

Whether you’re more a Casper girl or a fan of Nearly Headless Nick, this musical trailer for the story is sure to get stuck in your head, just in time for Halloween.

Check it out below: READ FULL STORY »

Oct 25 2012 03:00 PM ET

Alicia Keys launches 'The Journals of Mama Mae & LeeLee' interactive storytelling app

James Devaney/WireImage

Alicia Keys’ two-year-old son, Egypt, inspired way more than new lullabies from the Grammy-award winning singer. “I had just recently given birth, and I was like, ‘I really want to get into the children’s space,’” Keys told EW.com. “I was seeing the different things that I wanted to bring into his life — different DVDs or different TV shows that were on — I was realizing how cool it would bring to bring multifaceted, multicultural music and stories into his world. How cool could that be?”

Along with her colleague DJ Walton and his wife Jessica Walton, who had created original stories for their own kids, Keys envisioned The Journals of Mama Mae and LeeLee. The animated app centers around  a young New York City girl’s relationship with her wise grandmother — loosely based on Key’s own childhood relationship with her Nana — in an interactive format that encourages exploration through music, storytelling, writing, and games. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 25 2012 02:22 PM ET

300 episodes? 'Degrassi' goes there. Creator Linda Schuyler shares the secret to its success

degrassi-cast.jpg

Image Credit: Everett Collection

Degrassi is a wonderful anomaly among TV’s high school-set dramas, and not just because its stars apologize by saying “sore-y.” Most of its peers either transition to entirely new settings or die slow, painful deaths after their principal cast members graduate. But for 11 years and 12 seasons, Degrassi has stayed rooted in Toronto’s Degrassi Community School — an institute that’s seen more than its share of totally intense drama, from a traumatic shooting to a mini-outbreak of oral gonorrhea. (And that was just season 4!)

Even as the show has tackled issue after issue — drug use, date rape, teen pregnancy, what to do if your boyfriend’s a hoarder — it’s somehow managed to avoid pure sensationalism. Maybe that’s why Degrassi boasts celebrity fans including Kevin Smith (who got his own guest arc in seasons 4 and 5), Ellen Page, Sarah Silverman, and Quentin Tarantino. Either way, we were thrilled to discover that our favorite Canadian import airs its 300th episode on Friday — and even more excited when creator Linda Schuyler took half an hour to chat with us about the show’s legacy, its future, and its talented young cast (“such lovely, polite Canadian kids!”).

I have literally been watching this incarnation of Degrassi since it premiered — I’m the same age as Spinner and Ashley and everyone from the first cast, so we sort of went though high school together.
Oh my gosh, that’s so awesome! When we graduated that bunch of kids — Ashley, and Ellie, and Paige, and Marco — we actually thought,”This is going to be the end of our show.” And it’s been quite a learning curve to realize that our audience has stayed with us.

So what’s the secret to the show’s longevity?
The show set out to be an authentic — and I use the word authentic very carefully; I don’t use the word realistic –- an authentic portrayal of teenage years.  READ FULL STORY »

Oct 24 2012 05:24 PM ET

LeVar Burton on resurrecting 'Reading Rainbow' on iTunes and as an iPad app: 'Kids today, they're not watching TV'

Levar-Burton.jpg

Image Credit: PRNewsFoto/AP

If you’re a certain age, you probably know LeVar Burton best as Kunta Kinte in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries Roots. If you’re younger, you may remember him better as Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Most recently, you can catch him as Dean Paul Haley opposite Eric McCormack on the freshman TNT drama Perception.

But who are we kidding? LeVar Burton is known to multiple generations as the host of Reading Rainbow, the beloved PBS series about the power of reading that launched in 1983. Contract renewal issues ultimately led to the show’s cancellation in 2009, but earlier this year Reading Rainbow relaunched as an iPad app, and this month, for the first time ever, the entire series is available to the public, on iTunes. (The app is available as a free download, with a subscription to a full complement of children’s books for $9.99 a month.)

As someone who was raised on the show, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to chat up the 55-year-old actor, who spoke with me after spending the day lecturing at the University of Michigan, where his daughter is going to school. That’s only fitting, given Burton’s lifelong passion for education. But you don’t have to take my word for it…  READ FULL STORY »

Oct 24 2012 11:38 AM ET

'Modern Family' actor Rico Rodriguez has 'MAD' love for cartoon cameos -- EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

Rico Rodriguez is one of young Hollywood’s most prominent voices — and now he’s putting that voice to use with a guest spot on Cartoon Network’s animated sketch show, MAD.

In this exclusive sneak peek at his work for the show’s Halloween episode, Rodriguez takes us behind the scenes of a few of the crazy sketches to which he lends his voice. (ParaMogan? Cute.)

This possible co-viewing opportunity (kids + TV the elders can stomach = win?) airs Thursday at 8 p.m. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 24 2012 10:00 AM ET

Ross Family Movie Challenge: 'Beetlejuice' vs. 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'

Everett Collection; Disney

Every week EW’s Dalton Ross and his wife, writer Christina Kelly, have a… um, lively discussion about what movie they should watch with their two children (Dale, 12, and Violet, 9) that weekend. Now they make their cases publicly and you get to vote on the choices and decide how the Ross family will be spending part of their weekend. The power is in your hands, people. Last week, Dalton’s pick of ‘The Iron Giant’ easily outpolled Christina’s choice of ‘Young Mr. Lincoln.’ This week, the spouses each selected a Tim Burton movie for Halloween, but who selected better? Read on and then vote for which spooky Tim Burton film they should watch this week. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 23 2012 06:52 PM ET

The Education of 'Magic Mike'

magic-mike.jpg

Image Credit: Claudette Barius/Warner Bros.

So, here’s the situation – hypothetical, of course – you’ve just bought Magic Mike on iTunes, but your young children are refusing to go to bed. Are you going to just give up and watch The Lorax instead? Are you going to let all that glorious maleness pass you by?

C’mon ladies, how badly do you want it? (And by “it,” I mean “seeing the movie,” of course… get your minds out the gutter.)

Do you want it (again? for the first time?) badly enough that you would pop it in there regardless of if the kids were roaming around? No way! Right?

Hmmmmm….. maybe?

Well, you know if you really wanted to, you could come up with five very important lessons to be learned from this movie courtesy of Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, and crew. So not only is it something that wouldn’t be so bad if your kids saw, but you practically owe it to them and their social development. Just be sure to discuss the following afterwards:

READ FULL STORY »

Advertisement
Powered by WordPress.com VIP
What will you be for Halloween?