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The TV Station #13 - Grange Hill (Series 9 Episode 14)

So I had already touched on Grange Hill when talking about Punky Brewster and the "Just Say No" campaign and how there was also the campaign here in the UK, and what I'll talk about in this write up is how American and British kids TV shows treated their serious subject matters.

I just want go back and talk about something else, there has been some recent news of the Disney Channel having it's first gay character on a TV series, whilst this brought back memories of Byker Grove, a children's drama that aired on the same channel as Grange Hill had a gay kiss all the way back in 1994!

So yeah back on subject Grange Hill was a show that lasted from 1978 all the way until 2008, and wasn't afraid to tackle serious issues (same as Byker Grove actually) with the most famous being the drug use in the Just Say No campaign.

The episodes didn't have titles and this is the famous episode in question, and it's night and day in how they deal with the subject matter, while Punky Brewster had preteen girls talking about nose candy this has one of the main characters found slumped in the toilets and is obviously implants more on your mind.

Set during the school holidays (which is a shame since the school was such an important part of the show) sees Zammo pestering Zammo at the arcade he works eventually agreeing to lend him £50 until the end of the day towards buying a motorbike. There is also another story with 2 girls (Laura and Julia) sneaking to go out to a party.

Zammo eventually returns with most of the money eventually (£43) and asks if he can go the toilet, as the girls are trying to go to a party but it's discovered the party was actually closer to them then they thought as the parents of one of the girls decide they should go to the other girls parents house and there is a huge falling out between Daughter and Father.

This is never considered the best episode of Grange Hill but is pretty much a key episode in the start of the storyline - which you have to give them credit for that it just wasn't one off, like I said they took a regular character rather than a face you have never seen before. In the ways America and the UK tackled the drugs issue, it was clearly a 1 - 0 victory to the UK.
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