Showtime

"Showtime" is a two-part episode of the Canadian teen drama Degrassi High. It was the tenth and eleventh episodes of the show's second season, airing on CBC on 28 January and 4 February 1991. In the two-part episode, the titular school is thrown into disarray after Archie "Snake" Simpson (Stefan Brogren) finds Claude Tanner (David Armin-Parcells) dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The episode was the first time the franchise had depicted suicide. Production Degrassi's producers had avoided tackling the topic of suicide, as they feared they would mishandle it and potentially cause copycat suicides. David Armin-Parcells, who plays Claude Tanner, the student who commits suicide, said to the Montreal Gazette: "I think the show portrays suicide as harsh, and keeps away from romanticizing death." For the episode, they aimed to avoid glorifying suicide, instead focusing on the damage it does to those around someone who does it. A message ran before the beginning of the first part, presented by actors Stacie Mistysyn and Pat Mastroianni. In the message, Mistysyn tells the viewer; "What you're about to see is a dramatic story about suicide". Mastroianni states that if the characters in the show had taken Claude's signs seriously, they could have called for adult intervention, and the phone number for the Boys Town National Hotline is displayed in a chyron on the bottom of the screen. On part two, before the credits, there is another message from Mistysyn and Mastroianni, the former of which assures that Armin-Parcells did not actually commit suicide. The hotline is again displayed at the end. Broadcast On PBS, the episode was followed by a live phone-in telecast.