Shane Kippel

In the United States, the high school TV drama charge has been led by everything from "Beverly Hills, 92010" to "Fame." In Canada, it begins and ends with the Degrassi Community School, a fictional institution anchoring the country's longest running teen hit dramas. Long after the original ran, from 1987 to 1991, actor Shane Kippel jumped into the belated spinoff "Degrassi: The Next Generation," which launched in 2001. He plays the school bully, Gavin "Spinner" Mason. In its 10th season, the show was shortened to simply "Degrassi," and Kippel also starred in separate 2008-10 TV movies: "Degrassi Spring Break Movie," "Degrassi Goes Hollywood," and "Degrassi Takes Manhattan." There seems to be no limit to how long Kippel can play a high school bully, just as potentially there are many other locales besides New York and L.A. that can be visited by the Canadian school clan in future TV movie chapters. The Canadian TV industry has made great strides in recent decades in cultivating its own homegrown content, and the "Degrassi" franchise is a shining example of this welcome new trend.