Over the space of the last year, I have spent approximately 157 hours watching every single episode of Heartbreak High with the intention of finding every utterance of the term "Rack Off" in the show. Why?
When I was a teenager growing up in England, Heartbreak High was the coolest show to watch and over the years, as my memory has faded, I'd reminisce about favourite shows from childhood and adolescence with other people my age - and I'd always bring up H.H. The lack of any kind of repeats meant that details such as plots and characters were there, yet they were hazy. However, I had vivid memories of imitating the show with my friends at the time, talking about crushes in the show and who was the coolest character (Drazic obviously) and mostly, telling each other to "Rack Off!".
As a term, to us it was alien and idiosyncratic. Whether it's used a lot in Australia or other countries, I will rely on other people to get in touch and tell me - but over the years, I've always associated it with Heartbreak High and am yet to really hear it elsewhere.
The desire to see the show again has been a long term one. I once contacted the BBC with the very serious intention of acquiring the British rights to the show. They never replied. I scoured the internet looking for information and made do with information from fansites and forums... though it didn't satisfy.
And then a mysterious bootleg of a Dutch run of all six seasons found it's way to me, ripped from the TV with hardcoded Dutch subtitles, questionable picture and audio and even missing an episode (136, which I believe is available to view in an Australian film library if anyone wants to check it for a Rack Off). I didn't care and as soon as I knew it was out there, the idea hit me, to edit together every Rack Off.
Michael Moore once said that he makes films that he himself wants to see but are not available and this was exactly my thought process for this project. I loved rewatching the show and truly became obsessed again as an adult. At different stages I became more and more enamoured, I thought about how the show had possibly influenced The Wire (multiple character urban racial drama looking at all sides of the "conflict"), how Mai had invented Lady Gaga, How Katerina having her marketing ideas stolen was exactly the same as Mad Men etc. etc. and thought it was possibly the blueprint of the future..... and then I started to watch it a little less often.
Yet still, the point remains that the show has stood the test of time and stands up high in terms of TV excellence within shows about young adults, only really in my mind being equalled by Freaks and Geeks. The comedy is of a high standard, the show was always ready to tackle issues to educate and inform, it was choc-full of angst, longing and brooding and was always exciting to watch and I've enjoyed every minute (save a few dodgy songs here and there)...
And now the video is done and is to be presented, hopefully, with an apparent amount of love. During the project, I did quite extensive research into the characters and actors of the show and I noticed that some of the performers had very distinctive names. I thought that it would be perhaps easy to look some of them up and I have found some of them - and so now I intend to contact them with the video. My girlfriend is the first to accuse me of stalking and so I shall quickly say, it is not like that and will be posting only the video and encourage others to also respect the privacy of the actors. I'm sure they already know how awesome they are, right?
So, who knows, maybe I can relay some kind of feedback from the original cast/crew members on the project or better yet, get them to send videos of themselves now saying "Rack Off" to create a virtual reunion! Ok, so now I'm dreaming....
Anyway, hope you enjoy the tribute and if you have any questions - contact me through this blog or at finniganryan@hotmail.com
Thanks
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