My 90's and Early 2000's Experience: Radio Free Roscoe (2003, Family Channel)

 Hey everyone, how were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Yesterday was Canada Day and I didn't do much, and Sunday night was my final D&D session with the group I was playing with. It was a fun session, and I enjoyed my time playing. Today though we're returning to the year 2003 to talk about a show that aired on Family Channel here in Canada and on Noggin's The N block in the United States. Let's get into it.

Radio Free Roscoe was a half hour teen dramedy series that focused on four students who are in the ninth grade at Henry Roscoe High in Roscoe, New Jersey. Lily Randall, played by Kate Todd, Ray Brennan, played by Al Mukadam, Robbie McGrath, played by Nathan Stephenson, and Travis Strong, played by Nathan Carter, are sick of the way their school favours the popular kids, and runs a radio station that dictates how every student should live their lives (where to go after school, what to wear, what music to listen to etc), so they form an underground radio station in a warehouse behind the local music store/coffee shop known as Mickey's. They hide their identities and use pseudonyms (Travis is Smog, Ray is Pronto, Robbie is Question Mark, and Lily is Shady Lane), so they can use their anonymity to fight Principal Waller, played by Hamish McEwan, and the head of the school's radio station, Cougar Radio, Kim Carlisle, played by Genelle Williams.

So I discovered this show while I was visiting my maternal grandparents during the summer of 2004. Reruns of the first season (all 52 episodes were aired across two seasons here in Canada, but across four seasons in the U.S.) were airing and I started watching the show. Already an avid fan of the radio, wanting to be on the radio when I grew up, and being that I was still in high school at the time, I identified with these four characters. I didn't fit in with the popular crowd. I didn't fit in at the school in general. The principal I had at the time favoured the popular kids, and ignored the rest of us. I lived in a small town where nothing had changed in at least twenty years or more. I was going through everything these kids were going through. So I identified with these kids as much, if not more, than I identified with the teen characters on Degrassi: The Next Generation, The O.C., and One Tree Hill.

The character I identified with the most was Travis. Not because he'd been around the world due to his dad having to move all the time, but because, due to my developmental delays, I didn't understand, and didn't necessarily WANT to understand, why people behaved the way they behaved, and I found it hard to get close to those who wanted to be my friends.

I actually started watching the show at the perfect time! The season 1 (Canadian)/season 2 (American) finale had aired a few months earlier, and the finale had ended with Lily and Travis about to kiss as Ray was entering the RFR warehouse. We'd just spent three episodes on this as Lily and Travis had started to become closer when Travis offered to help Lily produce her first single (Lily is an up and coming musician). Unfortunately, drama ensued as Travis was dating a girl named Audrey (played by Ashley Newbrough), and Ray has had a thing for Lily since before the show started (don't worry, Lily has a thing for Ray too), and it turns RFR on its head because Robbie finds out about Lily and Travis's kiss and tries to keep it from Ray. Because THAT always works out so well. It hooked me, and in the weeks leading up to the season premiere, I watched reruns of the entire first season. Including the pilot episodes, which aired on Family Channel before the season 2 premiere.

Because I didn't get Family Channel on the TV in my bedroom, which was the CRT TV/VCR combo set that my uncle got me for my 16th birthday in 2002, I would record the show on the VCR in the basement and then bring the tape up to watch the episode after it was finished recording. And then I would rewatch the episodes that I really liked. Even though this was 2004 and DVR (PVR in Canada) was a thing, my family didn't have one and wouldn't for another decade, so I was still recording shows and movies onto VHS from the TV if they were on a channel I didn't get in my bedroom, or they were on late at night, when I was in bed already, or if I had too much homework (I was still in high school afterall) and didn't have time to watch TV. 

The music on the show was good. I loved it whenever Lily would sing a song, either as herself or on RFR as Shady Lane. The music that played in the background was good too, but it was mostly indie rock, which wasn't really my kind of music, and still kinda isn't, but when Lily sang, playing nothing but her acoustic guitar, it was awesome. 

 The show had a single DVD release, which contained eight random episodes from the show's first season, including the three part season 1 finale, which I already talked about earlier in this post. I have that DVD in my collection. Originally, my friend Kelly gave it to me about a decade ago, but I ended up getting rid of that copy just as my parents and I were getting ready to move from our old house in Greely to the house we live in now. Recently though I found another copy of this DVD release at a local thrift store for only two dollars, so I picked it up again. I have yet to watch it, but I plan on doing so in the very near future.

Unfortunately, the only way to watch Radio Free Roscoe as a whole nowadays is to watch it on YouTube as there are no further home media releases, and it's not streaming anywhere. As for back in the day, when it originally aired, I enjoyed the show so much, and it kept me watching Family Channel after I'd stopped watching Power Rangers on a weekly basis after Dino Thunder finished in late 2004.

Also, unfortunately, while at least one of my friends watched it, and a classmate of mine did as well, I ended up watching it by myself. I didn't even watch it while on the phone with someone else who was watching it. Even my siblings didn't watch it. But, in a way that was a good thing, because it was something I could enjoy on my own, without other people chiming in. 

Alright my friends, that's gonna be it for this leg of the journey into my 90's and early 2000's experience. I honestly don't know what other posts I'm going to be doing this week, if any. I kinda like the idea of this series becoming the blog. One post a week, just talking about a variety of things that I personally experienced growing up in the 90's and early 2000's. We'll see though. Until the next time I see you, have a great evening and I will talk to you later. Take care.