Straight Up is a popular but short lived Canadian television series produced by Back Alley Films. Although critically acclaimed, the show only ran for 13 episodes on CBC Television from 1996 to 1998. Set in Toronto, the show dealt with the gritty problems of teenagers living in an urban environment. Rather than focusing on a core group of principal characters, each episode would typically feature a different set of the ensemble teenage cast. Initially, although the character relationships were intertwined, each episode would feature a self-contained plot usually involving only a few of the characters. However during the second season, there was a continuing story arc involving a murder over multiple episodes. Although Straight Up only lasted for two seasons, it spawned the spin off series Drop the Beat which followed the characters of Jeff and Dennis as DJs at a campus radio station.