daria

Daria was an American animated television series, created by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis Lynn, and was a spin-off of Beavis and Butt-head. Both shows were produced by MTV's now-defunct animation department. Daria has been bought by broadcasters in more than 25 countries (see Daria International for current information).

Beginnings and endings

Daria's first incarnation was as an occasional character in MTV's animated series Beavis and Butt-head, where she formed an intelligent foil to the two dunderheads. During the show's final season, MTV approached Glenn Eichler about giving the character of Daria her own eponymous series. Eichler agreed, and was joined by Beavis and Butt-head staffer Susie Lewis to take the roles of executive producers.

The first episode of Daria (not including the roughly made and never-aired pilot) aired on March 3, 1997. The episode saw the Morgendorffer family settling in to their new hometown of Lawndale, having moved from Highland, the fictional town that was the setting for Beavis and Butt-head. The show also saw an increase in the titular character's abrasive personality. Presumably for the purposes of entertainment, the writers exaggerated Daria's character, as well as that of many other characters that appeared on the new show.

Whereas the seeming justification for Beavis and Butt-head's being on MTV was the featured and mocked music videos, Daria's music root lay in the fact that it had no score, but instead used current pop music for scene intros and ending credits.

With several different songs often being used for a single show, the inherent licensing problems have made an official "complete" set of episodes for home video/DVD collections a highly unlikely prospect. However, there are illegitimate bootlegs on the market. As Daria's run spanned the period immediately before the boom of TV-on-DVD, this problem could not have been foreseen during production, and is a testament to the show's status as pre-iGeneration.

The show lasted for five years, ending in 2002 with the feature-length finale "Is It College Yet?" The animated telemovie was not the show-creators' original idea for ending the series; they had intended for the last episode of Season 5 ("Boxing Daria") to see Daria out. When requests from MTV came through for another half a season, Eichler conceded to making one more Daria production to be the official show finale. "Is It College Yet?" aired on January 21, 2002.

Plot and setting

As a running television series with mostly self-contained episodes, Daria had very few running plot-lines, relying mainly on a familiar established premise to build episode-length stories upon. The basic premise of the show was that of an overtly cynical teenage girl dealing with day-to-day life in her American suburban hometown. For comedic and illustrative purposes, the show's depiction of American life was a deliberately exaggerated one. Daria's hometown of Lawndale was filled with stereotyped personalities of all kinds and Daria herself served as the show's witty observer.

By way of a coherent plot, Daria had only two offerings. The first was the show's gradual time shift of following Daria through her high school years, with the series ending with her graduation and acceptance into college.

The second was a rather specific theme first developed in the show's fourth season. Daria's best friend Jane began a relationship with one Tom Sloane, son of one of the town's richest families. In the final episode of season 4, Tom kissed Daria, and the consequential turmoil in relations among Daria, Jane, and Tom stood out as the show's key plot development.

Characters

Main article: Characters in Daria

Daria featured a large ensemble cast. Daria Morgendorffer, the show's eponymous protagonist, her immediate family, and best friend Jane Lane appear in nearly every episode.

Trivia

• After the show had become popular, rumors circulated stating that Janeane Garofalo provided the voice for Daria. Garofalo later stated that she was flattered to be considered "cool enough" to be the voice. She played upon this, and her similarity in appearance to Daria, when she hosted a half-hour "behind the scenes" MTV feature about the production of the show that aired during the fourth season.
• The only TV program Daria is shown to watch is Sick, Sad World, the Daria team's spoof of sensationalist oddity programs. However, only the preview or commercial break of the show was usually shown before Daria turned it off or other action ensued. In Episode #312, "Just Add Water," Daria and Jane were shown trying to watch an all-night SSW marathon. (A clip meant to suggest Charlie's Angels is shown in Episode #404, "Murder, She Snored," before the dream sequence begins.)
• The Morgendorffers usually have heated-up pre-made lasagna as a meal, though they have been known to eat take-out chicken, tacos ("Jake of Hearts"), and a variety of bizarre meals created by Daria's father Jake.
• Production of each half-hour episode took ten months to a year, from concept to post-production.
• Daria's theme song is "You're Standing On My Neck" by Splendora. An extended version of this song is available in the Daria's Inferno video game.
• Tom Sloane's surname was possibly chosen to connote his family's old money status by alluding to their British counterparts, dubbed Sloane Rangers.
• No other characters from Beavis and Butt-head made an appearance on Daria. Glenn Eichler, in an interview conducted after the series' run, explains:

"B&B were very strong characters, with a very specific type of humor and very loyal fans, and of course they were instantly identifiable. I felt that referencing them in Daria, while we were trying to establish the new characters and the different type of humor, ran the risk of setting up false expectations and disappointment in the viewers - which could lead to a negative reaction to the new show and its different tone. So we steered clear of B&B in the early going, and once the new show was established, there was really no need to hearken back to the old one." [1]

• In the first of two Daria movies, "Is It Fall Yet?," several celebrity personalities provided guest voices. Talk show host Carson Daly played Quinn's summer tutor, female punk rock singer Bif Naked played Jane's art camp companion and celebrated rock musician Dave Grohl played Jane's pretentious Art camp host. Incidentally, the band Foo Fighters (for which Grohl is frontman) have featured some half a dozen songs on the series.

Pop culture in Daria

One of the show's primary objectives during its lifetime was to exaggeratedly portray and subsequently mock general popular culture. This was done in the series by surrounding the character of Daria, who embodied cynicism and anti-sociality, with extreme stereotypical personalities, reflective of the culture of a teenage generation (see characters Quinn Morgendorffer, Kevin Thompson, Stacy Rowe).

Specific aspects of pop culture that were satirized on Daria include the cultural obsessions with self image and fashion, the favoring of sporting achievement over academic or artistic accomplishments, and the general conformist mentality of Daria (the character)'s generation.

Though the show's satirical nature was omnipresent, Daria rarely referenced any specific facets of pop culture, such as particular TV shows or bands (this excludes the show's musical underscore, which deliberately consisted of nothing but pop songs). These, however, were not the only pop culture references.

During the credits of each episode, the screen would be split in half. On one side, the credits would roll, and on the other would be surreal character drawings (termed by fans as "alter egos"). They would range from Tiffany as a Pokémon to Quinn's constant followers, Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie, as the three main characters from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, to Jane as the Statue of Liberty.

However, the following is a list of some of the few other items in popular culture that were referenced specifically on the show.

• Nirvana
  • This band was referenced in Episode #102 ("The Invitation"). Daria asks Jane if she will attend a party with her and Jane replied that if not she would only stay at home "listening to (her) brother practice the intro to 'Come As You Are'".
  • Episode #105 ("Malled") also alluded to the band. When Daria gets carsick, she tries to explain that the cause is a nauseating smell. She tells Jane, "It smells like ..." and Jane responds with "Teen spirit?" This is a reference to the group's famous 90's hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • This TV series was referenced in Episode #310 ("Speedtrapped"). In need of money to bail Jane and Mystik Spiral out of a county jail, Daria and Quinn ask strangers for donations in a cowboy bar. When nearly everyone in the bar donates money for the cause, Quinn remarks, "We'll be through the criminal justice system and home in time for Buffy."
• Jane's Addiction
  • The title of Episode #313 ("Jane's Addition") is a reference to the band Jane's Addiction.
• The Misfits
  • This band was referenced in Episode #413 ("Dye! Dye! My Darling"). The title of the episode is a play on the band's well-known song "Die, Die, My Darling."
• Leonardo DiCaprio
  • The actor was referenced in Episode #506, "Lucky Strike," wherein Daria was hired to teach Quinn's English class while the school faculty went on strike. When the class had to complete an essay on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Sandi received a poor grade for referring to Romeo as "Leonardo" (DiCaprio), who played the part of Romeo in the 1996 film adaptation.
• Blockbuster Video
  • This video-rental firm was referenced in the telemovie "Is It Fall Yet?" (2001). Daria and then-boyfriend Tom are walking down a suburban street, and in doing so pass many stores. One of them has Lackluster Video written in the window. (The phrase "Lackluster Video" also appeared as a parody of Blockbuster in Seth MacFarlane's animated series Family Guy and the thirteenth episode of the animated series Mission Hill.)
• The Graduate
  • In Episode #213 ("Write Where It Hurts"), Daria imagines several potential short stories involving people she knows. The first one depicted borrows from the ending of this movie, in a gender reversal, with Jane dressed as Dustin Hoffman's Ben Braddock, and Kevin at the altar, as was Katharine Ross's Elaine Robinson, with Brittany. Jane and Kevin narrowly escape the wedding on a city bus, as did the original characters.
• Boxing Helena
  • The title of Episode #513 ("Boxing Daria") is a reference to the movie Boxing Helena.

Episodes

Main article: List of Daria episodes

Spanning from 1997 to 2002, the series consisted of a total of 68 episodes including two telemovies. The original animatic was never aired, but was released on video, and is currently viewable on Youtube[2].

Airing information

Daria first aired on MTV in the USA, and reruns aired from 2002 to 2006 on The N, the young teens' timeblock on a channel shared by children's educational timeblock Noggin. The rights to show Daria have been bought by a number of broadcasters outside the USA. MTV2 UK and TMF (The Music Factory UK) show Daria episodes in the UK, as did Channel 5 in their Saturday morning slot. The ABC in Australia has also shown the program during its children's programming timeslots.

The website Daria International lists airing information for more than 25 countries.

Videos and DVDs

A number of VHS tapes have been issued, two in NTSC format, but several others only in PAL format. Two DVDs are available, of the first Daria movie "Is It Fall Yet?" and the finale movie "Is It College Yet?" Both DVDs include two bonus episodes each. However, these episodes have all of their music removed except for the opening theme.

The "College" DVD uses a shortened second-showing MTV version (by about seven minutes), not the originally cablecast version. It does, however, include a short clip of a Daria appearance on Beavis and Butt-head as a hidden "Easter egg."

These DVDs were ostensibly coded for Region One (North America), but found by fans to be region-free. More information is on this page.

Fans are campaigning for a DVD release of every episode, uncut. By September 2006, 3611 people had voted for Daria at TV Shows on DVD, bringing the show to fifth in the list of most-wanted unreleased DVDs, and first on the list of most-wanted unreleased cartoon DVDs. A petition for MTV to release the full series on DVD, which passed 20,000 signatures in May 2006, is also available online.

By most assessments, the main reason for the show's failure to obtain a DVD release is the licensing problems associated with the hundreds of pop songs the series used over its five-year run. However, in July 2004, fan Michelle Klein-Hass reported that MTV was currently investigating options for a DVD release of more Daria episodes; she quoted co-creator Glenn Eichler as saying: "[T]here's no distributor and no release date but what there is, is very strong interest from MTV in putting Daria out, and steady activity toward making that a reality."

Books

• The Daria Database by Peggy Nicoll; MTV 1998 ISBN 0-671-02596-1
• The Daria Diaries by Anne Bernstein; MTV 1998 ISBN 0-671-01709-8

Games

• Daria's Sick Sad Life Planner; Pearson Software, 1999
• Daria's Inferno; Pearson Software, 2000, later distributed by Simon & Schuster Interactive

Fan community

Most of the interaction among fans tends to take place online. Discussions take place in Usenet group alt.tv.daria, on the IRC channel #Daria+, and in message boards.

Fan conventions have been small, informal gatherings run on a not-for-profit basis. Thus far, these have been held in private homes. Larger events using public venues are being planned by some fans for 2007 (the tenth anniversary of the MTV debut of Daria) and 2008.

Fans have made an attempt to continue the show in their own way. They do this by writing fan fiction and creating fan artwork. It has been estimated that there now exists well over 3,000 fan fiction works and hundreds of pieces of fan artwork. Some of the websites report receiving hundreds of visitors each day.

See also

• Lawndale
• Lawndale High
• Mystik Spiral

External links

Websites

• Official site at MTV, no longer updated or maintained
• Outpost Daria, the longest-running and largest fan-created site (since 1998), with archives of essays, media coverage, fan fiction, and fan art
• Daria at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Daria (1997-2001 TV-series) at the Internet Movie Database
• Is It Fall Yet? (2000 TV-movie) at the Internet Movie Database
• Is It College Yet? (2002 TV-movie) at the Internet Movie Database

Blogs and news sources

• DVDaria works to gather support to have Daria released in full on DVD