Daria

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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 twenty countries, see [Daria International].

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 ever episode of Daria (not including the roughly made and never-aired pilot), aired on 3 March, 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. Assumedly for the purposes of entertainment, the writers exaggerated Daria's character, as well as many other characters that appeared on the 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 using current pop music for scene intros and ending credits. Often using several different songs for a single show, the inherent licensing problems have made official "complete" episodes for home video/DVD collection 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 Daria movie 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 make one more Daria production to be the official show finale. This was Is It College Yet?, which aired on January 21, 2002.

Plot, Setting and Characters

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 from. 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 stereotype 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, 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, Daria kissed Tom, and the consequential turmoil in relations between Daria, Jane and Tom stood out as the show's key plot development.

Characters

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, rumours circulated stating that Janeane Garofalo provided the voice for Daria. Garofolo later commented on the rumor, stating that she was flattered to be considered "cool enough" to be the voice of Daria.
• When the show began in 1997, Daria and her family just moved from Highland to the affluent town of Lawndale.
• The only television program Daria is shown to watch is Sick, Sad World (however, only the preview or commercial break of the show is shown before Daria turns it off in most cases) , the Daria team's spoof of sensationalist oddity programs. (Excluding the clip from Charlie's Angels shown in "Murder, She Snored" before the dream sequence begins.)
• The Morgendorffers usually have 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.
• Tom Sloane's surname is possibly a reference to denote his family's old money status by alluding to their British counterparts, dubbed Sloane Rangers.
• No other characters from Beavis and Butt-Head have ever 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." [link]

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, band Foo Fighters (for which Grohl is frontman) have featured some half a dozen songs on the series (click here for a list).

Pop culture in Daria

One of the shows 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 obsession 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.

Specific pop-culture references

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. One side, the credits would roll, and on the other would be surreal character drawings. 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. However, the following is a list of the few varying items in popular culture that were referenced specifically on the show.

• Nirvana
• *Nirvana were 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".
• Jane's Addiction
• *Jane's Addiction were referenced in Episode #313 (Jane's Addition). The title of the episode is a play on the band's name.
• 'The Misfits''
• *The Misfits were referenced in Episode #413 (Dye! Dye! My Darling). The title of the episode is a play on the well-known song (Die, Die, My Darling) by the band. A reluctant Daria agrees to help Jane dye her hair like the tiger in one of her paintings. After dreadful results, Jane blames Daria, claiming that she purposely botched the job because of secret feelings for Tom.
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• * DiCaprio 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.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• *Buffy the Vampire Slayer 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".
• Blockbuster Video
• * Blockbuster was referenced in the Daria telemovie Is It Fall Yet? (2001). In the film, Daria and then-boyfriend Tom are walking down a suburban street, and in doing so pass many stores. One of the stores they pass has Lack Luster Videos written in the window.

The phrase "Lack Luster Videos" 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.

Episodes

Spanning from 1997 to 2002, the series consisted of a total of 65 episodes and two telemovies, all of which were aired.

Airing information

Daria first aired on MTV in the USA, and reruns aired on The N, the young teens timeblock on a channel shared by children's educational timeblock Noggin,. These reruns had been criticised by American Daria fans for being edited for content, occasionally rendering remaining portions of the show almost unintelligible, or wiping out subplots and subtext.

What is particularly unusual about the censorship of Daria on The N, as well as the absence of several episodes from circulation, is that several themes that are also controversial appear uncensored in the channel's live action programming, such as , which frequently deals with sex and drug use, and even has developed a catch phrase slogan in its advertising: "Degrassi: it goes there." This may reflect a belief that because Daria is animated, it must be censored.

The rights to show Daria have been bought by a number of broadcasters outside the USA: [Daria International] lists airing information for more than 25 countries.

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.

Videos and DVDs

A number of VHS tapes have been issued, mostly in PAL format. Two DVDs are available, ostensibly coded for Region One (North America) but found by fans to be region-free. More information on [this page]. Fans are [campaigning] for a DVD release of every episode, uncut. By April 2006, 3,100 people had voted for Daria at [TV Shows on DVD], bringing the show to 10th in the list of most-wanted unreleased DVDs. A petition for MTV to release the full series on DVD is also available online, which passed 20,000 signatures in May 2006 (http://www.petitiononline.com/dvdaria/).

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 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 0671025961
• The Daria Diaries by Anne Bernstein; MTV 1998 ISBN 0671017098

Games

• Daria's Sick Sad Life Planner; Pearson Software, 1999
• Daria's Inferno; Pearson Software, 2000

Fan community

Most of the interaction among fans tends to take place online. Discussions take place in Usenet group [news:alt.tv.daria alt.tv.daria], on the IRC channel [#Daria+], and in fansite message boards (listed below).

Fan conventions are small, informal gatherings and run on a not-for-profit basis by fans who often host them in their own homes. All the Dariacons listed at [Dariacon Central] have been gatherings of adults, and organisers have made no effort to attract younger fans; indeed, they've discouraged or prohibited the attendance of children.

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 listed below report receiving hundreds of visitors each day.

See also

• Lawndale
• Characters in "Daria"
• Mystik Spiral
• Lawndale High

>

Daria
Characters
Morgendorffers:	Daria | Quinn (Sister) | Helen (Mother) | Jake (Father)
Other high school students:	Jane Lane | Brittany Taylor | Jodie Landon | Charles "Upchuck" Ruttheimer III | Kevin Thompson | Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie | Sandi Griffin | Stacy Rowe
Teachers:	Janet Barch | Claire Defoe | Anthony DeMartino | Angela Li | Timothy O'Neill
Miscellaneous:	Rita Barksdale | Amy Barksdale | Mystik Spiral
Other
Beavis and Butt-head | Is It Fall Yet? | Lawndale High | Lawndale | Episodes | Sick, Sad World

External links

Websites

• [Daria] at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• [}}} }] at the Internet Movie Database
• [}}} }] at the Internet Movie Database
• [}}} }] at the Internet Movie Database

• [DVDaria] works to gather support to have Daria released on DVD.

 

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