Daria

There was a site that had torrents of the episodes with original music back in the 2000s. I think it was called the Daria Restoration Project or something.

Music rights are tricky, I think MTV could air reruns of Daria with the original music intact but when it comes to online streaming and the DVD release, they have to remove it to prevent having to pay for licensing. I remember renting DVDs of Dawson's Creek and Married with Children and both replaced the theme songs yet when those shows air in syndication, the theme song is still intact. I also believe that's the main reason Fox didn't release all of Malcolm in the Middle on DVD due to not feeling like paying for the music rights.

People also complained recently about Disney Plus removing all the pop songs from Disney Channel original shows and movies but it's clearly understood that licensing fees were the cause of that. Same reason as to why Kids Inc and Mickey Mouse Club will never appear on streaming.

You have to remember that in the original Daria, they had multiple top hits in every episode and DVD/streaming didn't exist. I have the DVD set (bought it day one) and my only real complaint is that the movies are both at the end of the set. The first movie should be between seasons 4 and 5.

You would have to look online for the episodes with the original music. It just won't be on any legal streaming sites.

I binged it a few months ago (I meant to just watch a few but ended up rewatching the whole show). I think it holds up without the original music.

Sick, sad World.

I love Daria!

Multibillion dollar companies own these libraries of shows and movies and the total cost to retain all of the original songs would be a drop in the bucket. They're just too damn cheap. I think it's sad when they can't even put up the cash to keep the theme song intact on the DVD release. Looking at you, Absolutely Fabulous.

They should do a kickstarter to pay for a re-release of the complete series with the original music. From what I understand the second movie/series finale of Daria is edited on the DVD boxset and the full version is lost.

The original Married with Children DVD release had this lame-ass replacement theme. They recently re-released MWC on DVD and restored the original Frank Sinatra song.

This was so jarring when I had the Dawson's Creek DVD and heard this theme song instead. At least sounded similar to "I Don't Want To Wait"

Who else had a crush on Trent?

Since other theme songs were brought up, I can't stand the replacement for "My Life" used in "Bosom Buddies" now...even in those broadcast on Decades daily have the replacement. It was bad enough they used some other singer for "My Life" instead of Billy Joel.

This has happened to most MTV shows. During their original TV runs on the network you'd hear the hits of the day used liberally throughout the episodes. In syndication, streaming, and on home media, it's replaced by cheesy stock or royalty free music. It's glaringly apparent on The Real World, in which the music of time was used to great effect when the episodes aired on MTV, but has since been replaced by generic facsimiles. I'm sure Laguna Beach, The Hills, The City, etc. probably suffer from the same fate. It seems silly, but it's a reminder of how important the music was to these shows because they definitely suffer without it.

Beavis and Butt-Head can't get released on DVD in entirety because of the music video commentaries. There are DVDs of just the episodes themselves but the show without the music videos just doesn't feel the same.

Not true R7 but thanks for playing.

Tracking down who owns the rights to all those songs is very time consuming and expensive--lots of hours of high priced lawyers negotiating dozens of deals with rights holders who range from very reasonable to unreasonable.

So it's not worth the hassle----you only make so much money on reruns of Daria and the streaming services would wind up losing money.

Good news is that new shows have all that factored into the original rights deals.

People on the Disney Plus subreddit were pissed that extremely wealthy entertainment company like Disney would not clear the music licensing fees for many of their Disney Channel shows/movies. It's especially frustrating because a lot of the late 90s/early 2000s stuff like Motocrossed, Brink, Get A Clue, The Other Me, Lizzie McGuire, So Weird, Even Stevens and Jett Jackson, did incorporate a lot of pop music and pop culture references in them. That is likely the major reason, Disney Channel began focusing on developing their own artists to feature their music in their shows rather than licensing music elsewhere.

I have the total Daria Restoration Project. Whoever did it did a damn good job, except for some hiccups here and there, but that can happen. The best thing is some beautiful person stitched the original Is It College Yet? movie together using the MTV airing. The full movie is restored with the music. So it's out there.

I adore this show and watch it every summer, on the weekends. I start in June and finish up about end of August. It's a good stroll down memory lane for this 38-year old and it's still a good show.

I loved Quinn's friends in the fashion crew and I loved how that one girl talked. It's the opposite of vocal fry.

So weird to think back to when MTV was actually about music.

[Quote] I'm sure Laguna Beach, The Hills, The City, etc. probably suffer from the same fate.

The Hills does. Honestly i don't know how i watched that show with the amount of editing they did. It's enough to give you a seizure.

I think music rights also prevent the Real World from a release. Which is a shame.

Clone High, another MTV cartoon, was able to get a DVD release with all the original music intact. It has a lot of pop punk, pop rock, emo and alternative rock tracks sprinkled throughout each episode. I imagine they were able to clear the rights because most of music in Clone High was from independent and non-mainstream rock artists that were very happy just to get their music any type of promotion.

The Adventures of Pete & Pete also got most of itself released on DVD with the original music intact for a similar reason, most of the soundtrack consisted of underground alternative rock and punk artists. The only episodes that had their music changed were the ones that had big name artists like REM.

[quote]I loved Quinn's friends in the fashion crew and I loved how that one girl talked. It's the opposite of vocal fry.

Which one girl? There were four girls in the Fashion Club, and they all had memorable voices.

I'm not that poster, but it's the one sitting next to Quinn in that photo. Her name is Sandi and she secretly hated Quinn.

That should have been "she's" not "it's" . Here is more on Sandi.

The music is everything in these shows. It's the same with a lot of series from a certain era. I think there was a similar issue with Queer as Folk or another really popular show that was highly reliant on the soundtrack to set the mood of the era. It's just not the same. I don't think The Hills or Laguna will have the staying power of Daria in terms of being iconic a generation.

Yes R24 - Sandy! She was one of my favorites.

The show once released a guide to the Fashion Club with Daria's commentary about who each of them was, and her sentence for Sandi was, "Her voice is deep; her thoughts are not."

Tiffany also had an extremely strange voice--breathy and also kind of low. And she spoke extremely slowly.

When kids watch the show, they focus mostly on the kid characters (I've yet to mneet anyone who watched the show as a kid who is not obsessed with Trent). but if you see it as an adult, the funniest characters are actually the adults (the teachers and the parents). they are all so neurotic and unable to connect with the kids.

My favorite character of all (by far) was Daria's Type-A, stressed-out mother, Helen. She's voiced by the same woman who did Quinn's voice, and she's hilarious. She always answers her cellphone by saying, "HellooOOoo?"

The substitution music ruined the Jason Bourne movies. I just gave up and torrented them.

When they screened the original Halloween, the audience didn’t like it at all. They retooled it with that soundtrack and audiences loved it.

Never underestimate the value of the soundtrack.

R28 Helen's best moment.

There's a few episodes where Helen just wipes the floor with Ms. Li. I loved that they were both alpha females, but there was simply no contest between them.

I also always liked that Helen could be so tough when protecting her daughters, but could be understanding with them personally when they needed her (especially Daria). She was always overwhelmed by her job, but she was actually a loving mom. She was a very three-dimensional character.

I just learned, about 20-25 years after the fact, that Tiffany, the Asian fashion club member, was supposed to have been Jewish (her last name is Blum-Deckler) -- I would guess the back story is that she was adopted as that was not uncommon back then.

^^It's in the Wiki that R24 turned us on to.

R17 I too loved Sandi, even though girls just like that bullied me through high-school.

I suppose I liked how she seemed to be so in-control and laidback, even witty, though she was still a colossal judgemental bitch with superficial interests. She was leader of her clique for good reason, it would seem.

I was definitely a kind of Daria growing up, though I sadly lacked her self-assurance. I wanted to be a Jane Lane so badly.

R30: Helen's best moment is in Dye! Dye! My Darling! when she gives good life advice to Daria (and every kid out there) that we are NOT in control of life. We just tell ourselves we are in order to function. Good life lesson.

R25 It's funny Daria in many ways was anti-MTV. It criticized society and how shallow and superficial it was especially middle-class suburban life. Daria also fleshed out all of its characters, they were more than just stereotypes. Quinn found her intellect later on and became more individualistic as she aged. Jodie was more than just a token black girl, she was self-aware of it and relatable to many middle-class black kids that grew up in white suburbs. Even Daria's Boomer parents were still loving and tried to understand her (Similar to Donnie Darko's parents). I think Pepper Ann was a kid version of Daria and more enjoyable to watch as an adult because it wasn't really written for little kids. Beavis and Butt-head also was a satire about the dumbing down of American society, lack of personal responsibility and absentee parenting and can be relatable to people from poor rural areas as Mike Judge is from New Mexico.

Then came stuff like TRL, Cribs, The Osbournes, Newlyweds, Laguna Beach, The Hills, Super Sweet 16 and other shows and that's when MTV really became more about celebrities, consumerism and vapid shit even more so than it was in the 90s.

There's supposed to be a spin-off with Jodie in the works with Tracie Ellis Ross as the voice. I don't know how I feel about it. Also Beavis and Butt-head and Clone High were picked up for revivals too. All on them will be broadcast on Comedy Central. Given Comedy Central's history of cancelling everything that doesn't pull in South Park/Daily Show ratings I'm not optimistic. But maybe in the streaming era, they will get a chance to breathe and grow in viewership. I'm just glad that MTV is not doing the revivals because they cancelled that Beavis and Butt-head revival back in 2011 despite many liking and feeling Mike Judge's writing drastically improved.

And while they're at it, I would not mind if Duckman also got a revival. I used to watch reruns of it late nights on Comedy Central. It's been trending on social media lately because of Duckman's rants on society being even more relevant now than in the 90s.

ViacomCBS has said they are going to do a major expansion of CBS All Access and then combine it with Showtime to create something that competes with Netflix, Hulu, DisneyPlus, Amazon, HBO Max etc.

So that's where I'm guessing all these revivals fit in

R37 the Beavis and Butthead reboot was hilarious.

I forgot about Daria's mom! This is a great blast from the past. Was she like a realtor or something? Very Annette Benning, American Beauty.

Sounds about right. Viacom is a terrible company that drove all their channels into the ground. MTV is mostly Ridiculousness and Wild N Out reruns, Comedy Central is mostly South Park and The Office, VH1 is just reruns of old black sitcoms now and Nickelodeon is mostly SpongeBob.

Streaming is the only way to keep their brands alive.

[quote]Was she like a realtor or something?

She was a corporate attorney.

Thanks R43! I feel like I could ask questions all day b/c this is a fun thread but maybe I need to sit down and watch a couple of just watch a couple of episodes.

Stone and typing...perfect for Daria

OK, so 98% of their programming is reality shows and most premiered in 2018. They are pumping out so many. It seems like a desperate attempt to survive because of their viewership dropping each year.

Another great character was Ms. Brach. The angry divorcee.

I also like that Daria the protagonist got told off a few times and the show made clear she wasn't perfect. I remember one episode where Jodie said to Daria, "you don't have to be agains everything, you know?" That one episode where Daria contemplated getting eye contacts was touching because it showed that Daria was still a teenager and had insecurities despite her aloof exterior. Jane is much better-adjusted than Daria and it's clear that Jane could be popular if she played the game just because of her good social skills but she chooses to be herself and is loyal to Daria which is cool. But another interesting thing is that Daria is an outcast by choice, nobody in school really bullies her or ostracizes her. Jodie, Brittany, Mack and Kevin who are the cool kids always talk to Daria, tell her secrets and seek out advice from her. So Daria wasn't really an unpopular girl, people liked her at school but she just didn't care for them. Quinn trying to pretend Daria was her cousin was also funny because everyone knew it wasn't true but kinda just played along with it.

Did anyone else think Daria’s boyfriend Tom was boring and no good for her? Or just me?

I always thought Daria was sort of subconsciously waiting for Jane, but that’s probably mostly projection.

Loved it! I was in love with the (animated!!) guidance counsellor.

There was a very 90s vibe to Daria R48, because it was a time when the coolest kids were the ones like Daria and Jane who rolled their eyes at everything and mocked anything that seemed conformist or careerist.

Then along came social media and that all went out the window.

It's also funny to think that Daria would be in her late 30s today.

For you R51

Daria was a very 90's girl secure in herself. There were always those alternative girls that weren't the prettiest but thought they were cooler than the Quin's of the world usually because of their alternative musical tastes or subculture identity (raver, goth, music junkie that eschewed anything played on the radio as uncool).

R52 Haha, Brittany, Kevin and Quinn peaked in high school

The Daria's of the world were my friends in high school. They didn't care if you were gay and they actually like you even more because of it.

Thank you R52

The social commentary holds up to be sure, but it is 90s cynical/detached commentary rather than BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE that is the 20s now.

R48: Jane does in The F Word episode, she becomes conventional for a class project and tries out for cheerleading because "it was almost too easy to fit in". But she blows the tryout on purpose because she realizes she doesn't fucking care about conventional things and she would be loosing Daria and Tom. Its both loyalty AND her own true self. As evidenced by her "cheer" below.

This show was on all the time when I was a kid but I never watched it because I was a bit too young to get it. This thread finally made me download it (thanks, OP!) and I just watched the pilot episode. Well, what can I say - it certainly lives up to its cult status because that was pretty funny. But I think it would be equally funny even without the original music because most of those song snippets are super short and you barely even notice them. The songs were listed at the end and I had to actually rewind the episode to see where they were used.

It's interesting how teenagers in the core 90s (about 1991 to 1998) seemed to gravitate towards grunge, folk, alternative rock, metal, hip hop, Eurodance and R&B. Rather than buying into the manufactured pop culture. But by the 1999, it seemed manufactured teen pop and being traditionally attractive really took over with Britney, NSYNC, Backstreet, Destiny's Child and Christina. And the 1990-1991 period was still the era of glam and cheese with all the hair metal, Paula Abdul, New Kids and all the New Jack Swing acts. Janet and Madonna had to recreate their images to a more alternative and dressed-down to keep themselves on the charts. It shows that fads work in cycles.

[quote]But by the 1999, it seemed manufactured teen pop and being traditionally attractive really took over with Britney, NSYNC, Backstreet, Destiny's Child and Christina.

It didn't help that most of the stuff that was counterprogrammed against the bubblegum pop was hot garbage.

20+ years on, "I Want It That Way" is perfect, as far as pop songs go. Stuff like NuMetal is completely unlistenable.

Also, even the traditionally alternative genres like punk, rock and hip-hop eventually became pop music and manufactured anyway. TRL really pushed the rappers and rock artists that fit more into the pop and mainstream rather than underground or alternative. I remember My Chemical Romance, Avril Lavigne, Fall Out Boy, Michelle Branch, Ashlee Simpson and all them and how they were supposed to be "edgy". LOL

R58: Welcome to the fandom, friend! You'll enjoy the hell out of it. Some episodes are slower or more filler than others, but overall, the writing is good and the commentary spot on. Episode 2 The Invitation is a great spoof of high school parties and all the stupid crap that goes on at them.

I always thought it would be cool to see what kind of grownup Daria turned out to be. I mean she was pretty much grown up already, but still stuck in the body of a high school teen.

thanks r52, for a little bit of my fantasy.

Daria is a Millennial too. The show started airing in 1997, so Daria would have been born in 1981 at the cusp. But you could also place her in the Xennial category as well. But certainly most viewers of Daria were Xennials and Millennials. People tend to think that the 90s was only the domain of Gen X for some reason.

I see Daria as the quintessential Xer. Not a millennial.

R65 I can see that too. Probably an example of the older writers projecting themselves onto the characters just like Dawson's Creek.

Someone asked the voice of Quinn to read a certain someone's Tweets.

Daria was written to be Gen X in mannerisms and behavior but biologically was Millennial because of the date that the show aired (1997 to 2002). She originated in Beavis and Butt-head too which was an iconic Gen X show.

Can the generation obsessives remember that it was a cartoon?

Jane is my spirit animal.

R49 funnily enough, i was reading an article the other day about why Tom was necessary.

Count me as a fan of Tom. I agree with that article and thanks for sharing it R73.

I love the social commentary in this thread.

Huge fan of Daria.

Less than $20 on Amazon right now

[quote] NuMetal is completely unlistenable.

[italic]A true Master paralyses his opponent, leaving him vulnerable to attack...[/italic]

Daria was like My So-Called Life in that the main characters were teens but they were relatable to the then 20-something GenXers.

For some reason I thought Daria had much of its original music restored on DVD, but I think I'm thinking about "WKRP, where Shout Factory got the rights to almost everything except some Pink Floyd thing, because Waters is a nutball.

Didn't realize there'd been a live-action movie:

Someone explain to R79 how the internet works...

[quote]Count me as a fan of Tom. I agree with that article and thanks for sharing it [R73].

I thought she grew tremendously as a character from having dated Tom. She and Jane were better friends once they'd made up. She got along better with her family, particularly with Quinn. She even chilled out a little in school.

Somewhat related due to MTV

I've made it through the first two seasons in three days and they were fucking awesome. But it seems to me that the show suddenly dropped in quality in the third one. I'm four episodes in and they were all very underwhelming; the musical and the holiday island episodes were pretty much unwatchable. I loved how realistic the show seemed in the first two seasons but these two episodes really turned it into a totally different kind of show. Oh well, I guess I'll try to watch a few more and I sure hope the show gets back on its track soon.

R83 I'm a fan of those two, but they are pretty much outliers. The show doesn't get Weird very often.

The holiday episode is the show's worst by a long-shot. But most of the second half of the season, particularly the final two, are some of a strongest.

This show was awesome back in high school. Fairly accurate too, surprisingly. The music really added to the show because it was exactly what was popular at the time. Seeing some episodes these days without the music actually detracts more than you would think when you remember the old music.

Luckily, I Limewired (remember that?) that shit back in the early 2000's. I have the original episodes saved on a hard drive somewhere.

R82 reminded me of how much I detest that blocky, angular, thick-lined 2D art style, a la DEXTER’S LAB and BILLY & MANDY. It absolutely bites, making everything look like stiff stand-up cardboard cut-outs put out for the garbage collection.

While also simplistic and stylised, DARIA’s softer art was much more forgiving, and pleasing to the eye. It has some humanity.

R83: There is a whole Daria online community called Daria Outpost. They HATED Depth Takes a Holiday. I, for one, like it. It's not cannon and camp, as is the musical. Daria Dance Party may be the best episode in Season 3 from a musical perspective, if you have the ones with the original music. The Lost Girls is possibly the best commentary on youth-oriented media, then and now. And Lane Miserable is great as well, on a couple of plot fronts.

I just love it when someone new discovers Daria. I know, I know, MARY!!

A lot of older millennial female writers have tried to emulate Daria’s commentary style but come up way short. She was written as whip smart and snarky but never cruel.

There was supposed to be a Jodie spin-off that was I read two versions of. One was going to be about Jodie and daria and the other one was the tracee Ellis Ross one but neither have panned out. I would’ve settled for a high school reunion movie.

Was Daria a lesbian?

If there's one thing about Daria that I disliked, it was the complete avoidance of any gay stuff...except for a pervy woman who put the moves on Jane when she was at that horrible art colony.

Although one was left with the impression that Jane didn't completely hate it.

The reason they retooled the spinoff attempt was because Tracey Grandstaff probably knew it didn't work and refused to return as Daria and no-one else can fill that role. Also a spinoff starring a very minor Daria character is an odd choice.

The Daria Restoration Project has all of the movies and episodes restored with the original music. The same thing was done with the original Beavis and Butthead series and movie in regards to the content and music videos. That one is called the King Turd Collection (yes, that's the actual name) and that can be purchased on a bootleg DVD box set online. My only annoyance is that the holiday specials have been taken out of the main series and have been grouped together on a separate DVD in the set. But it does have a lot of extras. They even restored and reinserted the deleted scene of Beavis unknowingly desecrating the Declaration of independence back into the movie on the DVD.

R90/R91 strange in retrospect that the show never even asked the question about the sexuality of its leads, I agree. That’s sort of refreshing too, though, isn’t it?

If they had attempted to discuss LGB, I like to think it would have been handled gracefully, which is rare in animation but can be done. HEY, ARNOLD! and AS TOLD BY GINGER are my two favourite examples of a show that did a subtle sensitive job of presenting gay people really well.

R93 As Told By Ginger was an amazing underappreciated series.

Daria wasn't a lesbian (and who would care if she was?). She had a serious crush on Jane's older brother, and later on she had her own boyfriend in the series.

Now Jane on the other hand...

[quote]If there's one thing about Daria that I disliked, it was the complete avoidance of any gay stuff

Which makes the show very dated.

[quote]If there's one thing about Daria that I disliked, it was the complete avoidance of any gay stuff..

I'm the OP and just wrapped up rewatching the entire series again. I still love the series, but it really pointed out to be just how far we've come on a number issues in the last 20 years. There were only two gay things on the show. When the artist lady kissed Jane and Jane was dating a guy into "retro" and Daria asked if he was gay (and they didn't even say gay).

The Jodie and Mac characters and Jodie's parents were very much of that time and might be side-eyed a little bit now. I think one of the most interesting things I enjoyed watching was the evolution of the Quinn character over the series and how they started laying the groundwork for trouble coming in Daria and Jane's relationship in season 1. And Tom was a good and necessary character.

R93 - I don't have the photographic memory that many DLers have about shows from my childhood, but who were the gay characters on Hey Arnold?

I remember Helga being very aggressive, but I thought she had a crush on Arnold.

Was there a gay character?

[quote]I'm the OP and just wrapped up rewatching the entire series again. I still love the series, but it really pointed out to be just how far we've come on a number issues in the last 20 years. There were only two gay things on the show. When the artist lady kissed Jane and Jane was dating a guy into "retro" and Daria asked if he was gay (and they didn't even say gay).

There was also an episode where Mr. O'Neill asked Jane "Have you considered homeopathy?" to which she answered "I think I'm going to stick with guys for now."

[Quote] Luckily, I Limewired (remember that?) that shit back in the early 2000's. I have the original episodes saved on a hard drive somewhere.

Lucky bitch

The only good thing about the dreadful musical episode was the SSW part, which was my favorite one so far:

[quote] They broke into her bedroom. She burst into song! The inappropriate alto, tonight on Sick, Sad World!

R101: Whoa. No more cocoa for you, man.....

The episode is, like, campy fun. Roll with it, man....

DL really is a GenX board at heart, as witnessed by the many responses to threads on River Phoenix, Courtney Love, Winona Ryder, the Allen-Farrow marriage, 'St. Elmo's Fire', and so on.

I loved Daria and got the DVD set when it was first released. I also have an "I hate everybody" Daria t-shirt that gets a lot of response whenever I wear it.

The show was really good at giving depth to the supporting characters with small moments. One of my favorite episodes is when Daria and Jodie visit a private school together and they end up admitting that despite how differently they approach life, they each respect and would like to be more like the other. Jodie admits to Daria that despite her popularity, being the token high achieving Black girl is isolating and she wishes she had more freedom to just be herself. It's such a great insight into her--her earnestness is as much a self-protective measure as Daria's cynicism.

This site explores character development in the show and lays out just how good it was:

[quote] Can you teach an old dog to turn tricks? Ruff! Canine call girls, next on Sick, Sad World.

R10, yes. I remember watching this with a female friend way back during its original airing and she just said during one of the Trent performances with Mystic Spiral (ha!) 'Yeah, I'd fuck him' to no one in particular. Of course we were stoned, but she wasn't alone. He was way more fuckable than Tom...HATED him.

R106 lol your friend has good taste.

R106 Helens Planner...... do you come in coral?

Daria iPod Commercial

This scene is so relatable even years after. This is society sees people who are introverted, non-conformist, socially awkward and can't fit in. They will try so hard to change them just to make them fit in and make others happy but refuse to allow the individual any space to just to be themselves. Helen being a workaholic lawyer is frustrated that there is no way she can "fix" Daria through force like she can do with her legal cases. Helen and Quinn though had a lot of character development as you compare the first episode to the last.

Daria on Beavis & Butt-head. She was a bit more expressive in the B&B but still sarcastic and was the only one who B&B could never drive crazy. In fact she was always able to manipulate the duo to her advantage.

HUGE fan of the show, which I initially discovered late (“Is It Fall Yet?) in its original run but then caught up via MTV’s marathon airings. Very grateful to have the entire series in DVD.

As stated in several posts above, the creators really made the characters multidimensional. It was always touching when workaholic Helen turned into a loving, concerned Mom to her girls — and her telephone throwdowns with Ms. Ali were always a hoot! And I remember getting choked up in the “Boxing Daria” episode and when Incubus’s “Drive” played over the end credits of the final episode where it showed what happened to everyone (I know, Mary!). And it was so sweet when Quinn (finally!) acknowledged Daria as her sister and Stacy and Tiffany admitted they’d known all along.

I thought Trent’s Mystik Spiral bandmate was a cutie!

D’oh — I forgot to mention who I was crushing on from Trent’s band — it was Jesse!

This was an interesting assessment of Daria’s mom Helen!

Love “Daria”, it still holds up well!

Like Duckman, a lot of Daria's responses are seen as ahead of their time.

This

R116: That was prescient. R117, however, is eternal.

Daria is about to leave Hulu. You've been warned.

They cry wolf, r119. They warned it was expiring a few months ago as well but it stayed.

It says Expiring Thursday. i can't imagine they'd be that specific.

It's owned by ViacomCBS. It'll likely to go to CBS All Access, unless there's an MTV or Comedy Central streaming service in the works?

What a great show for mtv. The perfect combo of humor and maturity. I wonder why they never made a sequel

R123 I feel after Daria ended that MTV really started pushing reality TV. They didn't want to invest the money and time it took to create an animated series with reality TV being cheap and pulling in ratings.

R123/R124: There was a plan for a Mystik Spiral spin-off show. But MTV Animation was closed right after Is It College Yet? aired, and that was aborted.

Clone High was their last attempt at an animated show but it got cancelled due to low ratings and controversy over Gandhi's depiction. Funny is that both Daria and Clone High are being revived by MTV. Daria for nostalgia and Clone High due to the creative team becoming big Hollywood directors who were behind 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie and Into The Spider-Verse.

I'm pretty sure the Jodie series is going to be on Comedy Central.

R127: Yes, it will air there. It could have potential, Jodie was an important secondary character. The original voice actress is now a special ed teacher, I believe.

The Aubrey Plaza tribute is awful.

R128 I noticed what made Daria different was they hired a lot of VAs from the theatre circuit in NYC. Jodie, Upchuck and Stacy's VAs were still in their teens and attending art schools like LaGuardia. Jodie's voice actress, Jessica Cydnee Jackson, had a very thick noticeable NY accent. Stacy was voiced by Sara Drew and Upchuck by Geoffrey Arend, both are decently known actors now. It makes sense since MTV is based in NYC. Daria's VA Tracey Grandstaff just carried over from Beavis and Butt-head.

Wow, R130, your mentioning Stacy and Upchuck reminded me of sweet episode late in the series when Stacy was magician Upchuck’s assistant and finally stood up to the tyrannical Sandi!

Stacy is one of my favorite characters. She started out as mousy, meek and insecure but grew more strong-willed over the course of the show. Sandi is fascinating too because she is a deconstruction of the bitchy queen bee. Sandi is very insecure and feels that she needs to be domineering over the Fashion Club in order to not lose her only friends. She doesn't really hate Quinn but feels threatened that the other club members like Quinn more than her (which is true Quinn is more easygoing and actually pretty nice despite being vapid). I feel like Sandi influenced Bonnie in [italic]Kim Possible[/italic], Azula in [italic]Avatar[/italic], Jackie in [italic]That 70s Show[/italic] and Regina George in [italic]Mean Girls[/italic] as mean girls who get dethroned and humbled very harshly. Yeah, I watched a lot of cartoons.

I was always surprised teenagers who watched the show became so obsessed with Trent--if you ask people who watched the show when they were young, you'd think it was all about Trent (he was only on the show sometimes). And I was also always so surprised how much the original teen fanbase wanted Daria and Trent to get together, although the show's creator repeated multiple times how incredibly inappropriate Daria and Trent would be for one another: he's not interested in books or ideas at all.

The development of the characters was excellent, and pretty true to life. Although Jake was so paralyzed by his sense of inadequacy that he didn't grow very much as a person over the course of the series, all of the other Morgendorffers did quite a bit--Helen the most of all (she went from being a terrible mother to being quite a good one, at least to Daria, and they treated it superbly, as if she were actively trying to figure out how to be a better parent to Daria and give her more space and room to grow).

A lot of shows have fandoms that prefer certain couples together. Think Dawson & Joey and Pacey & Andie. Brenda & Dylan. I even heard Hyde & Donna. Even if the writers hate the idea.

[quote] Think Dawson & Joey and Pacey & Andie. Brenda & Dylan.

I prefer not to, thanks.

I think Daria & Jane should have been endgame.

Helen and Jake are like the Boomer parents from those 1980s and 90s teen flicks but are actually fleshed out and humanized instead of being portrayed as neglectful, intolerant and too busy to parent. I loved that they tried their best to parent their daughters and understand them. It reminds me of the parents in [italic]Donnie Darko[/italic] who instead of treating Donnie like a problem, still loved and tolerated his behavior and understood he was mentally ill and could not help it

Agreed, R134, the growth and evolution of some of the characters (Daria, Quinn, Helen, Stacy) over the course of the series — particularly over the last two seasons — was excellent. It was VERY moving in “Boxing Daria” when Daria admitted to her mother that she’d come to realize that she wasn’t always the daughter Helen and Jake might have hoped she’d be. Who’d have expected Season One Daria to admit that? And the smile that Daria and Quinn shared when Quinn admitted to her class that Daria was indeed her sister was endearing.

Jake had a nice moment in “Boxing Daria” where he said that he and Helen understood that the other side of her being smart was that she’d have trouble fitting in.

It was a little less eloquent than that, but it was one of his rare insightful moments.

It's ironic that this comedy cartoon has two of its most important episodes, Dye! Dye! My Darling and Boxing Daria, as serious, low amount of comedy affairs. It just shows what a well rounded, fantastically written show it was.

r139, I came to that same conclusion about not being the son my father wanted a little before Daria did. For years I always wished for a father who was like me not for a second thinking about him. I wish I had been able to come to that point sooner, hopefully Daria helped others realize this. Life's a lot easier when you reach that point.

[Quote] Think Dawson & Joey and Pacey & Andie. Brenda & Dylan.

Yes to Pacey & Andie. No to the other ships.

[quote] The development of the characters was excellent, and pretty true to life.

That's mostly true, but one thing that was totally unrealistic was Jane being fine with Daria dating Tom. Sorry, but no woman would ever be fine with her best friend dating her ex (especially not one she just broke up with five minutes ago). In real life these two would probably never speak to each other again.

The show got right in a lot of its sociological details what TV shows like 90210 and Saved by the Bell and Popular and movies like Heathers and Pretty in Pink did not get right about high school, at least wealthy and primarily-white suburban high schools (which is what I attended). I liked that though it was very clearly evident on "Daria" who was popular and who was not, the popular kids had mostly stopped making fun of the loner kids and the dork kids by the later high school years, so that the popular girls (like the ones in the Fashion Club) were mostly tormenting each other and leaving the alienated kids like Jane and Daria alone. (The only exception was Upchuck, whom almost every yelled at when he was obnoxious and made passes at the girls--but no one went out of their way to belittle him.) That was pretty much my experience of high school: the cruelties of "Heathers" and "Pretty in Pink" were pretty evident in jr. high school, but had become much more subtle by h.s., with the mean kids leaving the nerds and outcasts alone. I also liked that the parents and the teachers on "Daria" were mostly wrapped up in their own problems and only occasionally involved with the kids' concerns--that's also very much like life.

The only thing that ever seemed off to me was that there was so little discussion of sex. Tom once wanted Daria to have sex (she wasn't into it, but he accepted that), and I think once Brittany referred to the fact that she had gone all the way with Kevin; but in real life, the three J's would have been after Quinn and the other girls in the Fashion Club all the time by that point in their h.s. careers. Yet on the show, all they ever seemed to want from Quinn was to fetch and carry for her.

R145 Brittany was known for being promiscuous though. There was an episode where someone blackmailed her with a photo of her making out with a football player in the back of his car from the rival school. I think what was interesting about Quinn was that while she loved the attention of guys, she was very prudish and seemed a bit grossed out of the idea of having sex. It showed she was still a young teenager and rather innocent in a lot of ways. Though Quinn in the pilot "Sealed with Kick" did fool around with Kevin in the back of his car.

[quote]The only thing that ever seemed off to me was that there was so little discussion of sex. Tom once wanted Daria to have sex (she wasn't into it, but he accepted that)

I remember is that they mutually decided to have sex, but then Daria realized she wasn't ready, but Tom was understanding that allowing herself to be vulnerable in talking about her feelings was just as intimate.

And Helen had a great, non-judgmental talk with her, with this GEM of a line: "Not that I would ever try to talk you out of it -- which is not to say I'm trying to talk you into it -- it's just that I'd like to have the chance to discuss things with you first. I only wish I could have gone to my mother before I made such an awful mistake. What is it about stunt drivers that makes otherwise level-headed teenage girls just whip off their..."

Not to sound like a Millennial (I'm a late Gen X, I swear), but I think you could make a convincing case that Daria is actually asexual.

Great to see Daria getting all this justified DL love!

[italic]Daria[/italic], [italic]Pepper Ann[/italic] and [italic]As Told By Ginger[/italic] are three cartoons that captured female adolescence more accurately than most live-action stuff. They are much more enjoyable to watch as an adult because you can see the writers were also aiming for a mature audience and gave the parent and adult characters in the series a lot of limelight. Same with [italic]Rugrats[/italic], the parents got a lot of spotlight in episodes that showed how stressed they were about being new parents of babies and having to juggle a lot of responsibilities like work, bills and marital issues.

This delightful and thought-provoking thread prompted me to revisit some episodes on DVD (yes, I bought the series years ago, DL, please don’t judge)!

There was a subtle but laugh-out-loud (to me, anyway!) moment in “Is It Fall Yet?” when Quinn’s tutor shows up at the house and Helen, trying to make a good impression as the tutor was referred by her boss, introduces herself and calls for Quinn. While waiting for Quinn, the tutor, voiced by Carson Daly, tells Helen how important it is to have a concerned, caring parent, and Helen again calls for Quinn, this time with a bit of undisguised panic in her voice and on her face. Love that the creators slipped in a subtle character moment like that.

[quote]This delightful and thought-provoking thread prompted me to revisit some episodes on DVD (yes, I bought the series years ago, DL, please don’t judge)!

Who's judging?

I think my favorite moment with Quinn (apart from finally confessing Daria was her sister) was when she went to the college party with her new friend in "Is It College Yet?" and made the seemingly shocking revelation that people with interests that weren't incredibly shallow could be cool too.

[quote] could make a convincing case that Daria is actually asexual.

Always got this impression, too. She had no particular drive; her crush on Trent skewed almost chaste, and her attraction to Tom was almost wholly cerebral.

R149 I’ve heard it said that writers have gone on record saying the characters of Courtney Gripling (AS TOLD BY GINGER) and Nicky Little (PEPPER ANN) were originally conceived as characters who question their orientation and come out as lesbian, but these ideas were nixed by producers.

I thought it was an surprising pivot of the Andrea character when she was working at the warehouse club and was trying to avoid daria and Jane. She was vulnerable and thought daria and Jane were going to make fun of her and saw daria and Jane as being queen bees.

Oh, I remember that episode, R154 — a good one! Daria & Jane, the Fashion Club, and Brittany & Kevin are all at a Costco-type warehouse store!