Daria (TV series)

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Daria (TV series)
Genre Comedy
Format Animation
Created by Glenn Eichler
Voices of Tracy Grandstaff
Wendy Hoopes
Julian Rebolledo
Alvaro J. Gonzalez
Marc Thompson
Janie Mertz
Sarah Drew
Jessica Cydnee Jackson
Russell Hankin
Country of origin United States
No. of seasons 5
No. of episodes 65
2 TV movies
Executive producer(s) Glenn Eichler
Abby Terkuhle
Running time 22 – 23 minutes (episodes)
66 – 75 minutes (TV movies)
Original channel MTV
Original airing March 3, 1997 - January 21, 2002

Daria is an animated TV series about a young, intelligent and cynical high school girl named Daria Morgendorffer, initially a supporting character on the MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-head. It was produced by MTV with Glenn Eichler who served as its executive producer and principal writer for the entire run of the series. Peggy Nicoll and Anne D. Bernstein also served as major writers; the three writers listed wrote close to one half of the episodes of the series. Daria would eventually be broadcast in at least thirty countries outside of the United States.

The show ran on MTV for five seasons from March 3, 1997 to January 21, 2002. Glenn Eichler was given the option of half of a sixth season but he made the decision to conclude the series at the end of its fifth season. At four years and ten months, it became the longest-running animated series in MTV history, eclipsing the more popular Beavis and Butt-head by a few months. (Daria would be the second-longest running MTV series if Celebrity Deathmatch is counted as an animated series.)

Contents

Daria on Beavis and Butt-head

See also Beavis and Butt-head, List of Beavis and Butt-head episodes featuring Daria

Daria's first appearance was as a background character on Beavis and Butt-head. The date of her first non-speaking appearance is unknown; her first speaking appearance on Beavis and Butt-head was in the episode Scientific Stuff, the sixth Beavis and Butt-head short and the first Season Two episode. She was voiced by Tracy Grandstaff, who would voice Daria in nineteen different episodes of Beavis and Butt-head and all of the Daria episodes.

Daria was actually created by Glenn Eichler, who was working as a story editor for Beavis and Butt-head. Daria's role was to provide a contrast to the mentally challenged main characters of Beavis and Butt-head and Daria's behavior shows few differences between how she behaved on her own series.

As Beavis and Butt-head was nearing the end of its run on MTV, MTV asked Eichler to create a new animated series around Daria. A short animated pilot, Sealed with a Kick, was created by with Karen Disher as production designer and Sam Johnson and Chris Marcil as writers.

The pilot was never aired and was never intended to be a completed cartoon. The animated characters are not colored, with different voices for main characters (like Kevin). Disher's initial designs of the main characters would change between the time of "Sealed with a Kick" and the airing of the first new episode.

Synopsis

Daria is the story of Daria Morgendorffer, an intelligent loner in the world of popularity obsessed teenagers who attend Lawndale High School.

Daria faces pressure on two fronts: from her very cute, very popular and very shallow sister Quinn Morgendorffer and her parents -- workaholic mother Helen Morgendorffer and father Jake Morgendorffer, a clueless man with an unfortunately short fuse. Daria's parents want her to be more popular and more outgoing, a path which Daria rejects.

It appears that Daria will be a loner at Lawndale until she meets a similar soul in the form of artist Jane Lane. Daria (and Jane) respond to the events around them with dry humor, wit, and sarcasm, comments which go over the heads of their targets.

Daria tries to avoid the machinations of both her parents and of Principal Angela Li, who wishes to draft Daria and her classmates into transparent money-making or promotional schemes designed to bring honor to Lawndale High School.

Daria, however, has people for whom she feels fondness other than Jane Lane. She finds herself attracted to Trent Lane, a tall dark and handsome (and lazy) musician and Jane's older brother. As the seasons progress, Daria's patience with Trent's laziness ends but for the first few seasons of Daria, Trent is Daria's secret crush.

The closeness of Daria's relationship with Jane is threatened by Jane's new boyfriend, Tom Sloane, whom Daria dislikes. Eventually, the two get used to each other and an attraction develops between the two. As Jane's relationship with Tom is failing, Daria and Tom become progressively more friendly until the two share a forbidden kiss in Tom's car. Daria tells Jane and the fallout nearly ends Daria's friendship with Jane, but somehow the friendship is repaired and Tom becomes Daria's boyfriend.

However, the Daria/Tom relationship is not meant to last, not surviving the final season. Daria breaks up with Tom in the final episode of the series, "Is It College Yet?" This episode has Daria and her classmates graduating Lawndale High School and going into separate ways. Daria and Jane will be going to separate colleges in the Boston area, ensuring that their very close friendship will last even after the end of the series.

Characters

Main characters

Secondary characters

Morgendorffer family

Lane family

Sloane family

Lawndale High

  • Angela Li, principal of Lawndale High School, obsessed with sports, high school security, and the glory of Lawndale High (and herself). Ms. Li is voiced by Nora Laudani.
  • Mr. O'Neill, the wimpy English teacher at Lawndale. Mr. O'Neill is voiced by Marc Thompson.
  • Mr. DeMartino, the rabid history teacher, doomed to be tormented by his ignorant students. Mr. DeMartino is also voiced by Marc Thompson.
Students

Production

Production of each half-hour episode supposedly took ten months to a year, from concept to post-production. According to Glenn Eichler, all of the episodes for a season were roughly created and designed over the same time frame.

Karen Disher stated that the show deliberately eschewed odd camera angles or animation effects into order to concentrate on the expressions of the characters.

Many of the voice artist who provided voice talent for the episodes were found in New York. Tracy Grandstaff (Daria) had been a staff member for the MTV editorial department and had written for MTV as well as voiced characters other than Daria for Beavis and Butt-head. Other actors had roles in local productions in New York City, or were found at high schools in the area, such as Jessica Cydnee Jackson (Jodie).

MTV Animation was the production company, and the design and storyboard work was done in the United States. At least during the first two seasons, Rough Draft Korea did 95 percent of the actual animation. Supposedly, one or two of the Season One episodes were done by Plus One Animation. In Season Three, animation of the episodes was placed back in control of Plus One Animation, although other episodes might have been done by Rough Draft Korea (or whoever could animate the episodes the most inexpensively). Both Rough Draft Korea and Plus One Animation are based in Korea.

Both Is It Fall Yet? and Is It College Yet? were animated by Plus One Animation.

Episodes

See List of Daria Episodes.

Daria ran on MTV from March 3, 1997 to January 20, 2002. It consisted of five seasons of thirteen episodes apiece, as well as two film-length episodes.

Initially, Daria premiered on MTV USA's popular "10 Spot" on Monday nights. Daria would remain on Monday nights for two seasons, then switch to Wednesday night at the beginning of the third season.

At the beginning of the fourth season, Daria was moved to Friday night, traditionally a poor night for television in the United States as Friday is the end of the work/school week and most people spend their evenings outside the home instead of watching TV. Daria was moved back onto Monday nights for its fifth and final season.

During the lifetime of the series, Daria was much more heavily promoted in its first three seasons than it its final two. Generally, episodes were rerun several times during the first three seasons whereas during the fifth season fans had to wait for marathons to take place in hopes of catching missed episodes, which were not rerun.

Web presence on MTV USA

On the MTV USA web site, a section of the website was devoted to Daria. MTV currently maintains a Daria website, although it hasn't been updated in years.

All website material was written by Anne D. Bernstein.

New material on the website included interesting essays, in-character writing from the cast, and interesting facts not available from watching the show. For example, the full last names of Stacy and Tiffany were first revealed on the MTV Daria website on June 25, 1999. (An argument could be made that Tiffany's last name was revealed in "The Invitation," but the last name was not attributed to that character until the web site update.)

Annoyingly, the MTV Daria website did not archive its past material. When new content was added, old content would sometimes be removed. Old content can be occasionally found at by searching web archives or fandom sites.

Related Media

  • MTV Video Music Awards 97 short animation featuring Daria (September 4, 1997) [Transcript]
  • Daria called into MTV's 'Cool Crap Auction' [Transcript]
  • Daria Day 98 marathon of Daria episodes on the date of the premiere of the second season (February 16, 1998), hosted by Daria and Jane. [Transcript]
  • Daria Day 99 marathon of Daria episodes on February 15th, 1999 for the premiere episode of the third season, hosted by Daria and Jane.
  • Daria and Jane hosted a Daria episode marathon titled Sarcastathon 3000 for the premiere episode of the fifth season [Transcript]
  • Daria and Jane hosted an episode of 'MTV's Top 10'. Commenting on the top 10 animated music videos [Transcript]
  • Behind the Scenes at Daria hosted by Janeane Garofalo. More behind the scenes clips aired in Daria episodes following the special.
  • MTV's Toonumentary detailed the history and details of MTV's animated shows. [Transcript]
  • MTV New Year's Eve 2002 event featured a short appearance by Daria (December 31, 2001).[Transcript].
  • Daria was interviewed on the CBS Early Show on January 21, 2002 [Transcript]
  • 'Look Back in Annoyance' was a half-hour retrospective of the series. Hosted by Daria and Jane. [Transcript]

See also

External Links

MTV USA's current Daria website

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