Daria ran on MTV from March 3, 1997 to January 21, 2002, and it remains the best thing the network ever put its name on. Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis Lynn created it as a spin-off of Beavis and Butt-Head, where Daria Morgendorffer had been a recurring character, but Mike Judge had no hand in the new show. He was busy with King of the Hill. What Eichler and Lynn built without him is sharper than its parent.
Trailer, via Comedy Central UK.
Lawndale
Daria is a smart, acerbic, cynical high school student who has moved to the fictional suburban town of Lawndale with her stressed-out parents and her relentlessly popular little sister. Tracy Grandstaff voices her, as she had on Beavis and Butt-Head, in a flat monotone that is the show’s entire comic instrument. Daria observes. The world of Lawndale High is ridiculous. She says so.
Jane and Everyone Else
Her best friend Jane Lane, an aspiring artist, is the show’s other half, and Wendy Hoopes voices Jane, Daria’s mother Helen and her sister Quinn, which is a remarkable range for one performer. Julián Rebolledo plays father Jake. Around them are Kevin the quarterback, Brittany the cheerleader, Jodie the overachiever, Trent the musician and Charles “Upchuck” Ruttheimer III, each a type the show sketches and then quietly complicates.
Satire That Aged Well
The series is a satire of high school life, full of allusions to and criticisms of popular culture and social class. What separates it from the pile of teen shows is that the satire cuts both ways. Daria is right about Lawndale, and the show is honest that being right is not the same as being happy. The best episodes are the ones where her contempt costs her something.
The Ending
The show runs through Daria’s high school years and ends with her graduation and acceptance into college. That is a real ending, which most animated series never get, and the show earns it by letting its characters change over five seasons. Daria at the end is still Daria. She is also older, and the difference shows.
Where It Falls Short
The animation is limited and the pacing of early episodes is slow. Some of the recurring gags, the fake trash-TV show Sick, Sad World among them, are funnier as an idea than in repetition. And the show’s cynicism, which is its signature, occasionally hardens into a pose that the writing has to work to crack.
The Verdict
Daria is a teen sitcom that respected its audience enough to be unpleasant, and that respect is why people who watched it at fifteen still quote it at forty. It is a monotone with a heartbeat.
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