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La La La La Late to the party: Daria

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MilesWebber

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I remember watching Daria when it first aired but I didn't remember much of it. Since Amazon had all the seasons up on prime, I've been going through it again and I'm just amazed at how well it holds up.

Daria is a spoon of salt in the sugary manipulated world of American high school. Her cynicism is challenged by smart and very funny situations that never wrap up with a happy ending - only a balanced view of each situation. The writing and characters are great and I especially love Brittany. You can tell the people working in the show really loved what they were doing.

So what does GAF think about Daria?

Edit: it's kind of surprising that both Daria and King of the Hill were really great spinoffs of Beavis and Butthead.

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Ecto,
I think that's the point of the show. Here's a pretentious, cynical teenager put in situations where she had to question wether her values are correct or wether she should make choices based on having to live in real life.

peteykirch said:
I miss hearing the music though.
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I am noticing a total lack of BGM in the show. I had heard that most of the music was cut out due to copyright issues, right?
 
always preferred Beavis and Butthead better. I remember liking it but I was a kid when I did so I enjoy it most as a cartoon than anything else. Also it was in Spanish so maybe some of the references if the show used any, disappeared.
 
I will always love the show for what it is and how it's impacted me... but wtf was that meeting like when they conceived Tom? Fuck Tom.
 
Winterfang said:
always preferred Beavis and Butthead better. I remember liking it but I was a kid when I did so I enjoy it most as a cartoon than anything else. Also it was in Spanish so maybe some of the references if the show used any, disappeared.
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I like Beavis and Butthead to a point. It sucks that all the recent versions have the music videos cut out. That was always my favorite part. It was like a stoner MST3K.
 
TheWiicast said:
I like Beavis and Butthead to a point. It suck that all the recent versions have the music videos cut out. That was always my favorite part. It was like a stoner MST3K.
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Oh absolutely, their commentaries about videos and the movie where my favorite part. Also Celebrity Deadmatch was the shit to my young self. Daria... egh. Which I guess my opinion of the show, matches the show itself.
 
Devolution said:
It went to shit once she started dating Tom.
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Yep. Came in to post that. It had pleasant feelgood moments at the same time though, between teen dramas.
ElTopo said:
Wasn't there only like four episodes that had a focus on Daria/Tom? I must admit though that the more I think about it, the more moments I remember I didn't like.
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It was like an entire season IIRC. going back and forth between dating a breaking up, endlessly. It was painful.
 
TheWiicast said:
I am noticing a total lack of BGM in the show. I had heard that most of the music was cut out due to copyright issues, right?
Click to expand...

Pretty much, when it was airing on MTV they pretty much had rights to any song from the MTV catalog, and would put in the background, getting the rights for said music would cost a kings ransom so they went back and pretty much put generic music into the background.
 
peteykirch, makes sense, thanks.

Also I <3 Jane.

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Let's all remember this was in 1998...

Also, Maybe the reason the Tom storyline didn't click with you guys is because you wren't teenage girls? No that I was, but maybe it was more of a "girl thing". Who knows. Maybe it was just a season-filler like "Jackie/Fez" on that 70s show.
 
TheWiicast said:
^^ makes sense, thanks.

Also I <3 Jane.

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Let's all remember this was in 1998...

Also, Maybe the reason the Tom storyline didn't click with you guys is because you wren't teenage girls? No that I was, but maybe it was more of a "girl thing". Who knows. Maybe it was just a season-filler like "Jackie/Fez" on that 70s show.
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More of a girl thing? Dude. No. It was just bad. Forced as hell.
 
Devolution said:
It went to shit once she started dating Tom.
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Yeah Tom was a huge piece of shit (for more information, check out Nostalgia Chicks Daria's review)

But despite that, the show was still fantastic. Daria was a phenomenal character, and her dynamic with the other characters in the show (especially Jane) were great.

Oh man, Daria's relationship with Jane was so good.
 
Man. this show was a lifesaver in the days of Hanson and Limp Bizkit. It was like, the counter, counter, trace buster buster show for angsty teens in the late 90s. We used to go to a friends house and watch this, nodding sagely and laughing wildly in equal measures over our giantass Surge colas from the corner Allsups.

I haven't watched it since those days though - something tells me it probably doesn't hold up to the memory.
 
WanderingWind said:
Man. this show was a lifesaver in the days of Hanson and Limp Bizkit. It was like, the counter, counter, trace buster buster show for angsty teens in the late 90s. We used to go to a friends house and watch this, nodding sagely and laughing wildly in equal measures over our giantass Surge colas from the corner Allsups.

I haven't watched it since those days though - something tells me it probably doesn't hold up to the memory.
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You might be surprised.
 
Love the show from beginning to end (including Tom and everything that brings). If you're remembering Tom and Daria's relationship as being some kind of domineering force in the show, it's time for a rewatch. Yes, it's ever-present, but very few episodes put it in the spotlight. I've just scrubbed through Season 5, and in most of the episodes he appears either not at all, or only in a few scenes.

I digress. Amazing show. Pretty much the only show for young people (it ran about at 5.30 over here, as the last show in the kid's block before the news) that never talked down to them.
 
Daria is one of my favorite shows. I remember one summer catching reruns every night until I had watched most of the series. Just fantastic.

Also I'll admit there was a dip with the whole Tom thing but it's still better than 99% of shows that have aired since. Especially when you get the same recycled crap on many cartoon shows nowadays. For me, Daria rivals prime Futurama as my favorite cartoon show.
 
Have to agree that Tom appearing meant the show went to shit.

It's not like Tom is a particularly interesting character which makes it worse.

Though the start of the relationship was interesting.
 
ElFly said:
Have to agree that Tom appearing meant the show went to shit.

It's not like Tom is a particularly interesting character which makes it worse.
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Wow, this anti-Tom stuff is kinda eye-opening for me. Sure, he wasn't the most interesting guy on his own, but it wasn't about him. It was about Daria reacting to a new kind of relationship and the conflict/drama that arose from that. I always found it to be a really interesting change of pace from the previous four seasons.
 
Love the show. Even like the parts with Tom (but mostly because a lot of other things happened, like
Daria and Quinn's relationship reaching another level by Quinn and Daria openly saying they're sisters
). I forgot all the details about it, but things like that did happen near the end.

It is weird without the music. There's one episode with a party or something that Upchuck is DJing, and he says a line like, "And now a song to show that we are family" and then a generic song played when it obviously should have been "We Are Family" or whatever it was.

Even weirder is that the Daria re-runs don't even have the music, so it seems like the original Daria airing was lost in time...

peteykirch said:
I will say that Boxing Daria is one of the best finales I ever saw for any tv show. Really let the show come full circle.
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Technically the movie is the finale. I agree that it was a good last episode, though.
 
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