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25 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About “Daria” To Celebrate Its 25th Anniversary

Daria turns 25 this year, and to celebrate, I've compiled 25 behind-the-scenes facts about our favorite '90s animated realist.

@mtv / Via giphy.com

1.The character Daria Morgendorffer was meant to be a sharp contrast to the titular characters of Beavis and Butt-Head.

Beavis and Butt-head sitting on their couch with Daria

2.There's a real Daria out there.

animation of daria

3.Mike Judge had no involvement with Daria.

Daria on Beavis and Butthead

4.Daria almost didn't happen.

Daria and Jane in the unaired Daria pilot

5.It's the Frasier to Beavis and Butt-Head's Cheers.

@peacocktv / NBC / Via giphy.com

"You’re taking the smartest character from this goofy world and you’re trying to do a show that’s true to that character, not so much true to the world it’s from,” Daria writer Chris Marcil told Paste Magazine.

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(I guess that makes Quinn the Niles Crane of the show.)

6.Daria was considered something of a poster child for MTV.

MTV / Via giphy.com

''Even though she is the flip side of Beavis and Butt-Head, she speaks the same language that our young audience speaks,'' Van Toffler, former general manager of MTV, told the New York Times in 1998. ''She has an attitude about parents, school, siblings that is common to the experiences of our audience. She is a good spokesperson for MTV, intelligent but subversive.''

7.Daria and Jane are the only characters to appear in all 65 episodes and both movies.

MTV / Via giphy.com

Quinn appeared in all but "Jane's Addition" (though she can be heard offscreen at one point).

8.Daria Morgendorffer was Tracy Grandstaff's first (and only major) acting role.

MTV / Via giphy.com

When the character of Daria was created, Grandstaff was the only female writer on Beavis and Butt-Head and therefore the "default choice" to voice the character. She cites Sara Gilbert, who played Darlene on Roseanne, and comedian Janeane Garofalo as inspiration.

9.Only a few other voice actors were responsible for just one Daria character.

Jake Morgendorffer, Jodie Landon, and Ms. Li on Daria

10.Helen and Quinn Morgendorffer and Jane Lane are all voiced by the same person.

Helen, Quinn, and Jane on Daria

11.A lot of the other Daria voice actors regularly played multiple roles.

three high school scenes from Daria

12.There are some famous faces among the voice cast of Daria.

Geoffrey Arend and Upchuck on Daria

13.A member of the Fashion Club was voiced by a Grey's Anatomy star.

Sarah Drew and Stacy on Daria

Sarah Drew was the voice of Stacy Rowe.

Matt Petit / Freeform via Getty Images / MTV

14.Carson Daly, Bif Naked, and Dave Grohl voiced characters in the first Daria movie, Is It Fall Yet?

David, Alison, and Daniel in Is It Fall Yet?

Daly played Quinn's tutor/crush David, Bif Naked played Jane's sort of friend Alison, and Grohl played artist/creep Daniel.

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15.Each episode took 10 months to produce.

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35 animation artists worked on each half-hour episode.

16.Brittany's looks were modeled after Jenny McCarthy in Singled Out.

Jenny McCarthy dressed as a cheerleader and Brittany from Daria

And Lisa Collins based the character's voice on Loretta in Cheers.

Cindy Ord / Getty Images / MTV

17.Other celebrities subtly found their way into the show.

Cheerleaders and the Fashion Club and their dates on Daria

Some of Brittany's fellow cheerleaders were based on Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Katie Holmes.

James Van Der Beek, Scott Foley, and Nicholas Brendon also served as the inspiration for some of the guys the Fashion Club went out with.

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18.The writers looked to teen magazines for slang.

Daria and Val on Daria

19.The Mystik Spiral spinoff that could've been...

@complexmag / MTV / Via giphy.com

Glenn Eichler wrote a pilot script to pitch a spinoff show about Trent Lane's band, but MTV shut down its animation unit before anything could happen with the show. Maybe it's for the best, though, since the band probably would've changed their name every episode.

If you're curious about the script, you can find it in the Daria DVD box set.

20.Speaking of music...

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If you watched Daria during its original run, you know it had a killer soundtrack. It was a wild mix of mainstream and indie music, and the genres were all over the place. The first season alone featured major artists like Radiohead, The Spice Girls, LL Cool J, and Celine Dion, as well as lesser-known ones like Kula Shaker, Livin' Joy, Dishwalla, and Dis-n-Dat.

Sounds expensive, right? Not at first. At the time, the show's creators had access to all this music for free(!), thanks to MTV. But once it was time to put Daria on DVD (and eventually iTunes and streaming sites like Hulu and Paramount+), the music became something of a flashpoint.

Glenn Eichler explained to Collider that almost all of the music had to be swapped for stock songs because it just would have been too much money otherwise.

"The cost of licensing the many music bites we used would have made it impossible to release the collection (and for many years did)," he said, likening the effect of the generic replacement music to a Twilight Zone episode where an astronaut's wife knows something is different about him, but can't quite figure out what.

Those who have only watched Daria in recent years won't experience this — they might just think the music sounds kind of...uncool for a show that is supposed to be pretty cool. They might wonder why in one episode, DJ Upchuck is clearly about to play the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover of "Love Rollercoaster," only to play...a song that sounds nothing like it.

The rest of us, meanwhile, will rewatch the show and, like Proust biting into a madeleine, remember so clearly the song that should be there that we might as well be right back in 1998.

21.The theme song is a family affair.

22.There were three other options for the theme.

Trent playing acoustic guitar on Daria

Splendora wrote and recorded four tracks for the show, making sure to include certain phrases the producers asked them to use.

Obviously, "You're Standing on My Neck" won out, and while there's no arguing that it's a perfect match for the show, I'd love to hear what else the band came up with.

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23.Splendora created two other songs for Daria.

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One was for Is It Fall Yet? and the other was Is It College Yet?

24.In 2017, Susie Lewis revealed what she thinks Daria and the gang would be up to now.

25.If you're wondering about Jodie and Mac, we'll find out soon enough.

Jodie Landon on Daria

Daria officially turns 25 on March 3. Check out Daria on Paramount+ (minus the movies) or get the DVD box set here.