What A Cartoon! - Daria "The Misery Chick"

Now that I'm old, its hard for me to tolerate Daria's attitude. I always thought that Daria's dad and Trent were the real MVP's of the show

Anita

Yay! Been waiting for the Daria episode, and picked a good one too!

I don't think the bisexual girl from is it fall yet was bullying Jane...Everytime I watch that special I feel that the older bisexual girl thought she had a sure thing in Jane, the younger inexperienced woman and when she was rebuffed she went to an older male to satisfy her ego...but the is also the prospective of a straight white male so maybe I'm totally off base...just saying I never saw it as "gay baiting" as a form of bullying.. also please do a season of Daria for us...I would love it...you guys are great and keep up the awesome work

In regards to whether Tommy has done anything illegal or not...the original song backing his entrance is Fiona Apple's Criminal. It could definitely be a reference to what he propositions Brittany to do. Although the outcome is kind of the opposite of the meaning of that song. Thank you for doing Daria! It meant so much to mean as a teen.

Kenneth Nelson

Awesome! I’ve been looking forward to you covering Daria. Loved hearing your thoughts on the Jane/Daria relationship. I never watched the later seasons, but I’m definitely going to check them out now. +1 for Daria being a full season podcast option [although I really want you to cover King of the Hill ASAP]!

Erick Hohnstein-Van Etten

Thanks, that's good to know. Admittedly, I don't know seasons 4 and 5 as well as I know the rest of the series, so these episodes slipped my mind during the recording.

Bob Mackey

The season 5 episode "Prize Fighters" also touches on this a bit. Daria, Jodie, and Upchuck are all in the running for a scholarship sponsored by some big internet company, and when Daria discovers that the company has a history of overlooking women and POC employees for promotions and raises, she brings the issue up to Jodie and her father. While they agree it's gross and outdated, Jodie's stance is generally "so what if I'm a token for them, I'd still get their money to do what I want to do" while her father argues "the only way they're ever going to change is for exceptional women like yourselves to make them recognize your talents, especially young *black* women like Jodie." Daria eventually bombs the interview because she just can't get past her own ethical objections, and while Jodie doesn't change her mind about wanting money from a historically bigoted company, she concedes that it wasn't cool to go behind Daria's back and go after the same scholarship without telling her. There were only a handful of Daria/Jodie episodes across the run of the series, but they had a really excellent dynamic that helped highlight the flaws in both characters, since they were never concerned with showing they were smarter than one another like they easily could with everyone else. Jodie's presence underscored how short-sighted and selfish Daria could be, and Daria's presence underscored how much Jodie focused on living up to everyone else's expectations of her without allowing time to consider how she felt and what she wanted.

This was tremendous and makes me want a Daria option for the next full season podcast. Great job all!

Sajizzle

Sorry Bob but i have to disagree with you a LITTLE bit on one thing you brought up: the statement that Daria does not tackle Racism and Class. Yes I agree that it doesn't take up a large portion of the show, but one episode I feel deserves special mention because I feel it does tackle both in an interesting way, even if it is one episode. The Season 4 episode Partner's Complaint has Daria and Jodie doing a school project where they start a mock-business and must attempt to succeed in getting given a loan. We learn that Jodei's dad is a fairly-famous businessman too. A first banker, a white man, didn't acknowledge Jodie during the interview until she mentioned her father, which made him pay attention to her. She recognized this, called him a hypocrite, and they left. When they went tot he second banker, also a white man, Jodie talks first and mentions her father's name to get the loan. Later on Daria calls Jodie out for her own hypocrisy, wanting to be treated normally with the first guy but then using her father's connections for the second, and Jodie basically says "Maybe I was wrong but I did what I felt I had to do." Daria learns to put her black-and-white ethics aside for this project, doesn't bring it up again, and they finish. I feel this is a good message both for learning to pick your battles, even with very hard subjects, as well as sometimes even the best people have to compromise their ethics sometimes. Sorry for the long message.

ShyRanger