Daria: The Complete Animated Series

I was a moderate fan of Daria when the show aired in the late 90's/early 2000's. It wasn't that I didn't like the show (I actually liked it quite a bit), just remember it being a show I'd see from time to time and remember it being decent. Funny, good writing, just simply entertaining. When I heard it was coming out on DVD I didn't have to think twice. The memories of watching the show were good ones, so I ordered it the day it came out (and ended up only having to pay 28 bucks-NEW-and this included shipping). Well I can say after having watched the first few episodes of the Daria Series Collection that the show seems to have held up well. I guess if I could knock anything it might be the video quality. Grainy lines and bland reproduction are apparent in the episodes I've viewed, but this in no way takes away from the enjoyment of watching the episodes. Maybe I'm just spoiled in today's age of Blu-Ray. I'm not going to downgrade the DVD for not having the original music. Number one, everyone knows this that would be interested in this DVD. I wouldn't be telling you anything you didn't know. Additionally, inside the case there's a small note explaining why it isn't there (costly licensing). So nobody is trying to hide anything here. Number two-It's not that big of a deal. I'm frankly shocked everyone is so concerned about the original music being present. It's not like this is Beavis and Butthead where the music played a much more regularly present central role to the plot/action of the episodes. Personally, not being a person that remembered many of the episodes, the lack of original music so far has not taken away anything from my viewing experience. Guess I'm not sure what everyone's big problem with this is? If you like the music that much, go hop on ITunes??? Maybe buy some used CDs on Amazon??? In the end, if you remember liking/watching Daria, there's no reason not to pick this up. It's affordable. All the episodes (including the movies) are there. The show has held up well. On a side note, I'm uncertain how people could have been reviewing this specific DVD collection in February of this year. It was released on May 12th (I believe) 2010. Maybe that's the most upsetting thing about this product-The Amazon Reviews. The point of a review is to review the product once you've used it, not to hype it or knock it, when the damn thing hasn't even been released. I don't care if you've seen all the episodes or not, until you use the actual product in question-DON'T REVIEW IT ON AMAZON!!!!!!!!!! It completely defeats the purpose of reviewing items.

I'd like to start off by saying that I never saw Daria when it aired on TV. When I found out that the girl from Beavis and Butthead got a spin off I decided to check out the show (illegally) online. I then decided to purchase (after realizing I couldn't watch the entire series on YouTube) this box set. After watching the whole series I'm very glad that I did. Daria is now one of my favorite shows of all time. It's smart, witty and, very funny. If you don't already know, the series is about a teenaged girl named Daria and her life throughout high School. Of course this has been done before, but what makes this show special are the characters. The title character is truly unique. I honestly believe that there will never be another main character like Daria; she's smart, very sarcastic, and funny. After watching the entire series I know that I will be quoting her for the rest of my life and you will too. The rest of the cast is not as unique as Daria, but they still bring a lot humor to the series. There is Jane (Daria's artistic friend), Quinn (Daria's shallow sister), Kevin (dumb Jock), Upchuck (pervert), Mack (Black guy), Jake (Daria's manic father) and the list goes on. The comedy comes from putting the characters through everyday situations and just having them be themselves .Truly the work of very talented writers. A huge benefit of owning the entire series is that you can watch the show in rapid succession and you will be able to see the great deal of character development that goes on over the course of the entire series very clearly. Almost all the charters in Daria mature and change throughout the series in very realistic ways, something that isn't done in many shows that I watch nowadays. The last reason that I'm recommending this DVD box set is that even though the show is no longer on the air its themes are still relevant to this day. Even though the show will have you laughing through every episode, it still deals with things that every teenager, including myself, deals with. Sex, morality, and questioning one's own existence are the themes of certain episodes and these episodes happen to be my favorite ones because of how well the subject matter is handled. It is fair to say that any teenager will be able to relate with Daria in some way. I know I did. Until know I have only been talking about series itself, but now I will talk about the actual box set. All 65 episodes are here with the 2 TV movies and some extras. The actual box is very simple with very simple artwork on the front and back and only a note from Glenn Eichler, the series creator, inside the box. The extras are not much,but were fun to look at. You get original character sketches, the unaired pilot episode (my favorite extra), and a music video from one of the shows characters. My biggest problems with the box set are actually about 2 of the extra features. My first problem was that both of the TV movies are a part of the extra features and not a part of the main feature. Since there is not an episode list included with the box set, I had no idea were too chronologically place the movies in the Daria time line. Thankfully I was able to find episode guides online, but it still annoyed me. The other problem I had was with this one extra feature that has Daria and Jane counting down the top 10 animated music videos of all time. For some reason they skip the music videos after Daria and Jane introduce them. Why couldn't MTV include the videos? There were 11 music videos on the Beavis and Butthead Box set and there were 3 of those and in my opinion Daria in a better show. Anyway, to fix this all you need to do is watch the extra feature on your computer, wait until they introduce the music video, pause it then look up the video on YouTube. I know that it's a hassle, but Daria and Jane's introductions are as smart and funny as anything that they say on the show plus the music is good (oasis!!!). The final thing that I would like to bring up about the box set is about the music used in the show. I know that many long time Daria fans complain that the box set doesn't use the original music that the show used when it aired on MTV due to legal issues. For people that don't know when Daria aired on MTV it used licensed music from various popular artists for transition and background music, so that means that the box set had to use generic stock music instead because of the cost of home distribution licensing. From what I have read the show was better with the original music but I don't have opinion on the matter, I never got the chance to hear the difference (I didn't even know about the whole music issue until I read the note inside the box) so it doesn't bother me one bit. Final thoughts The show 5/5 It's smart, witty, and very funny. I don't think there ever was or will ever be a TV show like Daria, truly one of a kind. I understand that it might not be for everybody, so watch an episode online and if you like it you will LOVE the 24 hours of teenage angst that are in this box set The Box set itself 4.5/5 Could have done better and it did annoy me a little with the extras, but it gets the job done very well. Afterthoughts Why doesn't MTV air any reruns. I would really enjoy watching the show with the original music. Do we really need all of those" reality" shows? I know I'm willing to replace any one of them with 9 year old episodes of Daria. Any daria fan would agree with me right? In my opinion there is more" reality" In Daria than anything on MTV now a days.

I've loved watching this series since I was 17 years old and I can't believe I've finally been able to get the DVD. The quality is excellent, even the day intros make everything funnier. Thank you so much MTV

Great! Such a classic!

I'll try and be as detailed as possible. 1. The Packaging. The complete set comes in one DVD case. It's plastic, not cardboard. The DVDs themselves are attached to "pages" inside the DVD (similar to the Justice League and Superman complete series sets, if you're familiar with those. A lot of other DVD compilations have started using this format lately as well, so you might've seen it elsewhere). The DVDs are NOT dual-sided, thank goodness, so inadvertent scratching should be minimized. All in all, the packaging looks sturdy, and arrived in perfect condition from Amazon. Not a single disk was out of place. 2. The Episodes. When you first load up a disk and get to the menu, you're presented with two options: Episodes and Play All. These are pretty self explanatory, however, it appears that if you want to see the Daria Day intros, you must go to the Episodes section and individually select the episode you want to watch, and you'll be presented with an option to watch the ep with the intro. Not every episode has an intro. Also: only the first episode on a disk has the complete credit sequence, all the rest just have the title card (as if they had been edited into a large TV marathon, which I think helps). Also, as most of you are already aware (especially the ones who downloaded some eps off of Amazon recently), most-if-not-all of the incidental, licensed music has been replaced with, as the initial press release said, "generic and scene-specific music." The music is SIMILAR thematically to the original tracks but, yanno, a hell of a lot cheaper. Those of you who taped every episode of Daria off the TV and watched them until the tapes broke, you're probably gonna be disappointed. However, if you love the SHOW (or if you're like me, and have only seen a handful of original eps), the loss of the music is really inconsequential. Also, the music they used IS appropriate to the scenes, so someone actually paid attention while dubbing this stuff in, and didn't just throw generic tracks in at every point where a licensed song used to be. One final musical note: every commercial bumper now has a sampling of the Splendora theme, and each credit sequence has a lyric-less version of the theme playing over it. This does KINDA get annoying after awhile, but really, you can ignore it. At least they actually kept the bumpers IN, y'know? In terms of episode quality, they all look GREAT. Everything is crisp and as clean as it could possibly look. The sound quality is nice and clear. Disk 1: Season 1 (Picture of Daria) Episodes 101 through 109 Esteemsters; The Invitation; College Bored; Cafe Disaffecto; Malled; This Year's Model; The Lab Brat; Pinch Sitter; Too Cute Disk 1 also has three ads at the beginning for The Maxx, The State, and the three Mike Judge Beavis & Butt-head compilations. This seems to be the ONLY disk in the set with these ads, which is good. You can manually skip past these straight to the menu, but you cannot use the 'menu' function to jump past them. Disk 2: Seasons 1 & 2 (Picture of Jane) Episodes 110-113, 201-205 The Big House; Road Worrier; The Teachings of Don Jake; The Misery Chick; Arts 'N Crass; The Daria Hunter; Quinn the Brain; I Don't; That Was Then, This Is Dumb Disk 3: Seasons 2 & 3 (Pictures of Quinn & Trent) Episodes 206-213 and 301 Monster; The New Kid; Gifted; Ill; Fair Enough; See Jane Run; Pierce Me; Write Where It Hurts; Through A Lens Darkly Disk 4: Season 3 (Pictures of Kevin & Brittany) Episodes 302-310 The Old and the Beautiful; Depth Takes a Holiday; Daria Dance Party; The Lost Girls; It Happened One Nut; Daria!; Lane Miserables, Jake of Hearts; Speedtrapped Yes, Daria! (aka The Musical Episode) is included. All of the music should be intact, since it was created specifically for the show and doesn't used licensed tracks. Disk 5: Seasons 3 & 4 (Pictures of Helen & Jake) Episodes 311-313, 401-406 The Lawndale File; Just Add Water; Jane's Addition; Partner's Complaint; Antisocial Climbers; A Tree Grows in Lawndale; Murder, She Snored; The F Word (aka "Fail"); I Loathe a Parade Disk 6: Seasons 4 & 5 (Pictures of Stacy & Upchuck) Episodes 407-413, 501-502 Of Human Bonding; Psycho Therapy; Mart of Darkness; Legends of the Mall; Groped by an Angel; Fire!; Dye! Dye! My Darling; Fizz Ed; Sappy Anniversary Disk 7: Season 5 (Pictures of Jodie & Mack) Episodes 503-511 Fat Like Me; Camp Fear; The Story of D; Lucky Strike; Art Burn; One J at a Time; Life in the Past Lane; Aunt Nauseam; Prize Fighters Disk 8: Season 5 (Pictures of Mr. DeMartino & Ms. Li) Episodes 512 & 513 Movies: Is It Fall Yet? & Is It College Yet? Special Features 3. Final Thoughts. As mentioned elsewhere, the DVD comes with a special letter from Glenn Eichler, explaining the reasons why 99% of the music has been changed. Aside from the music issue (which, again, to me is a non-issue), this is the set we've all been waiting for. The episodes are INTACT (not the Noggin edits), pretty, and as funny as they were the first dozen or so times you watched them. Really, I implore you, if you've been waiting for Daria on DVD, don't let the music thing hold you back. You really DO want this set. It's not EXACTLY what you've been asking for, but it's within 99% of it, and in my opinion that is DEFINITELY worth it.

In the era when MTV still gave a crap about not pandering to the lowest common denominator with its programming, there was "Daria". The irony is, "Daria" was spun off from the ridiculous, but admittedly amusing, "Beavis and Butthead" series. Where that show gleefully wallowed in the stupid and moronic, "Daria" went in the opposite direction. Using her sarcasm, commentary, and general cynicism, the show showed that one could be intelligent and blunt but still be entertaining. In its way, the show dealt with the usual crap of being a teen without being preachy, moralistic, or boring. And it assumed that the audience was smart. Which MTV obviously no longer does. Admittedly, I am not in the demographic for this show (30s), but a smart show is a smart show, and I have waited for this series for ages. It is long past time this series is finally being released. Maybe it will make some remember when MTV was relevant, socially aware, and treated young people like thinking beings and not Barbie and Ken dolls for reality TV crap. I think - if one like smart shows with an edge - one would love "Daria", regardless of age. (Ironically, I think the character of Daria, if she existed naturally, would have plenty to say about the state of the channel today that she originated from. And none of it good! LOL!) On the downside, I am 99.999% sure there will be music deletions and substitutions, the dreaded "rights issues". While I do wish that would be left intact, I guess I could see where it would be cost prohibitive, and this series is too good to sit in a vault because of it. Which is why I still give this DVD set five stars regardless of that issue. So, I will live with the music changes. But complain. Daria would be pleased! In short, if you like animation, wit, fun, intelligence, and snark (of which there is plenty!), let "Daria" entertain you! You'll feel smarter for it. Edited to add, as I have answered another review via the comment link, and it may not be readily seen: Daria the Musical episode *is* included on this DVD set, making it, as advertised, the "complete" series! Its production number was 301; however, MTV used "Through A Lens Darkly" as the Season 3 premiere years ago, and the DVD order is the same way. Daria The Musical is episode #7 in Season 3, as it was when it originally aired. And it is the one episode retaining its original end music over the alter egos/credits. Also, regrettably, "Is It College Yet" is again the edited version, but from another account here in the discussion thread regarding this set, MTV tried for the unedited version, but the master of the audio and video could not be located to synchronize, so the edited version it is. There is also the belief that copyright played a role in using the edited version, as well. However, one episode in the grand scheme of things is not bad!

Before I begin this review, yes, Glenn Eichler does put in a disclaimer about why the DVD Collection had changed all the music sound bites. Mainly due to the fact although MTV never had a problem with using them on their network, whenever you attempt to put it on another medium, you end up dealing with outrageous licensing issues. Bottom line, it makes it impossible to release the collection because one would have to sell it at about $500 or so, not to mention getting approval by the artists themselves. By that time, you'd never get the aforementioned item in a collection such as this. (Probably why we'll never see the Gamera episodes of MST3K on DVD.. ah, well). But enough grousing about insignificant details, let's get onto the collection itself. First off, it's amazing something spun-off from Mike Judge's "Beavis & Butthead," genuinely became an animated cult-classic. Essentially because at the time, Daria was simply a passing character, attempting to be the voice of reason for these guys. Whereas here, she's pretty much a realistic teen dealing with the nonsense which makes up high-school life. "Daria" has a refreshing spin when you watch it because it doesn't follow the typical 'teen' mould of animation. No angst, no emotional nonsense, no 'brainless' adults, just a person dealing with the realistic (?) view of teenage life. Back in the late 90's, thanks to shows like "Saved by the Bell," "Galaxy High," and other teen-based shows out there, basically you had the youth coming up like intelligent know-it-alls, while the grown-ups were usually portrayed as clueless adults. Whereas with Daria, usually the problem with adults, was they were too absorbed with their agendas, or being too condescending. Unlike other shows, Daria's parents usually knew what was going on at times, even though sometimes her sister, Quinn could usually pull a fast one on their father now and again. And unexpectedly would help their daughters out of jams. "Arts & Crass" happens to be an excellent example, Jane & Daria get roped into participating with a poster contest for Lawndale High. In true Daria fashion, Jane paints a picture of a young girl looking into a mirror, while Daria provides a rather controversial poem to go with it. Amazingly, it gets submitted but Principal Li has the poem altered against Daria & Jane's wishes. Of course, after they 'deface' their entry, Principal Li attempts in informing Daria's mom about the incident (apparently Jane's mother's off in her own little world). But before Li can suggest any punishment, Helen utilizes her legal knowledge for getting Daria & Jane off the hook. Another reason Daria has endured so well is the characters develop than just keep on being 'recycled' in endless persona. For instance in Season One, Quinn is essentially the superficial opposite of Daria. But at the end of Season Five - and the movie finale, she starts realizing there's more to life than just fashion and popularity, much to Sandy's chagrin. Overall, The Complete Series is great for any Daria fan out there, or someone who might want something a bit different than the teen fanfare shoveled out there by Disney.

MTV obviously made compromises to release this DVD set. As everyone knows, the original music is replaced by generic songs, and the 2 movies are the abbreviated versions that were designed to air as reruns on MTV. With that being said, I'm not going to argue whether or not MTV should have tried harder with this release. The fact is, it's a show that's been off the air for a decade that was never as mainstream as say, South Park, The Simpsons, or Family Guy. As fans we are lucky to finally have something of high quality, instead of the poor quality VHS rips or Censored-for-content "The N" versions that have been floating around on the internet for years. The lack of the original music is disappointing - as someone who watched the originals when it was on MTV, and then watched the modified versions on this DVD set, I do notice the difference. The music did help pull the viewer in to a Late 90's/Early 2000's timeline. But, they honestly didn't do a horrible job with the replacement generic music, and new fans to the show would probably not even be aware of the change unless they did some research on the fan sites. As a compromise, go to a website like "Outpost Daria" and pull up the song lists from each episode and make a custom "Daria" playlist to listen to before or after watching the show. With regards to the actual DVD release: The disc case seems a bit poorly made. The front plastic cover came a bit warped, causing the cover artwork to look distorted. Not a huge deal, because most of the time this is going to sit on the shelf wedged in between a bunch of other DVDs. The extra content is nice, although a bit minimal. It would have been nice to see more from the behind-the-scenes production of the show. But back in 1997 I doubt the staff even considered that some day people would be interested in seeing them work their day to day job on a bonus section of a video disc. The only major problem I have with this release, is that the 2 movies are located on the last disc under extras. If you watch the series straight through, you will miss out on watching the movies in the proper order. The first movie, "Is it Fall Yet?" should be watched after the episode "Dye! Dye! My Darling." The last movie, "Is It College Yet?" should be watched after the last episode of the series, "Boxing Daria." Even if they couldn't find a way around needing to squeeze the two movies on the last disc under extras, they should have at least included some type of note or warning for viewers who want to watch the series in order. All in all, Daria was a great show that truly was unique, if not misunderstood by many. Despite the flaws of this DVD release, I feel that any fan of the show, whether new or old, should pick up a copy. And who knows - maybe in another ten years the music industry will have changed enough where the episodes with the original music can be re-released. I doubt MTV would pass up an opportunity to sell it to us again!