Producers Behind MTV’s Iconic Cartoon ‘Daria’ Look Back - Variety - Pocket

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Even before I watched all of “Daria,” its heroine Daria Morgendorffer loomed large in my consciousness. At the turn of the millennium, MTV was saturated with Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC music videos — and obsessed with the nascent careers of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. I watched all of that, too. But she became one of the first characters I saw on television who seemed to feel the way I did about the world. The phrase I held onto was from “Esteemsters,” the “Daria” series premiere — “I don’t have low self-esteem. I have low esteem for everyone else.”

It’s been over 20 years — and five seasons and two made-for-TV movies — since March 3, 1997, when “Daria” introduced us to the world of sarcastic and brilliant Daria Morgendorffer. The world has changed a little. But aside from a clunky phone or two, “Daria” feels more modern than ever.

“Daria” didn’t just come from “Beavis” — the crew did, too. As Mike Judge’s two slackers became icons of a generation, they changed MTV. “MTV never had an animation department, and all of a sudden we were in an animation department,” says producer Susie Lewis, co-creator of “Daria,” who was producing the music video segments of “Beavis and Butt-Head” when word began to spread about spinning off Daria — a sketched out, minor character who the boys not-so-affectionately called “Diarrhea” — into her own show. At least partly, the reason was because MTV wanted to broaden its demographic.

To put it more bluntly: “MTV had no female viewers,” says showrunner and co-creator Glenn Eichler, who was writing on “Beavis and Butt-Head.” “I wouldn’t not use the word ‘desperate.’”

Now a writer for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Eichler has the kind of self-mocking deadpan that Daria herself has. Asked if he ever thought about how Daria might react to things now, he pauses and laughs. “No… I just react that way myself.”

Eichler liked animation, but had never worked on animation before shifting from writing promos for MTV to the “Beavis and Butt-Head” writers’ room. But the show he ended up writing for Daria had very little in common with “Beavis and Butt-Head.”

Eichler had no mandate from MTV to set the show in a complex world — indeed, compared to the other programming on MTV at the time, “Daria” was oddly continuous and considered. “It was just the way I thought,” he says. “I don’t think in very commercial terms, you know? ‘Dawson’s Creek’ was on at the same time we were on, and if I could think like those people, I’d have a much bigger house. But that’s OK.”

“It was a unique time,” Lewis says. “We never had to go in and pitch a show. I can’t even imagine going in and saying — we really wanna do this show about this sarcastic girl who’s smarter than everyone, and she doesn’t really like anybody.”

Eichler adds, “The thing that was so great about MTV in those days — and also so terrible — was that anything goes. Nobody was in charge. They had a lot of theories about branding, but zero theories about programming.” (The head of MTV animation at the time was Abby Terkuhle, now president of Aboriginal Entertainment. He was also an executive producer on “Daria.”)

The climate meant that both Eichler and Lewis could pursue what they wanted for “Daria.” There was no real mandate for the show; no promises had been made that needed to be kept.

Lewis — who describes herself as the Jane to Eichler’s Daria — had a vision for Daria’s spinoff that was quite different from Beavis and Butt-Head’s world. Where the boys’ show was a little tentatively lined and cartoonish, with a bleached-out palette, “Daria” was bold, geometric, and lined with firm, decisive strokes. It reflected Daria’s precise worldview, and opened up the viewer to her perspective.

Karen Disher, at the time a 24-year-old layout artist at “Beavis and Butt-Head,” came up with the style for the pilot (and later became the show’s supervising director). But Disher, now a story artist with Blue Sky, downplays her own contributions. “I guess it’s flatness by way of, stylistic choice, but also, uh, ability?” she says, laughing. The show copied several characters from pop culture at the time. Jane’s brother, the wannabe rocker Trent, was based on Dave Navarro and named after Trent Reznor. Disher’s take on Mr. DiMartino, the yelling teacher with the eye twitch, was based on Christopher Walken in “Pulp Fiction.” She drew him on her couch while watching the movie, pausing the VHS tape to get his every facial expression.

Disher credits Lewis with the show’s realistic animation — the notes that came back on early storyboards were all about uncomplicated camera angles and naturalistic posing, which isn’t exactly why animators get excited about cartooning. “It was very much a writing-driven show… Without Glenn and his writing, it wouldn’t matter. That was the show.