Daria

This is probably my #1 favorite animated show of all time.

I wasn't old enough to watch the show when it first came out (I wasn't even a year old yet when it premiered on March 3, 1997 and I was only five when the series finale TV movie premiered in January 2002), but I had heard some really good things about it so I checked it out on June 28, 2013 (I remember that day because I refer to it as they day I either fell in love or sold my soul) on Logo and instantly got hooked (one of my best friends is a big fan of the show and she recommended it to me when I was a junior in high school).

I remember seeing bits and pieces (usually only the theme song) on The N (now TeenNick) back in 2003 because it was sometimes the first show to air on The N and we'd have the channel on since it was sharing a channel with Noggin (now Nick Jr.) and mom would put it on for my (at the time) one-year-old brother. I wasn't allowed to watch The N back then, despite the block airing old Nickcoms I loved (and occasionally from what I've been told, they'd air my other favorite show, Doug), because the only show my mom saw on The N was Degrassi and expected everything to be like it. So before I would change the channel to Nickelodeon or something, I would just watch the next show's opening. Then I got drawn to a certain one...it was animated and looked vaguely like Recess a little, and had a brunette teenage girl with glasses who never smiled. Plus, the opening theme was awesome. I vowed that I wanted to check this show out sometime.

...and I did (and it's a good thing I never saw it when it was on The N- it was edited for content so it could become pretty much a Nickcom). The thing is, all throughout high school (and before that, and even now), I was known as that girl in the glasses and the Doc Martens who only smiled when she had a reason to and was very, VERY sarcastic. EXACTLY like Daria Morgendorffer. When I watched it for the first time, I instantly realized, "Oh my god, this show...is about me!" Actually, Daria is insanely close to my life. Not only am I a lot like Daria, but I've had to deal with similar classmates to Kevin, Brittany, and the Fashion Club, my mom has her moments where she can be a lot like Helen (though she's not TOO much of a workaholic- she only works two jobs and the only day we don't see her much is Monday), my dad is pretty much just as clueless as Jake (without the daddy issues, of course), I too have a shallow and  self-centered younger sibling (although I have a brother who's six years younger than me, not a sister who's only a year and a half younger), and my closest friends all remind me of Jane Lane in some way or another.

My favorite episodes are "Pinch Sitter", "Road Worrier" (actually, I love just about every episode where Trent plays a main role), "Pierce Me", "Through a Lens Darkly", "Daria!", and "Boxing Daria" (that one really hit close to home for me).

My favorite characters are Daria Morgendorffer, Jane Lane (wait...I just realized that two of my favorite cartoons have a smart girl with glasses and an artist who's first and last name rhyme as the main characters...and Viacom owns both...), Trent Lane (he's hot), and Stacy Rowe (she's so cute)!

I highly recommend this show to anyone- unfortunately, the site that had all the episodes (Liquid Television) went down in August, and the only other episodes online are either crappy quality or are the edited for content versions. Since the complete series DVD has been out for four years now, the price has gone down significantly. Your best bet is Amazon (I've seen it there for fifteen dollars. I got mine for my seventeenth birthday at f.y.e. for thirty-five.).