Hey guess what? You get another rant and a rave: This time, rant first.
I remember when MTV started. I was a young, impressionable teenager, and my aunt (who was (and I guess, still is) a couple years older than I) had the extra cable channels that my parents weren't too keen on, including MTV. I thought it was cool -- without MTV, the only chance you had to see those neat Music Videos was Casey Kasem's video countdown, or 'Night Flight' on USA (which was included with your basic cable package). Now days, there are several channels that play music videos, and most of them have more music content than Music TV. The most common thing to view on MTV is (of course) commercials. Then there's the excuses for sports shows, the various Real World and spinoff shows. The game shows. The way leftwing news. When there actually is music going on, it seems that most of it is hip-hop (which isn't exactly my favorite, and BET plays far more hip-hop, soul, and Jazz than MTV will ever do). So for me, MTV gets watched seldom at best -- until....
DARIA!!! Finally, a reason to watch MTV again. OK, Aeon Flux was really cool, but it was usually relegated to some late night dead zone that changed from week to week -- as if they were daring you to find it. The appear to be doing a similar thing with Daria, but since she's not as racey, she gets aired much earlier.
If you haven't seen Daria, picture Janeane Garafalo in High School. She's a high school student -- smart, self possesed, disdainful of the idiocy surrounding her -- with a little sister straight from the film Clueless, and two rather vacant parents. She has one friend -- who is like her, but maybe a little less intense. They met, when psychological profile testing showed them to have low self esteem. Daria tells her parents she has plenty of self esteem, she has low self esteem for the rest of the world. She gets put in a class where she meets Jane. They start playing mind games with the clueless around them (including Daria's family). Other episodes that I have seen have Daria and Jane going to a party with the pointlessly popular, Daria reeking havoc in a new-age coffee shop, and while babysitting the children of yuppies, as well as a trip to alternapalooza, and a disasterous family outing. The art work isn't exactly state of the art -- picture a moving coloring book -- thick black lines, simple scenes, plain colors -- but it fits the show's tone. This is a good show, and far more worthy of your attention than Beavis and Butthead (the show Daria first appeared on).
Latest news: They've been running her at 8:30 a.m. CDT for the past 2 weeks -- morning cartoons for homebound college kids I guess.
Even more up to date news: Daria has apparently found a permanant home 2:00 p.m. cst mon-fri. Except when they decide to run something the think is more important -- like Drew Barrymore's biography (for the 5th time that week).
OK, here it is, 2003 -- Daria is in college now, and the show disappeared from MTV a long time ago. If you have Noggin you can see the reruns (although they are aparently edited for the Noggin audience). Click the link above for details....