Daria And The Destruction of The Status Quo

Daria was an animated sitcom on MTV in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The titular character is a stoic, sarcastic teenage girl who likes nothing more than for everything to stay the same. She idolizes the status quo, so the show follows her lead, at least for the first two and half seasons.

But midway through season three, the producers and writers decided to do something bold. Rather than keep everything still and return to the status quo, they decided to introduce a more serialized storytelling format.

To usher it in and foreshadow what they were about to do, they crafted an episode that is so controversial, some people won’t even talk about it. Yes, this is about “Daria! The Musical.”

The premise of this episode is that a hurricane is blowing through Lawndale, the setting of the series. Nearly the entire cast of characters burst into song to share their feelings about it. Including Daria, herself.

Using songs and a natural disaster were the writers’ way of signaling to the audience that change was afoot. The lives of these characters were going to be altered in ways that were not expected.

They were signaling that the status quo was no longer the driving force behind the show. Change is inevitable, and the audience needed to be prepared for that. But they didn’t beat their fans over the head with the message, the show was nothing if not subtle in humor and messaging.

Rather, they coded the messages into the songs and the episode’s storyline itself.

Morning in the Quo

The episode starts with Jake and Helen Morgendorffer singing the song, “Morning In the ‘Burbs.” The theme is that they want to change for the better, they have ambitions to improve their lives, but everything stays the same.

“Today I’ll show my clients that this man is strong,” Jake giddily sings. Then, after Helen confesses that her day is booked like every other, he admits, “I’ll probably tell my clients that they are right, and I am wrong.”

These lines are meant to show that the Morgendoffer parents are stuck in the status quo. They want out, they want to do better, but they are not able to because of professional reasons.

It’s almost like the writers were letting us know, they wanted the show to change. They knew the audience craved new stories, situations that couldn’t be resolved in less than twenty-two minutes.

Daria in her typical sardonic voice sings about everything being the same. Though the voice acting makes this sound like a bad thing. She wants something to happen. As a multifaceted character, she needs something to happen to fuel her growth.

“Oh, what I joy, I didn’t wake up dead,” she says.

Death is usually a metaphor for change. So Daria woke up as the same person, in the same circumstances as always, but she wants something more. An adventure that can catapult her to a new phase of her life.

She needs only wait eight episodes for that. The season three finale introduces a new love interest for Jane, and the status quo is no longer an invisible main character of the show. It was regulated to recurring appearances at best.

As the song ends, Daria comes out of her room to find everyone has left. And the toast that was made for breakfast is cold.

The writers knew things were getting stale and wanted to change up the show’s format and storytelling.

Pep Cancel

At the pep rally for the big football game, Ms. Li announced that the threat of a hurricane had been raised to a warning. When asked if everyone was going to die, the principal said not on school property and ordered them to leave.

Nobody would be changing in Lawndale High.

Then Miss Li announced that the big game was canceled. And she wasn’t talking about sportsball. This was the beginning of the end for the status quo. It needed to say goodbye.

Right after this, the high school characters began to sing a song called “What if?” Where they asked different questions about what a potential future looked like if the town blew away.

During the song, Kevin Thompson, the quarterback, suggests that something is up. Apparently a big fan of fellow ‘90s hit show, The X-Files, he cites them as a reason to be suspicious. He says, “big game, big storm. Coincidence?”

He’s right. The big game is a stand-in for the status quo and the storm is the change that is sweeping in. It was clever of the writers to use Kevin for this as he was generally considered one of the dumbest characters but had occasionally shown to have better insight than Daria.

Speaking of the titular character, she and best friend Jane Lane are already on the roof of the school. They begin to sing their verses of the song. Daria sings that the storm is happening today, in other words, the change is taking place in this episode.

At the end of the song, Daria and Jane sing that they hope the town blows away. Reiterating the point that both of them want to change. They are craving character growth and something to challenge their friendship.

Hi, Tom.

Daria and Jane agree to head downstairs to seek shelter from the storm.They run into the quarterback and his girlfriend, Brittany, making out. The friends convey to the couple what was said in the newspaper, and a distressed Kevin knocks the wood plank holding the door open out of place.

This, of course, leads to another song. “If The Town Blows Away (Reprise)” in which Daria and Jane once again talk about death and how they would be forced to change, something that they hadn’t expected.

All of the dominoes are lined up. But what will they reveal next?

Second Love

The scene cuts from the roof with the teens to Helen’s office. Her boss comes in and confesses his love to her. Oblivious, she looks around trying to see who he is talking to. This is an interesting scene because it hints at something that never came to fruition.

It appears that the writers played with the idea that Helen and her boss might have an affair. Something that would have completely upended the show and taken the status quo out for a dinner that it never returned from.

Helen and Quinn share a song about being perfectionists. They admit their drives to be the best are often at odds with Daria and Jake. Both know that there is something deeply flawed with their behavior.

In fact, Quinn sings, “a shrink would have a field day with my head,” with Helen finishing, “if he listened to the sentence I just said.”

Like Daria, these characters are craving arcs that will set them free.

Helen’s desire was to be a better mother and wife, she wanted to be more in tune with her family. But she was good at being a lawyer, and she relied on that. She decided that being the breadwinner was more important than being present. And changing that dynamic would have made her uncomfortable.

For her part, Quinn was tired of being seen as shallow. She wanted her knowledge and intelligence to be praised, the same way her sister’s was, but her area of interest was often looked down on.

“Coming in second wouldn’t be the worst,” Helen sings.

“…as long as no one else was first,” Quinn finished the sentiment.

Those lyrics are symbolic of Quinn’s changing relationship with her friend and Fashion Club President Sandi Griffin. They’d always been competitive with one another but during this episode they went from friends who were competitive to frenemies.

But how would the fans react to the changes?

Change Rage

After Helen and Quinn’s song setting up the potential story changes or character arcs that the writers wanted to do, they needed to give voice to the audience. A major change to a show is often met with anger from fans.

Which is where Jake’s road rage song comes in. He’s always been one of the more mercurial characters of the show. Prone to bouts of anger at the drop of a hat. During this scene, he is making his way home and shouting at the other drivers that they are in his way.

Jake is the audience.

The writers and producers knew that the audience would not like that the status quo was being thrown out. There was an expectation of normalcy that came with writing for an animated sitcom, especially one that was targeted towards teens and young adults.

Before Jake gets home, Quinn is making hot cocoa. When Helen asks her why, there’s an explanation about it being comforting, or so a TV movie told the young teen.

When he enters, both parents express concern for Daria. They realize that she is likely out in the hurricane. This is the audience and the producers coming together, both expressing fear. However, Jake reacts emotionally to it. While Helen aka the producers, has a more pragmatic viewpoint of the situation.

After calling Jane’s brother Trent, Helen tells him to get to the Morgendorffer house to wait out the hurricane.

The show then cuts to Daria, Jane, Brittany, and Kevin. They take shelter in a storage shed that, at best, is wobbly. As is custom in this episode, there’s a song. This one is about who will be missing them, or at least worried about their well-being.

There is a reason why these four characters were chosen to be segregated from the rest of the cast. The changes that occur impact them the most.

By the end of the series, Kevin and Brittany are no longer a couple. Daria experiences love and breaks it off. And Jane spends time away from Daria, breaks up with multiple guys, and eventually goes to college.

After a commercial break, the action shifts back to Jake, Helen, Quinn, and Trent. There’s a disagreement about how to handle Daria being missing.

Jake and Trent take the lead on the song, “Manly.” During this, they talk about being sidelined because of their gender and not being in their feelings. It ends with them deciding to try rescuing Daria and Jane, despite not knowing where they are.

This indicates that the audience wants plot and action. They don’t care about the character arcs or the work that goes into making the comedy that sets the show apart from other animated sitcoms.

Even if, ultimately, Jake wrecks his car before anything can happen. This is because the writers knew that character arcs and the emotional side of things would subside once they got started.

Big Song Finale

Once again the action shifts to the four teens stuck in the shed. They are freed when Kevin rams his head into the door. That’s when they notice the hurricane has passed. They begin to sing, “The Big Wet Rainstorm Is Over,” and perform a square dance on the roof.

The change is over. In its wake things shifted. Without the status quo rule, continuity would come into play. Nuggets of storylines would be planted throughout the episodes that followed and arcs would be born that nobody could see coming.

One is Daria’s crush on Trent. During the episode, the audience is shown he’s a slacker. Which is not a shock. But it comes into play in the season finale, “Jane’s Addition.” Where the running gag of her crush is resolved once and for all.

Could the show have kept the status quo for its entire run?

Yes. But getting rid of it opened them up for more stories. And using a hurricane musical episode to let the audience know that the show had reached a point of no return was the perfect way to share this with the audience.

It was the first of the most controversial stories for the show., But the impact on the second half of the show cannot be understated. A hurricane came in and showed that the winds of change were blowing.

And the status quo was recast with continuity.