Morgendorks: A Daria Podcast

Hey. Let's take a few hours and talk about endings.

Well, here we are. It's time for Daria to wrap itself up once and for all—and very nearly time for us to put this retrospective series to bed. It's the first half of our coverage of "Is It Fall Yet?," this week on Morgendorks! College application season has rolled around, and everybody's trying to figure out where they'll end up. Some will be thrilled! Some, disappointed! Some ... confused? Also, Quinn has a friend with a drinking problem. And Mr. O'Neill's getting married. Look, there's a lot going on.

Rob's been waiting three god damn years to talk about this episode, and it's finally here: It's time we covered "Boxing Daria," this week on Morgendorks! When a discarded refrigerator box brings back some troubling emotions from her early youth, Daria's left questioning her understanding of, well ... just about everything. It's a wildly interesting, introspective, and reverent episode, and we truly hope our discussion did it justice.

Enjoy!

As they said in the '90s: Let's talk about sex. It's time for "My Night at Daria's," this week on Morgendorks! When Tom falls asleep at Daria's house it ends up creating a rumor that he and Daria are sleeping together—which leads Daria to feel pressured to actually start sleeping together. But what if you're just not in that mindset?

Also, Jake has a sushi parasite.

Just a note that Rob's connection was a little wonky throughout recording, so occasionally there's some crosstalk/delay in reactions. Nothing severe, but hey.

The Fourth of July has come and gone, but we get into the spirit by celebrating two proud American traditions: wildly excessive amounts of processed meat and the brutally exploitative postsecondary education complex! It's time for "Prize Fighters," this week on Morgendorks! When scholarship application season kicks into gear, it sends Daria into direct competition with a few of her classmates. Whole lot of conflict throughout this one, and we had a really good time with it!

Also, Jake bought too many hot dogs. Oh, Jake.

Note: Rob's microphone/connection got a little weird for a few minutes toward the end and his audio goes wonky. Not sure what that's about, but you can still understand him and it doesn't last very long. Sorry about that.

Batten down the hatches, the Barksdale sisters are in town! It's "Aunt Nauseam," this week on Morgendorks! When Helen's niece gets ready to file for divorce, it ends up bringing the Barksdale sisters together again ... but not in a good way. Turns out they only exist to destroy one another? This is an episode that is somehow both busy (there's a friggin' D plot, y'all) and repetitive, and we get a little lost trying to figure out what that means for our episode rankings.

That said, there's some truly lovely sisterly bonding in here for Quinn and Daria, and we couldn't be more stoked about that. And the Fashion Club gets a strong B plot! Oh man, I'm already talking myself into questioning our ranking. Enjoy!

Links:

Let's take a trip back to the 1950s! Or Maybe let's not, because it looks like our tour guide is a real turd. It's time for "Life in the Past Lane," here on Morgendorks! When Jane hooks up with a guy who's obsessed with the "timeless" style of the 40s and 50s, she falls into it herself—much to the dismay of Daria. Also, Upchuck's a magician now! So that's cool, I guess. Whole lot to chat about with this one, with a ton of cultural context mixed in throughout. Enjoy!

Links:

How's Quinn gonna get through this episode? "One J at a Time," of course. Actually, let's talk about Quinn and her characterization throughout this one, because we have some, er, concerns. Same with Helen, actually. And why is Daria so afraid of Tom meeting two people he's already met?

That said, there's a lot to love in this one, and we talk through every bit of it—including maaaaybe one of the best Jake plotlines of the entire series? Whole thing's a mixed bag but a really fun ride. Enjoy!

Links:

Let's take a dive into the world of art recreations and frivolous lawsuits! It's "Art Burn," this week on Morgendorks! When Jane gets hired by a local scumbag gallery owner to paint recreations of famous works to pay off gazebo debts, she's conflicted: Getting paid for art is awesome, but just how much time and energy can you dedicate to painting someone else's work before you've kinda forgotten what being an artist meant to you in the first place?

This one's a little ... weird. It just feels like an odd episode, for reasons we'll explore. Also, we get into the bizarre (fake) illness that has swept the Internet for 16 years—and originated in Daria fanfiction. Enjoy!

Time for another episode of Morgendorks! This week, we're covering "Lucky Strike." When the teachers of Lawndale High finally decide they've had enough of their criminally low salaries, they go on strike—and it throws Daria into a pretty awkward spot when she's ... kinda ... strong-armed into being the replacement Mr. O'Neill. Not sure how we feel about Daria "Once Sparked a Socialist Riot" Morgendorffer suddenly not being on the side of the worker, but we'll talk about it. This one was a lot of fun!

When two writerly folks gather together to talk about an episode of Daria focused on the intensely personal craft of writing, you can bet we're gonna be pulled in all sorts of tangents. It's time for "The Story of D," this week on Morgendorks! When Daria submits a short story for publication to a literary journal and gets rejected, she's struck with a crisis of confidence. Also: The Fashion Club goes humanitarian! And Helen's making snacks!

This one was a lot of fun, folks. Hope you enjoy!

Links:

Grab your oversized Camp Grizzly t-shirt and dig into your flavorless potato chips, it's time to cover "Camp Fear" on Morgendorks! When Daria goes to a summer camp reunion, it brings back a bunch of memories she was plenty happy leaving behind. Meanwhile, Jane and Trent go on a quest to get Trent's passion for music back, and Helen and Jake clean the garage. With sexy results! Oy.

No cultural context this week because the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine knocked Rob on his ass. It's worth it, though! Get your Fauci Ouchie!

Time to cover "Fat Like Me," this week on Morgendorks! When Sandi—not Stacy, Sandi—breaks her leg and gains a few pounds, it tosses the entire Lawndale High social structure into disarray and gives Daria and Jane a chance to do some good ol' fashioned scheming. It's a ... complicated episode to talk about, and you'll sense how torn we were throughout.

Also, you might get to the beginning of the episode rankings, look at the timer, and wonder why there's still like half an hour to go. Be there for when we look into the inspiration for this episode's title and absolutely lose our shit for a while!

Note: In the interest of getting this one out on time, the final edit's not as clean as we'd usually like. Lots of ums and uhs that might not otherwise be there. Thanks for understanding!

Links:

Time to crush the relationship roles of the heteronormative patriarchy! Or maybe just poke away at it a bit? It's time for "Sappy Anniversary," this week on Morgendorks! When Daria and Tom's six-month anniversary approaches and he doesn't seem interested in celebrating, Daria's torn: Is this something she cares about? Does she care that he doesn't care? What does it mean?

Relationships are hard, y'all. This one's a very interesting look at Daria's vulnerability, and we had a lot of fun talking about it. We also dig into the dot-com bubble era of the late 90s and early 00s, thanks to some Jake-related hijinks. Enjoy!

Links:

Let's go ahead and mark our entry into season five with some hearty dialogues against capitalism: It's time for "Fizz Ed," this week on Morgendorks! When a cash-strapped Lawndale High turns to cola companies for those sweet, sweet vending machine contract dollars, Daria's forced to grapple with the juxtaposition of her moral objections and her general apathy.

And for our cultural context, we take a look at the controversy surrounding vending machines in schools. Are the health risks acceptable? What about the morality behind treating students like a demographic?

Enjoy!

Links:

When the whip comes down /
When they nuke the town /
When dead clowns can't clown /
We'll still be freakin' friends.

All right, y'all, let's wrap this sucker up. The first half of "Is It Fall Yet?" left us with a lot of questions, some concerns, and a whole bunch to look forward to—and here we are. Do Daria and Jane figure things out? Do Daria and Tom? Has Quinn really turned a corner and embraced her own intelligence? There's SO MUCH to talk about, and we're going to dig into all of it. Plus a bunch more.

And for our fan segment at the end, we have some more chat about hair dyeing—as well as some sage advice to our younger listeners on the testing and choices we face in our vulnerable teenage years. Enjoy!

Links:

We've finally arrived at the first Daria movie! This week, we're covering the first half (or so) of "Is It Fall Yet?" The turbulence of the season four finale hangs in the air and Jane and Daria still find themselves on the outs as they head into a summer in which they won't be seeing much of one another. With Daria trying to navigate relationships both starting and crumbling, Jane trying to navigate some surprisingly complex issues at an art commune, Quinn trying to commit herself to reaching her scholastic potential, and our B-Plot Gang all doing their own things, we've got a whole lot to cover.

And if you can hang on for all of that, hang on a little bit more to hear some hair dyeing advice from a friend of the podcast! There'll be more of it in our next episode, as well!

Links:

Season four has been a long and turbulent ride, and it's not about to get any smoother as we roll into its finale, "Dye! Dye! My Darling," this week on Morgendorks! When Jane pushes Daria into a hair dyeing adventure she's deeply uncertain about, things go horribly wrong—and it brings all of the tensions of the previous twelve episodes to a head (heheh). Love! Loss! Betrayal! This episode has it all! Ahhh!

Oh! And for our cultural context (yaaayyy it's back), we look at the classic short story, "The Lady, or the Tiger?" What's it about? Why is it relevant beyond just being namedropped in this episode? Find out!

Links:

Hey, sometimes your dad accidentally sets the house on fire and you have to live at a swanky hotel for a few weeks but your sister basically claims the room as her domain so you've gotta go crash with your best friend instead except she's got her boyfriend over and they've been having ~issues~ but also he and you are getting along very very nicely and it makes things extremely complicated. That's just life, y'know? That's living.

"Fire!" really cranks up the tension in a love triangle that has been building all season, and we get some truly wonderful character moments out of it. Lots to talk about here, as you can tell by the runtime.

And lo it descends from on high, like a celestial being, or perhaps maybe just a bird that hit a skyscraper window: It's another episode of Morgendorks! This week, we're looking at the deeply unfortunately titled "Groped by an Angel." When Quinn starts believing hard in guardian angels, it's up to Daria to keep her eyes from rolling out of her head—but a party at Brittney's is about to test Quinn's faith. It's a weird episode that actually led to a lot of fascinating discussions!

We also eschew our normal cultural context for some fan mail this week, which we'd normally feel a little bad about—but this fan mail is *awesome*. We had a blast with it. Thank y'all who take the time to write in, seriously.

Enjoy!

Links:

It's time for what probably amounts to the first and only Halloween episode of Morgendorks! This week, we're fortunate enough to be looking at "Legends of the Mall." When the Fashion Club gets lost in the wrong part of town and Jake, Trent, Daria, and Jane soon suffer a similar fate, we get a look into some of Lawndale's folklore—in the form of URBAN LEGENDS! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!

Our cultural context is just us shooting the shit about urban legends for a while, because we both love the topic so much. This thing was a ton of fun to record, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.

Oh, by the by, since this is the last you'll hear from us before Election Day on November 3rd: VOTE. SWEET JESUS, VOTE.

Links:

It's time for Morgendorks season four episode nine, "Mart of Darkness," or, as it may more widely become known: That Episode Where Rob was on Prednisone. This episode only looks shorter than most of the others we've done lately. Hoo, boy. ANYWAY: When Lawndale's new warehouse store sucks everybody into its vortex, our intrepid heroes must find their way through two hundred aisles of savings and what historians will refer to as The Sample Station War o' 2000.

No cultural context this week because we got some wonderful fan mail we wanted to dig into. Thank you, yet again, to this incredible community. Y'all make hosting this podcast an absolute privilege.

October's here! And so is another episode of Morgendorks! This week, we're looking at "Psych Therapy," wherein Helen's work is offering her the chance at a big promotion—but it comes at the cost of having to get her entire family psychologically evaluated. Meanwhile, Jane starts a webcam that offers a 24/7 glimpse into her life. Huge invasion of privacy vibes coming off of this one, folks ...

... which means it's appropriate that our cultural context this week focuses on Jennicam, a somewhat forgotten piece of internet history that presaged livestreaming, reality television, social media, and so much more. Its founder was, for a time, arguably the biggest thing the internet had to offer. Now, her online presence is virtually nonexistent. It's a fascinating tale that ties into not only this episode of Daria but also the modern internet experience as a whole!

Fire up the hot air balloon, it's time for a new episode of Morgendorks! This week we're looking at "Of Human Bonding," wherein Daria gets some not-quite-quality time with Jake and Helen gets some equally questionable quality time with ... the Fashion Club? Okay, let's see how that goes.

We don't have a cultural context this week, unfortunately, but as you can see by the length of the episode we still had plenty to say. Although a solid, like, thirty minutes of it is just Rob ranting about Jake. So there's that.

Links:

Time for another Morgendorks! This week: "I Loathe a Parade." It's Homecoming time at Lawndale High, which can only mean one thing: Daria goes on a toilet paper run and stumbles across both a parade and the long-forgotten Tad Gupty, who can't find his parents, so she ends up escorting him around, but she also runs into Tom, who decides to tag along, and then they start getting along way more than usual and it's a weird vibe and also Upchuck's driving a swinger mobile. Such a quaint yearly tradition.

In the wake of the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman, our cultural context this week focuses on the importance of representation in media. How well are we doing? Spoiler: Not well at all. But it underscores the potential of a show like Jodie's upcoming series, and that's worth talking about.

By failing to get this episode out on time, did we succeed? We'd like to think so. It's time to talk about "The F Word," this week on Morgendorks! When Mr. O'Neill assigns his class to purposefully fail at something, it throws everything into disarray. Brittany's unpopular! Kevin sucks at sports! Jane's a ... cheerleader? This one waits two acts before going off the rails entirely.

And for cultural context, we talk about the risk-averse (or is it risk-aware?) behavior of the Millennial generation. Is it that they don't want to embrace failure, or is it that they have so little margin for error they can't fathom taking that kind of chance?

Links:

Pull out your magnifying glass and dig deep into that reservoir of televised crime dramas, it's time for "Murder, She Snored," this week on Morgendorks! When Daria falls asleep to a knockoff "Charlie's Angels" episode, the dream sequence that unfurls runs the gamut of crime drama references from the past forty years—all in the service of solving the mystery of THE MURDER OF KEVIN THOMPSON.

It's a weird one, folks, and one of us loved it a whole hell of a lot. Won't say which one, but, hint: It's the one who's maybe now a big damn hypocrite for having slammed "The Daria Hunter."

This episode of Morgendorks is a bit different, too, because the cultural context is weaved throughout instead of dropped in at the end. Please enjoy!

Let us leave behind these earthly confines and take to the air majestically, like Kevin off the back of a motorcycle into the Tommy Sherman memorial sapling. It's time to look at "A Tree Grows in Lawndale," this week on Morgendorks! When Kevin gets into a motorcycle accident and is left unable to play football, he sinks into a deep depression—taking the entire town of Lawndale with him.

And for our cultural context, we look at how the success of your local high school football team may actually, in fact, have an impact on your property values. The world is weird.

Speaking of weird, we derail almost immediately when one of us hits up Google on a totally relevant search for Daria BDSM fanfiction. So ... yay. 

Links:

Time for the cast of Daria to answer the call of the wild—and time for us to cover "Antisocial Climbers," this week on Morgendorks! When a class trip up a mountain gets stranded in a blizzard, the whole gang finds themselves stressing over what might become of them. Quinn, particularly, because there's a good chance the group draws and quarters her. Why? Find out with us!

Also, we dive into the tragic and harrowing story of the Donner Party—a real-life example of westward expansion gone wrong that has inspired a huge amount of our media over the past century-and-a-half, including (in small part) this episode!

Links:

Can't believe we're already at season four, but here goes: It's time to talk about "Partner's Complaint," this week on Morgendorks! When the rift between Daria and Jane—you know, the one we thought was smoothed over at the end of last season—drives them to partner up with other people for an economics project, our B-Plot Gang gets some much-needed airtime. Parts of this one are stunningly relevant even twenty years later, and it's worth checking out.

And for our cultural context this week, we spend some (nowhere near enough, because that podcast would never actually end) time talking about systemic racism—that rotten chunk of the societal bedrock designed specifically to make life harder and less prosperous for one entire section of the population.

If you're out there protesting, if you're contributing, if you're having the difficult conversations, if you're donating, if you're voting for people who will put an end to the bullshit: Thank you. Please keep the pressure on.

And just like that the curtain falls on Daria season three with "Jane's Addition," here on Morgendorks! When Daria, Jane, and Trent come together (kinda) to work (kinda) on a multimedia project (kinda)—and it coincides with a cute new guy monopolizing Jane's time—it begins to pull on the threads of Daria and Jane's friendship. Crushes will end! New crushes will begin! Rob will stun us with his complete inability to work with a German accent! All of this, and more!

And in our cultural context, we dive briefly into the ways in which the technological revolution of the late 90s impacted high school life. Plus: fan mail!

It's time to hit the high seas and hold an ill-fated casino night, here on Morgendorks! This week: "Just Add Water." When Ms. Li demands everybody attend the school's newest fundraising activity—a casino night aboard a luxury liner—it gives the entire Morgendorffer clan a brand spanking new setting for their litany of regular issues. But what's that on the horizon? AVAST! THE TRASH BARGE APPROACHETH.

Speaking of trash barges, we're going to dive into the absolutely insane and wonderful story of the Mobro 4000, a barge that just wanted a home for itself and its 3,100 tons of Long Island garbage—and went more than 6,000 miles in search of it, becoming the most-watched pile of garbage in human history. Yeah, it's wild.

Stay safe out there!

Links:

Are you ready to tackle the menace that is SPACE COMMUNISM? If you aren't, that's cool, because I don't think Lawndale is either. Time to talk about "The Lawndale File" on Morgendorks! When shady government types come to Lawndale High and talk about rooting out individuals acting suspiciously, paranoia grips the town. Are communists among us? What about aliens?! And why is Quinn suddenly dressing like she did back in "Quinn the Brain"?

All that, plus a dive into the anti-communist roots of science fiction in American media! ... woo!

Links:

Time for another episode of Morgendorks! This week, we're talking about "Speedtrapped." When Jane and Mystic Spiral find themselves stuck in a dusty southwestern town's jail, Quinn and a newly licensed Daria are tasked with riding in to the rescue. It feels a whole lot like a plot you'd expect on a show with a slightly older cast—and also Lawndale is nowhere near the American southwest—but, hey, here we are.

And for our cultural context we dive just a little bit into some of the references this particular episode makes to the American southwest—and how such a unique region is covered by our popular media.

Also! Fan mail! Woo!

Stay healthy and safe, y'all.

Links:

And so it was that on one of the last nights of The March that Wouldn't End, we entered into The Recording Session that Wouldn't End to talk about "Jake of Hearts," and things fell off the rails more than a few times. Podcast archaeologists who dig this episode up years and years from now will use it in their case studies to talk about the impact of global health crises and quarantines on the human psyche. There's also a fair amount of heart surgery discussion, soooo, uh, sorry about that.

We also try something a little different with this cultural context, wherein we discuss the popularity of radio with teens of the '90s and early '00s—and wonder hopelessly if it's still popular with the teens of today.

Thank you so much for listening, y'all. Please, please stay safe. Hopefully our silly little show brings you some much-needed fun in this wildly unpredictable time.

Links:

And fresh off a nearly one-month break (thanks so very much, car accidents and illness), we're back with "Lane Miserables," here on Morgendorks! When the surprisingly massive immediate Lane family all comes home at once, Jane and Trent find themselves without any room—so they end up living with the Morgendorffers. It's an odd duck of an episode. It also has some interesting things to say about parenting?

Speaking of which, in lieu of our cultural context we dig into Daria's (the show's, not the character's) take on parenting. Also, Rob talks about horses and The Matrix for a bit? I guess? Who knows what the hell that was about.

Also! Fan response! We talk about it! Y'all had a lot to say about where we ranked "Daria!," so we're diving into that a bit.

Thank you all so much for your patience as we dealt with multiple weeks of delays. We love you guys. Please stay safe, stay well, and do what you can to listen to health experts. This is going to be an absolutely insane couple of months, and we've all gotta be here for one another.

Links:

And so we come to the point that it seems so, so many shows came to in the late 90s and early 2000s: LET'S HAVE A MUSICAL! This week on Morgendorks, we're looking at "Daria!" When a hurricane threatens Lawndale, Daria and Jane have the deep misfortune to find themselves stuck on the Lawndale High roof. Will they survive? What will become of Lawndale? Who has the worst singing voice? Find out all of this, and more!

(It's Mack. Mack has the worst singing voice.)

We also dive a bit into the theory behind musicals, which is to say a lengthy discussion on diegesis. What does it mean? How is it applied to musicals? Why is it particularly important to television musicals?

Hoo, boy.

Links:

Yo. Let's talk about nuts. It's time for "It Happened One Nut," here on Morgendorks! When a career aptitude test shakes some of Lawndale High's finest, Daria ends up getting a job alongside Kevin at the local mall's peanut distribution specialist, It's a Nutty Nutty Nutty World.

We also spend some time talking about Baby Nut, because how were we supposed to avoid that?

And for our cultural context, we dive into the nostalgic mystery of the dyed, bright-red pistachio. Why did we dye pistachios? And what does it have to do with the Iran Hostage Crisis? All this and more, this week on Morgendorks!

Links:

Some folks want to be forever young, some folks want to please those who want to be forever young, and some just want to be left alone. It's time for Morgendorks! This week, we're looking at "The Lost Girls." When Daria's unknowingly entered into and wins (naturally) an essay contest, she "gets" to spend a few days alongside Val, a prominent teen magazine magnate and pop culture ... eugh, I guess the word would be influencer? Holy cow.

For our cultural context, we take a bit of a dive into Jane Pratt—for whom Val is a thinly veiled stand-in—and the potentially insidious sway magazines had over teenage girls of the 90s and early 2000s.

Note: We're working on clearing up some of this remaining audio issues. Apologies for the random dips in quality.

Links:

New decade, new episode of Morgendorks! That's how it works. This week, we're taking a look at "Daria Dance Party"! When Quinn is tasked with forming and running the dance committee to plan an upcoming event at Lawndale High, it rapidly ends up becoming Jane's problem—but she grabs the bull by the horns. Also: A quarrel between lovers threatens to rip the B-Plot Gang apart! What happens next? Find out ... well, you can find out basically anywhere. This show is two decades old. But we'd prefer if you found out with us, this week on Morgendorks!

Also: We dive a little bit into the career and life of Jackson Pollock, the American painter to whom Jane dedicates her efforts within this episode. Also also: Fan discussion! Yay!

Links:

Hoooo boy, it's finally time to talk about "Depth Takes a Holiday," this week on Morgendorks! Daria's visited by the personifications of St. Patrick's Day and Valentine's Day, who implore her to help them round up the disgruntled personifications of Halloween, Christmas, and Guy Fawkes Day and bring them back to Holiday Island through a dimensional portal behind one of Lawndale's Chinese restaurants.

Y'know, when we put it like that, it really sounds kinda fun. Also: FAN MESSAGES! YAY!

Two things of note for this episode: One, we don't have any cultural context this time around. It was all we could do to keep this thing at a reasonable length as it was. Two, we ran into some recording issues, so you'll probably notice some skipping in Nissa's track. Sorry about that! We're gonna change up the way we record, so hopefully it doesn't happen again.

Anyway, drop some strong hallucinogenics and enjoy as we discuss this purely bonkers half hour of television.

Links:

Welcome back to Morgendorks! First and foremost: Thank you all yet again for your patience, support, and well-wishes over the past few months. It has meant the world, and y'all remain absolutely awesome.

Anyway, on to business: This week we're looking at "The Old and the Beautiful," wherein Ms. Li decides some mandatory volunteer work is just what Lawndale High needs, and Daria ends up reading to some elderly folks—which leads to her getting some sage wisdom from Brittany, of all people.

And in our cultural context, we look at this whole "mandatory volunteerism" thing. What was the point of it? How popular was it in the 90s? Did it work? Find out, this week on Morgendorks!

Links:

It’s time for Morgendorks! We squint and hesitantly shuffle into the extraordinarily blurry future of season three with “Through a Lens Darkly,” wherein Daria decides to try contacts instead of her iconic glasses—and immediately struggles with questions of vanity and identity. Come for the Daria commentary, stay for Rob and Nissa’s Bespectacled Adventures!

For our cultural context this week, we’re digging into just how glasses impact the way others view us and come to be a part of our own identities. From “She’s All That” to modern psychology, we run the gamut!

Also, stick around toward the end for some very important scheduling information! This is gonna be the last Morgendorks until sometime around mid-November.

Links:

As we come to the end of the second season, it's time to take a look back and think about where we've been—so join us for a special retrospective episode of Morgendorks, where we discuss the highs and lows of Daria's sophomore effort (and how it compares to the first season)!

We also share some awesome stuff that our fans have said and done over the past week or two. Seriously, we cannot thank our community enough. Y'all are wonderful.

This was a fun and kinda loopy one, folks. Rob's basically frenetic by the end of it. And speaking of Rob, there's some rather important scheduling information toward the end of the episode, so you're going to want to stick around for that!

Links:

It's time to explore the recesses of Daria's writerly mind, with "Write Where it Hurts," this week on Morgendorks! When Daria receives a special assignment from Mr. O'Neill to write a short story about people she knows, she runs headlong into a gnarly case of writer's block. Meanwhile, Helen's doing everything she can to help her daughter out—and running into blocks of her own.

We also take a look at moral fiction—a partial focus of this episode. Tune in to see how cantankerous we can get when talking about John Gardner's take on what art actually is. One of us may or may not have implied he's burning in hell. So there's that.

Also: Fan mail! And Patreon news!

Time to hit the local piercing parlor and adorn our bare midriffs with a nice little chunk of 90s nostalgia with “Pierce Me,” here on Morgendorks! When Daria goes and does something silly (read: gets her belly button pierced) for a boy (read: Trent), it makes her re-examine a few things. Also: Quinn and Helen in a mother-daughter fashion show! It’s an episode packed with wonderful character interactions, and we enjoyed the hell out of it.

And for our cultural context, we dive a bit into the navel piercing phenomenon of the mid-90s! Where did it originate? What made it blow up? Find out, here on Morgendorks!

Links:

See Daria. See Jane. See Jane Run. See Daria lose her ish. Lose your ish, Daria, lose your ish! Or maybe don't? It's weird. It's time for "See Jane Run," here on Morgendorks! When a mix of libido and family pride convinces Jane to join the Lawndale High track team, Daria's left in the dust—and it does not go well for her at all. It's an interesting episode with a few really odd notes, and we had a lot of fun with it.

And for our cultural context, we look at the under-the-table perks of being a student-athlete. How prevalent is academic fraud, like what we see in this episode of Daria? (Spoiler: Super. But there isn't much data on the high school side of things.)

Links:

Gather thine woolen fabrics and ready thine legs of turkey, it's time for "Fair Enough," here on Morgendorks! When the Lawndale High Library collapses in on itself and Ms. Li can't find the funds to fix it outright, the school throws a Renaissance fair to raise money. It also strongarms everybody into participating. What follows is a tightly written romp that has a little something for everybody. Dainty garlands! Jousting! Ferris wheels! Weaponized turkey legs! It's all here.

Also, for our cultural context, we take a brief and refreshingly light glimpse into the history of the Renaissance fair. Felt good to be coming out of cultural context without a heavy existential weight on our shoulders, if we're being honest.

It’s time for splotchy redness and the questionable misplacement of enema bags, as we cover “Ill” this week on Morgendorks! When Daria’s stricken with a bizarre rash, she ends up in the hospital—while Jane tries (and kinda fails) to cover for her. What’s behind the rash? How were that many women in one bathroom stall? What happened to poor Mrs. Sullivan? We don’t have all the answers, or even many, but we’ll give it a go anyway.

Also, for our cultural context we take a dive into the epidemic of teenage anxiety. It’s way, way more prevalent than you might think, and it’s almost certainly an older problem than you might realize.

Also also! We answer a question from one of our fantastic Patrons! And talk about some really fantastic Daria-related news that you’ve probably seen this past week!

Links: