Camp Fear

"Camp Fear" was the fourth episode of the fifth season of the television series Daria (episode number 504). It first aired on MTV on March 12, 2001.

"Camp Fear" was written by Jonathan Greenberg.

Summary
Daria and Quinn attend a reunion at Camp Grizzly, a summer camp they attended as pre-teens. Once there, Daria cannot escape the worshipful attentions of Amelia, a fellow former camper who drastically mis-remembers several painful events Daria endured at the camp:

 Amelia: This reminds me of the time you boycotted the End-of-Summer campfire by the lake. That was so cool.

Daria: Actually, I wasn't invited.

Amelia: Oh. (pauses, then laughs) Remember the time you took off on your horse and left us all behind.

Daria: You mean the time the time the horse ran off with me on it and tossed me in the river, and I had to have nine stitches?

Meanwhile, Quinn falls in with her old clique, Tracy, Cindy, and Tatiana, precursors of Sandi, Stacy, and Tiffany respectively.

Daria's Reading Material
In a flashback to her time as a young camper at Camp Grizzly, Daria is shown with a copy of George Orwell's Animal Farm. At the camp reunion, she reads Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

Daria Fans as Characters
Two fans of Daria won a contest to become characters on this show: Michelle Klein-Hass and Erin Mills.

Trivia
The title is a play on Cape Fear, a film first made in 1962 starring Geogory Peck and Robert Mitchum and then remade in 1991 by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte. (There is also a 1991 soft-core porn film having the very same name as the episode.)

A popular theory is that Amelia is meant to be a satire on Daria fans: overly idolizing her and wanting to be mates, getting disillusioned that Daria turns out to be flawed and a bit unpleasant, and annoying the hell out of Daria who can't stand being fawned over.

Quinn's friends and admirers at camp are dead ringers for the Fashion Club and the Three Js, and she treated them the same as she treats her Lawndale friends.

Jane didn't go to summer camp but did have to stay at communes with her parent's friends.

Quinn has been calling Daria "my cousin" for five years.

Jake collects John Wayne Collectible Coins.

Geography headaches
Camp Grizzly is close enough to Lawndale for everyone to go there and back in a day, and Quinn can ask for a lift home from other campgoers. This is a bit strange, as the Morgendorffers were living in Highland when Daria & Quinn first went to Camp Grizzly and that's a good distance from Lawndale (Texas to be precise). Jonathan Greenberg may have been unaware of this.

"Camp Fear" and Fanfic


The Angst Guy wrote a continuation of Amelia's experiences on the camp reunion day in "Prisoner of Hope." Kristen Bealer filled in the young Quinn's escapades and how they'd shifted her towards her canon persona in "The Tween Queen of the Camp", as well as what happened to young Daria after not being invited to the End of Summer campfire in "Country Wisdom".

Alternate universe versions of Camp Fear include John Lane story "Friends and Rediscovery" by RLobinske, a section of "After the End by TAG, Not So Different 57: Second Wind by J-D. AU versions of Daria's time at camp include "The Misery Chicks" by NightGoblyn, "Who Once Was Lost" by TAG, and "Rio Grizzly" by Smileyfax.

The unfinished comic "The camp we used to fear" by Wouter Jaegers is a sort of follow up story, In which Amelia takes over the camp from Mr. Potts and as such grows as a person, certainly when a boy named Link shows up after having been volunteered by his father to work as a camp leader. Amelia is taken in by Link because he reminds her of Daria.

Amelia has also been taken up as a supporting character in multiple fanfics.