Timothy O'Neill

Timothy O'Neill is a teacher at Lawndale High.

Character Overview
Mr. O'Neill primarily teaches English (at Lawndale it is called "Language Arts") and also teaches an after-school course on Self Esteem, at which Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane meet. The Daria Diaries also have him teaching Drama ("Dramatic Horizons") and present English and Language Arts as seperate subjects.

Mr. O'Neill was gentle, soft spoken and ludicrously sensitive, very in touch with his emotions but incapable of controlling them. His English assignments were often ill-disguised attempts to get his students to express personal pain or experiences, and he himself would often cry in class. His ability to perform such simple tasks as remembering his own students' names was come and go at best.

On the second season episode, "The Daria Hunter," Mr. O'Neill (unwittingly) began a sexual-but-not-romantic relationship with the misandrist Janet Barch, which is repeated in episodes plotted similarly to "The Daria Hunter," "Fair Enough," and "Just Add Water" (and was mentioned briefly in the episode "Murder, She Snored"). The clear implication is that they engage in sexual practices that most would find unusual or disturbing.

He lives in an apartment building in Lawndale, where a despondent Timothy had his worries of failing as a teacher eased by Daria and Jane in the episode The F Word.

The series finale/made-for-TV movie, Is It College Yet?, featured O'Neill accidentally becoming engaged to Ms. Barch, and being coached by Mr. DeMartino on how to break off the relationship. The results are amusing.

Trivia

 * Timothy O'Neill was voiced by actor Marc Thompson, who also gave voice to Anthony DeMartino, Kevin Thompson and Charles "Upchuck" Ruttheimer III.


 * In a June 2008 interview with TAG, CINCGREEN said of Mr. O'Neill:

"Mr. O’Neill is a horribly self-centered man who convinces himself that he’s some sort of altruist while trying to shove his theories down the throats of his unhappy students. (Maybe that’s why O’Neill/Barch works out so well: they are both such selfish people.) They are not nice characters to write about, because I don’t have any sympathy for them."

Fanfic Portrayals

 * In writing Legion of Lawndale Heroes, Brother Grimace (who has states that he always considered Mr. O'Neill the least worthwhile character in the series) specifically wrote in a cataclysmic mental breakdown for O'Neill, simply so that he wouldn't have to use the character anymore. Also, while writing The Winters of Those Gone Before, he had added a subplot (but later discarded) with O'Neill ending up killed by Anthony DeMartino and Janet Barch, who acted to protect Daria and Quinn so that they could get the therapy and assistance they needed.


 * In the Blood Oath of Patriots series by Galen Hardesty, O'Neill's political affiliation is revealed to be 'American Marxist'. This is also used in 'Winters', when Anthony DeMartino refers to O'Neill as 'comrade' while threatening him not to bother either Daria or Jane.