Mr. Van Driessen



David Van Driessen is a teacher at Highland High on the show Beavis and Butt-head. He was shown teaching classes on biology, art, animation, economics, health, history, and literature. A soft-spoken, idealistic, aging hippie, he has tried to get his classes interested in animal rights campaigns and horticulture. An issue of the comics reveals he's a secular humanist, who thinks Christianity has fallacies but still sees good sides to it.

Mr. Van Driessen thinks Beavis and Butt-head can be helped and is tolerant towards them, being quite upset when they were thought dead (in "Beavis and Butt-head are Dead"). None of his attempts at helping them have ever worked and they never take on board any of his lessons, but he rarely shows frustration and never faltered in his tolerant attitude to them. In his private moments, he will admit to discontent over them: he made a song about their behaviour in "This Book Sucks", citing their laughter as torture that even haunts him in his sleep and questioning if he'd be better off as a salesman at the mall, to be as far removed from them as possible; in "It's a Miserable Life" he prayed for God to make them go away out of concern that they might breed.

Daria seemed to do well in his class, and he both praised her work on occasion ("U. S. History") and called upon her for answers & input ("Sign Here", "Time Cap"). She also stepped in to assist him against Beavis (then in another Cornholio phase) in "The Great Bungholio", and he let her take charge. "Boxing Daria" states she wrote "violent revenge fantasies" when she was 15 to get a reaction, and Van Driessen is almost certain to have read them and talked to her parents about them. She never mentioned him after moving to Lawndale, however.

Van Driessen is similar to Timothy O'Neill in that they're both liberal softies prone to idealistic causes - unlike O'Neill, Van Driessen appears to be quite competent at carrying them out (except when it involves Beavis and Butt-head). Notably, he's been able to handle thuggish student Earl, who has ties to professional criminal Todd Ianuzzi: in "Incognito" he not only shrugged off a gun being fired at him (merely saying with irritation that he hoped the shot "didn't come from anyone in here") and was able to confiscate a gun from Earl later, who sounded upset and apologised to Van Driessen; in "Time Cap", he asked Earl to contribute a switchblade for the time capsule (and did get him to contribute a brick). In past episode clips in "Are Dead", Van Driessen can also be seen attacking (badly) a man in defence of Beavis, thinking the man had touched the boy inappropriately and then hit him ("You touch my students, I'll touch you!") In the present day sections, Van Driessen takes a calm but frosty tone with Coach Buzzcut over his "disrespect" for the lads.



He owns and plays an acoustic guitar, and used to own an 8-track tape collection until Beavis and Butt-head wrecked it.

In two issues of the comic, Van Driessen showed an even-handedness that is remarkable for someone as stereotypically hippie as him: in "Discoverin' Things Sucks" he noted Columbus' achievements at the same time as condemning his imperialism, and in "Witless" he viewed the film Birth of a Nation as classic cinema (it was a technical pioneer) despite its massive racism.

Van Driessen in fanfiction
He has sporadically appeared in Daria fanfics, usually when they're set in Daria's past: Richard Lobinske and The Angst Guy have both used him in pre-canon fics. "Coming of Age" by Deep Metal gives him a major post-canon role. Good-Bye, Diarrhea by C. E. Forman shows him during Daria's last days in Highland.

Trivia
In the DVD feature "Taint of Greatness: The Story of Beavis and Butt-head Part 1", Mike Judge said the character was his favourite after Beavis to voice. He based it on an interviewer he overheard during his time in a band.

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