Crossover

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Mack, Kevin, Trent, and Upchuck do Ghostbusters (Daria's Inferno)

Crossovers mix Daria elements (characters, settings, plots, etc.) with those from another fictional work entirely, permitting interaction between those elements. Primarily this is done in fanfiction and fanart - often, due to fanfic's nature, with science fiction or fantasy canons such as the Marvel Universe - but has also been done in other canonical media.

For variations on this concept in fanfiction, see Dariaverse Crossover (Daria crossing over with an alternate reality Daria) and reality crossover (Daria crossing over with the real world). A crossover involving three or more non-Daria works is sometimes called a megacrossover (per the Fanfiction Glossary).

For a discussion of the concept, see the essay "On Crossovers" by Admonisher.

Daria Crossed-over in Other Canons[edit]

Daria and company have appeared in a number of places as crossover characters in works for other canons, including Internet comics. Some examples are noted in the Media section of Outpost Daria (preserved by the Wayback Machine). Significant appearances in other non-Daria media are given below.

Gimpy, altered to look like Daria, in Undergrads ("Room Mates")

Undergrads[edit]

At the beginning of episode 6 of the MTV cartoon Undergrads ("Room Mates," first aired June 15, 2001), the technophile college freshman named Gimpy is being cyber-harassed by a female hacker, She-Prime. During a webcam discussion between Gimpy and Nitz, a friend at another college, Gimpy's image is altered by She-Prime so that he looks like a young woman. "It's never easy to say this," says Nitz with a laugh, "but Gimpy... you look like Daria."

The New Adventures of Bobbin[edit]

In an installment of The New Adventures of Bobbyn by Joycelyn Yik (August 31, 2001), the characters noted the similarity between their situation and The Kiss... causing Daria and Jane to arrive with a court injunction.

Mall Monkeys[edit]

Outpost Daria notes that a now-extinct webcomic called "Mall Monkeys" was briefly visited by the Fashion Club in the installment for October 23, 2002. That particular episode was preserved by the WayBack Machine of Archive.org and may be viewed at this link.

Evil Josh and Billy[edit]

Daria and Evil Josh (Evil Tom? Tom?) in Evil Josh and Billy

A net cartoon by ex Daria fanfic writer John Berry included a Daria lookalike in an Evil Josh and Billy episode, "Evil Josh and Billy, Episode 2: Party at JC's", in a shout-out to "The Invitation". Daria also ends up being caught as an underage drinker. The series was earlier noted to have an "evil Tom Sloane" lookalike as well.

PPMB Threads

Drawn Together[edit]

On October 4, 2007, Daria fans were astonished to see what appeared to be a crossover using Daria on the Comedy Central TV show, Drawn Together (episode 30: "Lost in Parking Space, Part Two"). The appearance was all the more shocking as Daria was a mutilated victim in a Hostel parody. She, like captured other animated characters, had gone to a Hot Topic store to see how her licensed merchandise was doing. "This is men's fault," was her monotone comment after having a nail driven into her right eye, a remark many fans felt was rather out of character for her. This appearance received much coverage on PPMB and was also mentioned in several Daria fanfics. (Comedy Central, like MTV, is a part of Viacom.)

Daria in Drawn Together

General Information

PPMB Threads

Fanfics


Daryl, in Robot Chicken (2011)

Robot Chicken[edit]

On January 30, 2011, Daria was the subject of part of a segment on the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken. Set as a Michael Moore-esque documentary searching for forgotten '90s cartoon characters, the host finds Daria as an overweight trans man named Daryl. Daryl then goes into graphic detail describing the process of how he became a man, causing the host to vomit.

Reaction to this among fandom has been mostly negative and that was without considering the blatant transphobia.

PPMB Threads

External link

Family Guy[edit]

On November 10, 2019, Peter and Lois Griffin told the story of how they got married - which includes Peter's bachelor party at the MTV Beach House in Florida. Joe Swanson interrupts that story to tell his own about "how I met Daria", which is a partial replica of a scene from "The Invitation":

Joe: "Partying hard or hardly partying?"

Daria: "Hardly interested."

Joe: "You're mean!" [runs off crying]

[la la LA la la plays]

This also had a cameo appearance with Beavis and Butt-head doing a 'review' of one of the scenes, with Peter joining them on the couch to agree "wood" is funny. While a random female voice actress is playing Daria, Mike Judge came in for the other cameo.


The scene in Blood Waters of Dr. Z when "Daria" appears (Mystery Science Theater 3000)

References to Daria[edit]

  • The well-known comic strip Luann by Greg Evans featured Daria's image on a student's T-shirt on May 3, 1999. Outpost Daria has the strip (in color) here, but it may also be viewed at the Luann homepage in black and white.
  • In May 1999, the TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 poked fun at a 1975 horror B-movie called Blood Waters of Dr. Z. At one point, the mad scientist Dr. Leopold (transformed into a monster) kidnaps a young woman and draws a picture of her, which he tapes to a zodiac picture. Mike Nelson (Michael J. Nelson), watching the film, remarks: "Hmm. Daria looks nice without her glasses." The Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XVII DVD, which contains Blood Waters of Dr. Z, was released on March 16, 2010.
  • On a September 23, 2003 episode of Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore compares her social life with that of Daria, noting that "I don't wanna change. I don't wanna be the anti-town girl. I'm not Daria."
  • A September 2010 entry of Our Valued Customers, a webcomic reproducing inane and stupid comments made by real customers in the artist's comic shop, had one grumpy customer telling his friend: "You remember that show Daria? I wanted to punch that bitch in the face." This is followed up in June 24 2015 with a girl saying people online try to sound like they're Daria: "They forget that Daria was a boring jerk who lived with her parents."
  • A June 2011 song, A Love Story, by Watsky & The GetBand has Watsky rapping about his failing relationship with a girl... as represented by a cutout Daria, who disses him at the end of the song for being "emo".

Might-Have-Beens and Lookalikes[edit]

Startling 1985 appearance of a very young "Daria" in The Care Bears Movie
Quinn in Beavis and Butt-head?
Lydia "Jane Lane" Karaoke in Histeria!
Our heroines reincarnated into an anime, a la Rule 63 (at least in Daria's case)
  • Hyrin pointed out on PPMB that there is a close copy of Daria, as a child, in 1985's The Care Bears Movie in the audience in the magic-show scene. In the film, she's one of the many kids laughing happily as a magic show goes wrong, and then has her ability to care taken away by the evil Spirit; she ends up nasty and uncaring, and in a fight with what seems to be a young Beavis (who pulls her hair during their battle). The kids look exactly like a Care Bears version of Daria and Beavis, which is especially eerie as neither character existed in 1985... but were the right age in 1993 (Daria's first appearance) to have been this young in 1985! Is Daria the way she is because she never regained her ability to care?
  • Peapotmaster has noted that a Warner Brothers' cartoon series called Histeria! had a character that strongly resembled an adult Jane Lane (Lydia Karaoke).
  • The webcomic "Sufferin’ Joyce," found at ComicCritics.com, had an interesting entry for May 15th, 2009, involving two characters with remarkable similarities to Daria and Jane.
  • A dead ringer for Quinn appears in Beavis and Butt-head episode "Held Back", aired in 1994 - a year before Quinn's character was first designed. Butt-head, temporarily sent back a grade, sits next to and hits on the very unimpressed girl. What makes it eerie is that the Quinn clone is in eighth grade, which Quinn would have been at the time. We could assume this is Quinn, though she appears again in the 2011 episodes "Drones" and "Copy Machine"; that time, however, she's part of Beavis and Butt-head's class which raises timeline questions.
  • In Image Comics' Morning Glories #29 (2013), the sinister Morning Glories Academy has an ad for "Fashion Club: Meets Wednesday 4-6PM. Contact Quinn M. Room 237." What the heck is Quinn doing in that horrific and surreal torture den, and how long as she been stuck there?
  • Lord Goring pointed out that in episode 10 of the anime Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, the characters Wakamatsu and Seo go out on a date dressed very similarly to Daria and Jane. The upper half of Seo's outfit, with a bright red jacket and v-neck black shirt with a white collar, are identical to Jane's (Seo also wears shorts, though hers are tan). For his part, Wakamatsu wears a green jacket much like Daria's, along with a yellow vest and orange tie.
Trent and Daria do Casablanca (MTV)

Daria crossovers in fanworks[edit]

There are two types of crossover in fanfiction and fan art:

  • The first is where Daria characters or elements encounter the characters or elements of another canon, or vice versa. For example, "It's Eureka, Daria" (Richard Lobinske) has the Morgendorffers moving to the eponymous town from the sci-fi show Eureka; "Have Faith" (Mediancat) inserts Daria into the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel; "Screams of Silence" (Jim North) that has Daria entering the haunted town of Silent Hill.
  • The second is where an amalgamation is created of Daria and the other canon, the characters of the former becoming the latter. This is often seen with superhero stories, such as "Lawndale's Finest" (NightGoblyn) where Jane and Daria are Superman and Batman (respectively). This sort of fanfic can be played straight ("DeWitt", crossing Daria with Dexter) or for humour by contrasting the Daria characters with the crossed-over setting and genre ("Is It The Grim Darkness Of The Far Future, Yet?" by RX-87, where everyone is a Warhammer 40K character).

See also the World's Shortest Crossover threads.

You can also see cameo appearances from other canons in a non-crossover fic.

External Links[edit]

PPMB threads[edit]

Other links[edit]