Sporting Goods

Daria, pissed off with being a fashion photographer.

Sporting Goods is an episode of Beavis and Butt-head which aired on October 4, 1993. It features the second of three known speaking appearances of Daria on Season 3 of Beavis and Butt-head.

Synopsis

Beavis and Butt-head are setting on the stoop at what appears to be Highland High. Butt-head holds a grasshopper up, and Beavis flicks his lighter as he tries to set it on fire. Daria, carrying a camera, walks by and stops.

• Butt-head: "Hey, Dia--uh, Daria. Where'd you get the camera?"
• Beavis: "Yea! You look like one of those...pap-a-Nazis, heh heh heh."
• Daria (angrily): "My parents made me join the school paper. The paper made me fashion reporter because I'm a girl! I hate fashion! There's no fashion in this town! I want to be an enquiring photographer."
• Beavis: "Yeah yeah! Then you could take pictures of the girls' locker room, mweheheh!"
• Butt-head: "Yeah, huh huh. And enquire about how they'd like to please Big Daddy Butthead. Huhuhuhuh."
• Daria: "God, you're gross!" (takes photograph of Beavis and Butt-head)
• Beavis: "Hey, why'd you do that?"
• Daria: "You never know. National Geographic might call." (walks away)
• Butt-head. "Huhuhuhuh. She thinks we're cool."
• Beavis:" "Mweheheh. She's right!"

In gym class, Beavis and Butt-head are forced into dodgeball by Coach Buzzcut (i.e. an excuse for him to throw things at them). A throw by Buzzcut hits Beavis in the groin, and Beavis's clutching his junk leads Buzzcut to conclude that Beavis and Butt-head are not wearing athletic supporters - a requirement for gym class. Buzzcut warns the two that they had better have athletic supporters by their next class, "or you'll be assigned to my remedial squat-thrust seminar this summer".

Beavis and Butt-head show up at Buddy's Sporting Goods to purchase supporters, basing their decision on how Buddy "did time" and is therefore "cool". Buddy tells the two to try on some athletic supporters over their pants. However, even the smallest athletic supporters are too large the two - but Buddy has some old eyepatches that were meant to be used for racketball injuries. Never used, Buddy gives them to the boys for free.

Daria double-takes.

The patches are too tight for the boys to wear over their pants, so they decide to disrobe and try them on. Meanwhile, Daria shows up at Buddy's Sporting Goods as part of her role as fashion reporter.

• Buddy: "Hi, can I help you?"
• Daria: "I have some questions about activewear."
• Beavis (from inside dressing room): "Cool, mweheh. Snug nads!"
• Butt-head (from same dressing room): "The family jewels are secure!"

The voices draw Daria's attention, as Beavis and Butt-head leave the dressing room, pantsless - clad in only the eyepatches covering...well, you know.

• Beavis (to Butt-head): "How do we look?"
• Daria (does another double take): "Wow! Even smaller than I thought!"

Daria takes a picture. Beavis and Butt-head immediately pull down their T-shirts to cover themselves. Daria smiles.

The next day, Beavis and Butt-head bring a poorly spelled note to Coach Buzzcut, claiming that there is a national "sipt-odder" shortage and therefore they couldn't purchase supporters. Buzzcut begs to differ. He has proof that they were able to find supporters after all, holding up a copy of the Highland Herald with a front-page article by Daria Morgendorffer: "Highland Fashion: The Thong Has Arrived!" is the headline, and the picture of Beavis and Butt-head wearing eyepatches on their groins is front-page news. The lads stare in horror at the sight.

Buzzcut laughs, and commands his class to do squat thrusts. Beavis and Butt-head will have to suffer with the rest of the class.

Trivia

Daria witnesses the horror.

• The opening scene was altered after MTV banned the pyromaniac part of Beavis' character: in the later version, Beavis and Butt-head both had grasshoppers and wanted to make them fight.
• This episode has not been collected on DVD, and likely never will be. It is available, however, on Paramount+.
• As CF writes, Daria does three double takes as she sees Beavis and Butt-head clad in their "athletic sipt-odders". It's a very funny moment. In general, Daria was more expressive in Beavis and Butt-head than in Daria.
• She refers to the opening scene in Beavis and Butt-head issue 7.
• Several fanfics have used Daria's time as fashion reporter, usually having her be secretly knowledgeable about fashion as a result of it. Many have incorrectly put her as the fashion editor.
• The Highland Herald, despite giving Daria front page credit, has misspelled her name as "Daria Morgendorfer", with only one 'f'. (This was most likely an animator misspelling as Daria's name is clearly spelled as "Morgendorffer" in all of the Beavis and Butt-head source material.)