Alter Egos are the humorous character images used in the closing credits of Daria.
Overview[]
Most commonly, these images place one or more of the characters in unusual costumes, or situations for comedic effect. Characters are often made to look out of character to heighten the humor often from tidbits from pop culture or other icons, examples: Daria Morgendorffer as a cheerleader, or Kevin Thompson as Sherlock Holmes, or dressed and posed in crossover settings.
It was primarily the main characters and significant recurring characters who got these, but background characters The Head and Dawn managed to be included as well, due to their popularity with the animators.
The term "alter ego" also refers to a form of fan art inspired by the "official" alter egos. A large number of fan-generated alter egos are posted at Outpost Daria and Glitter Berries.
The alter egos used by MTV for Daria were often based on images from popular culture, particularly MTV-related icons of the 1990s. A number of alter egos had female Daria characters, particulary Brittany, dressed and posing as pop star Madonna, for instance, based on images from her most popular music videos. Some alter egos have more obscure origins that only movie buffs might catch (e.g., Janet Barch as Marlene Dietrich, from the latter's 1930 movie, Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel)). Frequently, the characters appear as historical figures (e.g., Daria Morgendorffer as Bella Abzug).
The Daria franchise has made extensive use of alter egos. The TV episodes produced dozens of alter egos, primarily for the major characters. The episodes College Bored, Write Where It Hurts, Lane Miserables, and Murder, She Snored included brief segments in which characters appear in various crossovers and dream worlds, usually as part of Daria's daydreaming or story writing. The fanbooks The Daria Diaries and The Daria Database both use an assortment of alter-ego illustrations, as well as the computer game Daria's Inferno includes many unique alter egos in the end credits.
One of the most extensive online collections of official Daria alter egos is at Outpost Daria, consisting of images used early in the Daria series. Late-series Daria alter egos, 220 of them, were collected at the MTV Daria site but were taken down when the site was upgraded.
Daria Wiki has collected as many alter ego images as possible from every source available and added them to a single page (see below). Included with them is an attempt to give them official names, any possible popular culture references that the images present with sources for verification, and in which pieces of media that each specific alter ego appears in.
Future Egos[]
With the end credits in the movie Is It College Yet? is a series of images, sometimes refferred to as the Future Egos, apparently showing the Daria characters years after they graduate high school. Supposedly, according to these images, Daria and Jane have their own TV show, Mack and Kevin own an ice-cream business, and so on. Though it has been stated that these images were not meant to show what "really happened" to the cast and were meant as a bit of silly fun (Mystik Spiral have joined a church choir!), they have been often used in this manner to inspire fanfiction.