Daria/WMG

The music that played in the background of the original version of each episode is the music Daria had stuck in her head at the time.
Note: The music was almost completely rewritten for the DVD release, so this does not apply to that -- though the songs on the DVDs reflect the spirit of the originals, so maybe the theory can still work for them.

Daria, an MTV production, used songs that were recent at the time of airing as background music...

The entire series is written by Daria herself
It would explain why Brittany and Kevin are so dumb, Ms. Lee is so evil and bureaucratic, why Helen and Jake are so embarrasing, why Quinn etc.
 * However, if Daria was writing them, the popular people would not be popular. She would write something that really makes them suffer.
 * Or it could just be her interpretation of the events after the fact. She might exaggerate things to fit her own interpretation but she wouldn't outright change the outcome. Plus I wouldn't be suprised if Daria saw the world as the popular people always win and her always losing/life just passing her by. She's not writing a fix-it fic about her life but a recording of the events from her own point of view.

The Episode "Depth Takes a Holiday" is a daydream of Daria's

 * It's basically a bizarre daydream that Daria is having. The Holiday Spirits are also a part of her Wish Fulfillment for people who might actually appreciate her. This is helped by the fact that they say that she is cool and the only one who can help them.

Sandi is a M-to-F transsexual

 * Thus her deep voice, highly aggressive attitude and extreme bitterness and resentment towards Quinn, the beautiful teenaged girl she wants to be.
 * Aw, that would make her sympathetic.
 * Intriguing as that would be, you can't go on the drugs and have the surgery that allow that until you're through puberty. So if she is a guy masquerading as a girl, where is he hiding his "equipment" when they go swimming... unless he... cut... his... EWWWWWWW.
 * Ah, the sacrifices we make for fashion.
 * Tucking. Learn about it.
 * That would be hard to do all the times the rest of the fashion club has seen her in underwear or a bikini.

Quinn is a M-to-F transsexual
Similar to the theory above but would actually seem more plausible given the fact that the high pitched voice Quinn has sounds so fake and Quinn engages in interests involving the feminine gender stereotype and image. It also explains...


 * Sandi having such hatred for Quinn and trying to ruin Quinn's social life.
 * Quinn's desire for acceptance. Being "attractive and popular" is validation of her passing as female. Why else does she keep asking her dates as well as any guy she likes if they find her cute?
 * Quinn getting squeamish on her dates with guys, she doesn't want them to find out.
 * The family moving from Highland to Lawndale to start over. (If you were Helen, would you want your transgendered daughter around the likes of Beavis and Butt-Head?)
 * Quinn's issues revolving around her pores and cheese on pizza are because of they way that interacts with her hormones and testosterone blockers. With Helen being a lawyer, she'd find a way to get her kid some hormones.
 * Quinn acting like Daria isn't related to her for her paranoia over people knowing that Daria is related to her, then people will ask about Quinn's past and thus out her. Daria isn't above blackmail and bribes.
 * The way that Brooke's plastic surgery got Quinn in a frenzy.
 * Helen's concern about the way Daria would portray Quinn in that video project.
 * Jake's trauma of being tormented by his father by not being manly enough, and it instead of it being for laughs is really the anguish of a father accepting that his son has become his daughter and his hard time coping with that.

Quinn is asexual.
Exactly What It Says On the Tin. She enjoys being attractive and popular, and gets a sense of self-worth out of boys paying attention to her, flattering her, and fighting over her, but she's just not interested in sex. With the amount of time she spends winning boys over and then pushing them away when they get touchy, she might be aromantic as well.

The Lane kids murder their parents off-screen at the end of the episode "Lane Miserables"

 * This secures the house for Jane and Trent to live indefinitely, and gives them money to live off of from the life insurance.
 * Jossed in a "Art Burn" where they have to rebuild the porch thing that fell apart in the backyard. The parents are seen at the end of the episode, alive and well.
 * It's called a Gazebo, now you have angered the gazebo, smooth move.

Daria and Jane are lovers

 * At least until Tom comes into the picture, which explains why Daria was so angry about him and Jane's relationship.
 * A popular myth explicitly rejected in "Is it fall yet?". Daria and Jane are good friends, but nothing more.
 * But this doesn't preclude some pre-IIFY experimentation that they no longer talk about. The experience may even be why Jane was sure she was straight and could say so firmly.

Daria is in love with Jane

 * Daria's crush on Trent was her trying to redirect her attraction to Jane onto a more socially acceptable target, but one who still resembles Jane. When Tom came along Daria was understandably devastated and initially hostile towards him, but was ultimately drawn to him due to him being associated, in her mind, to Jane.

All the inhabitants of Lawndale are immortals

 * The images that play over the credits actually did occur in the past.
 * Doesn't explain the ones that are of animals or even inanimate objects, or the ones that obviously parody real historical figures or characters that are fictitious even in the Daria universe.
 * They took the next leap
 * Does this mean that Daria and Jane have to go to High School and cope with vain and dumb people for all eternity?

Daria is really Aunt Amy's daughter

 * Amy inadvertently got pregnant, but decided that she wasn't ready to raise a child, so Helen and Jake, who were already married suburbanites at the time, offered to adopt the child. Come on, Daria is the spitting image of Amy.
 * This would mean that all this time Quinn was telling the truth about Daria being her cousin.
 * It also makes sense in the first episode when Daria overhears Quinn telling a guy that she's an only child and gets angry. She's pissed that Quinn doesn't see her as a real sibling.

Tom Sloane is not very popular at his school

 * Despite his belonging to a wealthy, old family he drives an old car all the time and his family has a bit of a reputation for not doing anything exciting. He is very intellectual, and doesn't seem very interested in his own social class. When Daria tells him that a rumor is going around Lawndale that the two of them had sex, Tom asks "jokingly" if they could get the rumor going at his school, too. In one episode his "good friends" blow him off. We learn very little about Tom's own school life, but it certainly looks like Tom wasn't a very popular guy on his home turf.

Rock and Roll Randy was the husband who divorced Ms. Barch

 * It does explain why she screamed, "It's payback time now, Randy!" as she's punching him in the stomach during that roller hockey game as seen in "The Big House" (the episode where Jake and Helen start a "Family Court" after Daria and Quinn each get in trouble for coming in after curfew). It couldn't have been because she was defending Mr. DeMartino, as later episodes like "The New Kid," "The Daria Hunter," "Murder She Snored," and "Is It College Yet?" reveal that Ms. Barch hates Mr. DeMartino (as she does all men, except for Mr. O'Neill) and takes out all the aggression she has over being divorced on DeMartino.
 * "Janet, please, don't think me forward or randy by asking you this, but..." Fridge Brilliant Stealth Pun?

DeMartino is related to Principle McVicker
Mainly due to their simmularities. Besides, wouldn't that be awesome?

Daria's favorite band are the Deftones.
Come on, it just sort of makes sense. The era (late 90's - early aughts) is right, and they totally sound like the kind of band she would listen to. She seems like the kind of person that would enjoy a band that combines elements of alt rock, dream pop, post metal, and new wave.
 * Considering that Daria spends a lot of her time reading, one would think her favorite band would have some sort of Heavy Mithril elements in their music. Perhaps something like Bal-Sagoth would be up her alley.
 * Eh, I doubt it; in this troper's expereince, lit nerds listen primarily to Godflesh, Neurosis, The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine and Deftones.
 * More probably, Daria simply does not care about music.
 * A character on TV show on MTV that was spun off of another show on MTV has no opinion on music what-so-ever? In the 1990's when they still played music videos on MTV?
 * Well, yes. She was even temporarily in love with a guitar player, and hardly ever made a comment about music. Not even on the way to Alternapalooza. As for New Metal and similar stuff, she once defined edgy as "As far as I can make out, edgy occurs when middlebrow, middle-aged profiteers are looking to suck the energy -- not to mention the spending money -- out of the "youth culture." So they come up with this fake concept of seeming to be dangerous when every move they make is the result of market research and a corporate master plan."
 * Lots of people don't "like" a particular band or artist, instead simply picking and choosing the music on a song-by-song basis. I'd say though Daria likes music, but she's not one to say "X band is the best!"

Aeon Flux is a descendant of Daria, Jane, or perhaps both.
No real reason, other than it would tie it in to the rest of the MTV Animation-verse. She does have a similar sarcastic monotone voice, at least...

Upchuck is Archie Andrews.
Perhaps an alternate-universe version or something. Or perhaps this is the real Archie and Archie comics is just his fantasy life.
 * And Jake is Jon Arbuckle from Garfield.

Mystic Spiral end up getting their big break by opening up for Dethklok
And one of those shows on said tour will bring forth the Metalocalypse. Fittingly, Daria and Jane will mock the carnage and senseless violence around them.

Tiffany is Alan Rickman
Or at least Alan Rickman playing Snape. Hence... the awkward... pauses.

Mack would have played Tom's role and been involved in the Love Triangle with Daria and Jane if the producers had found a stable voice actor for him and got to use him more like they wanted.
One of the main complaints about Tom was that he was brought in out of nowhere simply to act as a plot device to set up the love triangle story arc and that it would have been better to use an established character. Out of all the teenaged boys in the regular cast before Tom's introduction, Mack would have fit the bill perfectly. It's hinted several times, especially in the books, that his relationship with Jodie is shaky, he's at least sympathetic towards the girls and closer to their intellectual level than any other recurring male character their age. The only thing stopping them was the notorious voice actor issue relegating him to background status.
 * And where does that leave the poor old Jodie? More than a love triangle, it would be a Love Dodecahedron, or even an Unwanted Harem. Too much for a character that hardly ever managed to say something.

Daria takes place in the same universe as Becker.
There's this episode of Becker (Old Yeller I think) where he encounters this really sarcastic girl in glasses. Everything about her, even her voice, reminds me of Daria.

Daria has a touch of autism
Come on. She's very smart, just not very good socially. The obsession in Boxing Daria is classic.
 * The most common theory is Asperger Syndrome based on her actions, interests, and interactions with other characters.

Daria and Jane are dead
And they are in hell, where the Devil is punishing them for being so ironic... by forcing them to go to Lawndale High all over again.
 * Ironically, in the 2011 Beavis and Butt-head episode "Drones", Beavis believes Daria committed suicide. If it wasn't for Butt-head to mention she moved away, many people would believe that Beavis was right, Daria's dead, and Lawndale is her hell.
 * But that's Beavis & Butt-head, they are not exactly reliable. In fact, if Beavis says that Daria commited suicide, the most logical thing to happen next (if copyrights were not an issue) is that Daria appears at his back "Hello, losers! Long time no see... how I wish it was a longer time"
 * It would be funnier if an adult Daria somehow ran into the still 15 year old Beavis and Butt-head and said "How the hell are you guys still 15?" Not only would it point out the fact that the Beavis and Butthead has negative continuity but also it would play into the "Uranium in the drinking water" joke from the first Daria episode.

Daria slept with Beavis and Butthead
Ok here me out, the very first episode of Daria involved her moving to a new town. The last episode of Bevis and Butthead before their revival in 2011 featured them leaving Highland. Sometime before the pilot they ran into each other make fun of each other on their own expense and well... My evidence of this guess is what follows:
 * While she Initially hated them at first, she was willing to help them get straight As for their science project.
 * She is one of the few characters willing to seek them out that didn't intend to kill them off.
 * In the Christmas Special it was stated that they were actively responsible for making her less expressive and more of the Snarker we know and love in her own show.
 * Despite her views on the world she was never driven insane by them.
 * Lastly because while they mutually make fun of each other and forget about each other aside from a few references to their respective shows. They were the first ever to acknowledge their respect for one and other, despite their idiocy and her sarcastic view of the world.
 * Citing Daria, do you really picture her sleeping with... anyone?
 * She could have done something sexual with one or both of them. Could be an Old Shame/Skeleton in the closet she'll never talk about.
 * I wouldn't put it past Beavis and Butthead finally scoring and not remembering, or better yet they didn't count her as scoring.
 * She seemed violently defensive about it during her Dear Daria days, whenever asked about shipping her with one or both of them.
 * Wouldn't you get violent if you were shipped with them?
 * Daria had more respect for Beavis and Butthead than any of the other kids are her school because those two had no choice but to be ignorant and stupid, whereas all the other kids were purposefully avoided learning and improving themselves because they were trying to conform.

Mr. De Martino is Inspector Zenigata from Lupin the Third

 * They sound similar, plus they are both very high strung.

Tiffany is a Drug Addict.
How else did her voice change from a sarcastic snob to the slow talking girl we know now?

The Griffins are related to Carrie from The King of Queens

 * It's pretty simple, Arthur spent some time in Lawndale and got a woman (Sandi's grandmother) pregnant then skipped town, eventually settling down in New York, getting married and fathering Carrie. Not only do Sandi and her mother look just like Carrie they are all aggressively obnoxious, self important and self centered, and the time lines even fit together, a general estimate puts Sandi's mother at 10 to 15 years older than Carrie, more than enough time for the events to have happened before Arthur got married.

Mrs. Barch Will end up having a son.
Karmic punishment for all her man-hating.

Daria is really a genderswap of Fight Club
Daria is the narrator, Jane is Tyler Durdan, Trent is Marla.