It was typed up and posted to the ``clarissa'' mailing list by
Philip Chang on 8 Jun 93
and converted to HTML by Donald Lancon, Jr.
<dcljr@stat.tamu.edu>.
America's 15-year old boys have a new heartthrob. She's a gap-toothed, freckle faced, blue-eyed blond bombshell. She has a pet alligator named Elvis, a love-hate relationship with a little brother she calls ``Ferg-face'' and a quirky best friend named Sam. He's a boy but not a boyfriend.
The object of this adolescent desire is a girl named Clarissa Darling -- the title character of the Nickelodeon series Clarissa Explains It All. She's 14; she's hip; and she's hot.
Since the series made its debut in April, it has become Nickelodeon's top-rated show. If fan mail is an accurate reading, the passion felt for Clarissa by 15 year old boys is surpassed only by that of 8-year old girls who dig not only her attitude but her funky leggings and layered tops.
You might call her an Annie Hall for the ``way cool'' generation. She's no paper-cutout kind of girl, and that creates tremendous empathy from her young audience, according to those involved with the show.
``She's not bad; she's not goody-goody; she's real'' says actress Elizabeth Hess, who plays Clarissa's mother Janet Darling.
Clarissa wrapped production of its first 13-episode season two weeks ago at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando. Although a deal hasn't been struck for the show's renewal, the odds are certainly in its favor. Brown Johnson, Nickelodeon's vice president for production, says the show has managed remarkably good ratings even in a period in which the cable network must compete with the great outdoors for kids' attention.
Clarissa's star, 15-year old Melissa Joan Hart, was recently featured in People magazine and Seventeen. Critics have found the show to be refreshing and intelligent standing out from the conventional sitcom fare found on network television. The show also represents an advancement in original programming for Nickelodeon, which has been working hard in the past two years to get beyond the goofy game shows that have become its trademark.
Clarissa is basically a situation comedy about, the producers say, ``the only abnormal child of two perfectly normal parents.'' She alternately despises and protects her bothersome younger brother, Ferguson, and she tolerates her parents, who are caricatures of June and Ward Cleaver.
But Clarissa is more than a sitcom, says Mitchell Kriegman, the show's creator and producer. The story is told from Clarissa's point of view using an unusual mix of live action, computer animation and special effects. She talks to the TV audience at home. She has the ability to stop the action and roll it forward or backward at will.
Kriegman, a former video artist, is a writer and producer of varied experience. He has written short stories for the New Yorker and material for Saturday Night Live, the animated series Alf Tales and the Disney Channel series Mousterpiece Theater.
``She is a participant, a narrator, and a confidant of the audience,'' says Kriegman. ``And it gives another dimension to her story.''
Central to carrying this off, of course, was the casting. Nickelodeon auditioned hundreds of girls from New York to Los Angeles to Orlando. An in-your-face kind of actress would have been obnoxious to viewers, Kriegman says.
``Melissa was perfect,'' he says, ``because besides being an excellent actress who observes every little beat -- when you watch her, everything she does is precision. She has an idea for everything she does -- she also draws you in.''
``She lightens up the screen,'' he says.
Melissa, 15, lives in Sayville, Long Island, with her father, an entrepreneur, and her mother, who manages Melissa's show business career, as well as those of her four younger siblings. She began performing at age 4 and has appeared on Saturday Night Live, The Equalizer, a number of network movies and commercials. Last season, she made her off-Broadway debut in ``Beside Herself'' as the flashback young love of actor William Hurt.
While having fun in her job, Melissa also takes seriously her newfound responsibilities as a role model. She believes it is Clarissa's energy and openness that is so appealing to her fans.
``The No. 1 thing I think she's (Clarissa's) saying is `Don't give in to peer pressure and don't miss life','' she says.
One of the show's underlying themes is indeed the power and pleasure of creativity. Clarissa's bedroom is nothing if not a personal statement. Above her bed is a picture of a pink Thunderbird and on her bedside table is a telephone covered with glued on buttons and knickknacks. She has painted a black checkerboard pattern over the floral wallpaper because it was too frilly and feminine.
But Clarissa is creative with her solutions as well as her style. In one episode, she faces off against a bully who is blackmailing her little brother. In another, she tries to figure out how to persuade her parents to allow her to take a job at a carnival. She tries everything from whining to being weird.
``This is a really active girl who solves things not by saying no, but by being creative'', says Johnson, Nickelodeon's vice president of production.
And that's why 15-year old boys are in love with Clarissa Darling.