February 8, 2010 - TVShowsOnDVD.com reports that Daria: The Complete Animated Series is scheduled for release on May 11, 2010. The contents of this box set (which is always subject to change, of course) includes:

• All five seasons (65 episodes) plus both movies ("Is It Fall Yet?" and "Is It College Yet?", hopefully the latter being the uncut version that was only shown on MTV)
• The pilot episode, "Sealed With a Kick" (previously available only on the first Daria VHS video release)
• Mystik Spiral's "Freakin' Friends" video (shown during the intermission of the premiere broadcast of "Is It Fall Yet?")
• "Daria Day" intros
• "Top Ten Video Countdown" hosted by Daria and Jane (no further details, but likely it's the special "animated videos" edition)
• Cast and crew interviews
• A never-before-seen Mystik Spiral spin-off script

Keep checking here, TVShowsOnDVD.com, and, of course, DVDaria for the latest info!

November 20, 2009 - Kara Wild, First Lady of Daria Fandom™, has obtained more details about the upcoming release of Daria on DVD. There's too much info to list here, so hop on over to Kara Wild's DVDaria site to get all the latest info. All I'll say here is, it is going to happen and it looks like it's going to be worth the money!

(reprinted from the Daria News Desk)

TVShowsOnDVD.com reports that the long-awaited DVD release of another MTV show, The State, includes a preview ad for what appears to be the imminent (2010) release of Daria on DVD. Here is a screencap of the ad:

Naturally, like all previous news of an "immiment DVD release," there's plenty of reasons to be skeptical, particularly since we've been burned plenty of times in the past. However, this particular report gives more reason to hope than ever, given the presence of the ad in an official MTV DVD release (which amounts to the closest thing we've ever gotten to an "official announcement").

September 15, 2009 - DVDaria webmaster Kara Wild received a note from Glenn Eichler (via Michelle Klein-Häss) that the Daria DVDs are still on track for a fall 2010 release.

Keep checking with Kara Wild's DVDaria site for further updates. You can keep checking here, too, but Kara updates more often than I do. :-) Finally, thanks to the several dozen people who e-mailed me with the news (and continue to do so almost every day); it looks like your long wait may finally be over (*fingers crossed*)!

There have been a lot of questions lately about this issue, so I thought it'd be best to address the issue here, for all to see, with what little knowledge I have. Basically, people have been seeing various ads for Daria DVD sets, which usually contain all 65 episodes, the two movies, and some bonus features. (A product from some outfit called Media Enterprises is mentioned frequently, thanks to their ads that seem to be in quite a few places.) Several people have asked if they're legitimate releases. Good question.

The short answer: if Daria had been officially released on DVD (beyond the two movies, that is), I would've plastered the news on the Outpost Daria Reborn home page in 97-inch blinking red text. :-)

The long answer, of course, is that these are not legitimate releases. MTV and Paramount are still dithering on the issue, and probably have many legal issues to resolve (mainly involving music rights) before we'll see Daria DVDs (if we ever see them at all; that's a possibility we don't want to hear, but it's a very real one we have to face). What you're seeing advertised are bootlegs, no doubt assembled from episodes broadcast on MTV and the notoriously hacked-and-slashed episodes broadcast on The N (now TeenNick).

Bootlegs are a "tradition" that's been plaguing the industry for years, likely going all the way back to the non-Special Edition versions of the original Star Wars trilogy showing up on eBay. The problem facing consumers is that they're likely to pony up a ridiculous amount of cash for products that are nowhere near the quality of "official" Hollywood releases. In fact, you'd stand a very good chance of buying something whose quality is no better than that of a VHS recording!

One way you can definitely tell if you're getting a bootleg product is that the discs would be created in a DVD burner, not pressed in a factory. (The Media Enterprises offering, for example, explicitly states that the discs come in DVD-R format, and offers a link to check your DVD player for compatibility. No officially released product would be offered on DVD-R, much less require a compatibility check.) Another clue would be if the advertising goes out of its way to label it as "genuine" or "official," in order to make you believe that you're getting the real deal. Keep this tidbit in mind: official releases usually don't need to be advertised as such. :-)

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you what to do. It's entirely your choice as to whether or not to purchase one of these bootleg sets. Believe me, I understand the temptation; we've all been waiting a long time for MTV/Paramount to "shit or get off the pot" regarding Daria DVD releases. I'm simply informing you that, for now, what you buy will be a bootleg product (unless you're buying Is It Fall Yet? or Is It College Yet?, both of which were officially released). Caveat emptor -- "let the buyer beware" -- definitely applies here!

MTV may have finally realized what they have on their hands with regards to Daria, and the long-realized dream of getting the series on DVD may be a lot closer to becoming a reality. Here's what longtime Daria fan Michelle Klein-Häss posted today in the alt.tv.daria newsgroup: