When Mitchell Kriegman pitched Clarissa in the early ’90s, Nickelodeon considered the project risky. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, the creator explains how he made it all work — and exploded kids’ TV in the process.
Melissa Joan Hart as Clarissa Darling on Clarissa Explains It All.
Nickelodeon / Everett Collection
For twentysomethings raised on a steady diet of Nickelodeon, few TV characters carry the clout of Clarissa Explains It All's eponymous lead. Clarissa Darling, played by '90s staple Melissa Joan Hart, was effortlessly cool, stylish, and opinionated — a relatable teenage girl who didn't talk down to her demographic but was still unequivocally a kid.
Girls wanted to be her. And boys, whether they were willing to admit it or not, wanted her to be their hip older sister. Clarissa wore Keith Haring shirts and headbands with equal flair, and she never apologized for any of her choices — whether that meant defending her brother Ferguson (Jason Zimbler) from a bully, or wearing an outfit of her choosing on school picture day.
At the time, a character like Clarissa was a revelation for young people looking for someone who was on their level but also cooler than they could ever be. For five seasons, she dabbled in everything from writing to DJ'ing to meteorology, all without breaking a sweat. And an entire generation — new to the world of sitcoms and to the thrill of a female protagonist — was hooked.
That was exactly what Clarissa Explains It All creator Mitchell Kriegman was going for when he pitched the series, which premiered in March 1991. But getting the fledgling Nickelodeon network to sign off on Clarissa was daunting.
The early '90s were full of challenges for Nickelodeon, which was still trying to find its voice. But that made it a dynamic environment for Kriegman, who also worked on the animated series Doug, Rugrats, The Ren and Stimpy Show, and Rocko's Modern Life.
"You could fail, but if you didn't take a risk, you were in trouble," Kriegman told BuzzFeed News in an interview at a coffee shop near his Santa Barbara, California, home. "I knew I was working with really smart people, and it was exciting. We had a lot of latitude to create ideas."
Kriegman was eager to produce something that would help define the network and would "explode kids' TV," as Nickelodeon program manager Gerry Laybourne put it.
But it wouldn't be easy.
Nickelodeon / Via openthefantasylandcastle
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