Glenn Eichler

**Glenn Eichler** is a comedy writer and producer. He is known as the chief writer and producer of *Daria*. He wrote or co-wrote fourteen episodes, wrote both *Daria* TV movies, wrote the bulk of Mystik Spiral's songs, and served as story editor.

> "*When we first were doing the series a lot of people would ask me, 'How do you write females so well?' And my answer was I was just writing a personality. I didn’t mean for her to be particularly female and I probably would have screwed it up if I had. I didn’t really think about it, I just did it.*"
> ― Eichler to *Dazed*, 2014
>
>

## Before *Daria*

Glenn Eichler served as the managing editor of the American humor magazine *National Lampoon*. It is not known how long he served in this capacity, but he was editor as least as early as 1983. A notice in the weddings section of *The New York Times* mentions his upcoming marriage to Michele Tomasik on September 24, 1983. (Ms. Tomasik was the editor of *The Daria Diaries*.)

In addition to his work with *National Lampoon*, Eichler was a freelance writer for *Esquire, The Village Voice*, and *The New York Times*. Non-*B&B* television work from Eichler before *Daria* included story editor positions at UPN cartoon *The Mouse and the Monster* and MTV Animation production *The Maxx*. He also served as the writer for the 1992 Mystery Science Theater 3000 documentary *This is MST3K*.

## Eichler and MTV

Glenn Eichler mentions how he got started with MTV in an interview.

**Well, I guess Beavis was my big break. I was an editor at National Lampoon, during MTV's youth, and came over to MTV as a promo writer, and Beavis happened to come out of the promos department, because a very creative producer there, named John Payson, found Beavis, at I believe the Spike and Mike's Twisted Film Festival. To make a long story short, the little short that Mike Judge produced got a big reaction immediately from MTV viewers, and they wanted to rush into production and start making cartoons, but they didn't have a staff, so they used the promo writers as the writers, and that's how I became a cartoon writer, I guess.**

While working under Mike Judge as a *Beavis and Butt-head* writer, Eichler is credited with three of the episodes and as a "consultant" for Marvel Comics' *Beavis and Butt-head* comic. When MTV decided to create a *Beavis and Butt-head* spinoff featuring the Daria Morgendorffer, they sought out Glenn Eichler for assistance and were able to use Daria, a character which had not been created by Mike Judge.

Furthermore, Eichler met many of the future writers of *Daria* who were then working as writers for *Beavis and Butt-head*, such as Sam Johnson and Chris Marcil. Tracy Grandstaff was a voice artist on Beavis and Butt-head, voicing Daria, Cassandra, and other Mike Judge characters. Grandstaff would eventually voice Daria during the run of Daria's own series.

Other writers with whom Glenn Eichler worked on *Daria*, such as Peter Gaffney, were known through Eicher's days as a *National Lampoon* editor.

During his time working at Beavis and Butt-head, Eichler would edit *Beavis and Butt-head: This Book Sucks* and *The Beavis and Butt-head Ensucklopedia*. He also wrote *Bill and Hillary's 12-step Guide to Political Recovery* in 1995 with the British comedy group Spitting Image and wrote *Dr. Katz's Me at a Glance* in 1996.

He would also write one episode of *Married With Children* before beginning work on *Daria*.

## After *Daria*

After Daria finished, Eichler stated that he was "just keeping busy". He worked on MTV pilots based on "Mystik Spiral" (which have never been aired) and *Hey Joel* (which was briefly a cartoon series). He also worked as a Creative Consultant on the animated television programs *W.I.T.C.H.* and *O'Grady*. He wrote episodes for programs such as *Big & Small* and *The Emperor's New School*.

Eichler is currently a writer/producer on *The Colbert Report*, a show mocking right-wing American news with Stephen Colbert taking on a fictional persona as a conservative blowhard. It is on the Comedy Central network in the United States. The show's writing team, including Eichler, wrote the book *I Am America (And So Can You!)*, credited to Colbert's character. Eichler has won two Emmy Awards as part of *The Colbert Report'*s writing team.

In 2009, Eichler completed writing a graphic novel with Nick Bertozzi called *Stuffed*. Eichler followed up in 2011 with *Mush! Sled Dogs with Issues*, with Joe Infurnari.

## Interview with Kara Wild

Kara Wild did a series of interviews with Eichler over the course of 2005 and 2006, covering continuity details, creative intent, shipping, and production. The interview is collected at Kara's DVDaria website (Wayback).

## *Daria* episodes written by Glenn Eichler

* Esteemsters
* Cafe Disaffecto
* This Year's Model (co-writer)
* The Teachings of Don Jake
* The Misery Chick
* Arts 'N Crass
* Write Where it Hurts
* Through a Lens Darkly
* Daria!
* Jane's Addition
* Partner's Complaint
* Dye! Dye! My Darling
* Is It Fall Yet?
* Fizz Ed
* Boxing Daria
* Is It College Yet?

## Appearances as a *Daria* Character

* entry at the Glitter Berries site
* DariaWiki entry on real-person fiction