Daria is walking home, minding her own business as usual, when she is suddenly accosted by a short man in green and a big guy in a toga. It soon comes out that these are the Anthropomorphic Personifications of St. Patrick's Day and Valentine's Day, respectively, and they need Daria's help to get Christmas, Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Day back to Holiday Island.
Yes, this is Daria's infamous Bizarro Episode.
Having been roped into this task, Daria finds the renegade holidays—snarky, self-obsessed teenagers all—difficult to convince. Unfortunately, they soon decide to shack up at her house, and she'll have to get rid of them if she wants her life to get back to normal. Especially since Valentine's Day has made her parents into Sickeningly Sweethearts, which in turn leads Quinn to think that they're trying to have another baby.
This episode provides examples of:
- Anthropomorphic Personification: At one point Daria calls them "holiday spirits" for lack of a better description.
- Big Eater: Christmas is implied to be one since he gets annoyed over finding no Christmas-themed baked goods at Daria's place.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Invoked by the mention of Thanksgiving having tried to take over as top holiday, but his family drama always ends up leaving him depressed by the end of the day.
- Bound and Gagged: Daria finds Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day tied up in the living room closet, presumably done so by the other holidays off-screen.
- British Rock Star: Guy Fawkes' Day who looks a lot like Sid Vicious.
- Bully Turned Buddy: George Washington's Birthday initially denounced Christmas, Halloween, and Guy Fawkes' Day for thinking they were too cool for Holiday Island, but later has no problem joining their band when they need a fourth member.
- Christmas in July: In the Sick, Sad World segment, a mall owner does this in an attempt to drive up profits.
- Entitled Bastard:
- Christmas, Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Day pretty much invite themselves into the Morgendorffers' house and then do nothing but complain that Daria isn't providing for their every weird need.
- Christmas and Guy Fawkes' Day also got annoyed over Halloween refusing to share her pay check when she starts working at a coffee shop, and it devolves into a fight.
Jane: Why should she share her paycheck?Trent: Exactly. - Happiness Is Mandatory: On Holiday Island, apparently.
- Heel–Face Turn: George Washington's Birthday eventually joins the other holidays' band as a harpsichord player.
- Hidden Depths: You'd think Sandi might harbour antipathy for children, what with bearing the curse of two kid brothers from hell, but she gushes over the thought of a baby.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: St. Patrick's Day tries to invoke this by showing Daria life without the holidays, only for Daria to have no clue what he's talking about.St. Patrick's Day: You see Daria, you really had a wonderful life.Daria: What the hell are you talking about?
- Let's Have Another Baby: What Quinn thinks is going on with Helen and Jake. Actually, once the spell wears off and she mentions it, Jake reacts with horror at the idea.
- Magical Realism: This is an episode of a largely realistic show that suddenly introduces magical elements such as the personifications of different holidays attending high school in a pocket dimension.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Enforced by St. Patrick's Day, who tries browbeating Daria and Jane into helping him bring back the runaway holidays because they're the only two people in Lawndale with functioning brains.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Quinn assumes Daria's having a mental breakdown and thinks the holidays are imaginary friends.Quinn: GOD, Daria even your imaginary friends are losers!
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Daria and especially Quinn get this; Quinn is actually convinced that they're trying to have another baby, because why else would they...you know?
- Pet the Dog: Sandi frets over Quinn's frazzled state and sends her home to recuperate.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: Jane was joking when she asked Trent if he'd met any teenage anthropomorphic holidays who formed a band. Trent easily responds he has, and they're in the basement at that moment.
- Rock Trio: Christmas, Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Day, though they don't follow the instrumental version of this trope.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Helen and Jake, after Valentine's Day zaps them with his love taser.
- Snap Back: Helen and Jake return to their usual, bickering selves at the very end of the episode
- Trademark Favorite Food: Christmas only seems to be willing to eat sugary, seasonal food (and, for some reason, pizza).
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: George Washington's Birthday and Abraham Lincoln's Birthday took over Holiday Island when the Power Trio left and have become utterly insufferable.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
- Most of the characters who hear about the holidays at least have a token moment of disbelief; Trent, however, seems to have no trouble accepting it. In Helen and Jake's situation, it helps that Valentine's Day turned them into Sickeningly Sweethearts for most of the episode.
- For that matter, most people don't seem to find the holidays odd just by their appearance.
- Verbal Tic: “Bollocks” for Guy Fawkes’ Day (Jane: Yeah, bollocks!) which even he lampshades as “a natural reflex.”
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Halloween, Christmas and Guy Fawkes' Day seem to be something like this.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Christmas prefers to be called "X" (short for "X-Mas").