like "hell" and "sex drive" were occasionally uttered during the show's run, most dialogue was kept family-friendly. One running gag involved her friend Sam often entering the scene by a ladder (accompanied by a characteristic chord of guitar music) through her bedroom window. A repeating theme during the series was the sibling rivalry between Clarissa and Ferguson, showing their repeated attempts to harm or even (as in the series premiere) to "kill" each other. Unique to the show was Clarissa's tendency to tackle the episode's central theme through the creation of a fictional video game. The show also integrated some of Hart's real-life likes, such as the band They Might Be Giants. Episodes The decision to structure the episodes into five seasons of thirteen episodes each was made after the show ended its original broadcast run. During the original run of the series, the seasons were not well defined. Characters Main Clarissa Marie Darling (Melissa Joan Hart) – A smart, witty, sarcastic and realistic teenage girl. Despite her rationalism, she often tends to exaggerate any problem she is facing. She was approximately 13 years old when the series began and was a freshman at Thomas Tupper Junior High School. Her interests include computer game programming, photography, journalism and rock music. Though she is usually mild-mannered, she can be just as selfish and calculating as her younger brother Ferguson. Clarissa is best known for her unique fashion sense, typically involving very colorful, mismatched clothing. During Season 1, Clarissa had an alligator named Elvis, but in the first episode of Season 2, Clarissa explained that her parents sent Elvis back to Florida when he grew too big. In Mitchell Kriegman's novel, Things I Can't Explain, Clarissa further elaborated that he "disappeared under mysterious circumstances" and "it took years to get mom to confess that she gave away the reptilian Elvis without telling me after Ferguson tried to shove a pocket watch down its throat thinking it would win him the role of Captain Hook in the school play." In reality David Ellis, who worked as art director in-house on the series, suggested that the show may have been under pressure from the ASPCA to remove the alligator from later episodes and that it would also represent the idea that Clarissa was also growing older. Marshall Darling (Joe O'Connor) – Clarissa and Ferguson's father. He is an architect who designs unusually shaped buildings,