Clarissa Explains It All started out in 1990, and had ran for 4 seasons right up until 1994. The show revolved around the main character, Clarissa Darling, and her family, comprised of her rather annoying brother, Ferguson Darling, her parents, Janet and Marshall, and also Sam Anders, her best friend who would climb up the ladder to Clarissa's bedroom on many occasions [no, it's not what you would be thinking ;-)]

During the show, we, the audience, would be told about what's going on with Clarissa's life by her, as if she was aware of us. This provides a pretty interesting viewpoint for us, and I'd suspect this was made so to more interact with the character Clarissa, and her family. It is probably due to this why the show has been very popular with audiences back then, and even now, eight years after Clarissa Explains It All finished.

Clarissa Explains It All, was the first Nickelodeon show to feature a lead female in one of their shows, at first it was thought of as a risky move, but because of the popularity of the show, and the success of a having a lead been a female, this has sporned further shows with lead female characters, most notably, The Secret World of Alex Mack, The Adventures of Shelby Woo and so forth, proving that Clarissa has made a difference. Larisa Oleynik (Secret World of Alex Mack), considers Melissa Joan Hart as one of her main role models.

After Clarissa Explains It All came to an end, Clarissa Now came onto the scene, as a possible follow in with a Clarissa working at the New York Post, as an intern, as mentioned in the last episode, in which Clarissa had won this prize to work at the New York Post for a year. Well this was suppose to be a series, adopted by CBS, but apparently the Pilot episode was not that succesful, so Clarissa Now was shown as a one of special on Nickelodeon.

For further information, and more detailed information about Clarissa Explains It All, please visit Bevis King's Clarissa Explains It All site. It is perhaps one of the most extensive Clarissa sites around on the Internet, and provides more info about CEIA than The Melissa Zone does. The content on this site is unlikely to change or expand, as I personally don't know a lot about the show - I only ever saw a small part of one episode once, and that's it. If you have some information you would like to contribute to this site, please e-mail me!