Full Name: Special Agent Dr. Amy Barksdale
Current Age: 30...ish
Parents: Melvin (deceased) and Ruth
Siblings: Helen and Rita
Vocation: Chemist, biologist, F.B.I. agent, inventor of critically-acclaimed "happy dough"
First Appearance in Abruptly Amy : "A New Beginning"
Catchphrase: "Sarcasm, it's a great way to deal."

Amy made her first appearance on the show Daria, in the episode "I Don't", which premiered March 1998.  As Daria's "Aunt" Amy, she quickly made an impression as the only cynical, level-headed adult at what turned out to be a sorry mess of a wedding.  Naturally she and Daria bonded right away.  Amy would make one more appearance on Daria, in "Through a Lens Darkly," before graduating to her own show.

On, Abruptly Amy, which premiered April 2000, the character of Amy underwent several changes (Alan Smithee would say "improvements").  Amy shed at least half a dozen years; she has become more athletic and developed definite sex appeal -- the results, we are told, of plastic surgery.  We also discovered what she does for a living: she works as an undercover F.B.I. agent, using her Masters in Chemistry and her Ph.D in Bioengineering to the best of her advantage.  Personality-wise, Amy's sarcastic edge has become a little dull, but it is balanced out by a deeply emoting side, which has allowed Amy to burst into tears any time, anywhere, over just about anything.  Alan Smithee states that "Our portrayal of Amy shows a real person with real problems."  Well she certainly has problems.

Amy lived in an anonymous "big city," where she enjoyed fame and celebrity. But after foiling her mobster ex-boyfriend's schemes to blow-up the subway in "A New Beginning," Amy had to hide out in Rutherford, the town of her youth.  There she lived in her family home with her mother Ruth, her sister Rita, and her (later) adopted daughter, Andrea.  She also met Kristovo, who first moved to Rutherford to track down Amy's corrupt F.B.I. boss.
Eventually, Amy decided to stay.  In the subsequent episodes, she would tangle with an evil villainess ("Corona, Corona"), fight Andrea's mother for the rights to custody ("A.A. A.O.K."), save the town from a man-made volcano ("Disaster Strikes!"), help Rita through her alcohol problems ("Raiding the Bar"), protest the teaching of sex education ("Hot Head, Cold Fetus"), rescue her father's submarine from cartoon crossover villains ("Windy City Walkabout"), and tangle with a supernatural being ("A Very Amy Christmas").  In other words, Amy has done anything and everything in the first eight episodes.  We await the second half of Season One!