Creator Mitchell Kriegman, who previously worked on Saturday Night Live and Sesame Street, wanted to create an offbeat teenage girl character who didn't fit the typical stereotypes seen on television at the time.

Clarissa Darling was credited as the first female lead in a Nickelodeon series, a success that led the network to greenlight other female-led shows like The Secret World of Alex Mack, The Amanda Show, and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo.

In the unaired original pilot, the roles of Marshall, Janet, and Sam were played by different actors (Terry Layman, Nancy Youngblut, and Darren E. Higgins) before being recast for the series.

Elizabeth Hess, who played mother Janet Darling, recalled that Kriegman told her she didn't need to use her extensive theatre background and range as an actress, and that he cast her because he thought she was a 'sexy mom'.

Clarissa's pet baby alligator Elvis disappeared after Season 1; in-house art director David Ellis suggested the show may have faced pressure from the ASPCA to remove the alligator from later episodes.

The running gag of Sam entering Clarissa's bedroom via a ladder through the window was devised by Kriegman as a quick way to get him into her room and interacting with her while keeping their relationship non-sexual.

A spin-off pilot titled 'Clarissa' (also known as 'Clarissa Now'), featuring Clarissa as a newspaper intern in New York City, was shot for CBS in 1995 and starred comedian Robert Klein, but it was not picked up and only aired twice on Nickelodeon.

In her next TV series, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Melissa Joan Hart's character actually became a journalist, echoing the premise of the unproduced Clarissa spin-off pilot.