Clarissa decides that news is cool, and that she'd rather be Jane Pauley than anyone else in the world. Her first story is her mother's midlife crisis, which is triggered by a college pal showing up in town as a successful modern dancer.

Clarissa is determined not to wear the same old blue cardigan and knee socks for her school picture and devises a scheme to outfit herself in the coolest clothes around.

Clarissa has a problem when Eve, the meek and mousy new girl in school, starts copying her style and taking over her life. Clarissa is annoyed but flattered until Eve steals her idea for a newspaper article. Then it becomes war.

Both Clarissa and Ferguson have issues when Janet starts teaching at their high school. Ferguson gets frustrated when she doesn't give him the grade he wants on an art project and Clarissa doesn't like having her mom be everywhere she goes.

When Olvia's brother wants to sell his motorcycle, Clarissa stores it in the garage and plans to later buy it. Her parents have always told her she couldn't get a car but they never mentioned a motorcycle...

After Janet asks the family to participate in Volunteer Day at the Chidren's museum, Clarissa tries to figure out a way to escape her duty of helping out.

Clarissa gets stage fright when her music teacher picks her to play a flute solo at the school music recital. Suddenly she finds herself not being able to play her flute like usual and has to figure out how to get back in 'the zone.'

When Clarissa has to compete against winner Cindy Sparkle in the talent show, she turns to the journal of her great great aunt once removed hoping for some helpful show stopping hints.

Clarissa and Sam go to a party dressed as cool, hip, outrageous characters. Clarissa dons a wig, a tatoo, and a nose ring and decides to call herself Jade. At the party, she falls for a cute guy named Paulie. But Clarissa isn't sure if he's interested in her or the ficticious Jade. Meanwhile, Ferguson finds a stray cat who he names William F. Buckley and tries to hinder his parents from looking for the real owner.

Marshall joins an architectual firm after receiving some very generous offers from the corporation. But the money doesn't seem to make up for how the entire family feels about the firm. Meanwhile, Clarissa tries to write an essay to win a scholarship for college.

In an attempt to get around her mother's mandate that there be no TV in the Darling home for a whole week, Clarissa connects her computer terminal to the cable converter and nearly blows up the house.

Although she's too young for a driver's license, Clarissa is consumed by the desire to aquire a 1976 Gremlin she finds in the want-ads.

When a greedy bully forces Ferguson to hand over his big sister's walkman, Clarissa decides to stand up and fight. It's not her fists but her spirit that KO's the bully, and he winds up falling for Clarissa.

An I.Q. test result has Ferguson believing that he is really a genius. His dreams of creating a model society come crashing down when he goes head-to-head with Clarissa on a game show called "Brain Drain".

Clarissa pitches in to help celebrate her parents' anniversary. Unfortunately a couple of things get in the way of the party-- her parents stop talking to each other, and Clarissa's cake nearly explodes.

When Clarissa is asked to play the part of a column in a pageant celebrating ancient Greece, she hatches a plan to get sick. The pageant turns out to be really cool, but it's too late-- Clarissa's plan has taken effect and she's grounded.

In order to win a brand new car, Clarissa enters herself and Ferguson in a contest for siblings that have extraordinary relationships. When the editor for the magazine comes to interview the close siblings, it becomes a struggle for them to pretend to be friends.

Janet's old high school boyfriend Joey Russo, a famous writer, comes back to town and Janet invites him over to have dinner with the family. However, things don't go well when tension builds between Marshall and Joey and Joey proves to not be too helpful when he offers Clarissa advice on a paper she's writing.

Clarissa learns a thing or two about money and responsibility when she lands several part-time jobs and tries to keep up with all of them.

Marshall bets his neighbour that a Darling can make the varsity football team. But Ferguson realizes that the only way he's going to make it is by marketing himself as the Smallest Student Football Player. Clarissa runs Ferguson ragged during special 'training' for football try-outs.

After Sam sets up himself and Clarissa up on a double blind date, Clarissa starts to contemplate all the ways that the date could go bad and what her blind date Milton might be like. Meanwhile, Ferguson takes an interest in law and starts filing suits for his parents without their knowledge.

Olivia believes that she has psychic powers, but Clarissa doesn't believe it. After Olivia takes an ESP test and unknowningly committs herself and Clarissa to receiving psychic-related items in the mail, they have to figure out how to pay for the merchandise.

Sam's mom Debbie is back in town for the roller derby playoffs. But there's trouble in store when Clarissa invites Debbie to stay at her house. Debbie's a little too messy for the Darlings and the Darlings are just a little too neat for Debbie.

After Clarissa is given a class assignment to invent and market an environmentally safe product, she teams up with her mom to market Bouncy Balls- yummy health treats that bounce when they're dropped on the floor. The business doesn't work out so well when Clarissa feels left out of marketing process. Meanwhile, both Ferguson and Marshall have their tonsils removed.

Ferguson orders a pair of new mind control glasses and decides to try them out on the family. However, Clarissa decides to fight back too as she has the same mind control glasses.