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Danny Phantom

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For the title character of this television series, see Danny Phantom.
Danny Phantom
File:DannyPhantom.jpg
Danny Phantom, as seen during the show's opening sequence.
Created byButch Hartman
StarringDavid Kaufman
Colleen O'Shaughnessey
Rob Paulsen
Kath Soucie
Rickey D'Shon Collins
Grey DeLisle
Ron Perlman
Cree Summer
Martin Mull
Country of originUnited States
No. of episodes53
Production
Running time22 minutes per episode
Original release
NetworkNickelodeon
ReleaseApril 3, 2004 –
February 12, 2007

Danny Phantom is an American animated television series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon, produced by Billionfold Studios. It is distributed outside the United States by the Canadian animation company Nelvana, the same as The Fairly OddParents (also created by Hartman).[1]

Production

When Butch Hartman first developed with the idea for a new show, it was originally titled "Danny Phantom and the Specter Detectors", and it was supposed to be a show about a young (human) ghost fighter and a team of others who hunted and fought ghosts.[citation needed] However, Hartman later determined it would be cooler if the teen was a ghost, thus changing it just to "Danny Phantom". Among the other ideas that were considered before being rejected was the existence of a telepathic connection between the characters Danny and Samantha.

The designs were done by veteran character designer Stephen Silver, with Hartman adding his own touches. All Danny Phantom characters have necks and five digits on each hand. The majority of the stories are usually written by Steve Marmel with input from Mark Banker (writer), Butch Hartman, Marty Isenberg, and Sib Ventress. As with Hartman's show The Fairly OddParents, the music for Danny Phantom was written by Guy Moon[2]

Nickelodeon ordered an initial thirteen episodes, the first of which aired on April 3, 2004. After these episodes was a six month hiatus with no new episodes. In the United Kingdom, the lack of new episodes led to the show being pulled off the air and was only put back on air in October 2005.

Only 53 episodes have been purchased by Nickelodeon. On January 24, 2006, Nickelodeon announced that it is ending support for new episodes of the series on February 2007. Butch Hartman has said that although no new episodes would be made, the show would still continue to be broadcast "for years to come". [3] Fans of the show express outrage at the cancellation, citing Butch Hartman's admission on his forums that he wished to create more episodes. See Action against cancellation.

Brief character descriptions

Major characters

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  • Danny Phantom (Daniel Fenton) (voiced by David Kaufman): The titular character of the show. Danny is a 14-year-old boy who gained ghost powers from a lab accident. He later chooses to use these powers to fight against malevolent ghosts, which have begun to regularly escape the mysterious Ghost Zone and plague his hometown of Amity Park. He has a crush on one of his best friends, Sam, but he has yet to admit it. He briefly dated a girl named Valerie Gray who likes Danny, but hates his ghostly counterpart, Danny Phantom, whom she is trying to eliminate.
  • Tucker Foley (voiced by Rickey D'Shon Collins): A lighthearted teenager obsessed with technology and one of Danny's two best friends along with Sam. When not obsessing over gadgets, he obsesses over girls. Like Sam, he shares in Danny's secret and often helps battle ghosts back into the Ghost Zone.
  • Samantha "Sam" Manson (voiced by Grey DeLisle): Danny's other best friend. Though wealthy, she chooses to hide her family's monetary success for quite some time, in favor of being liked for who she is. A strident individualist, Sam is a practitioner of an extreme form of vegetarianism called Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarianism, a frequent protester for such things as animal rights, and a self-proclaimed Goth who prefers heavy metal music and favors an all-black, Gothic-influenced fashion. Sam has feelings for Danny, but she has yet to admit it to herself.
  • Jasmine "Jazz" Fenton (voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey): Danny's know-it-all (and somewhat overprotective and perhaps overhelpful) older sister; a smart and highly sociable overachiever. Jazz considers her parents' obsession with ghosts as a sign of needing psychological help. She discovers that Danny has ghost powers in the episode "My Brother's Keeper", but she does not reveal her knowledge of it until "The Ultimate Enemy", in favor of waiting until he is ready to talk about it with her.
  • Jack Fenton (voiced by Rob Paulsen): Danny's father. Jack has an obsession with destroying ghosts and expresses hate for them. He spends nearly all of his time in an orange jumpsuit. Jack cares about his family but is oblivious to Danny's powers. He also spends his time inventing gadgets that do not always work. He likes fudge and keeps an "emergency ham" in the op-center refrigerator.
  • Madeline "Maddie" Fenton (voiced by Kath Soucie): Danny's mother. Also a professional ghost hunter, Maddie is more interested in studying ghosts than simply destroying them. She is much more competent both as a parent and a ghost hunter than Jack.

Key antagonists

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  • Valerie Gray (voiced by Cree Summer): A kid whose life was accidentally turned upside-down by Danny's ghostly alter ego, Danny Phantom. She bears a grudge against him (although has bit of a crush on Danny Fenton) and has vowed to hunt him down, mostly using equipment given to her by a mysterious benefactor (who turns out to be Vlad Plasmius).
  • Vlad Masters/Plasmius (voiced by Martin Mull): Danny's arch-enemy. An old acquaintance of Jack and Maddie Fenton and the only other known human-ghost hybrid like Danny. Vlad's ghost powers were thrust upon him by an accident with a Ghost Zone Portal prototype, which hospitalized him for many years with ecto-acne. He blames Jack and is resentful that his old "friend" married the love of his life, Maddie. Unlike Danny, his ghost powers are considerably more developed, and he has used them for personal gain.

Episodes

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Allusions

Note: This is a list of allusions that take place throughout the entire show. Allusions in individual episodes can be found on those episode pages.

  • Several of the stores shown in the series are parodies, such as the clothing store ABYSS being one of GAP and the restaurant Nasty Burger being one of the restaurant in the Nickelodeon movie Good Burger. (Butch Hartman has said that the backstory was supposed to be that the restaurant was originally called "Tasty Burger", but vandals went and replaced the "T" with an "N", though this idea was never used).[3]
  • Danny's hometown of Amity Park is likely named after Amityville, a city in New York that became the setting for a book/movie known as The Amityville Horror.
  • Mr. Lancer has a tendency to shout out titles of famous books as exclamations (Examples: Lord of the Flies, Chicken Soup for the Soul). Similarly, Vlad Masters shouts out the names of various foods (Examples: butter nuts, sugar cookies).

Trivia

  • Danny Phantom was viewed as a ghost menace among the citizens of the city, and often blamed for the ensuing damage or chaos that followed his battles. Not knowing what his name was, the people took to calling him "Inviso-Bill", an obvious pun on "invisible" and the ability of ghosts to be transparent or invisible. As of the events of "Reign Storm", Danny is now officially recognized by his actual name and is, for the most part, seen as a town hero.
  • Butch Hartman has indicated that some of the ghosts in Danny Phantom are not actually dead, but rather are ectoplasmic creatures with similar powers. A few, like Desiree, The Dairy King, and Sidney Poindexter, previously lived on Earth and can be taken as being true ghosts. However, Skulker, whose real form (without armor) does not appear human and is thus an ectoplasmic being. The status of Ember in this regard is uncertain; her song Remember brings up the possibility of once having a life on Earth.[4]
  • Much like in some of the early "Fairly Oddparents" episodes, "Danny Phantom" occasionally makes a humorous jab towards more adult themes. For example, in "What You Want", right after Danny flies through the Ghost Catcher, he asks what his parents are doing under the tent in the lab, then wonders if he wants to know.
  • Whenever Danny is fighting a ghost, the background always changes color to fit the general scene.
  • According to Poindexter, everyone in the Ghost Zone knows that Danny is half ghost therefore it explains why every ghost recognizes him the moment they see him.

Voice Cast

Additional Cast

Action Against Cancellation

Since the announcement that Nickelodeon was canceling production of "Danny Phantom" in February 2007, fans have been taking action. One group in particular, "Keep Flying" or "Save the Phantom", has been organizing opposition to the cancellation. They have been mailing letters to Nickelodeon Studios, trying to convince them to keep the show in production. They have also been actively working on other various things to help save the show: examples of this include everything from scrapbooks of various moments critical to the show to also mailing various marketing companies in hopes of getting more "Danny Phantom" merchandise into stores. A small rally took place at Viacom's headquarters in New York City on July 24, 2006 to further support the cause.

Despite the efforts, Nick.com Message Boards for Danny Phantom have been openly denying the cancellation of production for the show. Whether they are uninformed or are merely not disclosing information is unknown.

On Petition Online, a petition (Fight For The Phantom) was started to save the show. On an AOL blog, the petition Don't Give Up the Ghost has been up for about a month. Another effort to save Danny Phantom has been started at a Tripod site Save Danny Phantom. Despite the fan support, the show is still expected to stop production in February 2007.

Home video releases

Video games

There have been two video games released thus far for the show.

Characters from the show (mainly Danny) have also been featured in other Nickelodeon video games. The characters appear in the following Nick games:

Notes

  1. ^ Notice the similarity between Danny Fenton, Cosmo, Chip Skylark and Timmy Turner's hair style.
  2. ^ Moon wrote two versions of the theme song; the original was scrapped, but it can be heard here at Hartman's website.
  3. ^ DPOFPA, "Interview with Butch Hartman", March 30, 2006. [1]
  4. ^ DPOFPA, "Interview with Butch Hartman", March 30, 2006. [2]
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References

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