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

Production

The show was created by Butch Hartman, who also created the television series The Fairly OddParents (notice similarity between Danny Fenton, Cosmo and Timmy Turner's hair style).

When Butch Hartman first came up 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 - all of whom hunted and fought ghosts. However, later on, Butch Hartman thought 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 character Danny and Samantha.

The designs were done by veteran character designer Stephen Silver, with Butch 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, Butch Hartman, Marty Isenberg, and Sib Ventress. The music for the show, as with another Butch Hartman show The Fairly OddParents, was written by Guy Moon (who wrote two versions of the theme song, the orginal being scrapped and can only be heard at the Timpod Audio Player.

Nickelodeon ordered an initial thirteen episodes, the first of which aired on April 3, 2004, after which there was a hiatus of six months 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, and on January 24, 2006, Nickelodeon announced that they are pulling the plug on the show on February 2007 (in terms of new episodes). Butch Hartman has said that although no new episodes would be made, the show would still go on the air "for years to come".

Fans of the show express outrage at the cancellation, citing Butch Hartman's admission on his forums that he wished to create more episodes. More information on what is being done is located at action against cancellation.

Brief character descriptions

Major characters

For more information, see the article about List of Danny Phantom characters.

• Daniel "Danny" Fenton/Phantom (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. She likes Danny back, but she hates his ghostly counterpart, Danny Phantom, and is trying to eliminate him.
• Tucker Foley (voiced by Rickey D'Shon Collins): A nerd/geek obsessed with technology and one of Danny's two best friends along with Sam. When not obsessing over gadgets, he's obsessing over girls. Like Sam, he shares in Danny's secret and often helps out when it comes to returning ghosts to the Ghost Zone.
• Samantha "Sam" Manson (voiced by Grey DeLisle): Danny's other best friend. Though technically 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 practioner 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 does not reveal her knowledge of it until "The Ultimate Enemy", in favor of waiting until he's 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 jump suit. Jack cares about his family but is oblivious to Danny's powers. He also spends his time inventing gadgets that don't always work, and he likes fudge.
• 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

For more information, see the article about List of Danny Phantom villains and ghosts.

• Valerie Gray (voiced by Cree Summer): First appearance: Parental Bonding. First starring role: Shades of Grey. 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 a 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): First appearance: Bitter Reunions. An old acquaintance of Jack and Maddie Fenton and the only other known human-ghost hybrid like Danny. His ghost powers were thrust upon him by an accident with a Ghost Zone Portal prototype, which hospitalised 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 his powers for personal gain. He is also Danny's arch-enemy.

Episodes

For more information, see the article about List of Danny Phantom episodes.

Trivia

• Danny does not get his super hero symbol until the episode Memory Blank in the premiere of the second season. After that the symbol is shown even in the opening song. It depicts a white "D" with a gap in it to create a 'P'

• Mr. Lancer has a tendency to shout out titles of famous books as exclamations (Lord of the Flies, Chicken Soup for the Soul, War of The Worlds, Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones's Diary, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Moby Dick, South Beach Diet, Gulliver's Travels, To Kill A Mockingbird and Fast Food Nation to name a few).

• 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).

• The Esperanto language is used by Tucker and another character, Wulf, in the episode Public Enemies.

• 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, used to live on Earth and can be taken as being true ghosts. However, Skulker, whose real form (sans armor) does not appear human and is thus an ectoplasmic being. It is unknown as to where Ember stands on this debate, for her song (RemEmber) brings up the possibility of once having a life on Earth.

• In the episode What You Want, Tucker can be seen playing a Crash Nebula arcade game in the movie theater. Not surprisingly, Timmy Turner, from Butch Hartman's other series The Fairly Oddparents, is also a big fan of Crash.

• 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.

Voice cast

• David Kaufman as Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom, Danny's Ghostly Wail (2nd voice)
• Rob Paulsen as Jack Fenton, Nicolai Technus, The Box Ghost
• Kath Soucie as Maddie Fenton, The Lunch Lady Ghost (2nd voice), Box Lunch, Grandma Ida Manson
• Colleen O'Shaughnessey as Jazz Fenton
• Rickey D'Shon Collins as Tucker Foley
• Grey DeLisle as Samantha "Sam" Manson, Star (1st voice), Valerie Gray (1st voice)
• Ron Perlman as Mr. Lancer
• Maria Canals as Paulina
• S. Scott Bullock as Dash Baxter, Klemper, Mr. Jeremy Manson, Hotep Ra
• Dat Phan as Kwan (1st voice)
• James Sie as Kwan (2nd voice)
• June Angela as Principal Ishiyama
• Will Arnett as Ghost Writer
• William Baldwin as Johnny 13
• Dee Bradley Baker as Wulf, Observant #1, Prince Aragon, Mikey, Gregor
• Susan Blakeslee as Dora Mattingly (Dorethea the Dragon Ghost)
• David Carradine as Clockwork
• Brian Cox as Pariah Dark
• Jon Cryer as Freakshow
• Michael Dorn as Fright Knight
• Peri Gilpin as Desiree
• Patricia Heaton as The Lunch Lady Ghost (1st voice)
• Taylor Lautner as Youngblood
• Eric Roberts as Dark Danny/Dan Phantom, Danny's Ghostly Wail (1st voice)
• Peter MacNicol as Sidney Poindexter
• Phil Morris as Damon Gray, Observant #2
• Martin Mull as Vladimir "Vlad" Masters/Vlad Plasmius
• Laraine Newman as Mrs. Tetslaff, Mrs. Pamela Manson
• Daran Norris as Bullet
• Matthew St. Patrick as Skulker (1st voice)
• Kevin Michael Richardson as The Dragon Ghost, Skulker (2nd voice)
• Chynna Phillips as Kitty
• AnnaSophia Robb as Danielle ("Dani Phantom")
• Tara Strong as Star (2nd voice), Ember, Penelope Spectra, Tiffany Snow
• Cree Summer as Valerie Gray (2nd voice)
• James Arnold Taylor as Walker
• Jim Ward as Bertrand

Action against cancellation

Since the annoucement that Nickelodeon was cancelling production of Danny Phantom in January, 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 [1] for Danny Phantom have been openly denying the cancellation of production for the show. If they were not informed or are disclosing information is unknown.

On Petition Online, a petition was just recently started to save the show, titled Fight For The Phantom. [2] On an AOL Blog, a petition entitled Don't Give Up the Ghost has been up for about a month.[3] Despite the fan support, the show is still expected to stop production in February 2007.

Home Video Releases

• Nick Picks Vol. 1-4

Video Games

There have been two video games released thus far for Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy for the Game Boy Advance and Urban Jungle for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS consoles.

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

• Nicktoons: Battle for Volanco Island (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2)
• Nicktoons: Freeze Frame Frenzy (Game Boy Advance)
• Nicktoons Movin' Eyetoy (Playstation 2)
• Nicktoons Unite! (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2)

External links

• Danny Phantom on YTV
• Official website
• 'Save the Phantom' website, dedicated to saving Danny Phantom
• Danny Phantom Show Info at TVRage.com
• Butch Hartman's Website
• Official Danny Phantom forum topic in which Butch Hartman clearly states and explains the "cancellation" situtation. (You must have a forum ID in order to view it)

References

• Danny Phantom at the Internet Movie Database
• Danny Phantom at TV.com
• Danny Phantom at the Big Cartoon DataBase
  • Danny Phantom at TVRage.com