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For the character of the same name, see Danny Phantom (character).

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 and Timmy Turner's hair style). The first episode aired in the United States on April 3, 2004.

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.

Nickelodeon ordered an initial thirteen episodes, after which there was a hiatus of six months with no new episodes. In the UK, 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 would not purchase anymore. As a result, the show will run out of new episodes and only air reruns as of February 2007.

Fans of the show initially expressed 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 cancelation.

Brief Character Descriptions

Major Characters

  • Daniel "Danny" Fenton/Phantom (voiced by David Kaufman): The titular character of the show. Danny is a 14-year old boy who accidentally 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 the town. Danny has feelings for Sam, but he has yet to admit to himself.
  • Tucker Foley (voiced by Rickey D'Shon Collins): A nerd/geek obsessed with technology and one of Danny's two best friends. 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, Goth-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 Paulson) 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.
  • 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

  • Valerie Gray (voiced by Cree Summer): First appearance Parental Bonding/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 she sort of has 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.

Trivia

  • The name of the town the series takes place in, Amity Park, is a reference to the real world town of Amityville, where the paranormal novel/movie The Amityville Horror took place.

  • Amity Parks exact location hasn't been shown yet. Although in the episode Fanning the Flames Mr. Lancer mentioned the Northwestern Standerdised Testing. Which porbably means that Amity Park is located in Northern California, Oregon or Washington. It is most likely that Amity Park is located in Northern California, probably near San Francisco, because in the Episode Identity Crisis the house is controlled by a ghost then later stops at a beach with Palm Trees. There are also a few Palm Trees at a waterpark seen in the episode Lucky in Love.

  • The clothing store ABYSS's logo is an obvious parody of GAP with the middle letter larger than the others, and the names are closely related by definition.

  • In the episode "What You Want", Paulina wishes she could be as adorable and loved as Sayonara Pussycat, so Desiree turns her into a Hello-Kitty similar figure.

Voice cast

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 nonsupportive of the cancellation thus far. 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 petition on July 24 will take place at Viacom studios.

Home Video Releases

See also

External links

References

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Nicktoons | Animated television series | 2000s TV shows in the United States | Danny Phantom | Television spin-offs

Danny Phantom | Danny Phantom | Danny Phantom | Danny Phantom | Danny Phantom

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Danny Phantom".

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