Danny Phantom (Season 1-2)

***Danny Phantom*** is an American animated series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon. It was produced by Billionfold Studios and distributed in Canada by Nelvana, a Canadian animation company.

## Plot

14-year old teenager Danny Fenton's parents are inventors obsessed with ghosts. They invented a Ghost portal that supposedly leads to the ghost dimension, which they call "the Ghost Zone". The portal didn't work at first, but one day Danny is convinced by his friends Samantha Manson and Tucker Fawley to try the portal. During their own experiment Danny accidentally activates the portal and is zapped by Ghost Energy, transforming him into a Ghost-Human hybrid.

Ever since, the portal has allowed ghosts to invade Danny's home Amity Park frequently. Using his ghost powers, Danny now fights the ghost threats as the superhero "Danny Phantom" while also fighting a potentially scarier threat: being the unpopular geek at high school!

At first Danny's superhero activities go unnoticed as no one believes in ghosts, but over time the ghost activity becomes more publicly known, however Amity Park believes Danny Phantom is also an evil ghost and is treated as a villain. Eventually, Danny proves himself to be a rightful hero and is accepted by the population fo Amity Park.

At the end of the series, Danny Phantom is universally accepted by the entire world and Danny decides to publicly reveal his secret identity while also starting a proper relationship with Sam.

## Why These Seasons Rock

1. The art style and character designs, which are the same like Butch Hartman’s first show, *The Fairly OddParents*, are still awesome and visually appealing.
2. Memorable characters like the Fenton family (Danny himself, Jazz, and their parents Jack & Maddie), Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Valerie Gray, Clockwork, Danielle “Dani” Phantom, and Frostbite.
3. Memorable villains like Skulker, Freakshow, Dan Phantom, Technus, Ember, Johnny 13, Pariah Dark, Walker, Spectra, Desiree, the Box Ghost, Kitty, the Lunch Lady Ghost, and of course, Vlad Plasmius, being a solid and intimidating villain along with Dan Phantom, Danny Phantom's evil counterpart.
4. Cool music, including the catchy opening and ending songs, performed by both Derick Battiste and Guy Moon, which are mainly interesting to hear as a ghastly theme song. Also, Guy Moon is well-known for goodly composing various music for this show.
5. Outstanding story of each episode with several over-arching stories across the series.
6. Many action scenes to see. As example for this superhero-themed animated series, Danny saves his hometown known as Amity Park from the ghastly incidents by fighting the destructive villains off as they happened to the plot of every single episode. So it makes the show maturely well-received unlike Cartoon Network's horrible superhero cartoon reboots.
7. It's surprisingly serious and mature for a Nickelodeon cartoon.
8. There's still plenty of humor that never feels forced.
9. Well-talented voice acting. For example, along with the voice talents of Grey DeLisle, Rickey D'Shon Collins, Colleen O'Shaughnessey and the others, David Kaufman is notably fluent to hear for voicing the main character in the animated TV series.

## Bad Qualities

1. The third and final season is the weakest in the entire series.
2. Some of the secondary characters are very intolerable, with Dash Baxter being the worst offender.
3. Speaking of Dash Baxter, he is a rip off of Flash Thompson.
4. It has a lot of cliches.

## Reception

*Danny Phantom* has received critical acclaim, with praise primarily directed at its ensemble cast and comic book-influenced themes and storyline. Hartman himself has noted that the series is arguably his most popular and acclaimed work, despite its relatively short production life compared to *Fairly OddParents*. *Danny Phantom* has spawned video games, home video releases, as well as toys and various other merchandise.

The episode, “The Ultimate Enemy”, is generally considered the best and darkest episode in the entire series, with Danny's evil counterpart from the future "Dan Phantom" being considered the evilest and most menacing villain in the show.