Danny Phantom

Danny Phantom is an American animated television show created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon, produced by Billionfold Studios. It originally ran from April 3, 2004 to August 24, 2007. The show is about Danny Fenton, a teenage boy who gained ghost powers through an accident in his parents' lab, who takes on the alter ego of Danny Phantom to save his town and the world from ghost attacks, all while struggling through school and his teenage life. It is distributed outside the United States by the Canadian animation company, Nelvana.

Plot
Danny Phantom centers on the life and adventures of 14-year-old Danny Fenton, an unpopular 9th-grade boy attending Casper High. He lives with his eccentric ghost-hunting parents, Jack and Maddie, and his overbearing older sister, Jazz. He wanders inside his parents' ghost portal and accidentally triggers its activation, infusing his DNA with ectoplasm. This transforms him into a half-ghost, half-human hybrid, and gives him an array of ghostly powers like the ability to walk through walls, turn invisible, and fly. Danny struggles to learn to control these powers, but when ghosts start coming out of the newly-activated ghost portal, Danny realizes that he can use his powers to protect his town from the evil ghosts coming out of the portal. Danny's best friends, technophile Tucker Foley and Goth-minded Sam Manson, support Danny and help him in his adventures.

Throughout his adventures, Danny faces a variety of ghostly enemies from the Ghost Zone. He also faces enemies from Earth, such as vengeful ghost hunter Valerie Gray, rival half-ghost Vlad Masters, and even his own ghost-hunting parents. Throughout it all, Danny slowly realizes his own potential and his purpose, while both worlds, the Ghost Zone and Earth, begin to accept him as their defender. Over time, Danny becomes more confident both as a superhero and as a teenager.

Production
In February 2001, Butch Hartman found out that Nickelodeon was looking for a boys' animated action show, and developed the concept for Danny Phantom. His original idea for the show was called Danny Phantom and the Specter Detectors, which was about a teenage boy and his friends who would use gadgets to hunt ghosts. However, Hartman later thought it would be cooler if the boy was a ghost with superpowers, and shortened his concept's name to Danny Phantom.

For the character designs, Hartman had help from veteran character designer Stephen Silver. Most of the stories were written by Steve Marmel, with input from Mark Banker, Butch Hartman, Marty Isenberg, and Sib Ventress. As with Hartman's other popular show, The Fairly OddParents!, the music for Danny Phantom was written by Guy Moon.

Nickelodeon originally purchased 40 episodes (two seasons), and later purchased another 13, for a total of 53 episodes, including four double-length made-for-TV movies. On January 24, 2006, Nickelodeon announced that it had ended support for new episodes of the series. Fans of the show expressed outrage at the cancellation, citing Hartman's admission on his forums that he wished to create more episodes. Hartman has stated on his personal forum that he would be willing to make more episodes if the show were to be picked up again.

Characters

 * Daniel "Danny" Fenton / Danny Phantom (voiced by David Kaufman) is the series' titular protagonist. Danny is a 14 (later 15)-year-old boy who gains ghost powers in a lab accident when he steps into and activates his parents' Ghost Portal. Now half-ghost, he chooses to use his powers to fight against malevolent ghosts who have begun to regularly escape the mysterious Ghost Zone and plague his hometown of Amity Park. A rather unpopular student in high school along with his friends, Danny also faces the typical hardships of a teenager, but with the additional challenges of protecting Amity Park from frequent ghost attacks, learning to control his ghost powers, and maintaining his secret identity as "Danny Phantom." An ongoing story arc is his struggle to use his powers for the benefit of others rather than abuse them for his own needs, though he ultimately makes the right decision with the help of his friends. Despite frequently struggling with self-confidence, Danny values his altruism and comes to appreciate his own self-worth.
 * Samantha "Sam" Manson (voiced by Grey DeLisle) is Danny's female best friend and eventually girlfriend at the end of the series; she is also responsible for the accident in which Danny gains his powers. She is a self-proclaimed Goth who is also a practitioner of a dramatized form of vegetarianism called "Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarianism" (often generalized as "not eating anything that had a face") and is an amateur activist, often protesting about environmental issues and animal rights. At first, she is Danny's closest friend; however, her feelings for Danny strengthen over time. She eventually falls in love with him but cannot bring herself to tell him for fear of ruining their friendship. Her patience pays off, as Danny secretly falls in love with her as well; they ultimately share their true feelings with each other and become a couple.
 * Tucker Foley (voiced by Rickey D'Shon Collins) is Danny's male best friend, a nerd who is obsessed with technology and carries a PDA at all times. When not obsessing over gadgets, he obsesses over girls. Like Sam, he shares in Danny's secret and often helps battle ghosts and send them back into the Ghost Zone. He generally provides comic relief. Tucker's gadgets are sometimes redundant but work well in the Ghost Zone or against ghosts. Tucker and Sam frequently handle the toils and triumphs of aiding Danny, especially when he's "going ghost."
 * Jasmine "Jazz" Fenton (voiced by Colleen Villard) is Danny's somewhat overprotective but loving older sister, an intelligent and highly sociable overachiever who considers herself an adult. Jazz views her parents' obsession with ghosts as a sign of needing psychological help. She eventually learns about Danny's powers, but chooses not to reveal her knowledge until he is ready to talk about them with her.
 * Jack Fenton (voiced by Rob Paulsen) is Danny and Jazz's father and Maddie's husband. Jack expresses an obsession with destroying ghosts, blindly holding the belief that all ghosts are evil and must be destroyed, including Danny Phantom. He is generally incompetent in nature, but can be an effective fighter when provoked. Jack cares about his family but does not know about Danny's powers. He is almost never seen without his orange jumpsuit.
 * Maddie Fenton (voiced by Kath Soucie) is Danny and Jazz's mother and Jack's wife. She is a gifted genius and dedicated hunter of ghosts, though she usually aims to dissect and study them rather than destroy them. A ninth-degree black belt, she is an excellent, competent fighter from whom Danny probably inherited his own talent for combat. Like her husband, she does not know about Danny's powers and is almost never seen without her blue jumpsuit.
 * Vlad Plasmius (voiced by Martin Mull) is Danny's nemesis throughout the series. Vlad had attended college at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Jack and Maddie until Jack's prototype Ghost Portal beamed ecto-acne into Vlad's face, giving Vlad ghost powers and ruining his social life. Half-ghost for 20 years, Vlad has much more experience with his ghost powers than Danny. Vlad serves as the main antagonist throughout the entire series as he always tries to steal Maddie away from Jack and to persuade Danny to join his side and destroy his friends. He first appears in "Bitter Reunions."

Music
The score to Danny Phantom was composed by Guy Moon. Hartman notes,

From the opening notes of the Danny Phantom theme song, you knew that was Danny Phantom. The end credit music is amazing; the music inside the show where Danny's fighting a ghost, or when a relationship gets really tender, and there's a tender moment, the music there is amazing, too. Plus, to top it all off, the amazing song by Ember, "Remember," was a great song. People just love that song and really responded to it really well. So, I think Danny Phantom didn't only have some of the best music in cartoons, but in all of television.

Moon supports his score (and theme song) with a prominent bassline and often explores the funk genre, especially in scene transitions. He typically features electric guitar in more action-packed moments, deep brass instruments in darker moments, and electric piano in more tender moments. His score also sometimes includes a theremin, which serves as a ghostly motif.

Hartman has confirmed that the bassline in the Danny Phantom theme song was inspired heavily by Queen's 1989 hit song "The Invisible Man".

Video games
Two Danny Phantom video games have been published:


 * Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy (Game Boy Advance)
 * Danny Phantom: Urban Jungle (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS)

Danny Phantom characters have also made appearances in other Nickelodeon video games:


 * Nicktoons: Summer Camp (TV plug-and-play game)
 * Nicktoons Basketball (PC)
 * Nicktoons Movin' (PlayStation 2 EyeToy)
 * Nicktoons Winners Cup Racing (PC)
 * Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy (Game Boy Advance)
 * Nicktoons Unite! (Nintendo GameCube, Play Station 2, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance)
 * Nicktoons: Battle for Volcano Island (Nintendo GameCube, Play Station 2, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance)
 * Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots (Wii, Play Station 2, Nintendo DS)
 * Nicktoons: Globs of Doom (Wii, Play Station 2, Nintendo DS)
 * Nicktoons Nitro (arcade)
 * Nicktoons Mini Golf (mobile)
 * Nicktoons: Android Invasion (LeapFrog Didj)

Trivia

 * Some Danny Phantom characters and themes have cameoed in The Fairly OddParents. In addition, the The Fairly OddParents characters Crash Nebula, the Crimson Chin, and Francis have made cameos in Danny Phantom.
 * When Nickelodeon announced the show's cancellation, Danny Phantom fans in New York City protested to save the show.
 * Danny Phantom is the only show of Butch Hartman's to not move to Nicktoons for new episodes.
 * On February 21st, 2017, Nickelodeon released a three-minute short called "The Fairly Odd Phantom," which featured Danny Phantom, TUFF Puppy, The Fairly Odd Parents, and Bunsen Is a Beast. This marked the first new Danny Phantom animation released by Nickelodeon in nearly ten years. David Kaufman, Ricky D'Shon Collins, Grey Griffin, and Colleen Villard reprised their roles respectively.