Danny Phantom

Danny Phantom is an American animated television series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon. It was produced by Billionfold Studios and distributed by Nelvana, a Canadian animation company, and Paramount Television. The series follows a teenage boy who, after an accident with an unpredictable portal between the human world and the supernatural "Ghost Zone", becomes half-ghost and takes on the task of saving his town from subsequent ghost attacks using a variety of ghost-themed superpowers, while attempting to keep his ghost half a secret from everyone, except for his best friends and, later, his sister, then the world.
The series premiered on April 3, 2004 and ended on August 24, 2007, totaling 53 episodes and three seasons. The first two seasons consists of 20 episodes, whereas the short third season consists of 13 episodes. Danny Phantom has received critical acclaim, with primary praises for its ensemble cast and classic comic book feel and style. The series has spawned its own sets of video game, home video, and music soundtrack releases, as well as toys and various other merchandise.

Premise

Main article: List of Danny Phantom episodes

Danny Phantom centers on the life and adventures of Danny Fenton, an unpopular but good-natured 14-year-old boy attending Casper High School in the small town of Amity Park, implied to be in Ohio. He lives with his eccentric ghost-hunting parents, Maddie and Jack, and his smart yet overbearing 16-year-old sister, Jazz (short for Jasmine). Upon pressure from Sam Manson, one of his best friends, he decides to explore the Ghost Portal that his parents had created in a failed attempt to bridge the real world and the Ghost Zone (the parallel universe in which ghosts reside). Once inside, Danny accidentally presses the "On" button (which his naïve parents failed to do), activating the Portal, which infuses his DNA with ectoplasm, transforming him into a half-ghost.
Danny, who calls himself "Danny Phantom" in ghost form, quickly develops the ability to fly, become invisible, become intangible, and the "overshadow" ability (which allows him to possess and control people) after first learning how to switch back and forth between his ghost and human forms. Over time he develops much stronger abilities; such as his Ghost Ray (a concentrated blast of kinetic energy he fires from is hand), his Ghostly Wail (an intensely powerful scream that knocks back anything caught in its path), telekinesis and even cryokinesis. Danny is initially frightened by his new abilities and has little control over them, but he soon learns to use them to protect his town from malevolent ghosts. After the defeat of a Lunch Lady Ghost in the first episode, Danny turns to the life of a superhero, using his powers to rid his hometown from the various ghosts that plague it, who are almost always brought into the world thanks to the sporadic random activation of the Fenton's Ghost Portal. Danny's two best friends, fun-loving technophile Tucker Foley and wealthy, goth-minded Samantha "Sam" Manson, support Danny and help him with his ghost-fighting.
Danny's ghost form is a polarization of what he looked like when he entered the Ghost Portal. When he goes ghost, his black hair turns white, his blue eyes turn green and the white jumpsuit he was wearing during the accident is now in negative color, with the white areas of the suit becoming black and vice versa, and the black boots he was wearing fused into the suit and turned white. If Sam had not removed the Jack Fenton logo on Danny's jumpsuit before the accident, it would have been a permanent part of Danny's ghost form. In the second season, a ghost grants Sam's inadvertent wish that she and Danny had never met, and, in consequence, Danny loses his ghost powers, as Sam had been the one who had persuaded Danny to investigate the Portal in the first place, which then led to the accident. In the end Sam persuades Danny (now fully human) to regain his powers by reenacting the accident, this time wearing the jumpsuit with her newly designed "DP" logo on the chest, so that it appears when he goes ghost from then on.
Danny faces threats of many kinds, including vengeful ghost hunter Valerie Gray, who, for a short period of time, becomes his love interest^, an enemy half-ghost Vlad Masters/Plasmius, an old friend of his father's and considered to be Danny's true arch-rival, and even his own parents who, being ghost hunters, view Danny Phantom (and any other ghosts) as a menace to society. In addition, Danny tries to keep his secret safe from his classmates, teachers, and family. Throughout it all, Danny slowly realizes his own potential and his purpose, while both worlds slowly begin to accept him as their defender.

Characters

• Daniel "Danny" Fenton/"Danny Phantom" (voiced by David Kaufman) is the series' titular protagonist. Danny and his friends are the "unpopular" kids, having "jock" bullies and quaint teachers. A freshman in high school along with his friends, Danny is a clumsy 14-year-old boy who gained ghost powers from a lab accident when he stepped into his parents' ghost portal. 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. An ongoing arc is his constant struggle to use his powers for the benefit of others rather than abuse it for his own selfishness. Danny can be benevolent and decisive. Since he is half-ghost, Danny's struggles, hardships faced by teenagers in his world, are unusually topped with deadly villains from the ghost zone; but in the end, with the help of his friends, he determinedly acts on the right decision. His love interests include Valerie Gray, Paulina, and Samantha Manson.
• Samantha "Sam" Manson (voiced by Grey DeLisle) is Danny's female best friend, and eventually girlfriend at the end of the series, who is also responsible for the accident that gave Danny his powers. 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 overly dramatized fictional form of vegetarianism called "Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarianism^" (often generalized as "not eating anything that had a face"), a frequent protester for such things as animal rights, and a self-proclaimed goth. In the beginning, she was only Danny's close best friend. But, over time, her feelings for Danny began getting stronger; eventually, she fell in love with him and couldn't bring herself to tell him out of fear of ruining their friendship. Her patience paid off, as Danny had secretly fallen in love with her as well, and they eventually shared their true feelings with each other and became a couple.
• Tucker Foley (voiced by Rickey D'Shon Collins) is a lighthearted teenager who is obsessed with technology, getting a girlfriend, and meat. He has been Danny's best friend "since forever". 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. He generally provides comic relief. Tucker's inventions sometimes seem redundant, but ironically, they will work well in the Ghost Zone, or against ghosts. Tucker and Sam frequently handle the pros and cons of aiding Danny, especially when he's "going ghost."
• Jasmine "Jazz" Fenton (voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey) is Danny's somewhat overprotective and perhaps overly helpful older sister; a smart and highly sociable overachiever who also thinks of herself as an adult. Jazz considers her parents' obsession with ghosts 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 going by 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. She is an excellent, competent fighter, from whom Danny probably inherited his own talent for combat. Like her husband, she is almost never seen without her blue jumpsuit.