Danny Phantom (season 3)

Danny Phantom
Ladies and gentlemen, the result of the creator going overbudget.
Genre: Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy Science fiction Running Time: 22 Minutes Country: United States Release Date: October 9, 2006 - August 24, 2007 Network(s): Nickelodeon Created by: Butch Hartman Distributed by: Paramount Media Networks Starring: David Kaufman Grey DeLisle-Griffin Rickey D'Shon Collins Colleen Villard Rob Paulsen Kath Soucie Martin Mull Kevin Michael Richardson Dee Bradley Baker Seasons: 1 Episodes: 13

Danny Phantom is a Nickelodeon series created by Butch Hartman. The show received very positive reviews and was considered one of the best Nickelodeon shows in the 2000s, as well one of Butch Hartman's best shows. While the first two seasons were well-received, the third and final season received a more divisive reception.

Bad Qualities

1. Unlike other shows that faced a decline in quality, like The Fairly OddParents, Family Guy and The Loud House, who often go downhill due to either the creator still heavily working on the show or just completely left the show, and just like Turbo F.A.S.T (season 3) this decline in quality was mostly caused by Nickelodeon who fired multiple writers involved in the show, most notably Steve Marmel. As a result, Butch Hartman became more involved in the series, when he wasn't involved as much in the first two seasons. Not helping matters is that Butch hired multiple writers who weren't familiar with the show, which further affected the quality of this season.
   • Even worse, one of those new writers is Kevin Sullivan, who, with a few exceptions and not being an bad person, would prove to be a bad writer, as he would go on to write plenty of bad episodes for The Fairly OddParents, T.U.F.F. Puppy, and even The Loud House.
2. Another issue that the show faced was the it went over-budget, thanks to Butch Hartman, who spent tons of money on improving the animation, hiring voice actors without Nickelodeon's consent, excessively promoting the TV movie "The Ultimate Enemy", along with giving the license to THQ to develop a GBA game of the TV movie itself, which turned out to be mediocre, and Nickelodeon ended up getting 50k dollars from merchandising.
3. Many subplots, such as Dark Danny, and Danny's interactions with other characters like Valerie, are either ignored or forgotten for unknown reasons.
4. The main problem with this season is that just like Star vs. the Forces of Evil (seasons 3 & 4) although not as bad as that show, it focuses so much on Danny and Sam's relationship, which feels forced.
5. Unlike the previous seasons, this one has only 12 episodes left, which is very small, probably because of Nickelodeon cutting funding for the series.
6. Weak writing that isn't as good as the first two seasons, and certain characters' personalities were also dumbed down.
   1. Danny became more selfish in this season, and became less caring of his friends. A great example is in the episode Livin' Large, where it basically undid his character development, but thankfully, he reverted back to his original personality.
   2. Vlad made even more unnecessary appearances unlike the first two season, to the point of becoming more of a generic villain.
7. The episode finale Phantom Planet was divisive, had many rushed elements and was a weak and lousy way to end the series.
   • Although it did get a better ending in July 18, 2023 which is a graphic novel.
8. Nickelodeon decided to cancel the show after three seasons, despite Butch Hartman wanting to make more seasons. This is primarily Butch's fault, as he deliberately made the series go too over-budget for various different reasons during the production of the first two seasons.

Good Qualities

1. Despite its flaws, this season isn't entirely bad, and can be enjoyed, just as much as the previous ones.
2. The animation from Rough Draft Studios is still splendid and incredibly well done.
   • The fighting scenes specifically are even better animated in this season.
3. The voice acting is still great and well-talented.
4. There are still many funny jokes in this season.
5. This season introduced numerous amounts of well known characters such as Frostbite.
6. Unlike what happened with Butch Hartman's other shows, at least Nickelodeon was nice enough to air all of the episodes on the main Nickelodeon channel, instead of moving them to the Nicktoons channel, despite airing it sporadically, and at low-rated time slots with virtually no advertising.
7. The characters are still likable.
8. There are still a great number of good episodes.

Trivia

• In 2022, it was announced that a graphic novel of Danny Phantom would release in 2023, and would be a continuation to the mixed received Phantom Planet. It was released on July 18th, with positive reviews, giving hope that the show might return on Nickelodeon, hopefully.
• During this season, the show had an erratic airing schedule. With the show's ratings plummeting, Nickelodeon canceled the series in 2006 and decided to air the mid-season episode "Urban Jungle" several months before any other episodes (most notably after the episode that introduced Frostbite, who in "Urban Jungle" teaches Danny power over ice). Then, when they finally aired the rest of season 3, it was at a random afternoon slot over the space of about two weeks.

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