The Fairly OddParents (seasons 1-8)

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♥ This article is dedicated to Adam West, the voice of Cat Man (1929-2017), Tuck Tucker (during Season 9), and Mary Kay Bergman, the original voice of Timmy Turner in the Oh Yeah Cartoons! shorts (1961-1999). May they rest in peace.


The Fairly OddParents

🎶 OddParents, Fairly OddParents, 🎶
🎶 It flips your lid when you are the kid with Fairly OddParents 🎶
Vicky: "Yeah right."
Genre: Children’s television series
Comedy
Fantasy
Running Time: 23-24 minutes (Two 11-minute segments or a full special)
47 minutes (Four specials "School’s Out!: The Musical", "Fairy Idol", "Fairly Odd Baby", and "Timmy's Secret Wish!", including the three crossovers with The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius)
68 minutes (Two specials, "Abra-Catastrope" and "Channel Chasers")
135 minutes (the three one-hour specials, "Wishology!")
Country: United States
Release Date: March 30, 2001 - November 25, 2006 (Seasons 1-5)
March 10, 2008 - December 29, 2011 (Seasons 6-8)
Network(s): Nickelodeon
Created by: Butch Hartman
Distributed by: Paramount Domestic Media Networks
Starring: Tara Strong
Daran Norris
Susanne Blakeslee
Carlos Alazraqui
Grey DeLisle Griffin
Adam West (Seasons 4-7)
Jeff Bennett (Season 8)
Eric Bauza (Seasons 7 & 8)
Seasons: 8
Episodes: 188
Next show: The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder


The Fairly OddParents is an American animated fantasy-comedy television series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon. The series centers on a 10-year-old boy named Timmy Turner who has his once miserable life turned upside down granted by his fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda as well as his tyrannical teenage caregiver Vicky and sometimes his parents.

The series initially debuted as 7-minute short films for the animation showcase Oh Yeah! Cartoons in 1998, which also was the original home of Frederator Studios’ two other series My Life as a Teenage Robot and ChalkZone in turn beginning as short films and turning into full-fledged series for the network. After said incubator ended its run with the final short Super Humor, the series premiered on March 30, 2001, and ended on July 26, 2017, at Nicktoons Network after 10 seasons. Initially canceled on November 25, 2006, the same day Jimmy Neutron concluded, it was brought back for three additional seasons.

After its cancellation, Hartman retired from Nickelodeon in February 2018 with his final series made for the channel Bunsen is a Beast ended in the same year.

Plot

Timmy Turner is a 10-year-old boy who as described in the theme song “an average kid that no one understands“, in the fictional city of Dimmsdale at first was cruelly abused by his vicious babysitter Vicky, after being tortured relentlessly by her and making his life miserable, he was granted a pair of fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda to lighten up his misery by wish-granting. However, most of these go haywire in nearly every episode. Other characters featured are his parents, Chester, A.J., and Poof.

Why These Seasons Are Magical!

  1. The visuals of the art style and character designs are visually appealing to the eyes, possibly inspired by those of Dexter's Laboratory and Johnny Bravo, given that series creator Butch Hartman used to work on the latter two series before deciding to create this show, albeit, first starting as a series of shorts on Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Hartman would later go on to use the same visuals of the art style and character designs for his later works, those being Danny Phantom and T.U.F.F. Puppy.
    • The animation has improved since season 6 due to Billionfold Inc.'s involvement since Danny Phantom's debut.
    • The visuals have gotten better and wackier in Seasons 7 & 8 as Dave Thomas returns as the Storyboard Director the drawings are getting looser, the lines (from the characters) get thinner and the facial expressions are getting better.
  2. Great soundtrack, which is composed by Guy Moon, who also composed soundtracks for the other Butch Hartman shows. The theme song is also very catchy and jazzy to listen to.
  3. Many memorable characters and villains such as
    • Timmy Turner, the average kid who knows no one understands.
    • Cosmo, the simple-minded, yet charming and self-aware comic relief.
    • Wanda, the responsible, yet intelligent voice of reason.
    • Poof, Cosmo, Wanda's son, and Timmy's fairy godbrother.
    • Mr. and Mrs. Turner, Timmy's oblivious, yet overworked parents.
    • Vicky, Timmy's menacing teenage babysitter.
    • Tootie, Vicky's little sister has an amusing crush on Timmy.
    • Denzel Crocker, Timmy's crazed teacher wishes to prove to the world that fairies exist.
    • Jorgen Von Strangle, the strict and intimating authority figure of all the fairies in the universe.
    • Chester and A.J., are Timmy's best friends.
    • Trixie Tang, the typical, yet charming popular girl who Timmy has an amusing crush on.
    • Veronica, Brad, and Chad, Trixie's best friends, and the other popular kids.
    • Francis, the typical, yet entertaining unpopular school bully.
    • Mark Chang, the prince of Yugopotamia has an amusing crush on Vicky.
    • Remy Buxaplenty, the envious billionaire child with only one fairy godparent named Juandissimo Magnifico.
    • Crimson Chin and Crash Nebula, who are some of Timmy's favorite superheroes, and many of their respective enemies.
    • Catman, the superhero alter-ego of the late, great real-life Adam West.
    • Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, and Anti-Poof (Foop), actually Foop, the evil fairy counterparts of Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof.
    • Head Pixie (or H.P. for short), the leader of the Pixies, and his assistant, Sanderson.
    • Chip Skylark, a well-known singing sensation of Dimmsdale.
    • Doug Dimmadome, the major business owner in Dimmsdale.
    • Chet Ubetcha, the local news reporter.
    • Dinkleberg, the next-door neighbor of Timmy and his parents who Mr. Turner has hatred of.
  4. So many good/great episodes such as:
    • "The Big Problem!" (which started season 1 and the show on a high note)
    • "Power Mad!"
    • "Spaced Out" (Mark Chang's debut)
    • "Transparents" (Denzel's debut)
    • "Chin Up!" (Crimson Chin's debut)
    • "Dog's Day Afternoon"
    • "Father Time!"
    • "Boys in the Band" (Chip Skylark's debut)
    • "Boy Toy" (Tootie's debut)
    • "Action Packed"
    • "Super Bike"
    • "That Old Black Magic" (Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda as well as Anti-Fairies' debut)
    • "Foul Balled"
    • "The Switch Glitch"
    • "Mighty Mom and Dyno Dad"
    • "Knighty Knight"
    • "Nectar of the Odds"
    • "Fairy Fairy Quite Contrary" (Remy Buxaplenty's debut)
    • "Fools Day Off"
    • "Deja Vu"
    • "Shiny Teeth"
    • "Cosmo Con" (which positively started season 3)
    • "Wanda's Day Off!"
    • "Mother Nature"
    • "Beddy Bye"
    • "This is Your Wish"
    • "The Big Scoop!"
    • "Crime Wave"
    • "Where's Wanda?"
    • "Imaginary Gary" (which ended season 3 in "FOP#" number code in the good matter)
    • "Chip Off The Old Chip"
    • "Miss Dimmsdale" (Catman/Adam West's debut, an awesome way to begin season 4)
    • "Hard Copy" (Dark Laser and Dr. Rip Studwell's debuts)
    • "The Odd Couple"
    • "Homewrecker"
    • "Pixies Inc." (Pixies' debut)
    • "Vicky Loses Her Icky"
    • "Catman Meets The Crimson Chin"
    • "Genie Meanie Minis Mo"
    • "Nega-Timmy" (a decent way to start season 5)
    • "Birthday Wish"
    • "Go Young, West Man!"
    • "Escape From Unwish Island"
    • "The Gland Plan"
    • "Talkin' Trash" (Big Daddy's debut)
    • "The Masked Magician"
    • "The "Good Old Days!""
    • "Mission Responsible"
    • "The End of the Universe-ity"
    • "Wishy Washy"
    • "Poof's Playdate"
    • "Birthday Bashed!"
    • "Momnipresent" (which ended season 6 on a good note)
    • "Add-a-Dad"
    • "Bad Heir Day" (One of the greatest Kevin Sullivan episodes and which also started season 7 in airing order on a high note)
    • "Dadbra-Cadabra" (which Dave Thomas won the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual")
    • "Double-Oh Schnozmo"
    • "Beach Blanket Bozos"
    • "Old Man and the C-"
    • "Balance of Flour"
    • "Food Fight"
    • "Dad Overboard"
    • "Crock Talk" (despite Crocker's behavior)
    • "Operation Dinkleberg" (which decently concluded season 7)
  5. Memorable specials and/or direct-to-TV films, such as:
    • "Christmas Everyday!" (a great way to start season 2 and end season 1 in a good matter)
    • "Information Stupor Highway"
    • "Scary Godparents"
    • "Abra-Catastrophe!"
    • "The Origins of Denzel Crocker"
    • "Shelf Life"
    • "The Big Superhero Wish!"
    • "Channel Chasers"
    • "School's Out!: The Musical" (a fantastic way to conclude season 4)
    • "Fairy Idol"
    • "Fairly Odd Baby" (Poof's debut, which started season 6 and the revival seasons and ended Jack Thomas' FOP career on a high note)
    • "The Fairly Oddlympics"
    • "Merry Wishmas"
    • "Wishology!" (which ended season 6 with high stakes and could've been an amazing series finale if it ended there)
    • "Anti-Poof" (Foop's debut, which started Season 7 (as long as Ray DeLaurentis and Ed Valentine's career) on a high note)
    • "When L.O.S.E.R.S. Attack"
    • "Meet the OddParents" (which concluded season 8 along with the good seasons decently and would've also been a perfect way to end the series if it didn't continue past that)
  6. Memorable songs such as, "My Shiny Teeth and Me", "Icky Vicky", "Kids Just Being Kids", "Gimme The Wand", "Adults Ruin Everything" and many others.
  7. Very talented voice actors, even from the most well-known actors such as Tara Strong, Daran Norris, Susanne Blakeslee, Grey DeLisle, Carlos Alazraqui, etc.
  8. Great one-liners, fourth wall breaks, and catchphrases, especially from Cosmo, Mr. Turner, Mr. Crocker, and Jorgen.
    • Mr. Turner, in particular, has spawned numerous memes such as "DINKLEBERG!" and "If I had one!".
  9. It manages to teach valuable lessons every time Timmy wishes for something that eventually backfires.
  10. Well established structure, Da Rules, that ties the show together. It also gives the show a limited structure with magic to allow actual conflicts to occur in the plots in question.
  11. Despite all the backfiring Timmy gets in some episodes whenever something he wishes backfires, he does get some pretty good endings no matter what.
  12. "Meet the OddParents", the final episode of season 8, was decent and could have also been a perfect way to wrap up the series if it had not continued past that as mentioned above.

Qualities That Broke Da Rules

  1. After being revived in 2008 with the introduction of Poof, the show gradually declined in quality starting in Season 6. However, the show's quality hit new levels of low during Seasons 9 and 10 when it was revived again in 2013, which eventually led Nickelodeon to cancel the series. Following the series' cancellation, the franchise as a whole sat in limbo until the announcement of a live-action reboot which premiered in 2022 and ended in early 2023.
    • To a minor extent, Season 5b is considered by some people to be the weakest season in the classic era as well as the gradual decline of the show because of "It's a Wishful Life", which is widely considered to be the most infamous episode in the entire series and Kevin Sullivan, a bad writer, join the crew. Additionally, some, if not, all of the characters' personalities got dumbed down, though season 6 outdid most of the dumbed-down personalities from season 5. Unfortunately, the characters in question got their personalities dumbed down again in season 7 and only got worse in Seasons 9 & 10.
    • The third and final Jimmy Timmy Power Hour crossover, "The Jerkinators", despite being the original end of the show after season 5, is arguably considered the weakest of the three crossovers, as it did little to wrap up loose ends, had a very generic plot, and some of the characters, mainly Jimmy and Timmy themselves, were out of character. However, it isn't terrible in the slightest and is rather decent. It's just the weakest.
  2. The good seasons even had their fair share of bad and/or mediocre episodes, especially for episodes that were written by the infamous writer, Kevin Sullivan (and lesser extent Jack Thomas), such as:
  3. Seasons 6-8 had positive to mixed reception among critics and fans alike and are generally better received than seasons 9 & 10. However, they are still not as positively received as the classic era:
    • Season 6 is considered to be a major turning point for the show due to Poof's debut, as many people feel that the show relied too much on "wacky baby shenanigans" since then, given that Poof is just a baby. Despite this, plenty of fans consider Season 6 to be the best of these 3 seasons, with plenty even considering its quality to be the same as the classic era and it has its fair share of good episodes. Additionally, not many episodes revolve around Poof since his debut, including in the following seasons afterward. Even so, this season also had a few bad episodes, with the Vicky-focused episodes being the worst offenders.
    • Seasons 7 & 8 in combination, while not terrible, are arguably considered to be the weakest of all the good seasons, as the episodes here are a mixed bag and have tons of problems that would become the norm in Seasons 9 & 10.
      • As an example, almost all of the original writing team (even Scott Fellows) have moved on, while Ray DeLaurentis and Will Schifrin came aboard as producer, story editor, and writer, tho Will Schifrin only aboard as the writer.
        • However, DeLaurentis and Schifrin worked on projects that were not well received, to begin with, before working on this show starting in Season 7 onward. Ed Valentine on the other hand did have some spotlights but only worked in Season 7.
    • The writers also began to gradually sideline most of the secondary characters (yes, even Vicky). According to series creator Butch Hartman himself, this was a deliberate decision as he and the writers favored Timmy's Dad, Mr. Crocker, and occasionally but not much as two letters, Foop instead.
      • As a result, Timmy's dad and Mr. Crocker started to get more unnecessary screen time, which eventually worsened in Seasons 9-10.
    • Several continuity errors and inconsistencies also started popping up more around this time, such as:
      • In the episode, "Crocker Shocker", Crocker's obsession with magic is revealed to be the source of Fairy World just for this specific episode.
      • In the episode, "Take and Fake", Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof are "invited" to Trixie Tang's custom party although both non-miserable children and adults in general aren't supposed to know about fairies. Additionally, there's a scene where Mr. Crocker sees Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof, only for him to brush them off as just them wearing customs.
      • In the episode, "Spellementary School", as well as later episodes, Poof and Foop are shown to be attending the same fairy preschool school together despite the latter being an anti-fairy, and the said school being filled with fairy children, despite previous episodes already establishing Cosmo being the second-to-last fairy to be born years before Poof.
      • In the episode, "Love Triangle", Timmy's Dad is pointlessly shoehorned in several times for running gag jokes, including scenes of him coming face-to-face with the fairies (yes, even Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof themselves), creatures that he is not suppose to see.
      • In the episode, "When Losers Attack", Cosmo, Wanda, Poof, and Foop were shown floating while the Fairyclipse was still going on. Additionally, Mr. Crocker does not try to get Foop, even though he is trying to prove the existence of fairies and Foop is an anti-fairy, which is almost the same thing. While one could argue that Mr. Crocker has never interacted with the anti-fairies before this episode, or "Timmy's Secret Wish!" in terms of production order, it still does not excuse this plot hole, which also continued in later episodes such as "Scary GodCouple" and the sequel to "When Losers Attack" titled "Return of the L.O.S.E.R.S.".
  4. Even before season 7, continuity can be inconsistent at times.
    • One particularly baffling example comes from "Fairy Fairy Quite Contrary" (Remy Buxaplenty's debut episode). In the episode, Remy showed concern that Timmy could wish to be richer than him, but its sister episode "Nectar of the Odds" (along with Season 7's "Crocker of Gold") establishes that poofing up money is counterfeiting.
  5. Some characterizations are flawed even before Season 9:
    • Cosmo and Mr. Turner, while they have great and funny one-liners here and there, can be flawed at times due to how dumb they can be.
    • Timmy's parents started as busy and clueless but later became very neglectful to the point where they act as if they see him as a burden, though Mrs. Turner at some points is more tolerable than her husband.
    • Vicky, starting in season 6, went from a sadistic bully who enjoys messing with Timmy while keeping him safe and only saw her babysitting job as a means of making money despite her occasional psychotic qualities, into an outright Satan-like psychopath who tries to "destroy" Timmy. Additionally, despite still appearing in the show's intro and outro sequences, her screen time was significantly reduced, to the point that starting in Season 7, her role as the main antagonist of the series was passed onto Mr. Crocker.
    • Tootie in seasons 6 & 7 went from a nerdy, yet goodhearted girl who has an amusing crush on Timmy and occasionally helped him despite her occasional stalking qualities, into an outright obsessive, lovesick creep who constantly stalks and harasses Timmy whenever she sees him. Additionally, after Season 7 ended, she stopped making appearances in the show except for her appearances in the live-action films as well as a few cameos afterward.
      • Vicky and Tootie are also never shown interacting with each other at all whatsoever since Season 6 onward even though they are sisters.
    • Denzel Crocker went from a crazed teacher wishing to prove to the world that fairies exist into a writer's pet as he was used just for running gags, started at "Formula For Disaster", which got worse in "Dad Overboard" and "Timmy's Secret Wish!".
    • Veronica, the best friend of Trixie Tang, is badly underutilized since she could have served as a potential third love interest for Timmy as an in-between of Trixie and Tootie, lacking the former's narcissism and the latter's obsessiveness, instead of later characters like Missy and Chloe Carmichael, but Hartman and/or the writers seemed to have ignored her as the series went on.
  6. Even though the show has good morals, they are often not well carried out because they'd just rather tell the morals instead of showing them. Likewise, it has had some pretty bad and misleading morals:
    • The moral of the infamous "It's a Wishful Life" states that you shouldn't do things for people to be appreciated, but because it's the right thing to do. This is incredibly wrong because being appreciated means people are grateful for the good that you do, being appreciated makes you know that you did something good and you should feel proud of yourself for doing something good, how can you tell if you did something right or good if you aren't appreciated for it?
    • The moral in "Vicky Gets Fired" is an incredibly dangerous and misleading moral that states that if you are being bullied and tortured up to the point of attempted murder, you should keep quiet and not tell anyone, especially authority figures.
  7. It gets pretty mean-spirited, annoying, dumb, overused, and immature at times.
    • The humor, in particular, is repetitive in practically every episode despite having some great one-liners and fourth-wall breaks.
      • It also can sometimes be offensively stereotypical, as it tends to make stereotypical jokes at British people (the antagonist character, Anti-Cosmo, being one example since he speaks in an English accent and wears a monocle) and portrays smart people as insufferable and insensitive.
  8. The show hasn't gone in high-definition widescreen 'til the last two seasons (except for Wishology).

Reception

The Fairly OddParents received generally positive reviews in its first five seasons. Seasons 5b-8 gathered a positive to mixed reception. Praise went to the creative writing/ideas, likable and well-written characters, great animation, and Guy Moon's score.

Trivia

  • Timmy's voice actress was originally by the late Mary Kay Bergman in 1999 and replaced by Tara Strong during the production of the series. Laraine Newman, Jill Talley, Vicki Lewis, Gail Matthius, Diane Michelle, Jennifer Hale, and Candi Milo originally auditioned to voice for Wanda, later replaced by Susanne Blakeslee in 1997. Carolyn Lawrence originally voiced for Vicky, later replaced by Grey DeLisle, similar to Timmy originally auditioned for voice actresses such as E.G. Daily, Pamela Segall-Adlon, Vanessa Marshall, Maria Bamford, Kath Soucie would later be uncredited as an 18-year-old version of Timmy in Channel Chasers, Sandy Fox, Lara Jill Miller, and Mary Birdsong. then in international distribution by Nelvana in 2002-2006.

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