- "The Episode You Won't Forget!"
Produced 2004, aired in U.S. on 6/24/05
Production order: 21 (2-1)
Danny and Sam get into an argument, ending with her saying she wished she never met him, with Desiree perfectly placed to overhear and grant the wish. Since Sam was the one who prompted Danny to check out the ghost portal that made him half-ghost, not only does he not remember her, but he doesn't have his powers anymore, just as Desiree's planning her biggest attack ever the night of a meteor shower.
This episode provides examples of:
- As You Know: Even though she had been sick during the events of "What You Want", Sam was able to recognize Desiree, indicating that Danny and Tucker had filled in her on what she had missed.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The trucks in the beginning got 12 gallons to the mile — most gas tanks only carry 15-16 gallons.
- Bait the Dog: Played With. Paulina in this episode invites Danny, Sam, and Tucker to her 15th birthday party because she always sees the ghost boy around them. Paulina is upfront with the fact that she's only inviting Danny and his friends because she wants the ghost boy to be there, and she still sees them as losers and doesn't even bother to try and hide the fact from them. While her motives are selfish, she says it in a way that is at least honest and doesn't seem like she'd mind their presence. Danny seems more than happy to attend her party and fulfill her request. However, later, when Danny (as Phantom) saves Paulina from one of the ghosts that are after her, she tries to use this chance to invite him to her party and specifically states that this means she can also un-invite human Danny and his friends, much to the ghost boy's shock. While not outright stated, it's implied that this is the point where Danny starts to lose interest in Paulina because of that and for acting so self-centered and callous by playing with his feelings in his human form. In the end, Danny chooses not to go to her birthday party after all.
- Be Careful What You Say: Because a villainous genie just might be listening.Sam: Danny, I swear, there are days I wish I had never even met you!
- Borrowed Catch Phrase: Danny borrows Desiree's in the last scene.Sam: Sorry about that stupid fight. Can we forget it ever happened?
Danny: So you have wished it, so shall it be. - Broad Strokes: The flashbacks in this episode reveal that Sam and Tucker were present during the accident that gave Danny his powers. They're nowhere to be seen during the incident in the show's opening.
- Call-Back:
- During his argument with Sam, Danny brings up a lot of her moments that inadvertently got him into trouble, be it changing the school's lunch menu ("Mystery Meat"), letting out a gorilla ("One of a Kind"), or selling his father's stuff at a garage sale ("Attack of the Killer Garage Sale").
- One of Sam's pictures in the scrapbook is the one of Danny and Tucker sleeping next to each other in "One of a Kind".
- Cassandra Truth: Danny, unsurprisingly, does not initially believe Sam's claim that there was a previous timeline where they were best friends and he had ghost superpowers. But she manages to convince him by showing him some photos of him, her and Tucker in the Fenton Lab and also displaying some epic ghost ass-kicking skills.
- Chest Insignia: Sam gives Danny his in this episode.
- Continuity Nod: When Danny first (re)gains his powers, he has a hard time controlling his invisibility and intangibility like he did the first time he gained them.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Sam has this during Desiree’s Curb-Stomp Battle against Danny.Sam: Oh, this is all my fault. I wish I had never fought with Danny!...And she's granting every single wish she hears. I WISH DANNY AND I NEVER HAD THAT FIGHT!
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Sam has this when she sees a photo in Danny's locker that's identical to one in her diary, but she's been erased from it, which makes her realize Desiree overheard her and Danny's fight and granted her wish.Sam: Oh no. Last night, I wished Danny had never met me, and Desiree must've made it so we never met! Which means he never got his powers!
- Expy: Sam wants to see a crossover monster movie starring three woman versions of the Terminator, Predator, and Freddy Krueger.
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Danny and Sam do this again when Jack catches them in the basement.
- Fangirl: Sam qualifies as one for Danny Phantom when you see the doodles she's made in her notebook. She even wishes for one of them to be his Chest Insignia for no reason other than she likes the way it looks on him.
- Feud Episode: For Danny and Sam.
- Fog Feet: Lampshaded when the amnesiac Danny, upon transforming, notices he has a ghostly tail, causing him to yell "Where'd my legs go?!". After he manages to change his legs back, his arms end up becoming wispy tails.
- Have We Met?: Danny's first reaction when he met Sam after she said her wish.
- Heel Realization: Danny is immediately regretful of his argument with Sam, knowing that she's one of the only two real friends he has (something he likely gets clued into once Paulina admits that she'd be willing to revoke his invitation to her party if she could just ask Danny Phantom herself). Unfortunately, just after Danny tries calling Sam's name, Desiree appears and grants her wish.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Danny tries fighting Desiree upon regaining his powers, but without his memories, relearning on the fly proves difficult. Sam tells Danny that he should try blasting a ghost ray from his hand. Danny tries, but it comes out of his rear end instead. Danny is suitably perturbed by this.
- Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: The episode both depicts the accident that gave Danny his powers and grants him his iconic Chest Insignia via Time Travel shenanigans.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: Sam inadvertently wishes that she and Danny never met, which Desiree grants, resulting in Danny losing his ghost powers since Sam was the one who convinced him to explore the Ghost Portal.
- Jackass Genie: Sam realizes she'll be stuck going to Paulina's party "unless something should happen to Paulina, and then the party got canceled. Not that I'd wish that." Desiree grants it anyway because she still said the words "I wish."
- Laser-Guided Karma: By trying to invite Danny's ghost half to her birthday in order to un-invite human Danny and his friends, Paulina shows Danny just how selfish and callous she really is, and as a result, he realizes he took his own friends for granted and chooses not to go to her birthday party in the end as either form. It's also implied that this is the moment where Danny begins to lose interest in her, meaning that she pretty much ruined any chances she may have had with "her ghost boy" because of her actions.
- Mangled Catchphrase: Danny, upon trying to fight as a ghost for the first time post-wish.Danny: I'm... going... to become... ghostly!
Sam: It's "Going Ghost!"
Danny: (dismissively) Nah. - Master of Delusion: Paulina has noticed that Danny is always around when the Ghost Boy appears.
- Mundane Utility: Danny uses his intangibility to quickly clean his and Tucker's clothes after being sprayed with milk.
- My God, You Are Serious!:Paulina: Danny! You never told me whether or not you were coming to my quinceañera on Friday.
Danny: That's because when you invited me, I thought you were joking. - Never My Fault: One of the things Danny accused Sam of was "We should sell all your Dad's stuff at a yard sale!", when that was actually his idea.note
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job telling Danny you wish you'd never met him, Sam!
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Desiree granting Sam's wish of getting Danny's memories back really led to her defeat.Desiree: I gotta stop granting every wish I hear.
- No-Sell: When Desiree rewrites reality so that Danny and Sam never met, only Sam remembers how things used to be because she was wearing the Specter Deflector at the time.
- Oh, Crap!: Danny, when realizing that with Desiree around to hear Sam's wish, it will come true.
- Opening Shout-Out: The episode is one to the show's Expository Theme Tune that explains Danny's origin as a superhero, with Danny's Freak Lab Accident having to be repeated in order to restore his powers.
- Origins Episode: Played with. This episode expands upon the events described in the opening sequence by showing most of it in a flashback at the beginning and adding Sam and Tucker to it. Then, the gang have to recreate the accident to give Danny back his powers after they're stripped away. This time, though, Sam adds a "DP" sticker to Danny's chest to give him an iconic chest emblem for the rest of the series.
- Papa Wolf: When one of the movie monsters comes to threaten Paulina, Mr. Lancer takes out a fire extinguisher, tells it to leave his students alone, and hits it. It ultimately does nothing, so he just tells the students to run.
- Power Perversion Potential: Danny's apparently used his powers to spy on the girls' locker room. Twice.
- Rescue Romance: Paulina fantasizes about the Ghost Boy saving her from a falling meteor. He does proceed to save her from several movie monsters brought to life.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
- The reason Sam's memory wasn't affected by Desiree's initial erasure of her and Danny's friendship was because she was wearing the Fenton Specter Deflector.
- Then, when Sam wishes Danny's memories back, she also wishes that she, Danny and Tucker retain the memories of everything that happened in the episode.
- Selective Memory: Danny lists three times Sam got him in trouble. While the first two were indeed her fault, the third (selling his dad's stuff at a garage sale) wasn't, by any stretch — that was entirely Danny's idea.
- Ship Tease:
- When (re)meeting Sam, having no memory of her as his or Danny's best friend, Tucker immediately applies some Anticipatory Breath Spray and flirts with her.
- Much of the episode is filled with this for Danny/Sam. Between their initial fight, Danny wanting to make things right before Desiree stops him, him thinking Sam is a Stalker with a Crush when she tries to get him to remember things, their Fake-Out Make-Out (complete with the ghost plasma from the Fenton Portal shaping itself into a heart behind them), and the final conversation that has them both blushing.
- Shout-Out: Like Wanda in The Fairly OddParents! episode "The Boy Who Would Be Queen", Desiree specifically grants something someone says they would not wish for because their statement includes the phrase "I wish".
- Stalker with a Crush: Danny assumes this is what the crazy girl following him around insisting they're best friends is.
- Stuffed into a Locker: At one point, Dash and Kwan are jamming a bunch of nerds into a locker. One of the nerds, Mikey, wishes he could give them A Taste of Their Own Medicine. Desiree grants the wish, turning Mikey into a ghostly monster big enough to shove them both into a locker. Fortunately, he turns back afterwards.Mikey: I rock!
- Super Hero Origin: We now see the actual accident where Danny got his powers.
- This Cannot Be!: Desiree, upon seeing Danny has regained his ghost powers after she granted Sam's wish.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Danny, once Desiree reveals that she's about to grant Sam's wish and make it so that they never met.
- We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future: Inverted. Sam still has a photograph of her with Danny and Tucker, identical to a photo of Danny's in every way except that she's not in it, and tries to use this to prove that she's telling the truth.Sam: This is a photo I have of the three of us, from 8th grade. This is the same one you have in your locker. Notice anything?
Danny: Yeah — you broke into my locker and doctored an old photo of me. (flattered) You must really like me. - What the Hell, Hero?: Despite being told about how a Jackass Genie is granting wishes and becoming more powerful through them (and right after Sam says not to make any wishes), Tucker nonchalantly makes a wish once he sees the falling stars. Not only that, but he specifically wishes for a "monster truck."Sam: Do you pay attention? To anything? At all? Ever?
- Wish Upon a Shooting Star: Desiree plans to grant the hundreds of wishes elicited by a meteor shower in the most gruesome way possible to become phenomenally powerful and cause chaos in Amity Park.
