History YMMV / Dannyphantom

* MemeticLoser: [[HarmlessVillain The Box Ghost]] is an InUniverse example. Danny often pokes fun at how completely useless he is and often doesn't even bother capturing him.

** To a greater extent, Jazz. She started out a basic older sister: self-centered, judgmental and barely got along with her brother. When she learned Danny was half-ghost and he eventually discovered she had already known his secret, her character developed. She showed greater affection for her brother, accepted her parents' obsession with ghosts (to a degree) and showed genuine skill in ghost hunting.

* TheWoobie: Danielle "Dani" Phantom. Ignore whether or not you think she's [[TheScrappy a bad character]] or [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter a wasted one]]. What we see is a spunky young girl who kicks butt, then think about what ''really'' happened with her. She's a little girl who was emotionally manipulated by her father to do bad things only to find out he never loved her. Then there's her second episode where she's betrayed by a person she helped and had the one person who cares about her captured. Then she's ''tortured'' to death by her father, who she very likely still cares about since she gave him the benefit of a doubt and asked if he found a way to fix her. Plus all that time between the two episodes she was effectively dying a slow, horrible death while living on the streets.

* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: While the ghost villains are no doubt evil, they're so entertaining to watch and often have such sympathetic backstories that it's hard to truly hate them. The majority of human characters, however, such as The Guys In White, are hated for either having little to no such entertaining or sympathic traits or interesting backstories, and only existing to be one-note antagonists.

* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: While the ghost villains are no doubt evil, they're so entertaining to watch and often have such sympathetic backstories that it's hard to truly hate them. The majority of human characters, however, such as Dash, Paulina, Mr. Lancer and The Guys In White are hated for either having little to no such entertaining or sympathic traits or interesting backstories, and only existing to be one-note antagonists.

** The montage in [[Recap/DannyPhantomS2E1MemoryBlank Memory Blank]] where Danny regains his memories and we see that he uses his powers to [[ThePeepingTom spy on girls in the girls locker room]]. [[EscalatingPunchline With it being shown twice in the same montage]]. In the early to mid 2000s, it was just a joke about Danny being a typical HormoneAddledTeenager [[PowerPerversityPotential using his powers in a way any teenaged boy would.]] By the 2020s, such jokes are facing far more scrutiny due greater awareness of how damaging sexual harassment actually is, and it would ''never'' fly in a cartoon these days, [[ParentalBonus even as a joke only adults would catch]], and Danny would face much more significant character scrutiny for it by the fan base.

* ValuesDissonance: Cross-country example in "Fenton Menace", where Danny taunts Jazz by chanting "Jazz is a spaz". In it's home country, the USA, this is nothing more then a childish insult. However, in the UK, "spaz" is considered a highly offensive slur against people with disabilities.

** Despite the mixed reception of Season 3, ''Danny Phantom'' is considered the tough act that series creator Butch Hartman has tried to follow. The revived ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', ''WesternAnimation/TUFFPuppy'', and ''WesternAnimation/BunsenIsABeast'' are usually compared negatively to ''Danny Phantom''.

** Danno/the Dannypocalypse[[labelnote:explanation]]Every year on April 3rd (the anniversary of the series' premiere), the Phandom on Tumblr will, without fail, post dozens upon dozens of edits using [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/4d999e7e7adf324d3a79cc4c56d57c17/tumblr_inline_onlky9VoW51t64se6_500.png this]] version of Danny's face (often referred to as "Danno"). The Phandom (and the rest of Tumblr) has come to anticipate it with equal parts dread and amusement.[[/labelnote]]

* DesignatedLoveInterest: Before the episode “Girls Night Out” there’s nothing to suggest that Ember [=McLain=] and Skulker know each other. Suddenly, they are “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” because Kitty needs a power boost to get rid of all the men in Amity.
** Ember [=McLain=] will fall in love with Danny, who will never love her back, why??
** No reason is ever given for how and why Ember fell for either ghost hunter.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The show likes to dabble in this a lot. It not only breaks the NeverSayDie rule, but many of the show's antagonists actively attempt to kill major characters, sometimes in the most disturbing ways possible, and in one episode it actually happens. The fully humans characters [[VanHelsingHateCrimes won’t hesitate to experiment on and destroy all ghosts without trial]], ghosts are fully sentient beings and are NotAlwaysEvil. There are copious amounts of BodyHorror, and the motivation of the BigBad is based around an unhealthy, stalker-like obsession with a married woman.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The show likes to dabble in this a lot. It not only breaks the NeverSayDie rule, but many of the show's antagonists actively attempt to kill major characters, sometimes in the most disturbing ways possible, and in one episode it actually happens. The fully humans characters [[VanHelsingHateCrimes won’t hesitate to experiment on and destroy all ghosts without trial]]. There are copious amounts of BodyHorror, and the motivation of the BigBad is based around an unhealthy, stalker-like obsession with a married woman.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The show likes to dabble in this a lot. It not only breaks the NeverSayDie rule, but many of the show's antagonists actively attempt to kill major characters, sometimes in the most disturbing ways possible, and in one episode it actually happens. There are copious amounts of BodyHorror, and the motivation of the BigBad is based around an unhealthy, stalker-like obsession with a married woman.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: It IS perfectly within human jurisdiction to experiment on and destroy ghosts, fully sentient beings. Danny never openly acknowledges that [[NotAlwaysEvil not all ghosts are evil]], and never tries to talk his parents out of their hatred. Jack and Maddie Fenton [[BigotryException make an exception for their flesh and blood son]] but [[VanHelsingHateCrimes would 100% hunt, experiment on and destroy any and every other ghost, no hesitation or questions asked first]]. Valerie Gray only makes an exception for Danielle because the girl is [[HalfHumanHybrid a human]]. Yet, the Guys in White are treated as villains when they aren’t any more ruthless than the Fentons and Valerie Gray.

* VanHelsingHateCrimes: No human character would hesitate to destroy a ghost merely for existing. Jack and Maddie Fenton, Valerie Gray, and the Guys in White [[AlwaysChaoticEvil believe that all ghosts are pure evil and need to be vanquished]] and will not entertain the notion that [[NotAlwaysEvil they are wrong in this belief]]. Valerie Grey wants to destroy all ghosts, [[WouldHurtAChild even children]]. The Guys in White want to destroy the Ghost Zone not knowing that doing so will destroy Earth too. The Fentons want to painfully experiment on ghosts before ripping them apart molecule by molecule.

* CreatorsPet: Butch Hartman likes to pretend that Sam Manson is a saint.
** Sam Manson of Danny Phantom is Danny’s best friend and supposed true love and is favored by the creator, Butch Hartman. However, she’s a Hypocrite and worse than Danny’s other love interest, Valerie. Throughout the show, Sam had a tendency to impose her will on other characters, from forcing the entire school to join her vegetarian lifestyle, to blackmailing her friends into releasing zoo animals, to scolding Danny for purposely getting rid of his powers without considering the stress and trouble he had been going through because of them (especially since she was the one who convinced him to do the deed that resulted in the Freak Lab Accident that gave him his powers to begin with).
** Danny Fenton/Phantom and Sam Manson were obviously planned to be the Official Couple from the beginning, with almost everyone remarking on it, if not being an outright Shipper on Deck, and innumerable moments of denying any interest. The problem is that the writers were so busy making the couple inevitable they never bothered to actually show why they should be together. There was nothing more romantic to their relationship other than them being friends of opposite gender, and the whole thing came off more a combination of awkward teenage hormones and defensiveness in the face of relentless teasing. Adding to that is that Sam is the most divisive character in the series, many episodes unintentionally depicting her as a selfish hypocrite who demands conformity to her views despite voicing free will and the implication that she's more in love with Phantom then Fenton.
** Mystery Meat has her changing the school menu for herself (not for her fellow students and without their consent). This angers the ghost of the Lunch Lady, who attacks them. Even after she is kidnapped and Danny passes out from his first fight with the Lunch Lady, she doesn't admit changing the menu was a bad idea and still chooses to keep it changed.
** She says she opposes violence yet is fine with hitting her friends, namely Tucker, even when it isn't needed.
** She scolds Danny for using his ghost powers against powerless school bullies yet she tries to get Danny to use his ghost powers to cause millions of dollars in property damage to a dealership because they were selling eco-unfriendly trucks.
** Sam is the reason Danny got mind controlled by Freakshow as she was the one who wanted and made him skip school, she never apologizes for this.
** When Danny gets rid of his powers, Sam calls him selfish, but he wanted to be normal again in order to protect his family from the ghost hunters searching for him, and in keeping with the perception that he was no longer needed as Amity's protector (plus he wouldn’t be able to do much with his ghost powers with them around anyways). Not to mention Sam seems only to care for Danny Phantom, not Danny Fenton.
** Not to mention in the pilot episode, Danny expresses the desire to be fully human again early on (“If my dad can invent something that accidentally made me half-ghost, why can’t he invent something that turns me back to normal!?!”), Sam tells Danny that his powers are what makes him special.
** Sam Manson always brought up how she's looked down on for being an individual and wanting to make a statement, yet continuously proves herself to be a vindictive individual who demands conformity for her views, such as the first episode where she changed the entire menu for her sake and not anyone else's, or when she entered a beauty pageant to declare how stupid they are in spite of how the other members genuinely wanted to win and weren't being mean to her.
** Her relationship with Danny is meant to be a cute Will They or Won't They? scenario, but her relationship instead comes off more as possessive, since she's known to act hostile to any girl who shows an interest in Danny and defies I Want My Beloved to Be Happy when Danny and Valerie were getting close, since she didn't comfort Danny when his heart was broken: Sam spies on Danny and Valerie, and when they break up, she doesn’t comfort Danny when he’s obviously heartbroken. Then there is her most infamous moment, from “Double Cross My Heart”. Sam is extremely angry at Danny for spying on her during her date with Gregor, threatening to end their friendship, despite the fact that she did the same thing to Danny during his time with Valerie. Unlike Sam, Danny had legitimate reasons since they knew nothing about Sam’s new crush and had reasons to be suspicious of this conspicuous, foreign transfer student dressed in white and black who just happened to start at Casper High the same time the Guys in White become much more active in town. Furthermore, the exact same thing had happened before (Johnny 13 had taken an interest in Jazz, and her life was in danger as a result). Not to mention Sam is never called out for her own actions. Instead, it’s Danny who apologizes while Sam laments that lying is the only way she can get a boyfriend.

* DesignatedLoveInterest: Butch Hartman is single-mindedly obsessed with Danny and Sam ending up together, perpetuating the lie that friends of opposite gender have to end up together. There was nothing more romantic to their relationship other than them being friends of opposite gender, and the whole thing came off more a combination of awkward teenage hormones and defensiveness in the face of relentless teasing.
** Ember [=McLain=] is turned into Skulker’s girlfriend so she can be Kitty’s plot device for one episode. Butch Hartman claims that [[HopelessSuitor Ember is in love with Danny]]. Danny has never been kind to Ember or helped her out in anyway. Ember has no reason to be in love with either Danny or Skulker. Especially NOT Skulker!!!

* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Despite the [[VanHelsingHateCrimes flaws of the heroes]] because ghosts are always portrayed as AlwaysChaoticEvil, we aren’t meant to question the morality of our “protagonists” and antagonistic (but NOT pure evil) bad guys are never redeemed.

** Don't even get started on [[spoiler:[[EvilIsSexy Dark Danny]]]]. He only appeared once, but what an impression.