Danny Phantom

She complained about everyone pushing their agendas when she's the most guilty of doing that.

She was against Danny abusing his powers unless it was, say to ruin some unecological car sale or something. She was also quick to use his popularity for her frog cause in Pointdexter episode.

She was mad at Danny for spying on her date with Gregor, but she spied on him when he dated Valeria.

She pushes for being rebel and individual but she forcibly changed the menu for the entire cafeteria.

This

And this

Too add on to that she also gets mad at Danny in Phantom Planet for getting rid of his powers despite that he had next to no reason to keep his powers at that time. He, his family, and his friends were much safer with him not having powers in the long run at that point. Even if she didn't agree with his decision as his best friend and love interest she should of still atleast supported his decision instead of jumping into calling him selfish.

She honestly comes across as a horrible friend more than half of the time, let alone love interest and yeah her Be a rebel and individual preaching doesn't work if she's trying to force everyone else to be like her. I think part of her issue is since she was was being teased as Danny's love interest at the start Butch just never got around to giving us a clear cut reason why Danny would even like Sam more than a friend in the first place.

edited 24th Oct '17 10:52:24 AM by Wispy

I think the hypocrisy and jealousy there was sort of a gag that was used a lot in cartoons at the time. I don't know if if it was just Butch and other people having a similar sense of humor about it, or nickelodeon checking off a list for what their charts say audiences want or what, but I remember similar kind of stuff happening in other shows.

edited 24th Oct '17 10:57:58 AM by xanderiskander

The issue with the show in general is that Hartman's brand of humor and jokes didn't really mesh well with attempting to have meaningful characterization or serious moments. Especially in the third season, character development would get sacrificed for the sake of jokes. The only exceptions to this would be Jazz and Valerie.

That's also probably why ''Reality Trip" infuriated me to no end when it aired. You have a great opportunity to change the dynamic with Danny and his parents, let alone the rest of the world, and he just undoes it all because "LOL STATUS QUO". I didn't even care if the rest of the world knew about Danny or not, but seeing his parents revert to clueless comedic relief yet again was really disappointing.

If Sam being a jerk was meant to be a gag, the show would've made it into a gag.

Sam is one of those characters where we're supposed to think she's right (it's kind of the opposite of The Complainer Is Always Wrong, where there's a character who is always designated as "right" regardless of how contradictory or unreasonable what they're saying actually is), a character type that's beloved by network television but which is on the whole becoming more passe today, yet which was everywhere in the 90's and 2000's.

The problem was they didn't really put a lot of effort into making her actually right, so she just comes off as an asshole overall. It's really noticeable because the show does the same thing with Jazz, but actually makes her a likeable character who has a point and a reason for everything she tries to get Danny to do and is willing to change when she's wrong - so despite getting a lot of the same stories, Sam comes off a much worse character.

edited 24th Oct '17 11:30:00 AM by KnownUnknown

I noticed that throughout the show, that Dash, the Box Ghost, Paulina, and a few other lame villains were the only characters I couldn’t stand.

Despite their faults, at least Tucker & Sam have personalities and they make the show interesting to watch sometimes.

Vlad, Ember, & Dark Danny were the best villains of the show hands down.

I agree, but I want to give a special mention to Spectra. She was awesome and was in one of the best episodes of the series.

edited 24th Oct '17 5:35:16 PM by deuteragonist

Personally I thought the Box Ghost was hilarious. But for the popular kids, yeah. Butch Hartman has always had a problem with portraying bullies as complete one-dimensional stereotypes.

edited 24th Oct '17 5:36:25 PM by IniuriaTalis

Freakshow was always my favorite Danny bad guy.

Same, he was a very interesting conceptual villain. A shame he was underutilized

All these and add Technus and Walker.

As someone who's seen this complaint a lot, particularly from the Nostalgia Critic, how exactly would bullies be written in a way that isn't one-dimensional?

Webcomic Paranatural has my favorite bully. Dude's nice to his friends, he has rules (at one point he extorted dollar from protagonist but gave him change) and is bloody hilarious. Heck, Johnny Jhonny might be my favorite character.

Write them as fleshed out people whose flaws lead them to pick on the protagonist. Or at the very least, write them while having a personality or hobbies and interests that don't just revolve bullying said protagonist.

Flash Thompson from Spider-Man is one of the best examples of this. He also tends to be fleshed out in most adaptations.

edited 25th Oct '17 1:00:52 AM by GamerSlyRatchet

X8 With the Box Ghost, I can't say I "hate" him per-se (bad wording on my part), but It's his incompetence as a villain that made me dislike him. For the comic relief, he is a good character regarding that. So I agree with you on him being funny.

When was the Box Ghost ever meant to be anything other than comic relief?

He had the one episode where he was the main villain. I think he was intended to be a funny, but serious, villain there. It didn't really work, mostly because all he did was steal a box and open it a bunch of times. Oh, and give people moderately unhealthy sandwiches and slightly uncomfortable shoes. Season three got really stupid sometimes.

Oh, and the bad future version, of course.

edited 25th Oct '17 7:10:12 AM by Zendervai

It also helps that the Box Ghost & the Lunch Lady ghost had a child together.

I feel like there's a difference between "hey, everyone should wear these stupid clothes that'll be out of style next month" vs. "people should generally treat animals better/not trash the environment". Whether you think she/the show went about it in a bad way is one thing, but I at least that a distinction between those things should actually be made.

The Beauty Pageant episode was pretty forced, though.

I don't actually remember that much, but I remember her being less mad, and more disappointed. How was his family safer for it? As far as I recall safety had nothing to do with it.

I don't actually recall her trying to force everyone to be like her. The one time they did do that it was explicitly a ploy and the point was, "everyone has a thing for them, and that's okay."

All of this being said, yeah, in depth characterization wasn't really this show's strong point, though maybe that bothers me less with the kind of show this is than other people. It's been awhile since I've watched any episodes.

edited 25th Oct '17 12:08:21 PM by LSBK

The first episode of the show has her changing the school menu to vegetarian only. Diversifying food options is one thing, but Sam outright eliminated any other option besides the one she liked best. And according to Dash, they were literally serving the students mud.

And as others mentioned, there were episodes where she'd try to make Danny use his powers for her own personal causes.

edited 25th Oct '17 11:37:54 PM by windleopard

I very much recall in one of the episodes (I think it was the episode that introduced Desiree) that Sam told Danny to use his powers to destroy eco-unfriendly trucks which he obviously refused.

There was also the very first Freakshow episode were she pushed Danny and Tucker to skip classes if I recall correctly, which nearly got her killed and got Danny possessed.

The very first episode didn't really give a good impression on Sam and I honestly think she didn't really get that much better after that.

edited 26th Oct '17 12:53:20 AM by Wispy

In my opinion, while I don't have a problem with Sam, there were only two times I couldn't stand her.

First, while I understand why she's a vegetarian, I hated how she changed the school menu. Wouldn't it have been better for her to just simply add vegetarian-related foods along with the meat for optional choices? It would have been a win-win for her (and the other students who were vegans) and the other students.

The second example was how she preached about how Danny shouldn't use his powers to get back at Dash for the latter always bullying him. Yeah revenge obviously wasn't the answer, but Dash comes off as so unsympathetic and grating that Danny's actions towards him comes off as Kick The Son Of A Bitch. The latter example only made Sam come off as even worse to the fans.

I do, however, believe that there is an understandable Freudian Excuse for her actions. In episode 20, Sam's own parents can be pushy to Sam herself regarding their beliefs on how they want their daughter to be. As a result, Sam acts that way herself to others to not only forcibly get her views across, but to vent out her own personal frustrations.

edited 26th Oct '17 6:40:37 AM by MsCC93

I think the vegan menu thing might be chalked up to early installment weirdness. The writing makes it seem like much of the time the ghost is written and then they write the plot around the ghost. It's really obvious with the first episode. If that's the case, then having Sam be way more extreme than normal is pretty standard, because how else would you get a menu change that huge?

Other than that episode though, Sam doesn't really bother trying to push her vegan diet on anyone. She references it a couple times, but she never really puts anyone down or goes after anyone for it. The only other episode where it really comes up as a major thing is the Undergrowth episode, where it doesn't really make sense, but even there, she doesn't push it, her greenhouse is just a thing she has.

edited 26th Oct '17 6:45:36 AM by Zendervai

See, with better writing, that could've been an interesting angle to take with the character and some development could've come out of that.