Danny Phantom / Tropes A to G

Tropes Found in Danny Phantom
A to G | H to P | Q to Z

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• 10-Minute Retirement:
  • In "Mystery Meat", Jack briefly comes to the conclusion that ghosts don't exist and quits ghost hunting, only to change his mind a few seconds later when Danny passes by, convincing him that ghosts do exist after all.
  • It happens again in "The Million Dollar Ghost", when Jack feels humiliated by his failures as a ghost hunter and overhears Danny talking about it, to the point where he ignores Danny Phantom appearing in front of him. He later recovers his self-confidence when Maddie catches Danny and credits Jack for the catch.
  • Danny himself gives up on his powers in "Phantom Planet" when the Masters' Blasters make him feel obsolete and he comes to the conclusion that all his powers do is put his loved ones in danger. However, he soon returns to his superhero duties when the world is in danger and he recovers his powers.
• '50s Hair:
  • Sam's parents dress up like stereotypical conservative 50s parents, with the curls and bouffants and all, in reaction to their grandmother's Beatnik lifestyle.
  • Sidney Poindexter and his crew cut.

A

• Aborted Arc: The news that the series would only have three seasons caused a lot of planned story arcs to simply disappear without a trace. What deal did Vlad and the Fright Knight break? What role does Dani end up playing? What did Valerie do after she discovered Vlad's identity and the existence of halfas? Does Dark Danny escape and make a return appearance, as is hinted at in "The Ultimate Enemy"? We'll never know now.
  • To answer the last question, yes.
• Absurd Brand Name: A chain restaurant called "Nasty Burger"; its marketing slogan is apparently "Only one letter away from tasty!".
• Accidental Hug:
  • In "One of a Kind", Danny and Tucker fall asleep and end up snuggled together. They wake up that way, scream, and yank their arms back.
  • With Danny and Sam in Fanning the Flames. Unlike the first example, this was used for Ship Tease.
• Achievement Test of Destiny:
  • Despite the fact that the name suggests it's an Inept Aptitude Test, the Career Aptitude Test in The Ultimate Enemy is played up as being one of these, being the sole determinator of one's future, and it's a very grave omen if you get a low score.
  • Played with in Fanning The Flames with the Northwestern Nine. Students have to sit in Cramtastic machines to study for it because test scores are directly linked with Mr. Lancer's bonus, but with Ember in town no one can focus. Tucker gets strapped into one by Danny and Sam to undo Ember's brainwashing, but because they accidentally left him there for several hours he got a perfect score while everyone else, including Danny and Sam, had failed.
• Advertising by Association: When it got its first promo, the creators of Fairly Oddparents were mentioned.
• Affably Evil: Most of the villains have shades of this, but Vlad is the strongest example. He's a charming, cultured man who loves the Packers and regularly banters with Danny, but also a cruel, ruthless, and possessive sociopath who won't hesitate to ruin lives for the sake of his own desires.
• Affectionate Parody: Of Silver Age comics, with a teensy bit of Golden Age and Bronze Age thrown in for good measure, complete with the usage of 'POW!'s and 'WHAM!'s.
• All Animals Are Dogs: When Tucker is under the influence of the Pharaoh Duulaman's scepter, he orders a Sphynx to be made in his image, which later comes to life after being hit by the scepter. Once Tucker gets the Sphynx under his control, it immediately begins acting like a dog, complete with sitting on its hind legs and panting.
• All Men Are Perverts:
  • Surprisingly shown when Danny uses his ghost powers to sneak into the girl's locker room.
  • He also manages to weaponize it when he distracts the more powerful Ghost Tucker by taking their fight into the girl's locker room.
• Alpha Bitch: Paulina is the most popular girl in school, and she loves to rub it in people's faces. In her debut episode, she agreed to go on a date with Danny solely because she believed she was stealing him from Sam.
• Alter Kocker: The "ecto-American" vulture ghosts, who speak with Yiddish accents and exhibit the usual stereotypes (refusing to ask for help, telling long-winded stories, etc). They even wear fezes!
• Always Need What You Gave Up:
  • In Phantom Planet, when Danny gets rid of his powers to have a normal life, just before he needs them to save the world.
  • On a much darker note, in The Ultimate Enemy, Danny begging his archrival to "remove his humanity" backfired horribly.
• Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: The amulets that Dora and Aragon wear to turn them into dragons.
• An Aesop: Lampshaded. When Jazz freaks out about a ghost attack, Danny snarkily tells her that the plan is effectively to go try and beat up the bad guy, say a few clever quips, get beaten up yourself, run around for a while trying to fix things, finally beat the bad guy, and go home having learned a lesson about how the world works. Whoopie.
• Answer Cut: When Vlad asks Maddie to dump Jack and be with him, it cuts away to Maddie dragging Danny out of Vlad's mansion with an angry look on her face.
• Anti-Climax Cut: Identity Crisis:
  Tucker: Looks like we're gonna miss the movie.
  Sam: Unless we find some way to ignore all speed limits, red lights, and certain laws of physics.
  Closeup on Danny looking sly. Cut to: ...the kids in an RV going about 120 miles an hour, driven by Danny's dad.
  Tucker: Couldn't you've just flown us?
  Danny: The way my dad drives, this is faster.
• Anti-School Uniforms Plot: Vlad Masters, the newly elected mayor, makes this a rule at the local high school specifically to annoy Perky Goth Sam, since she's a close friend/sidekick to Vlad's Arch-Enemy, Danny.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • Parodied/played for laughs in The Fright Before Christmas. Maddie takes genuine issue over the scientific implausibility of the existence of Santa Claus. Jack, on the other hand, firmly believes he exists. Both of them, are the two "leading" experts and hunters of ghosts in the world, and are arguing this in front of children waiting to see a shopping mall Santa.
  • Danny has a moment of this when he can't believe that his body is generating extreme cold energy.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In Bitter Reunions, Danny (while overshadowing Jack) delivers one to Vlad to intimidate him into calling a temporary truce. It works.
  Danny: Listen to me, I swear I'll walk out of my Dad right now and expose us both, unless you agree to a truce.
  Vlad: You're bluffing.
  Danny: No, I'm not. My parents will accept me, no matter what! But if I expose you... well, what would my mom think of you?
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Mystery Meat:
  Mr. Lancer: Tucker Foley. Chronic tardiness, talking in class, repeated loitering by the girl's locker room.
  (Tucker gives a sly smile)
  • Later, after Jack and Maddie capture Jazz while she was trying to counsel a goth boy:
  Jazz: You've ambushed me, suffocated me with smoke, and worse, I was pulled away from Spike before he had his breakthrough!
  • Maternal Instincts:
  Vlad: Mark my words Maddie, nobody says no to Vlad Masters. You will rue the day that you spurred my affection...AND. I. WILL. NOT. GET. A. CAT!
  • In Boxed-Up Fury, the list of what's in Pandora's Box:
  Danny: Plagues, pestilence, boy bands ...wow, this is one evil box.
  • When the kids get in trouble in Kindred Spirits.
  Jack: You three are in a world of trouble! Skipping school, stealing and wrecking the Specter Speeder...
  Lancer: Calling me OLD MAN...
  • Vlad is particularly prone to this.
  "Taking my map, destroying my satellite, mocking my mental health..."
  also:
  "I've forgiven him for many things... causing the accident that ruined my life, stealing you, the backwash incident..."
  • Sam in Memory Blank after Danny calls her out on a few Season 1 incidents that were sparked by her meddling:
  "Anything else you wanna blame me for? World hunger? The Ice Age? Puberty?!"
• Art Evolution: The earlier episodes had a very crude, simplistic, and mucky art style in which the main characters were one step down from Noodle People. In later seasons, the main characters gain enough weight and muscle to no longer look like stick figures and the general quality of the animation goes way up; the colors also get more vibrant, shying away from the muted greens and blues that were persistently used in Season One.
• Artistic License – Biology: Failed cloning resulted in a female, younger version of Danny named Danielle, who would devolve into ectoplasm if she used her powers. She got better. In real life, cloning should produce a younger version, just a fair bit more so than the cartoon likely portrayed. The entire thing was an obvious reference/homage to the 90's Clone Saga from Spider-Man, which similarly botched cloning in many, many ways.
• Asleep for Days: Subverted.
  Danny: What happened?
  Tucker: You passed out. We took you home. You've been asleep for four days.
  Danny: Four days?!
  Tucker: (laughs) Nah, it's only been a couple hours.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The Fright Before Christmas has Danny spend Christmas Eve fighting the Ghost Writer.
• Attention Whore: Mayor Montez in Public Enemies.
• Audit Threat: Used by a fake government agent against students' parents in Doctor's Disorders and by the Guys in White against Mr. Lancer in Double-Cross My Heart.
• Author Appeal: Hartman incorporates space themes (he loves Star Wars) through Danny, who wants to be an astronaut.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The trucks Danny and Tucker were gawking over in "Memory Blank" looked cool, but when Sam's reading the features, one of them is that it gets "12 gallons per mile." At that rate, the gas tank would have to be refilled nearly every mile.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The Fenton family. Danny is often embarrassed by his family but he genuinely loves them and will always protect them just like they will do for him. The same goes for Jazz, who is very vocal about how much she dislikes her parents' occupation but will not hesitate to defend them against others.

B

• Back Blocking: In Public Enemies. When Danny is captured by Walker after he walks in to a fake town meeting, one of the many flying ghost guards fills the screen with their backs.
• Badass Family: Danny may be the one with superpowers, but Jazz, Maddie, and even Jack have proven capable of fighting ghosts.
  • Judging by the number of spear-wielders in the Australian Aboriginal family in "Fanning the Flames", they qualify in a more mundane way.
• Baddie Flattery: Vlad to Danny, in conjunction with a "Not So Different" Remark.
• Bad Future: The premise of "The Ultimate Enemy".
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Valerie works at Nasty Burger—as its mascot.
• Bait-and-Switch Sentiment: Danny and Sam pull it on each other in "Claw of the Wild."
  Danny: I couldn't imagine my life without you. [Beat] Or Tucker. [monster appears in the distance]] Stay here. Wake up Wulf.
  Sam: Be careful. I couldn't imagine my life without you either. [Beat] Or Tucker.
• Battle Cry:
  • "I'M GOING GHOST!"
  Vlad: You have a battle cry, hilarious.
  • "FOR BEARBERT!"
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn:
  • The Females in the Fenton Family: Maddie is the Beauty as she's visually appealing and serves as Vlad's entire reason for being a villain, Jazz is the Brains since she's a stellar student and the smartest in her family, and Aunt Alicia is the Brawn who isn't charmed with the good looks of her sister Maddie, but makes up for it with her toughness.
  • Danny's love interests: Paulina is the Beauty with almost every boy in school liking her, Sam is the Brains since she's always the most rational of Team Phantom, and Valerie is the Brawn since she's usually hunting ghosts whenever she's not in school.
• Beauty Is Bad:
  • Despite being villains, Desiree, Penelope Spectra, and fan favorite Ember McLain are all very easy on the eyes.
  • Anti-Hero Valerie Gray satisfies this as well (especially in her ghost hunting suit), and the same could be said for Star and Paulina who exhibit Popular Is Evil.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: "What You Want", "Memory Blank", both of which involve Desiree the wish-granting ghost.
• Bedsheet Ghost:
  • Danny tries to pull this off on Halloween, though he'd probably be better off going as himself, seeing as how he's an actual (sorta) ghost and, for the majority of the series, is feared by everyone who doesn't want to outright beat him down.
  • Alternate Timeline Jack Fenton ran into a problem with this when he started ghost fighting on Halloween.
• Beta Bitch: Star, who mostly hangs around with Paulina to maintain some popularity. Discussed by Sam and Tucker during her temporary departure from such status:
  Tucker: Which means I can finally focus on the satellite!
  Sam: Satellite? Her name is Star.
  Tucker: But she used to be Paulina's satellite.
  Sam: Ahh, the marginally attractive girl who always orbits around the popular girl.
• The Big Damn Kiss: An orbital one at that in the Grand Finale. You can already figure between who. (It's between Danny and Sam.)
• Big Eater: Tucker, Jack and Danielle can be seen eating large amounts of food.
• Big Fancy House:
  • Vlad's residence is a large, extravagant mansion.
  • The Fenton family's new home in "Livin' Large."
  • Subverted by Manson family's home; looks normal on the outside. It's still fancy, however.
• Big "NO!":
  • Tucker, upon finding out that the flour babies were baked into cookies by his mother.
  • And by Vlad in "Kindred Spirits" when his perfect clone melted.
  • And by Danny when the vat of Nasty Sauce all the important people in his life (and Lancer) are attached to... explodes.
  • Again by Danny in "D-Stabilized" when it seems Dani melts after Danny's attempt to save her seems to fail... it actually works.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Butch Hartman's trademark. His other show, The Fairly OddParents!, also uses this trope.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Season 1, Episode 6 "What You Want" gives us Sayonara Pussycat, an Expy of Hello Kitty. Sayounara/さようなら (with a long 'o' sound that is often ignored in English) is Japanese for 'goodbye'. Danny even shouts "Bye-bye kitty," as a One-Liner.
  • Nearly all of Wulf's lines, and one of Tucker and Danny's lines when trying to communicate with him, are in Esperanto.
• Bird-Poop Gag:
  • Danny gets pooped on by one of the ghost vultures in the cold open to "Bitter Reunions".
  • "Infinite Realms" ends with Vlad Plasmius frozen solid and presented to Amity Park as a statue of himself. Some pigeons then appear on him and are implied to start pooping on him.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: This exchange from "Frightmare."
  Danny:(After giving Nocturne a vicious attack) That'll teach you to steal peoples' dreams!
  Nocturne: 'Stealing' is such an ugly word. I prefer the term harvest for energy.
• Blatant Lies:
  • From "Public Enemies":
  Mayor Montez: Now, I know you kids are scared because ghosts are scary things, but I came to your school, not because this a great photo opportunity, [turns and smiles for photographers] but because you children are our future...Voters. [Laughs at his joke as more photos are taken of him]
  • From "Maternal Instincts":
  Vlad: What an amazing, unexpected, and totally unplanned surprise! Personalized gift baskets?
  • The Amity Park signs really love this. "A safe place to live!"
• The Blank: Amorpho, a shapeshifter whose default form is faceless.

• Blessed with Suck: Early in the series Danny has little control of his powers and has started sinking through floors and making his pants intangible so that they fall down. He also got banned pre-series from bearing anything breakable while on school grounds.
• Body Horror: In Identity Crisis, Danny starts out with two heads, one of which sprouts another head, whose tongue forms the neck for another head. Then, from the main torso sprout two extra feet, a bug eye, a mouth with a bug eye on its tongue, and three more heads, one of whose tongue is a forearm and hand, which sprouts a head on each finger. It just keeps going from there.
  • Happens every time Danny tries to split himself.
• Book Dumb: Danny and Tucker aren't that good in academics, but both prove to have an ingenuity that enables them to get the drop on the various ghost villains they encounter.
• Book on the Head: Used in the episode "Beauty Marked." A Beauty Contest is organized in Casper High to elect a local princess, and Sam competes just to protest on principle. During the walking- with- a- book exercise, she reads hers instead of having it on her head- and soon provoke a general stumbling.
• Book Ends: In the first episode, Danny and Sam are vehemently denying that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. In the Grand Finale, their Relationship Upgrade is complete.
• A Boy and His X: Sam parodies this, on two occasions.
  • "A boy and his dog. Somehow, it's not supposed to be this weird." The dog in question was a ghost dog that alternates between being small and cute, and being large and vicious.
  • Used again in "Infinite Realms": "Awww, a boy and his snow monster."
• Brainwashed: Both Ember and Freakshow use this against Danny.
• Bragging Theme Tune: He could walk through walls, disappear and fly! He was much more unique than the other guys!
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: In "Phantom Planet":
  Technus: Nothing like a lazy day of shopping, lattes, and terrorizing the minimum-wage workers!
• Breather Episode: After the heavy-handed "Reign Storm" dealt with character developments and important story arcs, the next episode aired was the lighthearted (possibly the most lighthearted DP episode), "Identity Crisis." There was also "The Ultimate Enemy" which was just gruesome, but the episode that aired after was a light and fluffy Christmas Episode.
• Broken Aesop: Vlad is treated as in the wrong for thinking of his imperfect clones of Danny as cannon fodder. However, Vlad is the only one to feel sad when the unfinished perfect clone is killed.
• Brought Down to Normal: Danny involuntarily lost his powers thanks to wish granting ghost Desiree in "Memory Blank." He also loses them in "Phantom Planet," but since that was done voluntarily, it's Always Need What You Gave Up.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Danny gets a stylized DP chest symbol on his costume. An episode exists to explain where it comes from, using a Cosmic Retcon so that everyone but Sam and Danny believes that it's always been there.
• Bully Hunter: Poindexter, the ghost of a bullied nerdy teen who lived in the 50's, who unfortunately combines this with Horrible Judge of Character, who targeted Danny when he thought he was bullying Jerk Jock Dash Baxter.
• Bumbling Dad: Jack Fenton may be a brilliant inventor and very skilled in combat when things get serious, but otherwise he's an idiot.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Jack and Maddie both come off as delusional goofballs because of their obsession with ghosts (the former especially), but it speaks a lot about their competence when you consider that their ghost-hunting gadgets do exactly what they're supposed to do in spite of never actually seeing any ghosts or proof of ghosts' existence themselves prior to the start of the series.
• Burn the Witch!: The gang wind up in colonial era Salem, Massachusetts in "Infinite Realms", where Sam is mistaken for a witch for her Gothic appearance and is nearly burned at the stake.
• Butt Cannon: An episode where ghost erased Danny's memories, how to use his powers included, had him attempt to use his ghost ray by firing it from his hands. Instead, however, he somehow accidentally channels it through his rear. Naturally, Danny lampshades the ridiculousness of it.
  Danny: That can't be right, but it'll have to do!
• Butterfly of Doom: The Ultimate Enemy has a Bad Future where Danny becomes an evil, bloodthirsty maniac all because he cheated in his aptitude test.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Tucker. He's dumped on quite a lot and has saved Danny more than once and yet, he only gets thanked once and it's a "thanks for being my friend" that Danny throws out to Sam as well. Although it's heartfelt, the execution of how that came about feels rather tacked on and awkward. Later seasons have him either virtually ignored or usually getting victimized.
  • It becomes part of the plot in "What You Want" when Tucker, after routinely getting pummeled every time Danny ditches him to save the world, wishes for ghost powers.
  • It also becomes part of the plot in "King Tuck" when Tucker awakens a ghost named Hotep-Ra and sends Casper High back to Ancient Egypt.
  • "I AM THE BOX GHOST!"
  Danny (checking which ghosts he's caught): Ember: Ghost Zone. Skulker: Ghost Zone. Box Ghost:
  Danny, Tucker, and Sam: Who cares?
  Box Ghost (popping his head out of the Ghost Zone): Hey! I have feelings too you know!

C

• Call-Back: In "Maternal Instincts", Jack Fenton uses an action figure of himself to fight an action figure of a ghost, saying that nobody makes a meat puppet out of him, referring to "Bitter Reunions", in which Vlad Plasimus tried possessing Jack's body so that he could make a fool out of him.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Jazz in Reality Trip.
  Jazz (imitating Jack): I know! Let's catch the ghost and rip it apart mmmolecule by mmmolecule! You guys are so understanding.
• Calling Your Attacks: Occasionally employed. Usually with Fenton gear.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Danny and Sam for quite some time. As the series progresses, they tend to hesitate, blush, and stammer whenever anyone asks about their relationship or assumes that they're together, rather than angrily declaring "He/She is not my boy/girlfriend!"
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Remember, kids, cheating on a highly important test will cause you to turn evil and destroy the future.
• Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': He can get into unexpected trouble, but has a hard time intentionally finding it.
• Card-Carrying Villain: A number of villains refer to themselves as such (most notably Technus).
• Caretaker Reversal: In the beginning of the episode What You Want, Sam is sick and Danny and Tucker try to take care of her. Guess which two characters get sick at the end?
• Carnival of Killers: Circus Gothica is full of these, except they all turn good at the end of the first Freak Show episode.
• Cassandra Truth: The fact that Danny can unwittingly trigger some of the Fentons' various ghost-detecting gadgets while in human form is a somewhat subtle variation on this. Their disbelief is Lampshaded by the Fenton Finder tracking device at the end of the first episode: "Ghost directly ahead. You would have to be some sort of moron to not notice the ghost directly ahead."
• Casting Gag: In "Forever Phantom," following his Power Incontinence, Amorpho chooses to morph for the rest of the episode into Mr. Lancer, who himself is voiced by Ron Perlman, whose voice acting Star-Making Role debut was in Batman: The Animated Series as Clayface, who like Amorpho is a Shapeshifting antagonist.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Danny: "I'm going ghost!", "You don't know the half of it."
  • Klemper: "Will you be my friend?"
  • Tucker: "Ya got that right!"
  • Technus: "I, Technus (insert outdated slang here)."
  • Box Ghost: "I AM THE BOX GHOST!", "BEWARE!"
  • Mr. Lancer has a habit of using classic literature titles in place of exclamations. "Paradise Lost!"
  • Vlad has a habit of using food swears. "Oh, fudge buckets!"
  • Desiree: "Your heart's desire is my command.", "So you have wished it, so shall it be."
  • Walker: "That would be against the rules."
  • The Lunch Lady has a pattern of gently offering food to her opponents, and then, regardless of the answer, viciously shouting at them, often ending it with "DOOOOOOOOOOM!!".
  • Various characters: "For the record, I blame you." "Survey says..."
• Character Development: Everyone of the main characters get some form of character development.
• Celestial Body: Nocturne, the ghost of sleep, has his entire body except his eyes and face-mask as stars in space.
• Censor Steam: In "An Eye for an Eye." Poor, poor Danny...
• Changed My Jumper: Subverted in the episode Masters Of All Time where Danny's time travel to the 1980's reveals that his black jumpsuit is actually fitting for that time period.
  Danny: Oh, great, I blend in.
• Chef of Iron: The Lunch Lady Ghost, including her meat monster form.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The Boooomerang, first used in "The Ultimate Enemy" to find Danny, gets used again in "Kindred Spirits." Bonus points for being an actual boomerang.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Many of the Fenton Gadgets.
  • The Tucker-bot from "Livin' Large" is used in Phantom Planet, disguised as Danny to fool Jack while the real Danny is in the Ghost Zone trying to get the ghosts to help him.
  • Valerie's first ghost hunting suit, first appearing in the tenth episode. We later find out in the fortieth episode why Vlad gave her the gear!
  • In the second episode of Season 2, "Doctor's Disorders", Spectra says she needs Danny's DNA to stabilize her new body so it never burns out or grows old. Come the season finale, "Kindred Spirits", Vlad wants his DNA as well, specifically from while Danny is in-between forms to likewise stabilize the Danny clone he was making.
  • In "Micro Management", Jack left a melting pizza unattended. It was later used for climbing up to the desk later in the episode.
  • In "The Fenton Menace", we are introduced to Jazz's favorite toy, Bearbert. It was later used by Danny to get Jazz to act like a child again. An Einstein-like teddy bear can actually be seen as early as "Bitter Reunions", but its design is drastically different and the one sleeping with it is Maddie, not Jazz.
• The Chessmaster:
  Danny: I don't understand...
  Vlad: What? That I used two 14-year-old pawns to turn a knight and topple a king? It's chess, Daniel. Of course you don't understand. But then, you never really did.
• Chew Bubblegum
• Chew-Out Fake-Out: Happens in "13", when Danny intentionally lets himself get caught spying on Jazz and Johnny.
• Chirping Crickets: "King Tuck" has cricket chirps heard after Tucker makes a joke about the name of Pharoah Duul Aman (as in "man, is this dull"). The cricket chirps are heard again when Dash then steals Tucker's joke, afterwards Dash raises his fist to persuade the other teens to laugh at the joke he just plagiarized.
• Chronoscope: The various time-windows in Clockwork's lair.
• Circus of Magic: Circus Gothica. Although some of the acts are intended to be scary, its primary purpose in Freakshow's family has been to show off their ghost-controlling abilities under the guise of a normal circus.
• City of Adventure: Amity Park.
• Clark Kenting: Unless you want to say that Danny's ghost form inhibits mundanes' perception of him or some other Techno Babble, we're asked to believe that changing his hair and eye color is enough of a disguise for him. He doesn't even bother to change his first name. The show mercilessly lampshades and parodies this, however, with Danny managing to get away with it mostly due to others being slow on the uptake.

• Clock Discrepancy: In one episode, the titular character tricks Vlad into thinking he still has 10 minutes left of powerlessness left by turning his clock back. This allows him to gain the element of surprise and win the fight.
• Co-Dragons:
  • Vlad has a trio of vulture ghosts that serve as his main underlings, which he uses in "Bitter Reunions", "The Million Dollar Ghost", and briefly in "Eye for an Eye".
  • Prince Aragon has two minions, the Archer Ghost and the Executioner Ghost.
  • In addition to Lydia, Freakshow controls three ghosts using the Crystal Ball Staff, which he also uses to take control of Danny in "Control Freaks", but he ends up losing all of them except for Lydia when the staff is destroyed.
• Comes Great Responsibility: And the Spider-Man parallels don't stop there.
• Comically Missing the Point: The episode The Million Dollar Ghost has the following exchange:
  Newscaster: ...the need for competent, non-Jack Fenton, ghost hunters in Amity Park has never been more obvious.
  Jack: Hey! They said my name!
• Coming of Age Story:
  • In his definite Character Development Arc, Danny starts off as a naive boy who is looking for his place in the world, uncertain of the big decisions thrust onto him. By the end of the series, he has grown into a mature lad who continuously handles big burdens displayed before him. By the ending, said burdens and responsibilities are even bigger, but he's grown up enough to face the task.
  • A smaller meta-arc would be Jazz's coming of age, going from a nosy sullen kid growing up too fast to someone who appreciates her age and knows when not to get involved.
• Compressed Vice: All too frequently.
• Continuity Drift: In one episode a nerdy friend of Tucker's is mentioned as "Nathan." In a Season 3 episode he shows up again, but gets called "Lester," although it might just be his last name.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Mostly the Fenton inventions, but several elements from prior are mentioned in latter episodes (and even move the plot forward). Justifies the great continuity this show has.
  • In episode 16, "Maternal Instinct," Vlad Masters is shown to have one of the large yellow monster trucks which will later show up in "Memory Blank."
  • Speaking of Memory Blank, it contains multiple shout-outs to earlier Season 1 episodes:
    • Danny brings up Sam's "great ideas" of changing the school cafeteria menu (episode 1), releasing the purple-backed gorilla (ep. 3), and selling his dad's old junk at a garage sale (ep. 4). She counters by asking whether he would also like to blame her for puberty, which was used multiple times as an excuse for his "voice change" in episode 5 when Danny was possessed by Poindexter.
    • Sam's photo album contains the picture she took of Danny and Tucker hugging during episode 3.
    • Danny also pulls a Fake-Out Make-Out on Sam, which she had originally pulled on him in the episode where Valerie becomes a ghost hunter.
    • At one point Danny phases down through the floor of the school, noticing the large store of meat in the basement that was discovered in the first episode.
    • Paulina is wearing the same dress at her Quinceañera (15th birthday party) that she wore to the dance with Danny in episode 2, while at the same time Sam comments that she looks "almost human," possibly in reference to Paulina's ghost-dragon transformation from the same episode.
    • During Danny's flashback/remembering sequence, special attention is given to him sneaking into the girl's locker room with his ghost powers, which happened in episode 6, the same episode Desiree was introduced.
  • When trying to act ghostly in order to get Jack to chase him, Danny yells "Fear me!", something a ghost translator from an early episode appended to every sentence spoken by Danny.
  • The emergency ham shows up in the episode "Pirate Radio," before being revealed to be useful for something in "Reality Trip." Also in "Pirate Radio", the easy-listening Ear Worm that's on every radio station is a version of Ember's rock song from "Fanning the Flames" - and Foreshadowing for her appearance as Youngblood's partner in crime.
  • In his second appearance, Skulker still has an appointment to check out a book on purple-backed gorillas. He must have gotten an upgrade since then, since it's never brought up afterwards.
  • In the episode "Reign Storm," Tucker mentions that Danny caught Skulker and Ember and sent them back to the Ghost Zone together. In the episode "Girl's Night Out," it's revealed that Ember and Skulker are now going out (see also, Pair the Spares). Too much time in the Thermos together?
  • In the episode "Forever Phantom," Maddie mentions the time Danny Phantom supposedly "attacked the mayor" ("Public Enemies") and when he "stole" everyone's Christmas presents ("The Fright Before Christmas").
• Cool Car: The Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle (otherwise known as just "the RV").
• Cosmic Entity: Clockwork.
• Counter-Productive Warning:
  • A ghost appears called Technus, loudly introducing himself as the ghost for science and electronics. Danny says he won't allow him to use the lab's technology to take over the world. Technus simply looks around to see all the technology at his disposal and thanks Danny for the idea.
  • Later in the episode, Technus has amassed a large amount of appliances but is unable to control them. Danny notices he hasn't upgraded the software of the computer he possessed, and says he won't allow him to use it. He notices the disc and says that is a great idea too, and even tells Danny he should be a professor.
• Covers Always Lie: A few Episode Title Cards are misleading about what actually happens in the episode.
  • "Public Enemies" implies Wulf will be the villain the day, as "Infinite Realms" implies it'll be Frostbite, but both turn out to be friendly to Danny instead.
  • Downplayed with "Kindred Spirits", which features Danielle as one of the bad guys along with the other clones. While Danielle is initially antagonistic to Danny, she has a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In "Girls' Night Out", the title card has Danny trapped in Kitty's kiss, surrounded by Kitty, Ember, and Spectra, but he doesn't actually fight the three ghost villains (which are fought by Maddie, Jazz, and Sam), and he's one of the few men who don't disappear thanks to Kitty's kiss.
• Crazy-Prepared: Fenton Works, which is used as a shelter in most of the ghost invasions.
• Crossover: The promotional short Fairly Odd Phantom consists of a crossover between Danny Phantom and the other Butch Hartman-created Nicktoons The Fairly OddParents!, T.U.F.F. Puppy and Bunsen Is a Beast.
• Crotch-Glance Sex Check: In "One of a Kind", Danny tries to protect an endangered purpleback gorilla at the zoo. Near the end, Danny gets a good look at "Samson" and (to his horror) realizes it's actually a "Delilah".
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Danny's first battle with Vlad goes like this by means of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown administered by Vlad.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • From the Phantom Planet Finale:
  Maddie Holograph One: Your resolution is too low and your bandwidth is too large!
  Maddie Holograph Two:"*gasp* Why you holographic- *Violence Ensues*"
  • Another example from Livin' Large:
  Vlad: That sounds fun, akin to sticking hot needles in my- [Maddie enters the scene, interrupting him].
• Custom-Built Host: Obsessed with being young, powerful and beautiful and needing to regularly feed off misery to maintain her own, Penelope Spectra attempts to cut out the middle man in "Doctors Disorders" infecting the Casper High students with Ghost Mosquitos so that she can isolate them and harvest their DNA to create herself the perfect host body, planning to use Danny's unique hybrid DNA to stabilize it. Danny manages to sabotage her plans by instead tricking her machines into extracting the DNA from his father's snot covered handkerchief instead of his own, causing her new body to fall apart.

D

• Dating Catwoman: Danny and Valerie briefly dated, despite Valerie being a ghost-hunter who works for Vlad.
• A Day in the Limelight: Tucker ("What You Want," "King Tuck") and Jazz ("The Fenton Menace," "Secret Weapons").
• Deadly Deferred Conversation: Subverted in the Grand Finale. Before leaving to round up the ghosts needed to save the world, Danny says he has a few things he needs to talk to Sam about after the world is saved (namely, their relationship). While everyone (except the audience) thinks he perished in an explosion, he survived and saved the world, with the episode ending on Danny and Sam's Relationship Upgrade.
• Deadly Training Area: Despite being jury-rigged, Danny's homemade training area in his parent's basement includes lasers among other, less lethal, hazards.
• Deadly Upgrade: The EctoSkeleton increases the user's power 100 times, while slowly killing them.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sam.
• Death of a Child: "The Ultimate Enemy" shows the only cold-blooded murder committed in the series and the accidental deaths of Jack, Maddie, Mr. Lancer, Jazz, Sam and Tucker. Sidney Poindexter may also count, but he's already a ghost. An annoying one at that.
• Defanged Horrors: The Ghost Zone (somewhat).
• Deflector Shields: Vlad learns this first, followed by Danny in later seasons.
• Department of Redundancy Department: "Once again, I, Technus, master of all things electronic and beeping, am free once again to conquer this world!"
• Description Cut: Used just as much as Hypocritical Humor.
• Detect Evil: Danny's ghost sense allows him to detect when another ghost is nearby.
• Deus Angst Machina: Danny's alternate future. Twisted in that "fate" was really just Clockwork manipulating the time stream to produce what was the worst possible future ever to scare Danny away from his Face–Heel Turn.
• Devilish Hair Horns: Both Vlad and Spectra sport horned hairdos to highlight how evil they are.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Well, to a lesser degree. In one episode, Jack and Danny go fishing when they are attacked by some kind of sea dragon monster. Jack kicks its ass pretty easily.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • Tucker's cell phone's ringtone in "Double Cross My Heart".
  • Danny plays it on giant-robot-Technus' chest in "Attack of the Killer Garage Sale".
• Disaster Dominoes: In Valerie's father's lab while Danny tries to catch the rampaging ghost dog.
• Disgusting Vegetarian Food: Sam has been shown literally eating grass on a slice of bread. Her friends (especially the meat-loving Tucker) find her diet less than appealing.
• Dish Dash: In the series' very first episode. Danny protects Sam from death by flying dishes by catching them all. Unusual for the trope, he gets all the dishes safely put away!
• Disposable Superhero Maker: The Ghost Portal has made as much heroes as it made villains.
• Distaff Counterpart: Dani Phantom, Danny's Opposite-Sex Clone.
• Distracted by the Sexy: When Paulina was first introduced, they showed all sorts guys reacting to her like this. Oddly enough, that's the only time they did.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Overshadowing looks really, really similar to temporary possession. It would be prime candidate for Insistent Terminology if anyone connected the dots.
  • Danny is scared and confused when the accident turns him half-ghost and spends most of the series trying to keep the truth from getting out. He only allows his closest friends to know about this part of himself and struggles to keep it all a secret. He is especially sure to keep this secret away from his family - his parents in-particular, who possess a dehumanizing, almost zealot-like opinion against ghosts - with Jazz agreeing to keep it a secret out of love for her little brother when she finds out about it. When his parents do find out, they are more shock and appalled at themselves that their son had to go such lengths to keep this secret from them. The whole things reads like a Coming-Out Story for a teenager realizes that they are LGBT+, some reading him as transgender or non-binary due to his conflicting nature as half-human, half-ghost.
  • Sam, Tucker, and Jazz trying to convince Danny to let them help him sort out his problems and that he doesn't have to get rid of his powers in "Phantom Planet."
• Doing In the Wizard: Zig-zagged. Many ghosts are clearly hinted or explicitly shown in-series to have been living humans (or animals), ^note Dorathea, Sidney Poindexter, Desiree, the Dairy King, Vlad's ghost mutant animals, and Hotep-Ra all have explicit backstories as humans or are otherwise shown to have been alive before. For the Lunch Lady, Cujo, and Ember, it's heavily implied (the latter also had a backstory given by the creators). and Maddie defines a ghost as an "odd manifestation of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness". However, Butch Hartman insists that they're not the disembodied spirits of dead people, but "monsters/creatures" who have ghost-like powers, with the ones with human appearances and backstories making those up to be more human, contradicting canonical evidence.
• The Door Slams You: Skullker does this to Danny in one episode.

• Doppelmerger:
  • Ghosts and ghost-human hybrids can duplicate themselves using their ectoplasmic energy. The clones gain all the characteristics, memories, and abilities of the original, but are self-thinking (and grow somewhat weakened the more copies they make). The original can re-absorb their clone when need, and clones will automatically be reabsorbed if they are significantly weakened or pushed together with enough force. Ghost-human hybrids in particular are able to do this in both forms
  • In "Identity Crisis", Danny uses the Fenton Ghost Catcher to split his human and ghost halves so he can better catch ghosts while having some free time. This results in a Literal Split Personality, where the human half is fun and lazy while the ghost half has major Chronic Hero Syndrome. When the two try to come back together the way Danny would normally do with his duplicates, however, it doesn't work, and going through the Ghost Catcher again just turns them into two lesser-powered halfas. It isn't until they go through the "Merge" side of the Ghost Catcher that they become one Danny again.
• The Dragon:
  • Vlad has three vulture ghosts that serve as his main Co-Dragons (especially in earlier episodes), but on occasion he also uses the Ectopuses, Skulker, a bunch of mutant ghost animal experiments, clones of Danny (including Danielle before her Heel–Face Turn), and Valerie.
  • Bullet is Walker's second in command, as shown in "Public Enemies". His loyalty to Walker is questionable, considering he activates Wulf's electrical collar without Walker's authorization, since "Walker isn't here!". Not much is made out of it, though, since Bullet in absent in both of the other episodes with Walker as the main villain, and his only other appearances are minor cameos in "Reign Storm" and "Phantom Planet".
  • Bertrand is this to Penelope Spectra, posing as her assistant when she's pretending to be a shrink, and always helping her out with her plans.
  • Youngblood has an unnamed skeletal ghost assistant who seems to change his shape to match whatever character Youngblood is playing (a parrot when he's playing a pirate, and a horse when he's playing a cowboy).
  • Johnny 13 has his own shadow which does most of the fighting for him.
  • Lydia is this to Freakshow. Even though he's had other ghosts under his command, Lydia is the only one who serves him willingly.
• Drama Bomb: "The Ultimate Enemy". Period. The show had, for one and a half seasons, chugged along its storyline with a fairly cheerful and optimistic tone. Then "The Ultimate Enemy" aired and was, hands-down, the most serious and disturbing episode in the entire show, leaving many viewers speechless upon its first airing.
• Dramatic Drop: Sam's reaction to Danny and Valerie being alone in his room for a long time.
  Sam: We haven't seen Danny or Valerie in hours!
  Jack: Ah, they're fine. They've been up in Danny's room! Alone! For hours!
  Sam drops her tea.
• Dramatic Wind: Parodied in "Identity Crisis" by the pure superhero version of Danny, who has this going at all times, befitting his Large Ham status.
• Dream Intro: Episode "Frightmare" starts with Danny dreaming his life is perfect, complete with Sam being his girlfriend.
• Dream Weaver: Nocturne, the Ghost of Sleep, demonstrates the power to manipulate dreams in "Frightmare."
• Dressed All in Rubber: Due to the fact they're full-time paranormal scientists who constantly handle dangerous, ghost-related equipment, it should come as no surprise that Jack and Maddie are rarely seen not wearing their hazmat suits.
• Driving Stick: In the episode "Bitter Reunions".
• Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: Jazz.

E

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In "Parental Bonding", Dash hits twice on Paulina, which never happens again even though both are often seen together, and Tucker is allured by Sam when she's dressed up for the dance, but there's little to no Ship Tease between them later. Also, Dorathea's ghostly traits are severely toned down in her second main appearance, and a few details of her dragon transformation are changed.
  • In "One of a Kind", Skulker calls the dimension he's from "Ghost World".
  • In "Attack of the Killer Garage Sale", Dash has a huge crush on Jazz, something that's never shown again.
  • In "Splitting Images", Poindexter is impressed by Danny being able to overshadow people, but that's soon established as a standard ghost power, almost as basic as flight, invisibility, and intangibility. Also, somehow Poindexter can see Danny even though he's invisible, when in later episodes, such power makes the ghost invisible to both humans and other ghosts.
  • At the end of "Bitter Reunions", Maddie is seen sleeping with a teddy bear that resembles Albert Einstein. In "The Fenton Menace", it's revealed to be Bearbert Einstein, which is actually Jazz's, and its design is different.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After having lot of trouble during the whole series, in the last episode "Phantom Planet," things end well for Danny and his friends.
• Easter Egg:
  • In one episode, Danny and Tuck are playing a Crash Nebula arcade game. Crash Nebula is one of Timmy Turner's favorite superheroes in Butch Hartman's other cartoon, The Fairly OddParents.
  • And then in the FOP episode focusing entirely on the origins of Crash Nebula, the comic book that Crash's original form (before he became Crash Nebula) is reading at the beginning of the episode has a picture of Danny Phantom on the back cover.
• Ectoplasm: Ectoplasm plays a big role in the series. Danny's very transformation happened when he got his DNA infused with ectoplasm, giving him his half-ghost status and abilities. Normal ghosts are entirely made of ectoplasm, and it can also be used to power machinery and ghost-hunting tech.
• Egg Sitting: Danny and Valerie, Dash and Paulina, Tucker and Sam all are in the same "this bag of flour is your baby" project for health class in "Life Lessons."
• Embarrassing Nickname: Before he tells the entire population of Amity Park that his name is Danny Phantom, the name that the public used for Danny's ghost form was "Inviso-Bill."
• Enemy Mine:
  • In "Prisoners of Love", Danny convinces some of his enemies (namely Skulker, the Lunch Lady, Technus, Desiree and the Box Ghost), all of which were in prison with him, to unite against Walker and his goons.
  • Danny and Vlad in "Reign Storm" (against the Ghost King) and "Torrent of Terror" (against Vortex).
  • Danny and Dash had to work together against Skulker in "Micro-Management," as did Danny and Valerie in the Chained Heat episode, "Life Lessons."
  • "Reign Storm" also takes this a step further by forcing Danny to unite every ghost he's ever met to defeat the Ghost King.
    • Done again in the Grand Finale when Danny had to get everyone, human and ghost, to work together to save both the earth and the Ghost Zone.
• Episode Title Card: Done in the fashion of 50's horror movies, no less, with the Grand Finale as the only exception.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first episode's Cold Open gives little ones to each of the main characters in the form of their responses to Jack.
  Jack: So, Danny! You and your little friends want to hunt ghosts...
  Danny: Uh, a-actually, Dad, I wanna be an astronaut.
  Sam: Sorry Mr. Fenton. I was into ghosts, but they’re so mainstream now; they’re like cell phones.
  Tucker: Waste these looks and all this charisma hunting ghosts? Criminal.
• Eternal English: You would think that someone who died 1600 years ago would not be speaking Modern American English. Also, the one non-English speaker speaks modern Esperanto.
• "Everybody Helps Out" Denouement: The Christmas Episode ends with Danny and his Rogues Gallery calling a truce after the final fight to return all the Christmas presents and decorations that got destroyed over the course of the plot.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "Attack of the Killer Garage Sale", "Public Enemies", "Double Cross My Heart", let's just say the series is riddled with this.
• Everyone Can See It: Danny and Sam, despite their vehement denials.
• Everyone Hates Fruit Cakes: When Danny vents his frustrations in "The Fright Before Christmas" by using his powers to destroy Christmas-related items in the Ghost Zone, one of the items he blasts is a fruitcake.
• Everything Is Online: And therefore vulnerable to being hacked via one of Tucker's PDAs.
• Evil Diva: Ember, who gets power from peoples' devotion to her.
• Evil Laugh:
  • Dark Danny has a rather nice one.
  • Vlad's done a couple during his time. The most striking would be the beginning to "Kindred Spirits".
• Evil Makeover: Danny, Sam and Vlad each get one.
• Evil Plan: While the particular episode's ghost(s) might have their own agenda, Vlad's plan stays the same until his Villain Decay in Season 3: Kill Jack, make Maddie his wife, and make Danny his son.
• Expendable Clone:
  • No one, least of all Danny, seems particularly bothered when Danny destroys the less-human looking clones. Only the human-looking Danielle gains his sympathy. This is subverted, however, by the fact that Danny also doesn't seem to be bothered when he destroys the so-called "perfect clone" of himself, which would be, in theory, at least as "human" as his Opposite-Sex Clone Dani. This is justified by the face that the previous clones weren't fully sentient and if the "perfect clone" awoke, Vlad would've taken out the original.
  • Vlad himself only considered the "perfect clone" human, even rejecting the only person who probably loved him, being Danielle.
• Exposition: Particularly awkward, repetitive uses of As You Know, Tell Me Again, Talking to Themself, postponed questions, etc.
• Expository Theme Tune: The opening song sums up the show's premise of Danny being a teenager who gained ghost powers in an accident that occurred when he was examining his parents' equipment and now uses his powers to fight the ghosts entering the mortal plane from the Ghost Zone.
• Eye-Dentity Giveaway: Whenever a ghost overshadows someone, their eyes turn the same color as the ghost's. So anyone overshadowed by Danny in ghost form, for example, gets his green eyes.

F

• Facial Horror: Vlad's smallest clone of Danny at first just looks like a minuscule version of Danny. Until it turns out his left eye is gone and half of his head is turning into ectoplasm.
• Fair-Weather Friend: The A-Listers are shown to be willing to cut each other from their group without remorse:
  • In the Season 1 episode 10 "Shades of Gray", when Valerie's father lost his job and her family become poor, Dash, Kwan, and Paulina are completely unfazed by the misfortune that befalls their friend and do not even pretend to care about what happen to her and just cut her out for being poor when she need her friends' support.
  Valerie: Things are kinda tight now, ya' know?
  Dash: No.
  Paulina: Nuh-uh.
  Kwan: Not really.
  • In the Season 1 episode "Lucky in Love", when Danny temporarily becomes popular when he starts to date Paulina (who at the time was possessed by Kitty, who's using Danny to make Johnny jealous), Danny took Kwan's place in the group, with Dash kicking Kwan out despite it appearing they are close friends.
• Fake First Kiss: Sam and Danny Fake-Out Make-Out twice before eventually getting together.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: Danny and Sam coined the term, and are quick to uncomfortably realize their own reactions were more sincere than either suspected.
• Fallen Hero: Danny's future self most definitely, irrevocably, very disturbingly and with extreme violence and prejudice.
• Fallen Princess: Valerie Gray used to be well off, but is forced to sell a lot of her possessions to make ends meet when her father loses his job at Axiom and is later only allowed back on a lower-paying job as night watchman. This humbles her to the degree that she becomes a better person than the rest of the popular kids she used to hang out with.
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: An old man sitting on a bench is shown losing his false teeth because of how fast Danny and Valerie fly past him in "Shades of Gray".
• Family-Friendly Firearms: Most of the ammunition used in the series is lasers and ectoplasm guns, with hardly any depictions of normal guns.
• Family-Unfriendly Death:
  • One episode has Bumbling Dad Jack Fenton kill off a ghost by squeezing it to death. True, it was a mutant beast and the ghost blood they ooze was green, but c'mon; that thing popped like a cherry!
  • Also, the death of Danny's clone — the disintegrating flesh, the sad, trapped look, the arm reaching out to his "father," the mouth opening slightly...
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: What Danny's future self did to everybody. Many ghosts have been crippled or otherwise permanently injured, and Valerie's dad lost an arm and an eye.
• Fangs Are Evil:
  • Vlad and Dark Danny are both fanged villains.
  • Downplayed with Ghostwriter's "Piranha-fangs". He isn't exactly evil, but he is an antagonist nonetheless.
• Fanservice: There are quite a few good looking people on the show and Goofy Print Underwear come up somewhat frequently. You can see where this is going.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Most ghosts don't like humans and most humans are terrified of the ghosts. Danny being half-ghost makes it worst, as he's hated period by most ghosts he meets and his Alter Ego is feared and hated by most humans except his Secret-Keeper friends/sister and the Alpha Bitch. It gets creepy when Danny hears about his parents discussing what to do with his alter ego's remains if they ever caught him.
  • Although in the humans' case, it's somewhat justified. The majority of humanity's first experiences with ghosts stemmed from an attack by a group of Danny's enemies from the Ghost Zone. Until that point, it was the people that believed in them were the ones that were ridiculed. The reason Paulina was amongst the first to stop hating Danny was because Danny outright saved her life, at which point she started to idolize him.
• Fat Idiot: Jack Fenton, or so Vlad would claim. Jack is actually a subversion, as he appears to be the same old Bumbling Dad, but he has been shown to be a competent inventor as well as being able to take out even strong ghosts when his family's on the line. He's still a ditz, but not as useless as one would originally think.
• Fate Worse than Death: In "Reign Storm," not only does Pariah Dark get sealed back into his sarcophagus for the rest of eternity, but he gets sealed back into his sarcophagus for the rest of eternity backwards.
• Fauxreigner: In "Double Cross My Heart", the Hungarian exchange student Gregor is revealed to be a fake foreigner at the end of the episode when he drops the accent and confesses that his real name is Elliot and he's actually from Michigan.
• Fight Unscene: Economy animation causes lackluster fighting scenes in what is otherwise an Action/Comedy series. This improves somewhat starting around the second half of Season 2 due in part to storyboarder George Goodchild.
• Fighting Back Is Wrong: Danny is regularly bullied by Dash, but every time Danny uses his powers to retaliate it often backfires on him. One episode even has Danny apologizing to Dash and he gives Danny a wedgie before accepting the apology.
• Flanderization: By Season 3, many suffered from this.
• Flight of Romance: Foreshadowing the finale.

Sam: It's — nice. Flying is nice.

• Flying Brick
• Flying Firepower: Danny's ghost powers include flight and shooting ghostly ectoplasm beams.
• Flynning: That sword fight between Danny and Vlad in "Infinite Realms".
• Fog Feet: Danny often had a ghost-like tail.
• Forced Transformation:
  • Technus uses some sort of remote control to turn Danny into a cowboy, a model, and Spock.
  • In "Realy Trip", Danny uses the Reality Gauntlet to transform Lydia into a fish, a hammer, an apple, a teddy bear, and back to her normal self, in order to scare her away.
• Foreign Exchange Student: One episode has a Hungarian transfer student coming in to be Sam's Romantic False Lead. Turns out that he was an American guy putting on a show just to get closer to Sam.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Loads. A lot of it is really subtle and hard to catch until you rewatch things, but two good examples: the ectopusses Danny fights in episode 1 are sent by Vlad (who only shows up in the seventh). In the background, Valerie says "Mrs. Spectra says I worry too much about material possessions" in "My Brother's Keeper." The next episode, it's the loss of her material possessions that drives her to become a very aggressive ghost hunter.
  • Valerie tells Sam in "Reign Storm" that she'd better make a move on Danny, before someone else does. Soon enough, Valerie and Danny start dating, if only for a short period.
• Forgot About His Powers: Danny tends to forget about his ability to become intangible.
• Forgotten Anniversary: The plot of "Prisoners of Love" is driven by Maddie appearing to be so mad at Jack forgetting their anniversary 18 times in a row that she is considering a divorce and drives off to visit her sister. When Jack's apology gift goes to the ghost world...guess what happens. It later turns out that Jack's present isn't for Maddie but rather a present for his sister-In-law's anniversary of her divorce.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Danny (though Sam was very unimpressed).
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: "Team Phantom"
  • Phlegmatic: Danny, given his generally easygoing, friendly personality.
  • Choleric: Sam, being the most domineering but also most rational of the original three.
  • Melancholic: Jazz, given her kind, albeit perfectionistic persona.
  • Sanguine: Tucker, as the fun-loving Casanova Wannabe.
• Freak Lab Accident: "But then Danny took a look inside of it. There was a great big flash! Everything just changed! His molecules got all rearranged!"
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Between Danny and Poindexter.
• Friendless Background
• Friendly Enemy:
  • Vlad implied in one episode that his relationship with Danny is like this, stating "I'm sorry, but funny, joke-around Vlad isn't here today" before attacking him. This is a relationship Vlad saw with Danny during most of the series' run, on account of the villain's desire to have Danny as his surrogate son, his role as an Unwitting Pawn notwithstanding.
  • Played with in the Alternate Timeline in "Ultimate Enemy". Danny seeks Vlad's help when his friends and family are killed, and Vlad seems to be genuinely sympathetic when Danny arrives at his door.
  • By the end of the series, Danny was frenemies with most of the recurring ghost characters. When dealing with a problem bigger than he could handle on his own, he'd often turn to one of the ghosts for help. The fact that he was able to convince nearly the entire population of the ghost zone to help save Earth cemented that status.
• From Zero to Hero: The series has shades of this, which is to be expected of something reminiscent of Spider-Man. Danny Fenton is a unpopular freshman who gains ghost powers and has to fight against the supernatural.
• Functional Genre Savvy: None of the characters seem to consider that any supernatural activity might be the work of something other than ghosts. It's Justified for Danny, at least, who explicitly has a power that lets him sense other ghosts nearby.
• Future Badass: The Box Ghost in the Bad Future shown in "The Ultimate Enemy" becomes taller and more buff in addition to being way more intimidating than the ineffectual clown he is in the standard timeline.
• Future Me Scares Me: Danny's future-self isn't exactly what he'd hope it to be. Then again, not many people want to grow up to be a rampaging sociopath.

G

• Gadgeteer Genius: Tucker, though Jack and Maddie actually make all their own gear.
• Gang of Bullies: Dash, Kwan, Paulina, Star, and some of the other jocks/popular kids often team up to pick on Danny and Tucker.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Most non-operative GIW hunters wear masks that resemble gas masks.
• Gasp!: In the finale, among other places.
• Geek: Tucker (technically a "Techno-Geek"), Mikey, Nathan/Lester, etc.
• Geeky Turn-On: Whenever Maddie shows her Action Mom or ghost hunting skills, Jack's usual response is "Man that's hot!"
• Gender Bender: In "Attack of the Killer Garage Sale," there is a scene where Technus uses some kind of ghostly remote control to turn Danny into several different forms, one of those forms being a blonde supermodel.
• Generic Doomsday Villain:
  • Pariah Dark had elements of this, being an obscenely powerful ghost out for world domination, but without a terribly interesting personality. However, the Made-for-TV Movie he appeared in featured major roles from a lot of the more interesting Rogues Gallery members (such as Vlad, Valerie, Fright Knight, and Skulker), so it all evened out.
    • It also turned out that the entire movie had all been a plot by the resident Magnificent Bastard Arch-Enemy Vlad to make a deal with the Fright Knight... for a scheme that never happened.
  • Nearly all of the third season villains were generic Take Over the World villains with little difference between them apart from appearances, voice, and powers (IE: Nocturne and Vortex).
• Ghost Invasion: Major ghost assaults are arguably the entire premise of the series.
• Ghostly Animals: A few ghostly animals have been featured:
  • "Shades of Grey" introduces a cute ghost dog called Cujo, who is capable of turning into a monstrous form and was in life a guard dog for Axiom Industries.
  • Three minor recurring antagonists are the Ghost Vultures, a trio of talking ghost vultures working under Vlad Masters who possess super speed and enhanced strength. Every animal that appears as a trophy on the his hunting lodge wall is also a ghost animal under his thrall.
  • Youngblood has a ghost sidekick which could morph into an animal of its choice to fit whatever costume was being used by Youngblood at the time (for example, switching into a parrot for the pirate costume and a horse for the cowboy costume).
• Girl Posse: Paulina, Star, and Valerie were some of the popular kids who antagonized Danny. This lasted until the popular kids stopped hanging out with Valerie in Shades of Gray.
  • Ember, Spectra, and Kitty are a ghost version of this in Girls' Night Out.
• Girl's Night Out Episode: Aptly titled "Girls' Night Out," featuring Jazz, Maddie and Sam stopping Spectra, Kitty and Ember from making all the men disappear.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Danny's eyes glow green even in human form when he gets too angry.
• Good Colours, Evil Colours: Interesting switch with Vlad and Danny. It's played straight when they're in human form: Danny wears white and Vlad dons black, but in ghost form, the hero is predominately black while Vlad wears a near all-white suit. Also played straight with their transformation rings: Danny's being white while Vlad's is black. Their hair, eyes, energy blasts, and skin colors in ghost form (no, not like that. It's blue, as in the exact negative of Danny's), also fit.
• Goo Goo Getup: Spectra humiliates Danny in "My Brother's Keeper" by making him walk around Casper High while dressed like a baby.
• Gondor Calls for Aid:
  • "Reign Storm" where Danny, Vlad and Valerie have to ally to stop a Big Bad.
  • "Phantom Planet," where Danny has to enlist much of the population of the Ghost Zone (both friends and enemies) to save the world from an asteroid.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Team Phantom - good; Vlad, Valerie, and some of Danny's ghostly enemies - bad; most of Danny's Rogues Gallery - evil.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Quite prominent. This is a kid's show, after all.
• Goth: Sam is said to be goth and goes between Perky and Gloomy, but more often comes off as an activist hippie who wears black.
• Gotta Catch Them All: "Reality Trip" (and even the series' theme song).
• Grand Finale: "Phantom Planet."
• Grand Theft Me: See "Freaky Friday" Flip. Also Kitty's possession of Paulina—in both instances, the ghost attempts to impersonate the human.
• Great Big Book of Everything:
  • "Fright Night" - The Token Trio use a book to learn about the Fright Knight.
  • "Reality Trip" - The trio use a book to find out about the Reality Gauntlet.
  • "Infinite Realms" - Vlad mysteriously has a book with information about the Infi-Map in it.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Sam gets really annoyed whenever Danny starts drooling over Paulina.
  • In the episode 'Double Cross My Heart', Danny grows increasingly irritated about Sam's crush on the new transfer student.
  Sam: I've been looking for you.
  Danny: Where, in Gregor's locker?
  Sam: Whoa. Thank you, Joe Hostility.
• Green Thumb: Undergrowth [[and Sam]] in "Urban Jungle."
• Groupie Brigade: One episode focused on this when Danny Phantom (by this point, a well known hero and celebrity) is on the run from screaming teenage fans; most of which come from his own school. He had to secretly turn human to get away from the crazed mob.

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