The Fairly OddParents


The Fairly OddParents is an American animated television series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon. It follows the adventures of Timmy Turner, a 10-year old boy with two fairy godparents named Cosmo and Wanda who grant him wishes to solve his everyday problems.
The Fairly OddParents originated from shorts aired on Nickelodeon's animation showcase Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Due to their popularity, the shorts were greenlit to become a half-hour series, which premiered on March 30, 2001 and originally ended on November 25, 2006. The show was later revived, airing from February 18, 2008 to September 16, 2016, with production quietly ending that same year. Its remaining episodes aired on Nickelodeon's spinoff network Nicktoons from January 18, 2017 through July 26, 2017. Hartman left Nickelodeon seven months later in February 2018. The show totals up to 172 episodes across ten seasons.
The Fairly OddParents is Nickelodeon's second longest-running animated series, behind SpongeBob SquarePants. Additionally, it has gained a total of 11 awards during its 16-year run and spawned a media franchise.
In 2021, it was announced that a spin-off live-action series was in development for Paramount+. The series The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder was released in 2022. A sequel series, The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish, was released in 2024.

Synopsis

Premise

The Fairly OddParents follows Timmy Turner, a 10-year old boy who is neglected by his parents and abused by his teenage babysitter, Vicky. One day, he is granted two fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda, who grant his every wish to improve his miserable life. However, these wishes usually backfire badly and cause a series of problems that Timmy must fix. Earlier episodes of the series tend to revolve around Timmy trying to navigate his everyday life at home, at school and elsewhere in town with his friends, Chester and A.J., and occasionally his parents, while also trying to fix a wish gone awry and ultimately, learning a lesson in the end. Later in the series, Timmy wishes that Cosmo and Wanda would have a baby, whom they named Poof. Much later in the series, Timmy gets a pet fairy dog named Sparky. Even later in the series, a new girl named Chloe Carmichael, who loves sharing, animals, and everything that is ecologically friendly, moves into the neighborhood, and Timmy has to share Cosmo and Wanda with her due to a shortage of available fairies.
At the beginning of the series, Vicky was the main antagonist, but as the series progressed, many more villains were introduced. They include Denzel Crocker, Timmy's crazed teacher who wishes to prove to the world that fairies exist; Francis, the school bully; Remy Buxaplenty, a young billionaire child, who is set on getting rid of Timmy's fairy godparents due to his immense jealousy towards him for having two fairy godparents compared to his one, named Juandissimo Magnifico, Wanda's ex; Dark Laser, a parody of Darth Vader, who wants to destroy Timmy and the Earth; the Pixies, who are known to wield as much power as fairies, but they treat their magical powers like a business. The Pixies' primary goal is to take control of Fairy World and the Earth; the Anti-fairies, who are similar to the actual fairies, but with polar opposite personalities and character traits. Anti-fairies are also known for causing bad luck; and Norm the Genie, who hatches a plan to gain freedom from his lamp and get revenge on Timmy.

Setting

The Fairly OddParents is set in the fictional city of Dimmsdale, California. Dimmsdale has a sign on some mountains near the city that is a parody of the Hollywood Sign. In the episode "Vicky Loses Her Icky", the Mayor of Dimmsdale unveils the "Welcome to Dimmsdale – Nicest Town on Earth!" sign. However, at the end of the episode, the President of the United States changes the word "Nicest" to "Meanest". Dimmsdale appears to be average-sized, with a downtown containing large buildings, skyscrapers and a city hall, but also containing uptown areas with suburban residences and businesses, such as Timmy's school; a hospital; a jail; a sports complex called the Dimmadome, which is named after its founder and owner, Doug Dimmadome, a man who owns a local TV channel and various restaurants and stores, as well as a park in the center of the city. Dimmsdale also appears to have rural farmland located outside of the city. The adults who live in Dimmsdale are notably moronic and often settle situations with things like angry mobs, but they do still manage to form a working and functioning society. In the episode "Which Witch is Which?" it was revealed that Dimmsdale was founded in the 1660s and named after a man called Dale Dimm.
When the show needs to, it switches its location to Fairy World, the home of the fairies, which is a floating world located on top of some clouds, colored with an abundance of pink and purple. Fairy World is depicted as a large metropolis with houses, streets, different kinds of buildings, and skyscrapers. Most buildings in Fairy World have crowns and stars above their roofs. The fairies have a civilization like that of humans, but with their primary source of power being magic, which also keeps their world afloat. A large rainbow acts as the bridge between Fairy World and the Earth, although the bridge seems to exist only for decoration since fairies teleport via magic to and from Earth. Fairy World is not actually a part of Earth but is depicted as a separate world in outer space located near Earth's orbit that can only be accessed by magic. Among the most notable landmarks in Fairy World is the glowing entrance sign on the other side of the rainbow bridge and the giant wand located in the center of Fairy World that powers the fairies' magic. Jorgen Von Strangle, an enormous and tough fairy with an Austrian accent, acts as the leader of the fairies and Fairy World. Jorgen personally dislikes Timmy at the beginning of the series but warms up to him over time.
Another location seen in the show is the city of Chincinnati, the home town of Timmy's favorite comic book superhero, the Crimson Chin. Other locations include the dark and twisted Anti-Fairy World, the dark counterpart of Fairy World where the Anti-fairies reside; the dull and gray metropolis of Pixies Inc., home of the Pixies; and Yugopotamia, another planet where Timmy's alien friend Mark Chang lived until the episode "New Squid in Town!" when Timmy invites Mark to live in the Dimmsdale junkyard in order to escape his evil fiancée, Princess Mandie.

Voice cast

Recurring voice actors include Jim Ward, Rob Paulsen, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kenny, Jason Marsden, Jeff Bennett, Dionne Quan, Gary LeRoi Gray, Kevin Michael Richardson, Frankie Muniz, and Ibrahim Haneef Muhammad.
Throughout its run, celebrities who have guest starred on The Fairly OddParents include Adam West, Jay Leno, Norm Macdonald, Mary Hart, Chris Kirkpatrick, Alec Baldwin, Ben Stein, Jackie Mason, Jason Bateman, Laraine Newman, Gilbert Gottfried, Michael Clarke Duncan, Brendan Fraser, Patrick Warburton, Julie Chen Moonves, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Tom Arnold, Dana Carvey, and Scott Hamilton.

Production history

Development and ''Oh Yeah! Cartoons'' (1997–2001)

Prior to the creation of The Fairly OddParents, Butch Hartman was working at Cartoon Network on Dexter's Laboratory and Johnny Bravo. In December 1997, Fred Seibert contacted Hartman to come over to his new company, Frederator Incorporated, to help pitch ideas as a part of their Oh Yeah! Cartoons series which the studio was developing for Nickelodeon. Hartman initially declined the offer. However, several months later, Johnny Bravo finished and Hartman decided to create his own series instead of going back to working for other studios.
Hartman started developing his own series by drawing a picture of a little boy who would become Timmy Turner. Hartman was originally going to name him Mike, after his brother Mike Hartman, but they had a fight that day, so Hartman named him after his other brother Timmy Hartman instead. Hartman wanted Timmy to be able to go anywhere because he never wanted to be stuck for a story transition. Hartman was originally going to give Timmy science powers, but decided against it due to Dexter's Laboratory having recently come out. Instead, he decided to give Timmy a magic friend. He drew Venus first and then decided that, because he had never heard of a fairy godfather before, to draw Cosmo. After coming up with the entire premise for the cartoon in about fifteen minutes, Hartman first pitched the idea to Hanna-Barbera and then to Cartoon Network, both of whom turned it down. Hartman then went back to Seibert at Nickelodeon and successfully pitched it to them for Oh Yeah! Cartoons.
While in early development, the series was titled The Fairy GodParents and then it was briefly changed to Oh My GodParents. Bill Burnett came up with the title The Fairly OddParents, which they ended up sticking with. Hartman originally created The Fairly OddParents as a seven-minute short film, which was one of the thirty-nine short cartoons created for Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Hartman made ten seven-minute short films of The Fairly OddParents in total for Oh Yeah! Cartoons, which aired on Nickelodeon from September 4, 1998, to March 23, 2001. Due to the success of the shorts, Nickelodeon picked up The Fairly OddParents for a full-length series alongside fellow Oh Yeah! Cartoons: ChalkZone and My Life as a Teenage Robot. In 2000, Nickelodeon ordered seven 23-minute episodes for the series' first season, which premiered on March 30, 2001 in the half-hour before fellow Nicktoon Invader Zim made its debut.
Unlike the later series, the animation in the original shorts is not as smooth and the designs are notably different. Other notable differences include Timmy Turner, who was voiced by Mary Kay Bergman in the Oh Yeah! shorts rather than Tara Strong in the series. Cosmo is significantly more intelligent than he appears to be in the proceeding series while Wanda is shown to be ditzy. Vicky is also much less evil than in the current series; she has a little brother in the pilot episode before it was changed to a little sister later on in the shorts, and she also calls Timmy by his name as opposed to the more often-used "twerp".