Danny Phantom is the story of young, 14-year-old Danny Fenton, your run-of-the-mill average teenager. He struggles with schoolwork (particular Math), is bullied by jocks Dash (and his partner-in-crime Kwan), rejected by popular girl Paulina whom he has a crush on, and is so low on the social ladder scale, anything below would be candidate for worm food. His family life isn’t exactly perfect either, both his parents: Jack and Maddie Fenton are professional, but eccentric ghost hunters while his older sister Jazz AKA Miss-adult-in-a-teenager’s-body constantly nags to both her folks about their questionable lifestyle and her little brother whom in her eyes sees as a helpless individual. He remains a shy fellow who is unsure about his life and goals; until one fateful day...

...With a push from his friend/obligatory love interest Sam Manson, she and his other best friend Tucker Foley act as witnesses when Danny enters his parent’s then work-in-progress Ghost Portal, accidentally zapping himself and coating his DNA with ectoplasm, turning him into a half ghost hybrid. After a month of dealing with his new found powers, Danny is caught having to save his school from a bipolar PMS-inducing Lunch Lady Ghost. Discovering what his powers are meant for, Danny becomes a superhero to battle the many malicious ghosts. Thus, his journey begins.

And now, the three seasons in brief explanation.

*Season 1
The beginning explores Danny’s starting point on his quest to make a name for himself. Starting off as a nobody, he struggles to gain use of his new powers while handling the pressures of shallow teen fame, trying to win the heart of popular Paulina, struggling to balance his superhero life with his normal one, dealing with his (in his eyes) annoying older sister, panicking over his parents discovery over his ghost powers (due to their hatred of all things ghostly), teenage depression, and eventually his hometown’s negative opinion of him. He begins as a shy kid who by the end will have accepted his role as a superhero; of course, it’s only stage one.

The story is a gateway for others to begin their process of character development as well: Jazz’s character growth to see a world beyond her own belief and her growing love of ghost hunting, Valerie Gray turning from popular shallow bitch to rogue ghost hunter bitch, the beginning stages of Sam’s crush on Danny, and the introduction of other half ghost Vlad Masters AKA Vlad Plasmius, a man in his 40’s who desires Danny’s mother (whom he feels Jack had stolen from him) as well as Danny whom he harbors as his son.

*Season 2
Danny’s confidence has only begun to grow, but even more so is the better sense of comfort he possesses balancing both his ghost and human life, including his growing maturity which only expands from there (except for that decline between "Micro Management" and "Reality Trip"). This, in my opinion, is what I call the meat of the entire series as familiar characters go through a major amount of growth: Besides his maturity, Danny will experience love in the form of Valerie, deal with Amity Park’s new public image of him as their hero/savior/guardian (and it expands from there), and struggle with his potential growing darkness. Jazz will fully accept her status as a mature teenager (not adult) and learn to appreciate her family's lifestyle. Sam’s romance towards Danny grows and complicates, Valerie's sincerity sees a world beyond her once lack of depth, and Vlad’s increasing mental state and desperation for a son will lead him on his most insane plan by end.

Despite the line of average episodes by the second half of Season Two and the fact that it introduced goddamn Danielle Phantom (whom I despise), this season remains my favorite because it's the deepest in terms of character and story. The additional elements of familiar characters and backgrounds made it even deeper and engrossing then the past [and unfortunately below average] future season. Some of best elements, emotions, and character developments occurs here and is this season that lured me as a DP fan.

*Season 3
With the old writers having packed their bags, there isn't much continuation from the previous season till the last 5 episodes, though Season Three have created their own continuity as well—for better or worse. If Season One was all about discovery and beginnings and Season Two was the meat of the series, Season Three is the conclusion, the finishing touches as basically everything is wrapped up by end: the now confident, mature Danny has now been acknowledged as the hero of Amity Park (and beyond) and now deals with the price of fame—the very thing he ironically tried to achieve only for it to be thrust upon him in ways he does not want. He and Sam both start to develop more affections with each other, Jazz fully realizes her brother is more then capable of taking care of himself, and Vlad develops his greatest and most desperate plans yet to achieve his goal as the series culminates to the grand finale. By the end, Danny will have found his destiny as his story closes and a new one opens.

Unfortunately, this is also my least favorite season. As much as they tried to wrap up the loose ends and create a [mixed] grand finale, it's obvious the cancellation of the series and the absence of Steve Marmel really hurt this season, causing a fatal season that just missed the mark. The new writers had to come and fill in the blanks and with Hartman playing a more closer role in the last season, it managed to get the essences of the show down, but at the expense of its heart and soul.

The filler episodes were absolutely pointless and the new characters even more so, a waste better spent on further character growth: Tucker's growing vice of corruption yearning for attention were thrown out by having him thrown out frequently or given minimal dialogue that he might as well be a secondary character, Sam's forceful nature takes a severe nosedive when she turns almost Mary Sue with her superiority and danger of overshadowing some of the other cast (and belittling Danny's own character growth), Valerie's character is ignored as is her love interest stat with Danny so as to make room for the now poorly-handled Danny/Sam coupling (any chemistry they had prior was dash by this season), and Danielle remained a poorly conceived member of the cast.

And Vlad...Oh, geez, Vlad. I cannot forget or forgive how they absolutely killed his character, turning him from a complicated, well-written, multi-dimensional sympathetic antagonist to a typical one-sided villain whose goals for world domination and general Dick Dastardly-like behavior remained equivalent to being punched in the guts, then have a knife rammed into it, then stuffed into a blender and pureed. Any significant plots he did have (the underground base, his possible alliance with Fright Knight, his acquirement of Axion Labs) were left unexplored.

If they had kept the original writers, I honestly think Season Three would have been more worthy Indeed, Steve Marmel had made notes his Season Three story outline would have been vastly different (though he hasn't revealed much information about that—but it would have been darker and Dark Danny would have returned—two unused concepts that already sounds better then what we got). The only thing the writers ever kept consistent was Danny's growing maturity and that was during the times they didn't chuck it out to give the self-righteous Sam a reason to nag. They gave it the ol' college try and in a small way, I can't completely blame them. The sudden cancellation must've ushered a need to rush the last set of episodes. I wasn't 100% satisfied as I was the other two either way. Shame it didn't end in a bang I'd have expected. Season Three will remain asinine to me. Well, they tried...

And so, I now leave with an obligatory corny ending song lyric that fits the overall theme of this show—at least Danny anyways, Godspeed, semper fi, aloha, and whatever: