TITLE: Fright Night...Why do you suck SO much here, Danny?
LOGO: “Spooktacular”
EPISODE #: 15
SEASON: 1
AIRDATE: October 29, 2004
DIRECTOR: Butch Hartman, Juli Hashiguchi, Wincat Alcala
STORY: Steve Marmel
WRITERS: Marty Isenberg
STORYBOARD: Ray Angrum, Chris Graham, Ian Graham, Butch Hartman
ART DIRECTIONS: Bob Boyle
MUSIC: Guy Moon
APPEARANCE: Ms. Tetslaff (1st appearance), Main Trio, Lancer, Dash, Fenton parents, Jazz (cameo)
GHOST APPEARANCE: Fright Night, Nightmare, ghost eel (1st appearance)
FENTON GADGET APPEARANCE: Fenton Foamer, Fenton Radar, Fenton Finder
LESSON: Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Banana swoooooooooord…
SUMMARY: Happy Halloween, everyone. Although not so much happy for our dear hero when he gets his face smashed into a pumpkin by a ghost eel. As much as he flies over to give chase and grabs him, the eel is too slippery, so he lets loose an Ecto Ray. The eel somehow has the ability to not be phased by said power and ends up shooting his own Ecto Ray at our hero, sending him back inside the school. He phases through, but turns solid (and to his human form) by the time he hit’s a ladder, holding a paint bucket that topples and spills all over Dash, who was busy putting up Halloween posters. Pissed his football jacket of red and white now has the horrid color mix of violet (seriously, red, white, and purple aren’t very good color combos in my eyes), he grabs Danny by the collar and threatens him with a wedgie. Fortunately for Danny, Lancer arrives in time to break the two up. Seeing as they both need a better way to let our their creative frustration, he speaks about the annual Halloween contest held by the school faculty, that is to design the Haunted Towson’s place. It’s Lancer turn this time and he vows to upstage Ms. Tetslaff who handled last year’s decoration. She comes out of nowhere and declares Lancer won’t stand a chance, then she leaves, Tucker and Sam nearby. Lancer then continues to dote on his two favorite boys by threatening them that whoever has the most scariest designed room wins and gets out of detention. Danny easily smiles in confidence, thinking he can beat Dash with both his arms tied back, eyes blindfolded, and dangling upside down in a pool of sharks. Dash however gets cocky and demands a bet. Danny gets cockier and agrees, stating if Dash loses, he has to run around the school parking lot wearing nothing but his underwear but if dear ol’ Danny loses, he’s forced to eat Dash’s smelly briefs which he dramatically pulls out of his jacket. Naturally the Main Trio screams in horror, “I don’t what’s scarier, the underwear or the fact that he carries it around his coat.” Honestly, I don’t think I wanna know why he carries it around.
Back at Fenton works, it’s a week away from Halloween. Danny presents Tucker with a sketch of skeletons…choking Dash (nice doodle, his arms a bit beefy though when compare to the rest of his body), but Tucker declares it lame. He then turns ghost, goes invisible, phases under his sheets and pretends to be…well a ghost. Sam enters at this point, also declaring it lame. Frustrated with no ideas to present, Sam hands Danny a book she got from the bookshop, “The Chronicles of the Fright Knight”. Ooh, I can already feel myself tingling in me bones. While he skims through the pages, Sam states how the Fright Knight is the spirit of Halloween. His sword, the Soul Shredder sends people to another dimension where they live out their worst nightmares. Danny gets to a page showcasing a map of his castle. Notice it says “Fright Knight’s Castle” and not Pariah’s. FK must have done some scarin’ between Pariah’s first capture and now to cause people to think that was his castle or something. Ahahaha, some legend indeed. Danny however recognizes the map and pulls out a file on the Ghost Zone map he and his friends were making. It’s the exact same location. Although he doesn’t get the idea to go to FK’s castle, but instead to take cue of Fright Knight’s scariness and legendary status to create a powerfully haunted room.
Halloween arrives and we cut to a gate where two kids in a ghost and witch costume respectfully walks off with candy in stash. Seriously, do people still dress up as witches and ghosts as stereotypical as those? I wouldn’t know, I haven’t trick or treated or accompanied any kids in trick or treating in years. Considering those costumes are still on sale at the local Wal-Marts and whatnot, I assume so. Maybe it’ll get out lazy moms who hadn’t sewn up their kid’s costumes.
Any who, when they eye the book of Fright Knight and compare it to Danny’s haunted room, the comparisons is uncanny…uncannily sucky that is. Rubber spiders, skeletons stuffed with hay, bucket head FK, and Jazz’s stuffed animal heads on pikes (to which Jazz screams in anguish--wait--she still has that guitar from “Fanning the Flames”? Either she‘s taking up on it or she‘s too lazy to get rid of it--even though I feel an electric guitar just isn‘t a Jazz thing), and a helium sword that looks more banana then a weapon of sharpness and killing. Sam and Tucker expresses the lameness of this pathetic display and how he completely ripped off of the FK’s lair and all. Danny is more confident that he won’t have to eat Dash’s underwear. He then turns ghost and possess the makeshift Fright Knight, pretending to be him with full dramatic voice and whatnot, stabbing an unimpressed Tucker with the 59 cent rubber banana--sword--banana. Afterwards he leaves to go “scam some free candy”, his PDA mapped out for OCP: Optimum Chocolate Payload, and his disguise, a pair of funny glasses attached to a fake nose. You know what I’m talkin’ about? His excuse saying he's “gotta travel light for the maximum haul.” Tucker leaves just in time to meet the point end of the Fenton Foamer, shooting out foamy Ecto towards him. Jack proudly states it’s working status while Maddie declares there was a ghost just in the house they entered before it disappeared off the charts (read: Danny). Tucker leaves, huffy. Danny tells his parents to do the same otherwise Lancer will assume the two helped him. Jack gets the notion and guesses correctly that he’s doing this for an anti-detention project, but Danny quickly reassures him that’s not the case, merely saying he’s finally interested in ghosts like his folks. The parents leave after that, Jack tearfully joyful of his son’s route.
Turning ghost again, Danny takes the rubber banana--sword--oh, screw it, it’s so banana and flies over to Dash, assuming it to be lame, his room being a theme of the horrors of sports related…whatever. Well, it’s a slight step up, seeing as Dash somehow learned how to use animatronics (Anyone bet he got a nerd to do this all for him out of force?). He gives Lancer a tour on the horrors of Athlete’s foot (riding a giant shoe vehicle on rails) while Danny watches, shocked at how good Dash’s project is and how he’s is lame. His banana deflates at this point, so now the kid has to think of a way to spice up his Halloween project before he’s in a mouthful of stinky underwear goodness.
Danny takes his cue to go to the Ghost Zone (leaving his deflated banana sword lying on the floor there) and heads for FK’s castle, located on a small floating island. He heads inside where flying up a set of stairs gets him to meet giant swinging axes, one which cuts him a bit on the side, revealing Ecto…blood of some sorts. Interesting that even as a half ghost, Danny bleeds ghost blood. I’ll be sure to keep this in mind if I ever make an article depicting how the ways of a half ghost works or some such. Danny skillfully somersaults and other flips to make his way out to a door as he avoids the rest of the sharp points. He ends up in a hallway with lifeless skeletons lined up in a row with spears and a pumpkin. Sure, it seems serene enough--well, serene for a haunted place, but then spikes come out of them and the walls start to close, aiming to crush and spike the poor kid. Danny quickly flies in, then remembers humans cannot be hurt in the Ghost Zone, so he quickly turns back and walks off unharmed. Whoever was the decorator of that particular room must be crying in his grave that his line of perfectly stationed skeletons are all crushed into dust. Finally making it to Fright Knight’s main room, he walks pass a skeleton induced floor (seriously, what’s with the huge amounts of skeletons here?) before eyeing the Soul Shredder, stuck Sword of the Stone-style inside the pumpkin, as if the pumpkin needs any more reasons against lobotomy. Danny takes the sword out with all his strength, happy that he’s got what he needed.
The skeletons afterwards comes to life causing Danny to turn ghost and get ready to do battle, however they all instead bow down to him. Danny takes a bit of ego to that, but then he realizes that they ain’t bowing to him, they’re bowing to Fright Knight when he dramatically pops out of his pumpkin imprisonment, pissed as hell. Ooh, you is screwed now, boy. FK tells Danny to return his sword so that he can start his reign of terror, but Danny refuses. “It was not a demand, whelp!” Poor Danny, everybody calls him whelp. Danny makes off with the sword. Fright Knight basically wastes more time by chucking an orange pumpkin nearby, one that houses his kickass horse--Pegasus--Unicorn--whatever, Nightmare. Fright Knight provides unicorns can be badass and not just decorations on a Lisa Frank notebook. He hitches a ride and they’re off. Hmm, couldn’t Fright Knight telepathically get his sword back like he did in “Reign Storm?” Then again, considering that episode came after, the developers probably thought of it then.
Back in Amity Park, Maddie mentions an Ecto-storm flaring up (all the while as her voice sounds very iffy). Jack takes this time to alert all the trick or treaters nearby with his megaphone, but they all laugh, assuming their costumes are plumber wear. Jack doesn’t get that they’re laughing at him, only wondering if his bull horn is on or not, even though it’s fairly obvious it is. Then again, I already complain this family has bizarre hearing issues, so what more can I say?
Meanwhile back in the Ghost Zone, Fright Knight is not that far behind Danny, even going as far as eye beaming the kid. Danny avoids it and eyes the Ghost Portal out. So he Ecto Rays FK out of his steed to distract him, then heads inside where he closes the portal and leaves. But since FK is such a badass, he merely opens the portals with his gauntlet inducing hands. Danny heads back to the Haunted Manor and sneaks up behind Sam who lets out a scream. “If you think that’s scary, get a load of this!” cries out Danny as he showcases the sword to Sam. She expresses her concern while Danny is rather cool about it, sticking the sword to the floor (that’s damaged property!) and causing it to glow. Eventually, the sword shoots out green light towards the sky, causing thunder and lightning from a giant green swirling storm cloud surrounding the sky above the manor. The supernatural hits inside the manor causing Dash’s stuffed dummies to come alive--turned into zombies, one which he screams out nearby Danny and Sam. Danny then gets concerned…until Lancer comes into judge. Turning human, he decides to wait until after the judgement, thinking the worse can’t get any more worse. However, FK enters in the middle of Amity Park, ready to reclaim his sword and go about trying to rule the world. Oh, Danny, you stupid, stupid kid.
By the time we get back to the second half, the zombies already took over Danny’s room, surrounding him, Sam, and Lancer. The writers never bothered to make them actually come into Danny’s room, they’re just there, going after them. And to make it even more of a kick in the pants, Danny quickly shoves them out the door so casually. Doesn’t the idea of the LIVING DEAD WHO EATS BRAINS register this kid!? Hell, he immediately cuts to trying to get Lancer to piss his pants off with his pathetic display, but he’s not impressed until the giant storm cloud turns Danny’s box of rubber spiders into one giant REAL one. Lancer starts off liking said display though as Danny nervously watches.
Meanwhile, Dash runs off screaming like the pussy he really is until FK corners him, recognizing the terror and fear in his face, stating such a thing could come from his sword. He demands to know what he’s running from to which Dash quickly replies before getting the hell out. More storm cloud shenanigans occur when it turns inanimate objects around the city into monsters that start to terrorize the city. FK takes this cue to head on over, but is interrupted by Tucker who mistakes him for Danny (Oh, yeah, it’s EASY to recognize the similarities between haphazard bucket head FK and the real thing, it‘s time to get a new prescription, Tuck) and comments on his “cool horse”, asking how he made it. FK doesn’t seem phase by this and instead grabs him and melts his candies from his pumpkin bucket, if not to teach him not to diss FK. Tucker at this point manages to figure out he ain’t Danny as FK makes his way to the Haunted manor. Well, better now then, say until the last minutes of this episode. Most cartoons tend to do this a lot despite the obvious behind any disguises. I mean, I don’t care if it’s story humor, story purposes, or some lame running gag, but how the HELL can Ash and his buddies NOT notice Team Rocket’s crappy disguises? Okay, I can understand Ash (the kid needs a map just to get to a point), but the rest of them have the smarts to see through. I don’t know why, but that thing always irritates me, even now and I don’t watch the Pokemon anime as I used to (partially because it got boring during Johto region, other partially because I’m not into anime/manga stuff as I used to be years back).
Back inside the manor, Lancer is caught in a giant spider web as the giant spider approaches. Again he assumes this to be part of Danny’s work, so he states he is “mildly impressed”. Danny doesn’t do ANYTHING but watch a giant spider ready to make a meal out of Lancer until he says those two little words, then he goes Fenton Foamer on them and any other oddities that the sword created, saying he’s got everything under control. Okay, 1.) Danny, you’re a flippin’ idiot and 2.) Where the HELL did that Fenton Foamer come from? Last I checked, the Fenton parents had it with them as they left the manor. Leaving that brain tumor inducing inconsistency aside, Danny plans to toss the sword back in the Ghost Zone as soon as Lancer declares him the winner--ZOMGFRIGHTKNIGHT! Crashing through the roof with Tucker at hand comes Fright Knight and his trusty steed Nightmare. Oh, what a nice theme song that’ll make.
“It’s time for the fright of the night…The spooky master of Halloween…
He’s got tricks, but not treats…
He’s Fright Knight with Nightmare, his trusty steeeeeeeeed!”
Tucker warns Danny not to give him the sword, but the knight smacks him away until he lands next to Lancer on the giant web. FK then spots his prized weapon of major hurtiness and heads for it all the while as Lancer grows impressed with him, thinking he’s a nicely designed robot. Danny runs to the sword at the same time as FK, but of course FK being the more stronger of the two (at least until Danny goes ghost which he can’t with Lancer watching) grips tightly to the sword as he swings it around wildly to get him off. It’s like when you accidentally glued yourself to paper on your arm and you try in vain to get it off by swinging it around. As he does so, FK accidentally slices through Lancer who is impressed with the battle, but wonders if it’s too scary. He gets his wish when he finds himself in a dark dimension surrounded by chalkboards with math equations (*shudders* Math). A pi formula grabs him and causes him to scratch the chalkboard which scares Lancer…right.
Danny cries out where Lancer went to which FK answers. Danny instead of reeking in horror, cheers, knowing he’d win now by this point. Sam glares at him and he finally goes ghost, trying to kick him down, but FK just smacks him through a wall. FK makes his bold, dramatic villain speech on how the storm cloud will change everything to this nightmarish world, then Danny comes up and tackles his chest, but falls cuz’ the thing is like made of metal or something hard and cold. As FK dives in to send Danny to his nightmare, Tucker steps in to save him and gets sent to his nightmare: a deserted island where he has no technology, no clothes (stripped down to his boxers, beret, and glasses), and stuck with a giant pencil and notepad. This is the writer’s way of basically shoving Tucker out as they seem to enjoy doing to him.
FK attacks, Danny Ecto beams to which he bats it away towards Danny, hitting him and causing him to crash into another wall. Sam tries hard to find a weakness in her book, but FK slices it in half as Danny saves her from being nightmare’d. Hiding behind the chair, Danny quickly apologizes to Sam for his competitive behavior. Sam quickly tells him to start kicking FK’s butt while she handles finding something in the now ruined book, so Danny commences battle and gets properly owned again. Sam eventually finds the chant to stop FK on one of the pages, which has it animated as one full page despite FK slicing the book IN HALF. She quickly tells Danny to find a pumpkin to put the sword through. Danny scans the room and eventually finds Tucker’s pumpkin bucket, complete with melted candy just sitting on a desk drawer…just sitting there. HOW THE HELL DID IT GET THERE? How on Earth did Tucker put it there? It’s not like he had the time or the opportunity to do it! Is everything somehow magically deus ex machine’d in this damn episode?!
FK comes out and grabs Danny and takes him outside to the upper roof of the manor. There he displays impressive sword skills as Danny dodges it and Ecto Blasts him back inside. There, the two pound the crap out of each other. Then FK grabs him and pushes him to the floor, ready to strike him with his blade, but Danny quickly catches the sword in time (Nice!) and starts to chant the spell. After that, he dramatically flips FK, takes his sword, and shoves it in Tucker’s bucket (Also nice!). So apparently the spells work on any pumpkins, even fake ones. The giant green storm cloud now goes in reverse and sucks up everything Fright Knight related back to the Ghost Zone as Amity Park’s inanimate objects return to what it once was. Jack and Maddie head to the manor to save their son when they spot the giant green cloud (which they NOW do something about it). FK vows revenge as his head literally crumbles and his body is cast away. The last thing to disappear being the sword-stuck pumpkin itself.
Tucker and Lancer return (the former happy to be reunited with his secret lover, the PDA) while the latter declares Danny the winner. He and Sam embrace afterwards (cue Danny/Sam fangirls squealing), then Danny gets stuck with guilt. He confesses he cheated, by making a lie that he stole his family’s gears (well, he can’t very well explain he’s a half ghost kid who stole a real ghost’s big ass sword, now can he?) to create this word (Sam helping him by stating the Fenton Foamer was designed to create nightmare hallucinations and all), but surprisingly, the usual strict Lancer doesn’t give a care, saying both he and Dash’s Halloween rooms are even scarier then Tetslaff which is his main concern. He heads outside to flaunt this to her, but is Ecto foamed by Jack and Maddie. Lancer then changes his mind and declares Dash the winner and he now has detention to which the Fenton parents aren’t happy about.
The next day, Tucker and Sam prepares a terrified Danny by giving him salt and pepper shakers and a clothes pin for his nose now that he has to eat Dash’s underwear in front of everybody at the school cafeteria. Sucks to be you.
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Article written in: Oct. 31, 2006
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