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The Cartoon That would not Die: The Fairly Oddparents

The Cartoon That would not Die: The Fairly Oddparents

As a child of the 90's and 00's I had several favorite cartoons. Among these were: Rugrats, Animaniacs, Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Lab, Catdog, Hey Arnold, The Powerpuff Girls, and the first few seasons of SpongeBob. Among my favorites was another show that had a long running, The Fairly Oddparents. At one time this show was like my 2nd favorite on nickelodeon (which was the primary kids channel in my house). The show premiered not as its own show but a part of a cartoon variety show called Oh Yeah, Cartoons on Nickelodeon in 1997. Below is the first short cartoon As you can tell the voices are way different than the series would turn out to be.


The Short cartoons were so successful that Nick ordered Butch Hartman to create a series. The series debuted in March 2001. The first years of it were so popular that it was beating Spongebob and Rugrats ratings which both shows were Nickelodeons bread and butter at the time. Catdog, Hey Arnold, Rocket Power and Wild Thornberries were still producing new episodes at the time as well. So needless to say it was in good company. The Characters of Timmy, Cosmo, Wanda, Vicky, and a whole host of others were involved in many different stories and plots. For it's time it was a game changer.

Then around 2004 the show did several crossovers with Jimmy Neutron which were highly liked. But, there was just one problem. Nickelodeon was quickly changing it's direction from having several favorites to focusing more on Spongebob. Hey Arnold, Catdog, Wild Thornberries, and Rugrats would all end at the same time. This left Nickelodeon with some voids to fill which they tried with Jimmy Neutron, All Grown Up (a Rugrats spinoff that flopped), and Danny Phantom (which was created by Hartman as well, and there are several FOP and DP theories I'll save for another day). This would be the first time FOP would be on the chopping black.

The show did return later in 2006. The next few years saw much of the same where new shows came and go while The Sponge still reigned supreme. It is also at this time when Nick told Hartman to introduce new characters to the series which included Poof the fairy baby. Longtime fans of the show were kinda iffy to the character. However, Poof would be a more welcome addition than his latter counterparts to the show Sparky and Chloe (which the latter two became the death nail in the coffin). The Show was on Hiatus and off continuously 5 times until 2017 when it died for good and Butch Hartman left Nickelodeon.

But why did it start to suck? Here are my 3 reasons why.

1. Less of certain characters, but more of others.

In the beginning The show had an interesting array of characters which included: Francis (The school bully), Mr. Crocker (the evil and prozac depedent teacher), Trixie Tang (Spoiled rich girl and timmy's love interest), Chester,AJ,Sanjay,and Elemer who were Timmy's best friends, and Jorgen Von Strangle (an Arnold Schwarzenegger spoof) These characters made the show highly likeable. But one by one some characters were written out completely or not featured as much. While some characters became more central parts to the storyline such as Crocker.

2.Nickelodeon became way too dependent on Spongebob, and other Networks were winning the battle.


Disney and Cartoon Network were becoming legitimate threats to Nickelodeon at this time. in the late 2000's Disney produced Phineas and Ferb which was becoming popular and at one time was offered to Nickelodeon but refused. Another upcoming hit was Adventure Time which was actually supposed to be on Nickelodeon as well, but was voted down for Fanboy and Chum Chum (and we know how that went). Alongside that Nick was ignoring it's other cartoons for Spongebob by showing continuous episodes as a constant stable. Later other shows such as Regular Show and Gravity Falls were becoming new favorites leaving Nickelodeon's status as the cartoon spot questionable.

3. Nickelodeon would make a comeback, but FOP was NOT a part of the plans.

Since 2016 Nickelodeon has been making a comeback with it's nostalgia favorites such as hey Arnold, Rocko, Rugrats, Doug, Ren and Stimpy, and Ahh Real Monsters making comebacks in reruns on it's sister channels. This has gotten them so much over that Nick ordered rebooted episodes of Hey Arnold, Rocko, Invader Zim, and Rugrats. Nickelodeon would also come back with shows like Paw Patrol, Loud House, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which brought back another popular 90's franchise. Spongebob was also starting to improve as Stephen Hillenburg and members of the original team were returning for new episodes. However, Nickelodeon's comeback did not include Fairly Oddparents. The show aired it's last episode with no real ending in late 2017. a month or so later, Butch Hartman left the company.

So goes another cartoon that was once great, but died at the hands of the company that was entrusted to it. In my opinion I don't think Nickelodeon wanted any part of it really unless it could make changes it saw fit. In turn so many changes is what killed it. But for nostalgias sake let's sing along to the Theme song!!!



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The Cartoon That would not Die: The Fairly Oddparents
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