excellent and very intelligent story arcs....but god awful storytelling

I think you've nailed down why I consider this show 'average' instead of 'OMG1! This iz, liek, the best show evar!!': the incessant need for jokes that overrides character and believability.

A lot of shows have done this in the last few years, but it seems worse on "Danny Phantom". It's like the show wanted to be both action and comedy, but couldn't commit too strongly to the former without copious amounts of the latter. Now, if the jokes were funny, I'd have no problem with this. Unfortunately (like every show in the last few years that aimed for the funny above all else), the jokes are lame.

Danny's banter with the villains is painful (I am not exaggerating when I say that I could've done better.), but I'd still take hours of it with a big smile on my face next to some of the other comic gems on this show. Let's see:

- Tucker getting chased by a crowd of angry girls at the end of not one, but two episodes ("King Tuck" and "Beauty Marked")

- Jazz, previously established as a wise and caring older sister, turned - for no reason, whatsoever - into Dee Dee ("Dexter's Lab") in the episode "Secret Weapons"; sucking Danny into the Thermos and loudly acknowledging that Jack and Maddie aren't in on Danny's secret...seriously, if she had, at some point, uttered "Ooh. What does this button do?", the illusion would've been complete

- speaking of Jack and Maddie, I never really got why Danny never just told them what happened to him; he may be a (half-)ghost, but he's still their son...and in "Forever Phantom", they managed to mistake a red-eyed, Paul Lynde-voiced doppelganger for their own flesh and blood while hunting their son (okay, this is less a failed joke than a grievance, but I'm venting here)

I could go into the absolute forcedness of the shipping, but this post is already long enough. Suffice it to say that if they excised the shipping and written funnier material, this could've been a classic series.

it's a Nick show for kids made by the guy who created Fairly Oddparents- what do you expect?

that said, it's way better than the other show. It is a cliche storm, admittedly, but that kind of works because it's largely comedic and doesn't seem to take itself too seriously most of the time, being more of an Affectionate Parody of typical superhero shows.

I drink coffee FOR BREAKFAST.