TITLE: the Fenton Menace: "The" also meant to be lowercased
LOGO: “You won’t BELIEVE your eyes!”
EPISODE #: 27
SEASON: 2
AIRDATE: Oct. 7, 2005
DIRECTOR: Butch Hartman, Wincat Alcala, Kevin Petrilak
WRITERS: Marty Isenberg
STORYBOARD: Butch Hartman, Ray Angrum, Robb Pratt
ART DIRECTIONS: George Goodchild
MUSIC: Guy Moon
APPEARANCE: Danny and Jazz, Fenton Folks, Sam and Tucker, Lancer (briefly)
GHOST APPEARANCE: Youngblood and mutant parrot/horse
FENTON GADGET APPEARANCE: Fenton Submarine/Speed Boat, Spinning Table Thing, Fenton Bazooka (different variety) Fenton Ointment, Fenton Gun (different variety), Fenton Towel (only stated and not seen)
LESSON: Soon to be a video clip in every psychology college courses everywhere
SUMMARY: Jazz narrates her tale much like Tucker did in “What You Want” as a scene opens with her struggling to survive her father’s rampant driving while worrying over her brother who’s fighting...no one, except perhaps himself. She feels now may be the time to expose his secret to her parents if his craziness keeps up. Way to add suspense to an element that doesn't come into play for the reminder of the episode. He constantly aims the Fenton RV (unintentionally) as he drives away his "pretend" foe, then is seemingly dragged to the Fenton RV with the lives of three people hanging in the balance. Aaaaaaand cue title sequence.
Jazz flashbacks to an earlier period in time, starting with the Fenton Folks taking their kids on a submarine dive (yes, they have a freakin’ Fenton Submarine) to hunt for ghosts. Naturally, Jazz displays her usual whims of disdain, describing their quality family time as a “sub-aquactic death trap.” Jack predictably takes it in pride, determined to rip the ghosts apart, “molecule by molecule”. If that didn’t ease Danny, that pirate ship from a few episodes back will, ghost shield still intact. He tells his family to avoid the ship at all cost, but Jack hears it another way and dives right on in. Immediately Danny spots a ghost from his window and alarms his family. The exited Fenton Folks peeks in for a look, but finds nothing and scolds him. That doesn’t deter Danny who’s damn sure he spotted one. He quickly mans the vehicle, sends out a shitload of weapons around it (causing the ship to crumble apart like a cracked egg and simultaneously releasing the ghost shield) and drives the crew out of the water and to the surface where the submarine now turns into a goddamn speed boat. Great design, one of my favorite Fenton products. If he could man both a boat/submarine AND a blimp with little flaws, why the living hell does he have such a problem with the Fenton Jet until the series finale? But I digress, I can bitch about that in “Reality Trip” and bitch I will.
Maddie pulls Danny out of the controls and again the boy tries to tell him there was a ghost. Apparently there must be, something is hitting the water from behind. Neither of the three saw that, so they’re incline to think him nutso. Jazz continues to narrate, disapproving her parents’ method to drive the crazy out of Danny, namely strapping him to a table and spinning him really fast really quick. Ya know, those machineries they use on astronauts. It doesn’t work, Danny sees himself as the sane one. Now it’s Jazz’s turn.
In Casper High, Jazz sneaks in a conversation between Sam and Danny, the latter who looks and behaves as if he’s guzzled his own bodyweight in coffee. Danny confesses to Sam that he may be seeing ghosts that aren’t really there, leading Jazz to conclude he’s hallucinating and needs to put his ghost powers on hiatus until he’s cured. Tucker happily arrives with a cure for Danny’s secret identity problems, an ipod doubly named as “Tucker Foley’s Alibi-O-Matic”, designed to be placed behind close doors with various sounds of Danny (or Tucker or some guy he paid) sleeping, sneezing, and…going to the bathroom. Neither Sam and Danny gives off a face of confidence; Danny even swipes it from Tucker’s hand.
The school bell rings and a relief Sam drags Tucker away. Danny spots the so-called imaginary ghost and is about to turn Phantom until he bumps into Jazz. She declares him her hall monitor and orders him to his class, planning to watch his every move so that he doesn’t do anything. The clever little brat enters the boy’s bathroom and transforms. Pwned. Point One for Fenton Boy. There he combats Inviso-Bill (hey, it fits) while Lancer makes the mandatory children’s cartoon toilet joke. Not the most crass, thankfully. Danny and the “ghost” leaves the bathroom afterwards; there Danny goes batshit insane and destroys every single thing in the school hallway before flying off, leaving Jazz unharmed in the process, including from falling debris. A stagehand must've told her to stay underneath a giant, invisible "X" to ensure she doesn't walk off with a neck cast.
Danny's a lot worse then she thought, so she suggests a camping trip for the whole family, stating nature will have a calming affect for troubled teens. Angry, Danny counters back, “Are there any studies on the calming affects of big sisters minding their own business?!” Then invisible ghost punches him, forcing Danny to apparently shout to said invisible ghost. Jack and Maddie are reluctant, but quickly agree when Danny starts shooting the shit out of the basement lab. He’s craziness really shows he has no concern for safety to him and those around him; really crazy or just plain awesome?
The next day, Jazz double checks to make sure Jack isn’t carrying any weapons before turning off the weapons of the Fenton RV. She wears that control around her neck for the duration of the episode. Jack is uneasy while Maddie gives off reassuring looks. Also, they’re both decked in camping outfits--for the first time, Jack is without his jumpsuit, savor it. Maddie however is just hot. Sam and Tucker worryingly watch Danny make his way over, leaving Jazz to shove the two away. “He needs to relax”. Danny spots the invisible ghost again and makes empty threats before hopping into the vehicle, saddened he’s own friends don’t even see it. THIS is a major problem I’ll get to later down the road.
Now we’re getting close to the present time period. Jack complains he feels naked without his jumpsuit as he itches. Maddie administers Fenton Ointment ("Fointment!"), then gives Jazz her teddy bear, Bearbert. She snatches the bear in embarrassment, cuddles it a bit, then watches as Danny shoves it from her hand in anger. Damn, there hasn’t been this much animosity between the two since “My Brother’s Keeper”. The two argue over ghosts…and a parrot--AHA, A [Blue’s] Clue, if you were too dense to guess the pirate ship--until Maddie shushes them both for a round of “I Spy”. She spies something that starts with “C”. Jack tries his hand in the game while Danny randomly shouts out the word “cowboy” when he spots a shadowy one running alongside the vehicle.
Jazz: Where do you see a cowboy?Danny: *confused* At...70 miles an hour? Oh-No, not again.
The vehicle gets rocky, the Fenton family unaware off their tread wheel having been ripped off. Danny panicky cries out they’re going over a “CLIFF!” (which was Maddie’s word, by the way) while said cowboy watches: Youngblood and his parrot-turned-horse. What a sick kid, letting innocent people die. Jack is crazy prepared though and sports a new tread on the wheels. He then scratches some more, letting Maddie take the wheel (which is movable to either front seats, very convenient) while Youngblood rides closer to see them turn into "road pizza". Danny asks if Jazz is ever planning on operating the weapons back online. Like a rock, she refuses to budge, so Danny administers Plan “B” and occupies the Fenton RV’s bathroom. Look at that, they have their own bathroom! These people are the most well-prepared people in the whole goddamn world. If there’s a nuclear bomb going off, they’d have anti-radiation Fenton bomb shelter squeezed somewhere underground. Danny transforms into Phantom (with a nice bird’s eye perspective), actually uses the ipod to make it seem he’s eaten way too much garbanzo beans, then proceeds to deliver the butt kicking.
Youngblood uses a cork gun to take one of the Fenton RV’s wheels until Danny shoots it off. He then proceeds to Ecto-Ray Youngblood off his horse till he’s rescued by him. Jack and Maddie notices Danny and weirdly talks off hunting him down in the most sedated voices ever. Jazz pops in, screeching to them they promised not to ghost hunt for the entire weekend. She sits back down and mumbles in irritation that Danny promised the same thing, too. Youngblood may show two full hands this time around, but he can still turn it into whatever he desires, this case: a rope that he wraps around Danny’s leg and drags him around (animation error as the rope switches to his other hand when the camera angle changes), nearly hitting the Fenton RV. This is the part where it’s now present time (well, not for Jazz as she’s narrating the whole thing). Relieved Danny missed, Jack lets Maddie drive again to use the bathroom, prompting Jazz to step in to say Danny’s currently occupied, doing number two, then sleeping if off. What? There’s no repeat function on the thing?
Danny hog-ties the horse with the rope, dragging the two down to a large rock. There, he grabs Youngblood (whom we learn is just as bad with cowboy lingo as he is with pirate) and asks why no one can see him. Sheriff Exposition relies the answer by saying only children can see him, Jazz excluded because she thinks herself an adult. Determined to keep it that way, Youngblood again ties Danny and swings him back into the vehicle, coincidentally right inside the bathroom which he harmlessly phases into. He exits with both Jack and Jazz eyeing, “Geez, can I guy get two minutes of privacy?” Jack quickly enters and uses the bathroom time to cuddle his jumpsuit, stored in a compartment. Yep, nothing like Day-glo orange spandex. Youngblood watches in disappointment that Danny didn’t blow up the vehicle. Oh, geez-- *EXASPERATED SIGH*
Youngblood plans to crazy up Danny for one more night, confident his family will send him to the crazy house. Once the family camps for the night (their tent is a miniature FentonWorks, cute), Jazz keeps a close eye on Danny, refusing to admit she was wrong (about anything) over the very idea of sending her parents and her crazy brother on a camping trip alone in the vast, vast wilderness. Youngblood enters the camp to play around with Jazz with his intangibility, causing Danny to find creative ways to combat Youngblood, all surprisingly effective. Them’s using that ol’ noggin. Point two for Danny. He covers himself with his sleeping bag next and uses it to escape. Jazz finds that one out (Point One for her) and catches him in time to be rescued by Youngblood and his big, murdering AX! Jazz then puts up a fake act, saying she does see a ghost behind Danny (how the hell is that possible, both Youngblood and mutant parrot/horse are within his eye range). He turns around, only to be kicked inside the RV by her (damn, those leg muscles--the kid has to at least been 110lbs) where she locks him in and puts up the ghost shield to forcibly trap him, “humoring him” as her excuse without exposing her secret knowledge. Point Two for her. She continuously eyes Danny while he’s watching something else: Youngblood and his horrot pushing the tent housing Jack and Maddie into a raging river (Jack is too asleep to notice the movement while Maddie assumes it’s her husband’s snoring that’s shaking the whole tent). Danny orders Jazz to turn around; she does...to see an unmoving tent. She doesn’t notice it’s IN AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT LOCATION though. They continue to push once Jazz averts her gaze back to Danny.
Danny pushes buttons that sends the liquid from the front car window to Jazz in haste. She cites him as immature, telling him to act his age. “Or maybe you should act...your age!” Suddenly strictly with a revelation, Danny commences Plan “C”, Operation Piss Off Olda’ Sister. He squirts his sister with another dose of water, then proceeds to face making (with funny voices brilliantly portrayed by David), shouting “Jazz is a Spaz” on the RV’s bullhorn (which doesn’t even wake the Fenton parents up), then brings out the big gun: Bearbert, all as Youngblood watches from behind while his horse-parrot keeps pushing. Danny gets out what appears to be a Fenton carving fork, using it to take the stuffing out of the toy with a sadistic look on his face. Replace the bear with a human and you have Chess Piece Danny. Run for your freakin’ lives. Jazz is horrified either way and literally stomps the ground, throwing a tantrum and begging him to put her bear down. Youngblood giggles in all it’s maliciousness...which Jazz hears. She is instantly relief that Danny isn’t crazy. “You have now stooped to my level, thank you for shopping Fenton-Marts.” Danny declares. That still doesn’t explain why Sam and Tucker couldn’t see Youngblood earlier. Danny stated he found him in a corner and from that angle, that would make sense, except the animation showed him sparring with Youngblood all over the goddamn street.
She releases Danny and tells him to run and get help. Meanwhile, she mans the RV, turns on the weapons (by pulling a switch? I thought only the button control around her neck activates/deactivates it, otherwise Jack would have pulled that thing 15 freakin' minutes ago). “This is for Bearbert” Jazz viciously cries, her sight and weapons aimed at Youngblood, now ecto-peeing his pants. Danny rescues Jack and Maddie from their doom at the same time Jack tries to get Maddie out of the tent when he spotted their supposed doom, then he pulls out a hidden Fenton Gun, much to Maddie’s dismay. Jazz in the meantime shows off her crazy side by shooting Youngblood with no clause. He retaliates back by sending the spiked ends of his heels to cut off the Ecto-guns. Danny pops in about this time and forces Youngblood to taste dirt as he drags the kid to the ground on a moving vehicle by his leg. Never mind how far his arm has to stretch to even reach that low, Danny IS a sadist. After Jazz takes down the parhose with the Fenton Lipstick, she “slips” Danny the Fenton Thermos and, well, you know what happens. Jack and Maddie aim for Danny with the Fenton Gun, but Jazz distracts ‘em with the windshield wiper water, giving Danny room to fly off.
NOW we get to Jazz’s present time as she concludes her story on her diary, still wearing the Fenton weapons control button for some reason, “So yeah, sometimes I do feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders and I’m the only responsible adult in the family...but, Danny’s responsible and he’s a kid; which means it’s probably safe for me to be a kid every now and then.” She hugs her newly restored Bearbert only to hear it farting. She finds Tucker’s ipod and cries out on Danny’s immaturity again.
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Article written in: Aug. 5, 2008
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