Lunch Lady Ghost: Bipolar Mood Swinger Meat Chef
VOICE ACTOR: Kath Soucie
AGE: Unknown
EYES: Red
HAIR: White
STATUS: Exactly What It Says On The Tin, A Lunch Lady, a protein–favored, PMSing one
LIKES: Meat, Meat, and Meat, and in an alternate future, apparently Box Ghost
DISLIKES: Anyone who changes or deviates from her strict Meat menu
PERSONALITY: Bipolar: Ranges from sweet and kind to angry and violent at the drop of a hat
POWER: Control over Meat and Meat products, standard ghost powers
STRENGTH: Bipolar nature makes her unpredictably dangerous
WEAKNESS: Hard to say. In the end, she’s still a ghost prone to Anti-Ghost weapons
FIRST APPEARANCE: "Mystery Meat"
GOAL: To spread and force her love for Meat to everyone, kinda like what Sam did, too.
HISTORY: She’s a ghostly lunch lady who’s only means for vendetta is over a changed menu that ignores her all-strict meat diet. Her only sense of dignity as a villain is that she holds the honor of being the first major ghost in Danny Phantom, second only to the Ectopusses as Danny’s first foe.
She did make a formidable impression. Smelling or spider-sensing the lack of meat in Casper High from afar, Lunch Lady Ghost (from here on, referred to as LLG) flew her way to the learning center and went severely postal when Sam's quest for Vegetarian meals succeeded in [struggled] spades. Taking up the mantle of hero, the unsure Danny combated LLG. He failed, barely rescuing Sam before calling it quits when she proved to be the better warrior. A farcry from the types of ghosts Danny fights in latter episodes.
For some reason, LLG did nothing until the next day when she attacked the protest war between Tucker and Sam, both rooting for their choice meals (Meat vs. Veggies). Turning into a giant meat version of herself (who oddly resembles a tasty Clayface), LLG wrecked havoc on school grounds. Danny gets his second chance to wage war and is far successful now that he has the Fenton Thermos on his side. LLG is finished for the time, but she gets a second deserved honor: it was her actions that caused Danny to tread the path of a hero.
All subsequent appearances from her have been thankless cameos, as if the writers wised up and realized a ghostly Lunch Lady makes a stupid villain. But she more then makes up for her first presence by being a frequent player in the background. She helped Danny and the other ghosts escape Walker’s prison (with a giant turkey leg, no less), fought with Danny and other ghosts to combat Pariah Dark(after running off scared prior), helped Danny save Christmas so all the greedy little bastards would get their presents back, and made fleeting cameos in "Secret Weapons" and "Kindred Spirits". She doesn’t appear in "The Ultimate Enemy", but her alternate future daughter does: Box Lunch. Hey, love is blind.
She appears in the finale episode as one of the poor saps abused by the Masters Blasters and later helped Danny save the world from an asteroid. Boy, she helps Danny an awful lot more then damage him, no? ("Phantom Planet")
PERSONALITY: One look at her stereotypical lunch lady garb, the boil spots, and sweet demeanor might have first timers thinking she’s a kind, elderly [cafeteria] grandmother—the type who bakes cookies and mercilessly dotes on you. Then they realize their horrid mistake when that is but one of her two straightforward personas: the latter is a violent, deadly, angry, dangerous ego. Her bipolar mess contrasts one another and that in turns makes her unpredictable and determined in her rampaging path.
OPINION: She has the two dubious honors under her name (which I listed above), but I can wager a third comes in the form of her unique personality. She’s a contrasting soul and that can infuse confusion on her opponents. Tragically, that is all that she has gotten for her and I’m glad that the writers were wise to leave her as nothing but a small nuisance in Danny’s life.
It wouldn’t have worked by the latter portions anyways. LLG is an interesting case. Danny’s first major battle was with a Lunch Lady for Pete’s sake and though she proved her worth by towering (literally), by Season Three, her theme is underplayed at best. Danny does not fight for the little guys as he once did; his heroism is much more grander. Ghosts that plaque dreams, ghosts who manipulate the weather, ghosts who dominates two worlds with ease, LLG is but mere child’s play compared to the bigger, robust Rogue’s Gallery Danny has faced. She, instead is a look back at the kind of minority that Danny once pummeled. The small fries that mean little to the bigger obstacles he faces by end.
LLG might barely be much of a threat when in comparison to bigger, grander foes, but Danny, protector of all the people big and small, will take on even the most trivial of tasks to save the day, including one as silly as a Meat-loving cafeteria employee. Besides, she's not that bad as a giant meat monster.
Back to the Characters PageArticle written revised in: Apr. 27, 2009
Layout design by OKami_hu, 2009