TITLE: Parental Bonding: The World's most misleading title EVER
LOGO: “In Sensational Dragon-Vision”
EPISODE #: 2
SEASON: 1
AIR DATE: April 10,2004
DIRECTOR: Butch Hartman, Wincat Alcala, Sean Dempsey
STORY: Steven Sustarsic, David Silverman
WRITERS: Steve Marmel, Sib Ventress
STORYBOARD: Erik Wiese, Ray Angrum
ART DIRECTION: Bob Boyle
MUSIC: Guy Moon
APPEARANCE: Paulina, Kwan, Valerie, Reggae DJ (1st), Main Trio, Fenton Folks, Jazz, Lancer, Dash
GHOST APPEARANCE: Dora the Dragon Ghost Girl (1st)
FENTON GADGET APPEARANCE: Fenton Ghost Fisher (1st appearance), Fenton Urinal (Unseen)
LESSON: Bitchy girls are the #1 leading cause of Dragonitis. For more information, consult your local ghost doctor.
SUMMARY: Jack’s geared up to go fishing; he’s got his fishing hat and vest, soda to keep him going, and his trusty new Fenton Ghost Fisher, hook and line coated with ectoplasm, perfect for ghost catching. Subconsciously trying to seek death; Jack quietly waits for a ghost to snag a line from within the Fenton Portal. He must be thoroughly happy that the thing is finally working for him; he couldn’t figure it out last episode.
Danny enters the basement to reunite with his father for no reason other then advancing the plot that’ll occur in a minute, cued when Jack leaves his son with the fisher to go potty. Enchiladas go down the hooooole. Almost immediately after he's left, Danny gets lucky and snags a bite. He starts to pull the ghost before it can pull him, but the line snaps. Unlike most fish, his catch goes the opposite direction and comes squeezing through the portal, holding the other end of the fishing line. The so-called capture? A ghost dragon. Damn, that’s gotta be...three tons. You’re a shoo-in for a magazine cover shot, Danny-boy.
The dragon wastes no time and cries out in a loud, Hulk-like voice, "I WANT TO GO TO THE BALL", grabbing Danny in the process. To make up for the fact that he turned tail and ran off before Puff the Magic Dragon snatched him, Danny goes ghost, phases (mists?) his way out of its hand, dodges its fiery [green] breath, then delivers a swift kick. The dragon is thrown back by the impact, snapping the amulet off her neck, flying into Danny’s open backpack (to his unawareness). Shockingly, the dragon transforms into a medieval girl who’s less distressed over her missing pendent then she is about the ball which her "horrid mummy" refuses to let her go to (is it just me or does her head look ridiculously big there). Having caused enough trouble for one day, she flies back into the Ghost Zone. "If that dragon suit is her idea for a costume, then I’m on mummy’s side." Danny declares, conveniently right before Jack returns with more soda, then promptly leaving again to flush the toilet. The Fenton Urinal, by the way. They made their own toilets. They made their own toilets!
The majority of the student body in Casper High are all gangbusters for the school dance, especially Tucker who shows off the first of many craptacular skills with the ladies, getting dumped three times in a row ("Try Strike Three Thousand.") Sam remains the odd girl out and declares mutiny on the dance ("I don’t need to be asked to know that I’m special"). No, Sam, you have to bitch and whine. Her complaining is cut short by the googly-eyed immaturity of her two friends, both gazing at popular girl Paulina—so attractive that attention paid directly to her near-perfect face (she has a mole, can’t you tell) results in more accidents then a nuclear explosion. Damn, this school must be pretty well paid to have a water fountain. Much to Sam’s irritation, she rags on about how girls like her are "a dime a dozen", something the boys take literally, just to humor her. Tucker proves to be a good friend and lets Danny take the first step, but he claims he’s a nervous wreck states when it comes to cute girls, something Sam takes offense ("Oh, and you have no absolutely no problems talking to me"). You can see the jealously veins in her eyeballs; one of these days, they’re gonna explode. As if he needed more girl trouble. Sam relaxes and gently pushes him to Paulina.
With her back to a tree, eating yogurt, Paulina ignores the approach of Danny who casually places a hand on said tree. He tries to introduce himself, but his nervous reaction triggers off his ghost powers, causing his relaxed arm to grow intangible, making him fall...hard. Paulina is unimpressed, but he quickly gets up and tries again...until his powers quickly intangibles his pants, exposing his boxers to the general public. Much laughter at his expense ensures. Paulina makes a crack ("A gentleman usually tips his hat, but I’ll give you points for originality"), but Sam comes to the rescue and defends him, ultimately calling her "shallow". Paulina does not like that remark one damn bit while Sam walks off with the still pantless Danny. Angry Paulina turns into Scheming Paulina when she decides to plot a devious plan to separate Sam from Danny, assuming they’re a couple. Honey, he flirted with you—unless you think he’s manwhore (for Vlad, ZING!), that’s usually a sign that entitles he’s single.
Now before I move on, I need to filibuster a complaint on a stereotype I'm getting mighty tired of. The media is a harsh mistress and stereotypes upon stereotypes are common, increasing, and unstoppable. The popular girl, obsessed with materialistic goods—that is make-ups, clothes, the latest music, etc—have been marked forever has "shallow" and given absolutely no depth. They’re the idiots. But just because someone is heavily into fashion or read Cosmopolitian doesn’t automatically make them this way. Materialism isn’t limited to those, they are physical desires. Others enjoy books or video games or carving animals out of log stumps—it’s merely one obsessive replacement over another. If anything, we're ALL shallow by spending our wages on whatever hobbies we have. Paulina isn't really that shallow in this episode as she possess a rather cunning personality, but she does fall into a lot of trap that this stereotype embodies. Why the popular, fashionette girls get the role of idiotic bubbly chicks in TV is something I can understand, but can’t comprehend. I am nothing like they are, but there’s a difference between being popular and having a wide personality as oppose to being just hollow. I really hope the media can take this concept and work with it more because it's becoming a very tiresome stereotype. Sex and the City is a good start (yes, I watch this series—it’s actually very good...most of the time). SEE ALSO: Cordelia post-character development.
Moving on. School. Next Day. Danny chats with Tucker. Annnnnnnd scene. Danny is so disappointed that Paulina would never talk to him after that flailing disaster, so he gets the surprise of his life when she waltzes to his locker. Out of respect, Tucker leaves to give them some alone time. Oooooh. Before Danny can introduce himself for the third time, Dash Baxter comes out of fuckin’ nowhere and pushes the boy into his locker with the mindset that popular chick would rather be with popular dumbass. Pissed, a completely invisible Danny phases out of his locker and touches Dash on the shoulder to—I don’t know—do some sort of humorous damage to him, I guess. Instead he gets sucked into him and is quick to realize he has overshadowed the star player. Taking advantage of this glorious position, he turns Dash into a hopeless loser, throwing Paulina clear off. For some reason, she doesn’t realize he has Danny’s voice. This is an unfortunate occurrence in the series. Danny phases out of him and returns to his locker, causing a dizzy Dash to wander off, wondering why he now has the urge to scrub his mother’s feet. Did you notice this and the last episode are the only two that shows a standard full-size locker? After that, they’re half and half. Just pointing out.
Paulina opens the locker to free Danny who immediately falls to the floor. The amulet jumps out of his backpack on impact, landing between the two. Paulina spots it right away and marvels at its sparkling-ness. Danny tries to think of an excuse on where the hell he got it until he realizes she likes it. Driven by quick thinking and hormonal rage, he lies and claims he got it for her in the off-shot that she’d go to the dance with her. Paulina also lies and happily says "yes". She walks off with the amulet, her eyes briefly glowing green... Danny worries, fearful when he assumes the necklace may belong to his mom or sister and he that just gave it away like that! Paulina waves a friendly good-bye and all doubts goes flying off the window. Oh, Danny, you sexually-crazed l’il monkey—hell, his pants drops again! Somebody’s ready to become a man. Lancer spots Danny and seeing it’s not the first time he exposed himself to the public, he demands a parent/teacher conference, giving him a slip as well as his belt. Now he worries in spades.
Now with an actual subject to talk about, Danny hesitantly talks to his father about the conference (while wearing Lancer’s belt like Urkel on a good day), but a frustrated Jack interrupts, yelling how he’s gonna take his anger out on the first person who gives him bad news (he’s not getting any "fish" bites). Afraid his father might sit on him as punishment; Danny gets a brilliant light bulb moment and proceeds to overshadow his father to the conference. At school, Danny!Jack excuses Danny’s pants problem, then kisses up to the teacher (not in that way). Lancer is so impressed and flattered that he insist Jack chaperone the dance. Danny is in dismay.
At the food court of Amity Park Mall, Danny tells his two friends about his overshadowing powers. Eyeing a bookworm-ish girl (who possesses the same glasses as Tucker—careful you two aren’t related, Tuckerino), he asks Danny to possess her for a few seconds in order to ask her out, something Danny refuses to do. He finds sin in taking advantage of girls for cheap dates, but not on his father to avoid discipline. Hypocritical kid with morals. In another part of the mall, Paulina enters the Abyss store (parody of the Gap, I believe) and spots a fleecy tee. She rummages through with aggressive force thinking it’d make her unique, unaware of the ten other chicks wearing the same thing. It’s intriguing that she’s trying to express an individuality in herself. It actually stomps Sam’s theories on her shallowness. Paulina asks an employee if they have a size small for the shirt, but she answers with a perky "no"–complete with equal perky walk, hair, and clothes (I bet she’s a Stepford robot)—answering no more fleecy tees are being made.......EVER. Paulina goes red in the face from rage and the amulet acts up, turning her into the dragon from earlier.
Back at the food court, Sam nags over her hatred of all things dancing and teenage mating rituals again, as well as the new dress her parents bought for her, the latter of which she ends with nervous laughter. Oooh, she’s hiding something. She changes the subject and pisses over Paulina and her striking beauty to which Danny defends—being beautiful isn’t a crime. *nods* It isn’t. I’m a firm believer that beauty is best seen from the inside, but it isn’t a crime. Sam is right on one thing: "Looks can be deceiving".
The entire mall population now screams and runs and runs and screams and screams and runs some more. One ghost sense after, Danny turns ghost and flies to Dragon Paulina. What occurs are more green flames, tail smacks, and chin punches. Ouchies. Dragon Paulina is thrown back (out of Danny’s view) and lands near a girl with a fleecy tee. She makes with the running, leaving the bag that houses the amulet when Dragon Paulina crash-lands. Reverting back to normal, she gains her composure and retrieves her amulet from the bag...and a fleecy tee. Yep. She just takes it. She just upright TAKES the goddamn fleecy tee, like a thief. And for all intents and purpose, she is NEVER shown wearing the outfit throughout the ENTIRE show. Good morale this show ain’t. Danny returns to his friends and declare an investigation on this dragon matter. Tucker is more depressed over his date then dragon…until he eyes pre-Hunter Valerie. His approach is met with another shot down. Not unless something happens to her that makes her dateless. Kwan enters at precisely this moment (do these people have good timing or what?) with happy news that the girl he wants said "Yes", leaving Valerie to suck in her pride and go out with Tucker.
Back at Fenton Works, Maddie is dressing Jack up for the chaperone (one which Jack notes only as a vague blur), consisting of nothing but a tie. And his jumpsuit. Tie and jumpsuit, nothing naked going on in there. Jazz is ecstatic to see her father do something normal before talking to Danny, saying she's figured out his secret. Danny goes postal and cries he isn’t a ghost, but she bumped to the conclusion that his jumpiness is the result of a gal pal. Before any of the family can sink that in, he quickly corrects that Paulina is not his girlfriend. Jazz counters with some sound advice, "You better let her know your family is insane now, Danny; if you marry her and she finds our later, that’s entrapment". I love that quote. Danny leaves with yet another weight to carry.
The night of the dance approaches and Sam lies on her bed with her laptop, chatting with Tucker and Danny, both of them dressed (Tucker still taking it upon himself to wear that beret). Tucking the Fenton Ghost Fisher, Danny asks Sam for the dragon research. There, the trio learns the Amulet of Aragon. Its curse is triggered by dire stress whenever anyone wears it, turning them into that dragon. This is pretty much retconned by "Beauty Marked". Recognizing it as the amulet he gave to Paulina, Danny’s weight of the world has been permanently upgraded to the entire solar system. Sam makes a snide remark about Paulina, and then logs off.
Usually not the empathic type (that’s Tucker and Jazz's roles, however different they utilize it), Danny correctly points out she really wants to go the dance. So baring that in mind, he possesses Tucker and takes his latest victim to Sam’s house, portraying as the geekster and claiming Valerie stood him up. He’s really abusing this power and so quickly without any struggle. He could barely keep his transformation intact in the last episode. Sam tries to make an excuse, but decides that since he got stood up, it’s leeway. Changing into that "dumb dress", she goes from normal Goth girl to lavishing Goth girl. Danny leaves by this point, but Tucker doesn’t mind. Even girls who don’t attempt to look pretty can make themselves look pretty. In the meantime, Danny flies to Paulina’s house and turns human. He rings the doorbell and quietly mutters to himself on how he should convince her to return the amulet, but is instead greeted by Paulina’s burly father (a shoo-in for the Brawny paper towel mascot). He quickly threatens Danny with every inch of his life if he upsets his daughter in anyway. She comes outs, lectures her papa that he's scaring him, and then walks off with Danny.
At the dance, Lancer walks among his students, reading a book on "hip" out-of-date slangs without irony. Surprise Surprise. Danny gives Paulina punch as he slowly asks for the amulet’s return, making up some bullshit that it belongs to Sam. Having been associated with the Goth’s accessories for days activates her wrath, causing her literal lizard-like tongue to lap up the punch in one slurp, and then breaking the cup with her hand. Danny quickly cries he’ll get her something else. Better make that a "posthaste", kid. On the way, he spots Lancer chatting with Jack who can’t seem to figure out who the hell he is. Danny dives into his old man and chats up a storm with him. Maddie gets smart points for figuring out SOMETHING is wrong with her husband's voice. Danny, still in Jack’s body heads over to Tucker and Sam to denote trouble a-brewing, both briefly unaware he’s Danny-in-a-big-body. He hands the two walkie-talkies and tells Sam to keep an eye on Paulina while Tucker is stationed to Jack-duty. Sam quickly spots her and tells Danny who hastily responses back to stay on her (not that way, although it’d be hot).
Sam enters the girls’ room where Paulina teases her about the amulet Danny "took" from Sam to give to her. Sam is initially confused, and then realizes the ploy before playing along. She refuses to neither give in nor give up the amulet and "her little boyfriend, Danny". Sam lets off a chuckle, stating Danny is her best friend and nothing more. In a shocking turn of events, Sam apologizes for calling her "shallow". Well, damn, I’m flabbergasted. Sam can actually admit she’s wrong or apologize for any harsh remarks she makes. Too bad we don’t see much of this. Bummed out on that little revelation, Paulina gives Sam her amulet back (placing it around her neck...hot?), and storms off, confessing her [former] plan along the way. Since it’s a bust, why bother keeping it a secret? Pissed off, Sam takes back what she said and starts to transforming, roaring, "SHALLOW.LITTLE.WITCH!" Unlike most damsels-in-distress who cry for HELP!, Paulina faints upon witnessing this horrific scene. For some annoying, godforsaken reason, the only one to hear that roar is Danny. He runs into the restroom (pervert) just in time to see Dragon Sam fly off with Paulina (or Dragon Paulina flying off with Sam as Danny thinks). How loud is the music that it cancels out a dragon’s roar AND the loud noise it made when she flew out of the roof?
Dragon Sam attacks while Danny goes intangible and flies off with Paulina. She counters by swatting him with her tail, sending them behind the bleachers where Dash tries to get in on some unprotected sex. Remember kids, condoms can be cool, too.
Unlike the rest, Dash and mystery chick has the good sense to get the fuck outta there. To make matters worse, Tucker warns Danny that Lancer is in cahoots with Maddie; Jack takes it the wrong way and thinks he’s flirting with her. Possibly cursing in his mind (because this is a kid’s show), Danny grabs Dragon Sam’s tail, swings her around to keep her distracted, then flies back to Jack to compliment Lancer some more and dance with his wife (the kids actually cheer them on). All in a day’s work. Danny leaves his body to further consummate his battle with Dragon Sam. More fire breathing and action scenes afterwards, Danny makes that ridiculous ol’ joke, "You throw fire like a girl!" Geez, even Dragon Sam’s thinks it's a lame joke. Or maybe Danny knew she’d make that face, because he takes that time to whip out the Fenton Ghost Fisher and tie Dragon Sam’s arms and wings, all the while magnificently dodging her fiery breaths (good animation). Dragon Sam plummets and Danny removes the amulet, restoring her to normal.
Back at the nearly empty dance party, Tucker comforts Danny from the sucky aftermaths between him and Paulina. Speaking of Miss Popular, she’s being flirted on by Dash again, much to her annoyance. She's taking Sam's brief mutation awfully well. Did she merely think it was all just a dream? Keep in mind ghosts have not become publicly aware yet. Sam is about to step in and say something, but after all the chaos that has been inflicted, she surprisingly gives her mouth a rest and nonchalantly shrugs off a "Who cares?" Who are you and what have you done with Sam? Not that I don’t mind—this is a Sam I can get used to. The DJ plays a nice slow-dancing music, so she asks Danny for a dance to end the night. He agrees and dumps the amulet on Tucker before the two hit the dance floor (he promises to keep his pants up). Tucker then realizes he is still dateless and bitches some more. Be careful what you wish for; Dora (the original Dragon Girl) pops out of nowhere and laments her continuous desire to go the ball, touching and eyeing Tucker with such lust. Tucker quickly changes his mind. Got Necrophilia?
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Article written revised in: Mar. 13, 2009
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