TITLE: What You Want—Now with 60% more Jeanies!
LOGO: "The Sensational Dream-O-Rama!"
EPISODE #: 6
SEASON: 1
AIRDATE: May 1, 2004
DIRECTOR: Butch Hartman, Rick Bowman, Wincat Alcala
STORY: Steve Marmel
WRITERS: Sib Ventress
STORYBOARD: Erik Wiese, Chris Graham, Ray Angrum
ART DIRECTIONS: Bob Boyle
MUSIC: Guy Moon
APPEARANCE: Surfer Dude, Gypsy Lady, Hyper Kid and mom (1st Appearance), Main Trio (mostly Tucker-centric), Fenton folks, Paulina
GHOST APPEARANCE: Desiree (1st appearance)
FENTON GADGET APPEARANCE: Fenton Ghostcatcher (1st appearance)
LESSON: Tucker, bringing inferior complexion to a whole ‘nother level
SUMMARY: "Some people have a lot, and some people don’t, but everybody’s got something. Me? I got charms, good looks, and modesty (*insert rolling eyes here*). And my best friend Danny? He has something else."
Tucker humbly narrates while sitting on the front steps of his school, writing all his secret girlish thoughts into his diary PDA. The next episode is 23 minutes of flashback, which surprisingly doesn’t flash forward to the present by the end. It begins with Danny and Tucker gazing in a swap market, eyeballing two sets of skateboard wheels. Because they’re "best fwiends forewer", they evenly divide and pay for it. Then they both walk over to "Madam Babazita’s Mystical Oddities". Tucker spots a lamp (not the type you click on) which apparently holds a genie (duh). Tucker doesn’t believe such things so he and Danny walk off. Aww, come on, Tuck, you’ve seen ghosts with your own four-eyes, a genie isn’t that farfetched. As the two teens waltz off, they bypass a tired mom and her annoying, shrill, hyperactive daughter. I hate kids. The little turd wants cotton candy, but her mother refuses, possibly because the little chatterbox is already high on sugar, hammering out dialogue like an auctioneer on a good day. Unknowingly, the kid’s balloon string accidentally knocks the lamp off of Babazita’s shop, crashing it to unleash the terror inside: Enter Desiree, the Wishing Genie Ghost.
Upon hearing the girl’s desire, she goes over to the cotton candy machine and overloads the thing. I love convenient languages; a genie who is possibly thousands of years old who obviously came from the Middle East somehow is not only able to speak perfect English, but is aware of what a cotton candy machine is, let along cotton candy. The overloaded candy machine sends assloads of pink cloudy goodness (that could not remotely fit that entire machine) that covers the entire crowd, including the ecstatic little girl. The rest scream and run. Hell, the only one even remotely happy is the dentist in his own booth. Now it’s Danny’s turn to put some smiles (alright, that was lame). "We share everything except one thing, Danny’s got superpowers." And with it, ghost boy flies up to Desiree. She immediately asks for his wish, extending her hand to touch his chest or something. Desiree’s a pedophile? Well, she did come from a time where this wouldn’t be frowned upon. Danny wisely backs off and then Ecto Rays for the first time, sending her flying. Danny guesses correctly that he gained a new ghost power. While he’s getting over the shock, Tucker is more impressed and positive, "That’s the good thing about your powers, there’s no downside!" To celebrate, he asks for a hi-five, but Danny’s still-developing powers ends up Ecto Raying him instead. He’s fine.
"So, anyway, I guess the craziness started at the game Saturday night." Tucker continues. The next scene involves him and a blanket-ridden Sam watching their high school football game. Sam looks more pale then her daily recommended dose of Goth complexity requires her to be—sick to the bones with a cold. She bitches and complains why the hell they’re here. Tucker cheerfully says it’s to lend moral support on Danny’s behalf; after all, he "gets the best seat in the game". Out comes Casper High’s school mascot-in-a-suit, the Raven who leaps playfully before being trampled by football players. Danny is revealed as the costume-bearer and is less then pleased with his position, "Fill in for the mascot. It’ll be fun, you’ll meet cheerleaders."
Next, we’re treated to the game itself. As athletic as Dash is, he and his team constantly gets man-tackled by the opposite team and I don't mean that in a sexual way. Unless you want to think that way. *snerks* Tucker displays his disgust for Casper High's crappy team (I can relate, my old high school football team was crap and our dumb principal still paid more money fixing the field then the leaks plaguing the school) while Sam, fed up, leaves. Dash and his team huddle up to think of Plan "B" (or Plan "C" or "D" or or Cat E and F and...). He desperately wishes that he was, "the kind of monsters who could crush those guys single-handed." Fortunately and coincidentally, Desiree is nearby and she grants him his wish, turning him into a giant green monster—you know, the Hulk. On cue, Danny’s ghost breath whooshes out of his mouth. Dash the beast does a better job and the sports’ announcers from above (cartoon caricatures of Butch Hartman and Steve Marmel) optimistically notices; assuming his beastly form to be the results of protein snacks. Dudes...go get glasses or in Marmal's case, laser eye surgery.
The kids are smarter; Danny and Tucker realize Dash ain’t all human. The former asks the latter for help. Eager to get in the action, he leaps into agreement. The next scene quickly cuts to Dash playing more violent football (redundant, I know) until Danny invisibly flies in, phases through Dash’s head, and literally pulls the ghost out of him. He then hides behind the bleachers and Fenton Thermoses it. Dash, now back to normal gets tackled again. The game’s over, Casper High lost. Better luck next time, losers. Tucker’s fate is more embarrassing; he filled in for Danny as the Raven Mascot and is currently hanging upside down on the football goal post. He laments how he always gets the short end of the stick. Get used to it, kid, it ain't gonna be your last. Example, now: to take their anger out on a loss game, the Casper High’s football players beat the shit out of the "piñata" with baseball bats. Overboard much?
Danny flies home and dumps the Dash Ghost to the Fenton Portal. So is the Dash Ghost forever a separate entity or will it vanish when Desiree’s wish is undone or something? As a worried Danny flies away, he accidentally wanders into the latest Fenton invention, the Fenton Ghostcatcher, causing his ghost and human self to split in two. His ghost half immediately flies into his human self just in time for him to be greeted by Jack and Maddie and to create plotholes by the time "Identity Crisis" airs. Both have created a makeshift hut and both are suffering from the same cold as Sam. They built the Fenton Ghostcatcher to expunge all things ghostly, under the assumption that a ghost is responsible for their cold; despite Danny telling them otherwise (they just think he’s naïve). The Fenton Folks walks off; leaving Danny alone to stick a finger through the Catcher to make sure it still works. It does, making it #1 on the "don’t-touch-the-shit-out-of-that-thing" list.
The next day, Danny calls Sam, checking to see how she’s doing with her cold. They’re off to the theaters, but they’ll come by to check up on her later. Aww. He kindly asks if she needs anything, but Sam has enough burdens already from her parents—a little too well. Oh, grandma giving her soup screams "normal family comfort", but not the team of doctors and a scrub baring electro-heart jumpin’ pumps. Nothing says love like overprotective parents.
As Danny and Tucker prepare to absorb the gore and violence of Dead Teacher IV, two stereotypically cute, valley girl chicks squeal in delight over the Sayonara Pussycat movie (guess what product it parodies). Paulina also admires the kitty’s ridiculously kawaii-ness and wishes to be as popular as her. *raises hand to say something witty, then puts it down* Yeah, too easy. With yet another plot convenience, Desiree is in the same place as Danny’s and quietly grants Paulina’s wish. What happens next is fantastically surreal and demented: Paulina turns into a superdefomed chibi version of herself. My God, her groom is going to be the Tails Doll!
Immediately the people proclaim their love for her; the movie theaters going as far as making a "Happy Fabulous Paulina Day". Danny notices and gives off the same face I just did when I saw her. Paulina absorbs the crowd’s praises and literally grows as she consumes the bathe of glory. Again, Danny asks Tucker for help, but Techno-Savvy gets the message, hands him the thermos, and gets seats for the movie. Danny goes ghost, then phases Paulina away.
Cut to Tucker who’s stuck watching Ponies, Ponies, Ponies when the tickets for Dead Teacher IV sell out. He cries to himself on how much he hates getting left behind by Danny, missing all the actions and getting all inferior complexity. He then said the magic word and wishes he had ghost powers as well. Desiree flies in and gives what he wants before leaving in all her seductive glee. (Hey, she did held the world’s oldest profession). Tucker opens his eyes after the usual trail of cloudy green smoke surrounded him to find her gone and the theater empty once more. He accidentally phases into his chair and immediately rejoices with his newfound abilities.
Meanwhile, Danny takes Paulina to a lone room where he Ecto Rays the ghost out of her (portraying the Sayonara Pussycat instead of a replica of Paulina) before sucking it up and flying off. Paulina, now back to her old self wonders what the deal is going on, then proclaims to feed more of her ego by praising herself. Some things never change. Danny returns to the movie theater and sees no Tucker, so he assumed he just took off. He’s correct. Tucker immediately gets used to his powers and spends his time flying and turning invisible. He enters another theater room and proceeds to prank sitting bystanders.
Just outside the theater, a frustrated stereotypical surfer dude (*sigh* I hate this stereotype more then I hate people) is stuck in traffic. He wished his car could fly over the mess of automobiles and of course, Desiree pops in (well, sorta, her voice just echoes from the dude’s radio station) and fulfills it. Danny spots Desiree and the flying car., but before he can say, "Roads, where we’re going, we don’t need roads", Tucker beats him to the punch! Calling himself the unoriginal "Tucker Phantom", he hovers inside Surfer Dude’s car to save the day. Danny flies in and makes a crack on said uninspired hero name before trying to stop him from steering the car to safety since neither of them can drive yet. The struggle between the two causes the car to head straight for a skyscraper. Since Surfer Dude has no powers and Tucker is still getting use to his, Danny makes it his business to phase the entire vehicle through the building, bypassing a blue collar office, and saving everyone’s life. Yay. Tucker jealously takes this the wrong way and complains he’s a "show off". "Gee, Thanks, Tucker. I saved your life, but you treat me like shit and accuse me of doing something I never did in this entire episode because a car smashing into a 28th floor of ANYTHING IS BAD!" Because the two are busy bitching at each other, the car crashes into a grain-filled silo. Everybody’s fine. Surfer Dude even enjoys the chicken eating the grains off his head. Watching himself going through near death and accidentally causing thousands of dollar in damage compares nothing to chicken-in-the-head. How...therapeutic? Danny and Tucker ignores and resumes argument—correction, Tucker continues to argue, Danny tries to reason, concerned on how he got his powers. Refusing to answer, a pissed Tucker flies the hell off in a speed level Danny hasn’t even come close to. He theorizes his powers are growing and if that ain’t a kick in the teeth, then it’ll only get worse from here, compandre.
Tucker quickly gets over his anger or at least long enough to use his powers to pull more pranks (this time at the local butcher shop by portraying the "Head Cheese" display), all the while as he speaks with Sam via web cam from his PDA. Because he’s only a headshot from her laptop, Sam doesn’t notice Tucker’s powers. He asks how she’s holding up, but her annoying ailment ain’t going away anytime soon. "I didn’t wanted to tell Sam about my new ghost powers yet. What if she got as jealous as Danny did?" Tucker narrates. No worries, Tuck, she’s the one who declared ghosts "too mainstream". If it hadn’t been for her close ties with Danny, I doubt she’d have anything to do with them.
At Casper High, poor Lancer, innocently bending over to take a gulp of liquid from the water fountain instead gets a face full of H2O. Crying out his infamous book quotes to substitute cursing on a children’s show, his belt then comes off, then he gets squirted some more, then he gets more mysterious states of undress. Tucker, lay off the nudie fetish. Tucker phases through a wall, laughing at Lancer’s predicament that he caused. A disgruntled Danny comes from behind, now starting to get the cold as well. He’s presented with a "Good News, bad News scenario". The first being that Tucker decides to leave the heroing to Danny; the latter having Tucker declare himself full-time Prank Master. Sick of this bullshit, Danny phases inside his best friend to see what the doo-dad is up with him. Tucker briefly glows a shade of green (with glowing red eyes) and phases Danny out without hesitation. Danny is ricocheted to the Janitor’s closet and from there, is threatened by his best friend to never, EVER pull off that shit again. Damn!
"Okay, maybe I was a little rough on Danny, but nobody likes a party pooper." Slowly corrupted, Tucker makes time for more lighthearted pranks in the school region. But like all growing fourteen-year-olds, he can’t ignore that one simple thing all teenagers go through: hormones. He possesses Paulina to get her to declare the two as a couple. Danny senses this (though he no longer looks sick like he did previously *ahem* animators) and demands Tucker to get out. When he refuses, he goes in and the two stage an all out battle, arguing amongst Paulina’s body as a crowd of students gather around for her one-woman performance. The argument eventually reveals how Tucker was blessed. Danny leaves her body to have a chat with Babazita, all as Tucker declares they are no longer best friends. He, too leaves Paulina and we get what I think is one of the most hilarious scenes in the series ("And I never was friends with you!").
Danny finds Babazita and gets the info he desires. She tells the tale of Desiree, a young harem girl. A favorite of the Sultan; enough that he madly fell in love with her and gave her anything she desired. Apparently this was the first Middle Eastern kingdom to have a moral on marriage as the sultan’s jealous wife banned her. Aww, no more pooky-pooky. She later died of a broken heart...and old age. Her spirit roamed for a time where she granted people’s wishes, but at a great cost. Um, dude. That guy who got his wish is happy, not miserable like the rest of the people she granted wishes for. *ahem* Animators. They never explain why she was bottled up in that lamp, though at least we can have a possible good idea of where she learned English.
With that said and done, Danny heads to the nearest water fountain to toss a coin. What better to bring a genie then a wishing well? It doesn’t work. Not for him anyways; though the next guy—a dull businessman—has better luck. He wishes for a million bucks and just before he could get it, Danny, now Phantom-ized, jumps in to fight off Desiree. Dull business guy runs like a chicken. He demands her to turn Tucker back, but she relents, "I cannot. By noon tomorrow, your friends’ fate will be sealed. His jealously will transform him into the most powerful ghost boy in the world!" Umm, then wish him back to normal, Danny. Our lovable dumbass hero has to fill in six more minutes of the show, so he instead fights her off ("No man is allow to touch me unless I wish it!"), then wishes for her to go into his Fenton Thermos. Danny, wish her to change Tucker back, THEN wish her to go in—oh, forgot it. I missed that boat. "If I weren’t a C student, I would have thought of that five days ago." Seriously, Danny.
Tomorrow arrives because the plot demands that he spend the last reminding minutes to rescue Tucker instead of the logical choice to do it as soon as possible. He finds Tucker inside the school records, changing his grades to all As (except for sewing which he’s acing). Danny tries to talk with him once more with words, but Tucker responds by going permanently green and frog-like, then breathing some sorta ghost breath power on Danny. Completely out of it, Tucker plans to kill his best buddy. Danny dodges and attacks Tucker’s blasts, getting in time to comically flip his hat off. That only makes him angrier and you wouldn’t want him when he's angry. Thankfully, ghost boy (the original) has another plan . He teases Tucker into chasing him, quickly phases to the girls’ room, bras Tucker *snerk*, then slam dunks him into a basketball hoop. Oh, you boys and your insatiable desires. This only turns Tucker more ghostly and froggy.
With five minutes left on the clock, Danny again teases Tucker into chasing him. All the way back to Fenton Works. Tucker beats him to it and yells out a disgruntled, "What’s the dizzle, fizzle!" I can only vaguely remember if 2004 still used words like that. Danny puts on his best acting skills, telling Tucker to not put him in the Ghost Zone. Genre-Savvy to everything else except this, Tucker considers it a frightfully good idea and dumps him to the Fenton basement lab. Danny accidentally sneezes at him, but it’s enough distraction for him to push Tucker into the Fenton Ghostcatcher, separating his human and ghost side off.
Back to normal, a horrified Tucker sees his envious ghost side before Danny sucks him up. Tucker apologizes for being jealous. Danny gives one of his own by stating he was wrong to show off. Um, when and WHERE did Danny ever show off? All that assumption was in Tucker’s head! Either way, the two are best friends once more. They walk off just in time for Jack and Maddie to poke their heads out when they heard a noise. I would blame their current ill-state as reason why they couldn’t hear the banters and battles, but this series already had a keen problem with hearing difficulties amongst the cast.
Tucker concludes the story, having learned his lesson. He’s paying for it by suffering the same cold Danny has. Sam, now healed offers the two soups while criticizing the unnecessary need to share everything together. The two wouldn’t have it any other way, "Especially when it comes to best friends, cuz' I couldn't wish for a better one."
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Article written revised in: Aug. 21, 2009
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