Premise

The Fairly OddParents tells the story of a 10-year-old boy named Timmy Turner who is neglected by his parents and abused by his babysitter, Vicky. One day, he is granted two fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda, who grant his every wish to improve his miserable life. However, these wishes usually backfire badly and cause a series of problems that Timmy must fix. Earlier episodes of the series tend to revolve around Timmy trying to navigate his everyday life at home, at school and elsewhere in town with his friends, Chester and A.J., and occasionally his parents, while also trying to fix a wish gone awry and ultimately, learning a lesson in the end. Later in the series, Timmy wishes that Cosmo and Wanda would have a baby, whom they named Poof, and much later, Timmy gets a pet fairy dog named Sparky. Even later in the series, a new girl called Chloe Carmichael, who loves sharing, animals, and everything that is ecologically friendly, moves into the neighborhood, and Timmy has to share Cosmo and Wanda with her due to a shortage of available fairies.

At the beginning of the series, Vicky was the main antagonist, but as the series progressed, many more villains were introduced, including Denzel Crocker, Timmy's crazed teacher who wishes to prove to the world that fairies exist; Francis, the school bully; Remy Buxaplenty, a young billionaire child with a fairy godparent named Juandissimo Magnifico, who is set on getting rid of Timmy's fairy godparents due to his immense jealousy towards him for having two fairy godparents compared to his one; Dark Laser, a parody of Darth Vader, who wants to destroy Timmy and the Earth; the Pixies, who are known to wield as much power as fairies, but they treat their magical powers like a business. The Pixies' primary goal is to take control of Fairy World and the Earth; the Anti-fairies, who are similar to the actual fairies, but with polar opposite personalities and character traits. Anti-fairies are also known for causing bad luck; and Norm the Genie, who hatches a plan to gain freedom from his lamp and get revenge on Timmy.

Setting

The Fairly OddParents is set in the fictional city of Dimmsdale, California. Dimmsdale has a sign on some mountains near the city that is a parody of the Hollywood Sign. In the episode "Vicky Loses Her Icky", the Mayor of Dimmsdale unveils the "Welcome to Dimmsdale – Nicest Town on Earth!" sign. However, at the end of the episode, the President of the United States changes the word "Nicest" to "Meanest". Dimmsdale appears to be average-sized, with a downtown containing large buildings, skyscrapers and a city hall, but also containing uptown areas with suburban residences (including the neighborhood where Timmy, his parents and his friends live) and businesses, such as Timmy's school; a hospital; a jail; a sports complex called the Dimmadome, which is named after its founder and owner, Doug Dimmadome, a man who owns a local TV channel and various restaurants and stores, as well as a park in the center of the city. Dimmsdale also appears to have rural farmland located outside of the city. The adults who live in Dimmsdale are notably moronic and often settle situations with things like angry mobs, but they do still manage to form a working and functioning society. In the episode "Which Witch is Which?" it was revealed that Dimmsdale was founded in the 1660s and named after a man called Dale Dimm.

When the show needs to, it switches its location to Fairy World, the home of the fairies, which is a floating world located on top of some clouds and colored with an abundance of pink and purple. Fairy World is depicted as a large metropolis with houses, streets, different kinds of buildings, and skyscrapers. Most buildings in Fairy World have crowns and stars above their roofs. The fairies have a civilization like that of humans, but with their primary source of power being magic, which also keeps their world afloat. A large rainbow acts as the bridge between Fairy World and the Earth, although the bridge seems to exist only for decoration since fairies teleport via magic to and from Earth. Fairy World is not actually a part of Earth but is depicted as a separate world in outer space located near Earth's orbit that can only be accessed by magic. Among the most notable landmarks in Fairy World is the glowing entrance sign on the other side of the rainbow bridge and the giant wand located in the center of Fairy World that powers the fairies' magic. Jorgen Von Strangle, an enormous and tough fairy with an Austrian accent (similar to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger), acts as the leader of the fairies and Fairy World. Jorgen personally dislikes Timmy at the beginning of the series but warms up to him over time.

Another location seen in the show is the city of Chincinnati, the home town of Timmy's favorite comic book superhero, the Crimson Chin. Other locations include the dark and twisted Anti-Fairy World, the dark counterpart of Fairy World where the Anti-fairies reside; the dull and gray metropolis of Pixies Inc., home of the Pixies; and Yugopotamia, another planet where Timmy's alien friend Mark Chang lived until the episode "New Squid in Town!" when Timmy invites Mark to live in the Dimmsdale junkyard in order to escape his evil fiancée, Princess Mandie.

Development and Oh Yeah! Cartoons (1997–2001)

Butch Hartman, the series' creator

A postcard for The Fairly OddParents segment on Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah! Cartoons

Prior to the creation of The Fairly OddParents, Butch Hartman was working at Cartoon Network on Dexter's Laboratory and Johnny Bravo. In 1997, Fred Seibert contacted Hartman about pitching ideas for Seibert's new company, Frederator Incorporated, as a part of their Oh Yeah! Cartoons series which the studio was developing for Nickelodeon. Hartman initially declined the offer. Several months later, Johnny Bravo finished and Hartman decided to create his own series instead of going back to working for other studios.

Hartman started developing his own series by drawing a picture of a little boy who would become Timmy Turner. Hartman was originally going to name him Mike, after his brother Mike Hartman, but they had a fight that day, so Hartman named him after his other brother Timmy Hartman instead. Hartman wanted Timmy to be able to go anywhere because he never wanted to be stuck for a story transition.^[8] Hartman was originally going to give Timmy science powers, but decided against it due to Dexter's Laboratory having recently come out. Instead, he decided to give Timmy a magic friend. He drew Wanda first and then decided that she needed someone to talk to other than Timmy, and that was when he drew Cosmo. After coming up with the entire premise for the cartoon in about fifteen minutes, Hartman first pitched the idea to Hanna-Barbera and then to Cartoon Network, both of whom turned it down. Hartman then went back to Seibert at Nickelodeon and successfully pitched it to them for Oh Yeah! Cartoons.^[9]

While in early development, the series was titled The Fairy GodParents and then it was briefly changed to Oh My GodParents.^[9] Bill Burnett came up with the title The Fairly OddParents, which they ended up sticking with.^[9] Hartman originally created The Fairly OddParents as a seven-minute short film, which was one of the thirty-nine short cartoons created for Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Hartman made ten seven-minute short films of The Fairly OddParents in total for Oh Yeah! Cartoons, which aired on Nickelodeon from September 4, 1998, to March 23, 2001. Due to the success of the shorts, Nickelodeon picked up The Fairly OddParents for a full-length series alongside fellow Oh Yeah! Cartoons: ChalkZone and My Life as a Teenage Robot. In 2000, Nickelodeon ordered seven 23-minute episodes for the series' first season, which premiered on March 30, 2001 (just one week after the final Oh Yeah! short) in the half-hour before fellow Nicktoon Invader Zim made its debut.^[7]

Unlike the later series, the animation in the original shorts is not as smooth and the designs are notably different (including Timmy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who are only seen from the neck down with their faces hidden in the pilot episodes and appear to be more intelligent than they appeared to be in the proceeding series, yet still easily duped by Vicky's abhorrent actions). Other notable differences include Timmy Turner, who was voiced by Mary Kay Bergman in the Oh Yeah! shorts rather than Tara Strong in the series (Strong would dub over Bergman's dialogue in the Oh Yeah! shorts to establish better continuity). Cosmo is significantly more intelligent than he appears to be in the proceeding series while Wanda is shown to be ditzy. Vicky is also much less evil than in the current series; she has a little brother in the pilot episode before it was changed to a little sister later on in the shorts & she also calls Timmy by his name as opposed to the more often used "twerp".

Original run (2001–2006)

Upon its premiere, The Fairly OddParents was immediately popular and quickly became the second-highest-rated children's program among kids ages 2–11 on both network and cable television, behind Nick's own SpongeBob SquarePants.^[10][11] The series managed to briefly steal SpongeBob's spot as the number one highest rated children's television program in mid-2003.^[10][11] The Fairly OddParents also attracted a wide audience, appealing to kids as well as to teenagers and adults, with 14.2 million kids 2-11 tuning in each week, 10.8 million adult viewers per week and was the number one series on television among tween audiences (9-14).^[11][12]

On January 24, 2006, Hartman announced on his forum that Nickelodeon had ceased production of the show. "The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour 3: The Jerkinators" is the fifth-season finale in production order and was intended to be the series finale, airing on July 21, 2006. However, Nickelodeon broadcast the episode "Timmy the Barbarian/No Substitute for Crazy" after "The Jerkinators" as the fifth-season finale in airing order, on November 25 of that year.

Revival (2007–2012)

On February 2, 2007, Hartman announced on his forum that Nick granted The Fairly OddParents twenty more episode slots, making sure the show resumed production. Later on July 7, 2007, a special titled 77 Secrets of the Fairly OddParents Revealed hinted that a new character would join the series.

After a one-year hiatus, Nickelodeon announced that they would begin the sixth season, which would consist of twelve episodes alongside the broadcast of a television film called Fairly OddBaby, which introduced a new character, a baby fairy named Poof, to the main cast of characters.^[14] A huge hit, Fairly OddBaby aired on February 18, 2008, and garnered 8.89 million viewers for its premiere; the rebroadcast of the film the following day garnered 4.82 million viewers, making it the number one and ninth most viewed cable broadcast respectively for the week of February 18–24, 2008.^[15]

Live-action films and end of the series (2011–2017)

To honor the tenth anniversary of The Fairly OddParents, a live-action television film titled A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! premiered on July 9, 2011.^[16] The film is set 13 years after the animated series and stars Drake Bell as a 23-year-old Timmy Turner, who is trying his hardest not to grow up in order to prevent losing his fairy godparents, and Daniella Monet as Tootie, who has grown into a mature and beautiful activist with whom Timmy falls in love.^[17] The premiere of the movie attracted 5.8 million viewers and it was the top-rated television broadcast on cable networks for the week of July 10–16, 2011, and ranked as "2011's Top Original TV Movie on Basic Cable with Kids and Total Viewers".^[18]

The success of A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! spawned two sequels: A Fairly Odd Christmas and A Fairly Odd Summer, which premiered on November 29, 2012,^[19] and August 2, 2014^[20] respectively. Drake Bell and Daniella Monet reprised their respective roles in both of the sequels.^[20][21]

The ninth season of The Fairly OddParents began with a television special titled "Fairly OddPet", which premiered on March 23, 2013, and attracted 3.8 million viewers.^[22] The ninth season's official run began on May 4, 2013.^[23] Season nine introduced a new character, Timmy's pet fairy dog Sparky, to the show's main cast.^[23] Season nine contained twenty-six episodes, making it the longest season in the series. It is also the first season to be formatted in both high definition and widescreen.

The tenth season of The Fairly OddParents began with a special called "The Big Fairy Share Scare!", which introduced another new main character named Chloe Carmichael, Timmy's neighbor who he is forced to share Cosmo and Wanda with due to a fairy shortage.^[24] The tenth season aired from January 15, 2016, to July 26, 2017, on both Nickelodeon and Nicktoons. The visuals and lyrics for the theme song were changed for season ten in order to include Chloe; however, it still contained the same rhythm and melody as the original theme song.^[13] Also in season 10, the show's animation made the transition from traditional animation to Flash animation. The animation for season ten was done by Elliott Animation Studios in Canada, whereas all of the prior seasons were animated by Yeson Animation Studios in South Korea.^[13]

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius crossover episodes

There have also been three tie-ins with special episode crossovers involving the Nickelodeon computer-animated series The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius under the title "The Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour" (the first alone, the second and third with the subtitles "When Nerds Collide!" and "The Jerkinators!", respectively); the three main characters from Fairly OddParents meet with the main characters from Jimmy Neutron, Jimmy, Sheen, Carl, Cindy, and Libby, and often cross between each of their worlds of 2D and 3D animation.

Cancelled spin-off series and film

In 2004, Hartman revealed his intentions to make a Crash Nebula spin-off series. The pilot episode "Crash Nebula" was aired as part of the show's fifth season, with the pilot focusing on a young boy named Sprig Speevak (voiced by James Arnold Taylor), who meets various types of strange aliens as he attends a school in outer space, making a few friends and enemies. Nickelodeon decided not to pick up the series.^[25]

In 2006, Hartman stated that he was still confident and would try to get the spin-off greenlit in the future. He also wrote a script entitled Crash Nebula: The Movie for Paramount Pictures, but the film was canceled due to its similarities to Disney's Sky High. However, no other news for the Crash Nebula IP has been announced since then, with it remaining as a fictitious television series in The Fairly OddParents that Timmy Turner is a fan of. The episode in the fifth season adds an introduction where Timmy is excited for Sprig's origin story, with Cosmo and Wanda making wild guesses.

Live-action spin-off series

On February 24, 2021, it was announced that a live-action sequel series was in development and debut on Paramount+.^[26] Hartman and Seibert return as producers, while Christopher J. Nowak serve as both executive producer and showrunner.^[27] The series started production in July 2021^[28] and premiered on March 31, 2022, with one season.^[5]

Sequel series

In 2023, Nickelodeon & Paramount Global applied to register "The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish" with the USPTO under several NICE classes. A screenwriter from Season 9 of the original series confirmed a new project was in development.^[29]

Critical reception

Betsy Wallace from Common Sense Media gave the series 3 of 5 stars saying, “Nickelodeon airs some of the most creative and expertly animated cartoons on television, and it has another winner with The Fairly OddParents.”^[30]

Dennis Cass from Slate Magazine favorably compared the series' writing to that of Animaniacs and praised the series' broad appeal.^[11]

Awards and nominations