The Danny Phantom Book You've Never Heard Of

You ever like a thing so much you’ll go to dumb lengths in order to find reasons to continue talking about it? That’s sorta where I am with Danny Phantom right now.

Outside of the show, there really isn’t that much Danny Phantom content out there to even discuss, even though I really like the show and would love to keep talking about it forever. But compared to other popular cartoons of the era, there just isn’t as much stuff. Sure there’s a couple Gameboy games, but like, there wasn’t even really any merchandise for the series. There was some Burger King toys, and some action figures were in the works, but they never made it to production. Kinda crazy that there’s no Fenton Thermos right?

However, there may actually be a bit of a comeback for Danny recently. Last year at NY Comic Con which apparently happened, they released a limited edition Danny Phantom Funko Pop, and boy do I want one. Not really a huge fan of these figures since I don’t think the art style works for a lot of characters. Every character has these soulless black eyes which works fine for BB-8, but Spider-Man looks kinda weird without his iconic teardrops. But the Danny figure, actually looks pretty cool. And the fact that it’s a limited thing and just this one character without an annoying amount of extra figures to collect makes me really want one. They go for about $100 on eBay so if I can ever come up with a good reason to spend that much on a piece of plastic, I definitely will. Or, you know, you could give me the money, if you wanted to.

This year of course we also have the release of Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl, featuring our boi, Danny. Which of course I will be doing a video on.

Lastly, Butch Hartman recently tweeted about a Danny Phantom graphic novel hopefully coming out in 2022. Although, the original article has since been deleted, and I can’t seem to find any more info about this one so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

But the concept of a graphic novel got me thinking about other potential Danny Phantom related media. Which eventually lead me to the discovery of Stage Fright, an official licensed Danny Phantom chapter book.

Part of a scholastic line of “story chapter books” called Nick Zone. These were mostly Spongebob, Fairly Odd Parents, Rugrats and Jimmy Neutron stories, but there was a single Danny Phantom story also published. And it's going for just $5 on Amazon! Exactly my price range!

Stage Fright is written by Erica David, who it looks like has done some other licensed kids’ books, and illustrated by Victoria Miller and Harry Moore, who I can’t really find anything about. The first thing I noticed was how short this book is. It’s about 50 pages, and it’s a picture book, with only maybe 15 words per page, so it’s incredibly short. Since it did say "chapter book" online, I was expecting something more like Magic Tree House or Animorphs. But no. Even though this book technically has chapters, it’s incredibly short and I can’t imagine anyone, even kids not reading this whole thing in one sitting. It’s for kids still learning to read good, probably just above a Dr. Seuss level.

In any case, let's put on my grade school hat and give you a proper book report summary.

Danny's english teacher Mr. Lancer tells the class they are going to put on a performance of Shakespeare's MacBeth. Knowing that Danny usually slacks off(because he is busy fighting ghosts) Lancer assigns him the lead roll in order to challenge him. Danny is not thrilled about this since he doesn't care about Shakespeare, and is usually busy fighting ghosts. Lancer also informs the class of the MacBeth curse, which is a real superstition with an interesting history. According to the superstition, if you speak the name MacBeth on stage outside of the context of a performance or rehearsal, bad things will happen. Sam and Tucker think their could be something to the curse as it wouldn't be the strangest thing they've seen. But Danny dismisses it and ends up saying "MacBeth" a few times. And as Danny and his friends rehearse for the play, strange things start to happen on set. For example a bucket of paint falls on Danny, and a stage light almost crushes Danny and Tucker. Soon it is time for the performance, and the main villain of this story is revealed, Sir Milton Hamalot, a Shakespeare-loving actor ghost who has been behind all of the strange occurrences. Hamalot reveals that he is jealous of Danny, wishing that he was cast in the lead role. Danny then challenges Hamalot to see who can recite lines from the play better, which Danny uses as a distraction in order to suck up Hamalot into his Fenton Thermos. Danny and his classmates then perform the play. And that's the end.

It may feel like I left some stuff out, but not really. Again, this book is very short. With that, I don’t really have a whole lot to say about this story. I like the use of a real world superstition that's tied into a real world high school responsibility that most kids have to deal with. It's a very Danny Phantom setup. The villain of this Shakespeare-themed ghost is functional and does feel like he could fit right in with Danny’s rogues gallery, but he’s not around long enough to get a real sense of his personality or what his deal is. He doesn't really show up until the last few pages, which is just another symptom of the book being so short. The art is a little wonky from time to time. Mostly the characters are on model, but there’s a few moments where the characters' faces are a little off, or maybe their expressions don’t quite match the emotion of the scene. It would also be nice if this was in colour, but I’m sure that along with some of the less than perfect art is just a budget/time thing. This is a cheaply made book intended for young children. For what it is, it’s perfectly acceptable.

It’s really more interesting to me that this book even exists at all. There’s such little Danny Phantom content outside of the show to begin with, that anytime I find something else that’s new to me, that alone is exciting. And unlike the Gameboy games that adapt stories from specific episodes, this book is a brand new Danny Phantom adventure. One that would fit right in to the world of the show if it were just given a little more time to be fleshed out.

It’s also kinda cool to see Danny in printed media like this. DP would absolutely translate well to some form of comic book, something like the Avatar or Batman The Animated Series comics that continue the story or just tell more stories with the characters, would be super fun.

So not the most ground breaking book ever, but still kind of novel that it exists in the first place. And if there were ever a way to continue Danny Phantom, a comic book or graphic novel like this might be the way to do it.