What RUINED the Fairly Oddparents?

[Music] The Fairly OddParents a show that was one of the most popular programs on Nickelodeon it had fun animation interesting stories and hilarious characters but like many shows that go on for too long it began to lose viewers and grew desperate to have them come back from drastic character introductions to live-action movies to being canceled five times The Fairly OddParents truly went through the motions but after 10 seasons the writing is on the wall and there's a very good chance that it won't be returning back to television but what caused this decline who or what is responsible for the drop in quality and ratings was it the fault of the people who made the show or was this Nickelodeon's doing well let's take a closer look at what ruined The Fairly OddParents in order to understand what ruined Fairly OddParents we need to go back and see where it came from that would be with a fella named Elmer Earl Hartman the fourth aka Butch Hartman butch grew up in Michigan but eventually made his way over to CalArts there he would sharpen his skills as an animator but his big break would come in the 1990s when he was hired at hanna-barbera this proved to be an excellent environment for up-and-coming artists and show creators some of the talent that came from this group included Seth MacFarlane genndy tartakovsky Rob Renzetti and Craig McCracken Seth and Butch actually worked together on a short called zoo mates and it was featured in oh yeah cartoons I hope they don't release that baboon he's got that exposed fanny I heard that one of the starts looked at it for too long and he went blind okay around this time in the 90s fred seibert was in charge of hanna-barbera but left the company to form his own studio called Frederator one of the shows it would develop was oh yeah cartoons a program that featured animated shorts and was aired on Nickelodeon and the late 1990s but out of all of the cartoons and talent that premiered on oh yeah cartoons none were successful as butch Hartman's Fairly OddParents [Music] I'm Cosmo the show made its debut in 1997 as a short but was picked up by Nickelodeon as a full-fledged series in 2001 off the bat it was incredibly popular and quickly became one of the premiere shows on the network it was even able to give SpongeBob SquarePants a run for its money and surpassed it in ratings for a brief time in the early 2000s the creation for Fairly OddParents came from a place of urgency rather than deep inspiration butch was trying to pitch a show so he could be his own boss and the idea for Fairly OddParents was created on the spot I was working on Johnny Bravo and this was back in 97 and Fred Seibert at hanna-barbera he was doing the what a cartoon series yeah all the short cartoons and he was leaving to come over to Nickelodeon and he said hey butch I'm starting basically the same thing at Nickelodeon we're gonna call it the oh yeah cartoon series you got any ideas yeah I was we're gonna and Johnny Bravo at the time I said now Fred I'm kind of loyal over here to Johnny Bravo I'm not gonna leave he goes well okay well the slots are filling up let me only have an idea but six seven months go by Johnny Bravo finishes there not picking it up now I don't have a job right so I go okay I'm tired of working for other people I'm gonna come up with my own thing had no idea at all and so I call it Fred I go you got any slots left he goes I have one slot left and so I said okay hung up the phone and I sat on my desk and I just drew a little boy I do I'm gonna draw a cartoon about a little I always write what you know I'm gonna write a cartoon of a little boy and I had other ideas I've been working on sure at the time but I wasn't really happy with him so I drew a little boy was Timmy Turner I was gonna name him Mike after my brother Mike but we had a fight that day and all of this took not kidding around about 15 minutes I believe it about fighters drew it all and I was like this is kind of funny and I pitched it to hanna-barbera and they turned it down mm-hmm Cartoon Network said no thank you no yeah and then Fred I called Fred with the one slot open and I went over to Nickelodeon and pitch to him and he bought it the show itself is about boy named Timmy Turner from bully's to parents to babysitter's he had it rough and never had any fun because of his misery he was assigned to fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda it is their job to grant him wishes in order to keep him happy I was only a kid when Fairly OddParents first aired on Nickelodeon and personally I love the show it had a fun premise great jokes pleasing animation and was just overall a wonderful cartoon it was easily one of my favorite programs on the network and many other people felt the same way it brought in millions of viewers and maintained those numbers for the early and mid 2000s they were also a decent amount of TV specials that would only increase the show's popularity heck they even had a crossover with Jimmy Neutron The Fairly OddParents wouldn't be the only show that butch would develop at Nickelodeon in 2004 there was Danny Phantom an action-based cartoon about a teenage boy with ghost-like powers after that would be tough puppy in 2010 and then Bunsen is a beast in 2017 out of all of those cartoons Danny Phantom was the most successful but none of them were nearly as popular as The Fairly OddParents though Danny Phantom would go on to have quite the cult following like I said the early 2000s were the golden years for The Fairly OddParents the show was a critical and financial success and made lots of money for the network but hard times were on the horizon and corporate meddling became a serious problem for Fairly OddParents and its relationship with Nickelodeon Fairly OddParents was one of the main cartoons on the network but according to butch the executives at Nickelodeon had mixed feelings about the show throughout its runtime Fairly OddParents was cancelled five times but the executives at Nick would eventually overturn the cancellations and ask much to continue on with the show we kept making the show it did get canceled five times they said no more or you're all done and just as I was finishing a season and thinking it was over they would pick it up again because the ratings were so strong to me this is one of the main reasons why Fairly OddParents began to decline the executives at Nickelodeon were flip-flopping with the show and only desired to have a cartoon that was the same caliber as spongebob both in ratings and flavor they say but you know what I'm like what they say we're cancelling your show again I said but well why are you guys stopping it now it's still not doing as well as the spun show the spun show is our Mickey Mouse oh hi oh hi Patrick I'm SpongeBob and now you're the branding duct of Nickelodeon okay another issue that the Fairly OddParents ran into was franchise fatigue the show has been going on for nearly 15 years and it's only natural that it would run out of ideas this is not uncommon though as other shows suffer the same problem such as spongebob Family Guy in the Simpsons I mean it's only a matter of time until a program exhausts all of its practical options and has to take drastic measures in order to keep their audience entertained this spiral for The Fairly OddParents began with the arrival of poof and season six too many fans this was the beginning of the end though the ratings for the show shot up temporarily but as time went on the ratings would only continue to suffer as the main audience that used to watch Fairly OddParents disappeared a character named Sparky arrived in season 9 and was another attempt to recapture the attention of viewers has proved to be unsuccessful though as many viewers dislike the new character so much so that he was removed from the show one of the final changes made to the show was the arrival of Chloe Carmichael and season 10 she was a foil character for Timmy as he was forced to share Cosmo and Wanda alongside her but just like Sparky this character did not really resonate with viewers all they really saw was another attempt to regain their dying audience according to butch though this was another intervention on behalf of the executives at Nickelodeon it came from a request from an executive at Nickelodeon and this happens in TV sometimes you know when you've been doing a show as long as fairly oddparents I mean fairly oddparents premiered on March 30th of 2001 ding-ding-ding-ding-ding and 1415 years later this exactly nickelodeon who kind of ran the whole place said you know we really love Fairly OddParents we want to keep making the show and I'm like great but we want you to add a new character in the show kind of a foil for timmy turn-- we once you had a girl character in the show that would probably give him a problem and that's really all I was asked the more I research this topic the more I realized how controlling the executives are over at Nickelodeon yes I understand that the profits of the bottom line had a network and they won't feature cartoons at just because they're good they have to make a profit as well but truth be told spongebob really did a number at Nickelodeon it cast a huge shadow and it seemed like every other cartoon on the network was a stepchild that was constantly compared to it you're fired [Music] franchise fatigue is also a very real problem you can see this with all the changes fairly oddparents made over the years now change does not mean it's automatically going to be bad but more often than not it is and I haven't even mentioned a fairly odd movie it was a live-action TV film that starred Drake Bell and computer animated versions of the fairies now the movie itself had over 5 million viewers and had two sequels to boot but it ultimately did not save the show from running out of steam you know what I'd really love is get those first words out come on buddy let's hear what are they proved the only other factor that potentially contributed to the decline of The Fairly OddParents is the death of television now I've mentioned this before in previous videos and how TV is on the way out most kids today give their entertainment from the internet whether it be Netflix or YouTube and as older viewers move on new viewers decline and aren't as many as they used to be this is a major problem for all television networks and trust me they know it season 10 was the final hurrah for The Fairly OddParents it aired from 2016 to 2017 and did not feature a grand finale it just aired the episodes it had and that was it overall the fairly oddparents was a great show yes it had a somewhat sour conclusion and went on for far too long but if you focus on the high points you see a show that's up there with SpongeBob Hey Arnold and avatar the demise of the show though really boiled down to a handful of things one franchise fatigue it simply went on for too long and ran out of ideas two executive meddling the suits at Nickelodeon kept poking the show with a stick in hopes of making more money and increasing their ratings for the network and three the death of television technology is changing and TV is being replaced by the Internet kids really don't watch television anymore they watch YouTube and Netflix so all of these factors contribute to the all of the fairly oddparents and also many other shows if cartoons want to survive in this current climate they have to change how they are received Netflix is doing a good job at this and it seems that other companies are positioning themselves to do the same as I said season 10 was the last season for The Fairly OddParents and will most likely be the final season after 15 years of service butch left Nickelodeon and is no longer involved in the creation of any of it shows now Nick still owns the rights to the fairly oddparents and could technically bring it back but I don't think that's likely anytime soon but what about butch what's he been up to and where did he go Internet yep butch made the transition over to the Internet and runs a YouTube channel it's been interesting watching someone from his era get with the times you can sometimes see the disconnect between him and his audience but hey at least he's trying the guy is obviously very talented and has a lot of experience but it comes from a completely different era of entertainment things have drastically changed with the arrival of the Internet and never before have people been so connected there's a learning curve with all of this and butch is trying to keep up with the times heart fans what's up what's Hartman here so glad you're here don't forget we do videos three times a week now Mondays Wednesdays and Sundays how do you do fellow kids what he's also trying to kick-start a new streaming service that's family friendly though there's some controversy surrounding it and the direction it's going some say it's doomed to fail since family-friendly content as a taboo subject also most streaming services already have a family-friendly setting to serve that purpose but once again at least butch is trying hopefully he'll find a place that can utilize his experience but with a modern spin also Nickelodeon desperately needs to do the same if they hope to survive moving forward if not the Netflix and YouTube will just mow them down again it's a shame that The Fairly OddParents did not have a grand finale but that's alright Timmy Cosmo and Wanda had their fun but now it's time to make room for new ideas hopefully these creators and companies will see the light and we as viewers will get our wish hey guys I just wanted to quickly thank my top tier sponsors on patreon toon grin chad butler tyrion Carberry Lex Chumbawamba Malka vo Moondoggie legally sane and Julius thank you all so much for your support [Music]

Channel: Saberspark

Views: 2,779,019

Keywords: the fairly oddparents, fairly oddparents, saber, saberspark, what ruined, ruined, what ruined the fairly oddparents, butch hartman, analysis, review, video essay

Id: P3MmrUWk-ZI

Length: 15min 32sec (932 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018