A Crossover of Animated Proportions
I’ve been thinking a lot about fairies. You see, NHL recently discovered The Fairly Oddparents thanks to Netflix/Roku. And by “discovered”, I mean I showed it to him knowing full well that he’d be hooked. Of course, being the TV geek-in-training that he is, he immediately went on a quest to watch all of the episodes there are.
If you aren’t up to date on your NickToons, here’s the quick run-down. Timmy’s a little boy who has it rough. He’s unpopular in school, has parents who frequently ignore him and has a babysitter who terrorizes him for fun. Luckily for him, he’s assigned two fairy godparents – Cosmo and Wanda. Their job is to help him be happy until he’s good enough to not need fairies anymore. At that time, he loses his fairies, loses his memories of them, and they get re-assigned to a new miserable kid. They grant him wishes with comical results while trying to keep their existence a secret.
At one point, while listening in on one of the episodes, I wondered about the guy who did the voice for Timmy’s dad. It’s a pretty distinctive voice and I wondered if I had heard it anywhere else. Being a TV Geek, I loaded up IMDB and browsed on over to the Fairly Oddparents page. I didn’t see Timmy’s dad right away, so I looked up a few of the other voices. That’s when I noticed two things.
First of all, Timmy’s parents and godparents are voiced by the same people. Cosmo’s voice and Timmy’s Dad’s voice are by Daran Norris while Wanda and Timmy’s Mom come from Susanne Blakeslee. This adds quite an interesting wrinkle to the show since his fairy godparents often act as replacement parents (for better or worse) to Timmy.
Secondly, I began to notice a pattern with some of the voice actors. A few of them also voice characters in another series that the boys like: Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!
This series, aimed at a younger set, is about the adventures of a yellow being (exactly what he and his friends are isn’t clear) named Wubbzy who likes having fun, his friends Walden (who likes reading/studying/science), Widget (who likes building things), Daizy (who likes gardening). All of these characters, except for Widget, share voice actors with Fairly Oddparents characters.
Wubbzy might be fun loving on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy, but on The Fairly OddParents, Grey DeLisle plays Vicky, the babysitter from hell. While Wubbzy would love to play a game of kickety-kick ball, Vicky would love to play a game of kickety-kick Timmy.
Timmy Turner is your average kid with a miserable life (save for his fairy godparents). He likes the usual boy activities such as watching TV, playing video games and reading comic books. His voice actor, Tara Strong, also voices Daizy, the aforementioned gardening lover who also likes rainbows and lollipops. They do seem to share an affinity for pink, however.
Carlos Alazraqui voices Denzel Crocker, Timmy’s fairy-obsessed teacher. Mr. Crocker, when a boy, had Timmy’s fairy godparents. Since growing up, however, he’s become a man obsessed with 1) proving that fairies really exist and 2) using their magic to take over the world. He’s deduced that Timmy has fairy godparents and constantly tries to lure them into traps. He’s actually been successful a few times, but Timmy always prevails and Mr. Crocker’s memory is wiped, though the crazy remains. Meanwhile, over on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Carlos plays Walden, a well-adjusted figure interested in books, science and art. No sign of craziness at all.
I debated whether or not to share this information with NHL. On one hand, he would surely appreciate the linkages between the two shows. On the other hand, would it spoil the magic of the shows to know that people give voice to these characters? I decided to tell him. As expected, he loved the linkups and was curious what others there might be. Given his recent excitement over seeing the “last” Fairly Oddparents episode (the last one available on Netflix, at least), it hasn’t reduced his enjoyment of the show at all.
Have you spotted any interesting cartoon crossovers?
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