Posted on: Friday, February 28, 2003

Children embracing 'Fairly Odd Parents'

By Ellen Edwards
Washington Post

Wanda and Cosmo are the next SpongeBob SquarePants.

Wait, let's try that again in English.

You, of course, know SpongeBob, the recently minted cultural icon who is the title character in Nickelodeon's wildly popular cartoon about a feisty little yellow sponge who lives under the sea and works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab.

Well, Wanda and Cosmo are his heirs apparent. They're the title characters on Nickelodeon's latest hit, "The Fairly Odd Parents," a show about two well-intentioned but sometimes bumbling fairies who live in a fishbowl. They empower 10-year-old Timmy, the only one who knows about them, and help protect him from his mean baby-sitter, Vicky, and his benignly idiotic parents, Mr. and Mrs. Turner.

These are parents who often leave Timmy with Vicky-the-yeller and who do things like send a slightly threatening e-mail to the girl Timmy has a crush on, despite his protests. Threats, they tell him, are the way to make a girl really like you. (Huh?)

" 'SpongeBob' paved the way for us," says "Fairly Odd Parents" creator Butch Hartman. " 'Rugrats' had its own fans, but they all grew up. But 'SpongeBob's" wacky comedy set the stage for us to do this."

"The Fairly Odd Parents," which airs at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings, is the second-most-popular show on television for kids ages 2 to 11, just behind "SpongeBob."

"It's gone from a show that languished in the bottom of the Top 10 to a solid No. 2, and it's taking off incredibly fast," says David Bittler, spokesman for the cable network.

As with "Rugrats" and "SpongeBob," the writing on "Odd Parents" makes it funny not only to the 6- to 11-year-olds Nickelodeon is targeting, but also to preteens and teenagers and their parents.

"It has an appeal that goes beyond the demographic," says Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon's executive vice president and general manager. "The richness of the writing makes rewatching possible. It's very, very, very clever."

So clever, the folks at Nickelodeon believe, that it will sustain a flood of products: toys, games, clothing and accessories that will be introduced at the Toy Fair in New York later this month. Just how many "Odd Parents" items will there be? Even Hartman isn't sure.

"They've shown me so much stuff I can't possibly look at all of it," he says.

The show fits Nickelodeon's successful formula of empowering kids as they navigate the wacky world of adults. The parents in the show are the typical Nickelodeon portrayals: Think of the completely oblivious "Rugrats" crowd, or the morons in "Jimmy Neutron."

"The parents are stupid, but they're not unloving," Hartman says of the Turners, adding that there is always a scene in which they hug Timmy. "When kids are kids, everything a parent does seems goofy. Timmy is smart enough to want to control his own destiny, but he can't do a lot."

That's where the godparents come in. They can help with some things, but with others "Da Rules" of godparenting do not allow it.

"Superman had his Kryptonite," says Hartman. "The rules are their Kryptonite. I had to limit them. The main rules are that no one can know they exist, the wishes have to be wished in Timmy's voice, and the godparents can't interfere with true love."

So, for example, they couldn't retrieve the e-mail Timmy's parents sent to his love interest, Trixie Tang.

The Turners may be a little goofy, concedes Zarghami, "but it's very empowering for kids to have the world of adults being portrayed as a little off. It's great for kids to be in charge. It makes the kids feel 'the world could be mine.'"