Urban Jungle (Danny Phantom)

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"Urban Jungle" *Danny Phantom episode*
Urban Jungle title card "Meet the ROOT of All EVIL!"
Season	3
Number	46
Prod. code	-
Airdate	October 9, 2006
Special Guest(s)	Mark Hamill as Undergrowth
Writer(s)	Butch Hartman
Directors	Wincat Alcala, Gary Conrad, Butch Hartman
Ghost Appearances	Undergrowth (1st), Frostbite
Villain Appearances	Queen Sam(1st)
Abbreviation	UJ

Previous episode Forever Phantom
Next episode Livin' Large

"Urban Jungle" is the forty-sixth episode in the TV-series Danny Phantom. When a villainous plant ghost takes over Amity Park, a chilly Danny must cope with him as well as his newfound ice powers before it is too late. "Urban Jungle" is also a video game for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS consoles.

[edit] Episode Recap

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After Sam waters the plants in her garden and collects the various fruits and vegetables from them for lunch, she is met with Tucker and Danny, the latter donned in his winter jacket, freezing to the bone despite the warm weather. Thinking he's coming down with something, the trio leaves as a trail of cold softly leaves Danny's body and freezes Sam's Venus Flytrap, unknowingly to the three.

Undergrowth strikes

Outside, the trio passes a constructron site administered and approved by Mayor Vlad. While Sam expresses her concern over the destruction of nature, Danny and Tucker are a lot less caring. Their conversation is cut short when the ground suddenly cracks and plants come out of nowhere, eventually forming into the giant plant ghost monster, Undergrowth. Upset over his "children" constantly being run down, Undergrowth strikes a blow to the construction site, prompting Danny to go ghost and fight. As much as he deals damage to Undergrowth though, the plant monster is able to regenerate himself quickly. Capturing the main trio, he decides that instead of destroying humans, he plans to replant the entire town, first by sending out sleep spores with the three main characters.

Danny wakes up to find his entire hometown covered with plants and thick vines. He is tied to a large plant tower alongside Tucker, wrapped in vines, ones he cannot phase through, let alone use his ghost powers. Undergrowth then appears and announces his plans to replant Amity Park and soon the entire world using humans, possessed by his "mind vines".

Danny cries in triumph and desperation that someone else will stop him if he doesn't. Cue to Jack and Maddie Fenton, who drive madly through the plants with their RV until a giant vine comes out and breaks it in two. As much as both Maddie and Jack fight as well, they eventually succumb to the mind vines as well as Tucker. Danny asks where Sam is and Undergrowth reveals to him that she is now his second-in-command, a caretaker for his plants. Possessed as well, Sam sends a giant venus flytrap towards Danny.

Out of nowhere, Danny freezes the entire plant tower he's tied to and breaks free. Flying away to safety, he discovers escaping Undergrowth is far from easy. Topped with him constantly chilly to the point where icicles literally hang off of him, Danny starts to fall and gradually phases into the waters of a sewer, one which he freezes as well, trapping him underneath, briefly, before he punches his way out. Sam, however, is very persistent on capturing him, intending for him to rule alongside her. Refusing, Danny struggles and barely makes it into the Ghost Zone, his face literally turning blue as the vines nearly take a hold of him.

He luckily escapes into the Ghost Zone and crash lands into a snowy region, now unconscious. Frostbite and one of his people spots him afterwards, the latter asking for permission to destroy him for superiority purposes. Frostbite denies it, stating he is an old friend. Taking him to their medical faculity, Danny wakes up inside a de-icing chamber. There, he tells Frostbite of the current events of Amity Park and Undergrowth, a creature Frostbite has heard of. Afterwards, he has stated Danny is gaining a new ice power, one familiar among his people. As a result, Danny asks to be trained to handle such powers.

Queen Sam

Frostbite takes Danny to a stadium where they train in front of an audience (stating not one gets to see someone as "legendary" as Danny fight alongside their leader, but also admitting that they'll take whatever humor they can), however Danny accidentally hurts the audience more than impress due to inexperience with his ice powers. Once he has been trained enough though, Danny and Frostbite bid a fond farewell, the latter giving him optimistic advice to the briefly vulernable Danny who fears he might fail, "He controls the power, the power does not control him".

Returning back to Amity Park which is even in much worse shape than before, Danny flies towards a giant tree where Sam is inside. She tells him she is the plant's new "mother". She then showcases the fate of the humans, that all of them are stuck inside plant pods to serve as nutrients to the plants. Undergrowth then appears, more powerful then before and vowing to make Danny suffer the same fate as the rest. Again Danny tries to attack, but is subdued by giant mutant cactuses and eventually entangled by various vines, dragging him under as Sam watches, no matter how much he protests.

Danny Phantom re-arises

Trapped, Danny remembers Frostbite's word and in a fit of renewed confidence, he breaks free by freezing the vines. Afterwards, he freezes Undergrowth, but that doesn't stop him. Danny, still confident, heads down and freezes the roots beneath him, causing him to slowly lose his powers long enough for Danny to knock him down, then send an Ectoplasimic Freeze Bomb at him, destroying him, restoring Amity Park to its former glory and freeing the humans from the mind vines.

Danny walks over to his friends, briefly glowing blue which catches Sam's attention. Danny showcases his new power, giving her an ice crystal, relieved she is alright. Tucker, meanwhile, quickly starts his lawn mowing service for five thousand dollars, the first thing he mows being the regenerated, but very tiny Undergrowth.

[edit] Allusions

Title: "Urban Jungle" is another term for a city.

Danny's speech to Undergrowth, "As the duly deputized protector of Amity Park..." is possibly a reference to Doctor Raymond Stantz's speech to Gozer, "As a duly designated representative of the City, County and State of New York..." in the movie Ghostbusters. This is coincidental because both feature main characters that hunt ghosts.

The scene of Danny being revived in Frostbite's Realm is an allusion to the Hoth Echo Base in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Creator Butch Hartman's love of the movie series is well known, making several allusions to the movies in his cartoon series. Coincidentally, Mark Hamill who played Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy, does the voice of the evil Undergrowth.

Frostbite sometimes talks in "Object Subject Verb" format, similar to Yoda from Star Wars.

The green clothing Sam wore under Undergrowth's mind control the first time were reminiscent of Poison Ivy, a Batman villainess. Sam's later appearance as Queen is possibly a reference to Disney's Sleeping Beauty's villainess Maleficent. A further reference to this are the overgrown thorny vines that have taken over the city.

The name of Sam's Venus Flytrap "Demilo" is a pun on the famous statue "Aphrodite of Milos" better known as "Venus de Milo". The names of Sam's other plants are puns (Sunny) or references to names associated with other countries. She also talks to the plants in the language associated with the country. Sam speaks English to the orange tree "Sunny" (Florida (the Sunshine State) in the United States), French to the grapevine "Pierre" (France), and Japanese to "Yoshi" (Japan).

Undergrowth and Sam in this episode reminiscent of Ozai and Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender, another Nick show. The "father figures" were both voiced by Mark Hamill and the "daughters" were both voiced by Grey DeLisle.

[edit] Trivia

Introduced Ghost Powers: Cryokinesis

Unusually, Danny's ghost sense never goes off in this episode.

On the day Urban Jungle premiered, Nickelodeon ran a mini-marathon showcasing Danny's many powers and referred to the event as a TV-movie event, "Phantom Phreeze".

Nickelodeon aired this episode out of order and despite being the sixth 3rd season episode, aired Urban Jungle as the first 3rd season episode premiere. This caused some confusion due to a character introduced in Infinite Realms (Frostbite) making an appearance in this episode. The creator of the show Butch Hartman revealed this on his forum on October 8th, 2006 (Butch Hartman's Announcement). The episode airing out of order also caused more confusion due to a billboard in the episode depicting Vlad Masters as the new mayor of Amity Park. Vlad became Mayor in the episode "Eye For an Eye": the first official Season 3 episode.

Unlike the videogames, Danny does not actually fight Sam in this episode.

This episode reveals that (according to Danny) Sam has younger cousins. It is also revealed that she doesn't like to babysit them.

This episode received a lukewarm reception by fans. Many were confused (they were unaware that it was the sixth episode of season three, not the first) and thought they had missed something. It was also critisized of 'being an hour-long episode shoved into a thirty minute timeslot'.