Fairly Odder's Laugh Track Highlights Fairly OddParents' Reboot Problem
Warning! SPOILERS for The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder season 1.
The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder is a very different, live-action revival of the famed Nickelodeon show, but its laugh track also highlights one of the series' main problems. Reboots have been extremely prevalent - across a wide array of genres - as of late, from Dexter to Cowboy Bebop to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. On March 31, a revamped version of The Fairly OddParents hit Paramount+. The live-action sequel series trades out an animated Timmy Turner for real-life actors playing the original main character's cousin, Vivian, and her new step-brother, Roy. There have been a slew of changes between Fairly Odder and its predecessor, but though it's great to see some new life being breathed into a beloved show, the laugh track-infused revival version certainly isn't without its problems.
Created by Butch Hartman, the original Fairly OddParents show began its run on Nickelodeon in 2001. The kid-oriented cartoon show chronicled the life of 10-year-old Timmy Turner, a fairly average, ball cap-sporting young person who was routinely made miserable by his evil babysitter, Vicky. His life was forever altered when he gained two fairy godparents, a couple by the name of Cosmo and Wanda. Floating around with signature glowing crowns, fairy wings, and magic wands, Timmy's formerly run-of-the-mill childhood in his hometown of Dimmsdale became much more complicated and in need of constant problem-solving - albeit one that was profoundly more interesting and exciting.
In The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder season 1, episode 1, it's revealed that Timmy (Caleb Pierce) is now a college freshman, heading off to higher education at Princeton. On a bittersweet sort of note, he leaves to broach adult life after leaving his beloved fairy godparents (once again voiced by Daran Norris and Susanne Blakeslee) with his new-to-town cousin, Vivian "Viv" Turner (Audrey Grace Marshall) and, inadvertently, to her step-brother, Roy (Tyler Wladis). Following in the spirit of its predecessor, Fairly Odder has a colorful cast of characters and is infused with potent zaniness and fun. However, there's an inevitable "but" attached to that praise, and it has to do with the way the show's energy translates over into the reboot. In addition to new characters and live-action visuals with only selectively used animation, another glaring change is The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder's use of a laugh track. The programmed laughter pops up so chronically throughout the series' short episodes that it actually feels overused, even grating after a bit. The laugh track actually highlights one of Fairly Odder's biggest problems (in addition to how it breaks a Fairly OddParents fairy rule): an exhausting, non-stop sort of manic energy where something wild is happening practically every couple of seconds.
Laugh tracks have lately been used in certain teen-/kid-oriented sitcoms from networks like Nickelodeon and Disney. Fairly Odder is a sort of modernized sequel series to The Fairly OddParents, featuring real actors on-screen. So, though problematic in a way, it seems like the laugh track is one of the elements intended to aid the reboot in almost "feeling" like an animated show, especially one as off-the-wall and fantastical as its predecessor. Unfortunately, some of Fairly Odder's vibes feel a little forced and rushed, almost cramming as much wacky absurdity into episodes as possible.
Even so, in a way, this does harken back to the original Fairly OddParents. In addition to a slew of callbacks (like a Crimson Chin poster, Jorgen Von Strangle's return, and more), the original's quirky energy - which was so tonally on-par with other animated series of the 2000s, like Spongebob Squarepants and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy - is certainly present in Paramount+'s live-action production of Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder. Even so, as other recent reboots have found, translating a beloved series' essence over to a different, revamped project is a delicate and often dicey endeavor. Fairly Odder's laugh track only further highlights some of the problems that can easily be run into in such cases.
The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder is currently streaming on Paramount+.