Freakshow is a character and a major villain from the Nickelodeon animated television series Danny Phantom, voiced by Jon Cryer. His name is derived from his real name, Frederich Isak Showenhower. He is the ringmaster of the Circus Gothica, and comes from a long line of ghost-obsessives. His family has the largest known knowledge of ghostly artifacts. He is voiced by comedian and actor Jon Cryer who is best known as Alan Harper on Two and a Half Men.
Freakshow has pale chalky white skin who is bald with ruby red eyes. His main attire consist of ringmaster clothes in circuses.
Personality[]
A charismatic performer, Freakshow is a smooth talking man of drama and showsmanship, seeing the world as a circus with him as its ringmaster. A glutton for power, he is a controlling, vindictive man who does whatever he can to get what he wants. Ironically, he uses ghosts as his main tools calling them derogatory names like minions for battle despite his ghost envy, an obvious jealousy toward ghosts and their powers. This envy fuels his desire to acquire even more power, but is also a great weakness giving Danny the chance to tease him into a losing position in Reality Trip.
Background[]
Control Freaks[]
Freakshow first appeared in the episode Control Freaks, where he opens a circus called the Circus Gothica in Amity Park. The performers in the circus are actually ghosts that are on a crime spree, held under Freakshow's command by a special staff. The staff is Freakshow's main weapon in this episode and is so powerful that even a picture of the staff makes a ghost weak and willing to do the bearer's bidding. Danny who accidentally catches sight of the staff when he sees an ad for the Circus Gothica and ends up in Freakshow's command, stealing money for him and becoming a performer in his circus. He is saved by Sam, who manages to return him to the hero he truly is. Danny subsequently rescues Sam, and thus destroying the staff in the process. Following the staff's destruction, Danny and most of the formerly controlled ghosts except for Lydia, the tattoo ghost lady, who all confront Freakshow, trapping him in his own stolen goods until the police can arrest him.
Reality Trip[]
Freakshow reappears as the main antagonist in the movie Reality Trip. In this episode, the Guys in White have captured Lydia, using her to get Freakshow to talk about The Reality Gauntlet, which he does. Freakshow tricks the Guys in White into giving him the Reality Gauntlet and he uses it to escape with Lydia. He then attacks Danny at Casper's High School's Out! Dumpty Humpty concert. Danny, Sam, and Tucker use the Gauntlet's defense mechanism to transport three critical gems from the gauntlet, making it useless. Freakshow escapes with help from Lydia, but not before revealing Danny's secret identity to the entire school and Amity Park media. Nursing his wounds, Freakshow comes up with a plan to get all three gems back by kidnapping the parents of Danny, Sam, and Tucker. Freakshow forces Danny, Sam, and Tucker in order to retrieve the three gems in exchange for their families lives, giving them three days to do so. After Danny and friends succeed, Freakshow double-crosses Danny and retakes the Reality Gauntlet, giving himself control over all reality. In a fatal attempt at showmanship, Freakshow gives Danny the chance to save the lives of his friends and family from a roller coaster filled with deathtraps. After being informed by Jazz that Freakshow suffers from ghost envy, Danny, in an attempt to defeat Freakshow, taunts Freakshow and makes him jealous of Danny's ghost powers. Outraged, Freakshow transforms himself into a full ghost and Danny captures him in the Fenton Thermos. Danny then uses the Reality Gauntlet in order to undo all of Freakshow's madness and to rewrite reality so that his secret identity was never revealed in the first place. Danny uses the gauntlet to turn Freakshow human again and gives him back to the Guys in White. Despite Danny's reality rewrite, Freakshow's lack of a blank expression suggests he may actually still know Danny's secret identity.
Powers/Abilities[]
Knowledge of ghostly artifacts: His family has the largest known knowledge of ghostly artifact, thereby he knows absolutely everything there is to know about ghost and their artifacts.
Possible Ghost Powers[]
Hovering: In the episode Phantom Planet we can see Freakshow flying on the tower, helping to turn intangible the earth, this could be either a mistake or that Freakshow became a full ghost permanently during Reality Trip and Phantom Planet, probably because he died or because Danny didn't take away his ghost powers, only his ghost form.
Intangibility: Assuming that he is actually a ghost, is possible that he can turn himself intangible since he helped to turn the earth intangible.
Equipment[]
Crystal Ball Staff (formerly): In Control Freaks, Freakshow uses his circus as a distraction so that his minions can rob banks and jewelry stores. In this episode, Freakshow used a family heirloom called the Crystal Ball Staff in order to control ghosts, until had Danny destroyed it.
The Reality Gauntlet(formerly): Later, in Reality Trip, Freakshow uses The Reality Gauntlet to turn Danny's world into a circus nightmare. The Reality Gauntlet controls reality with the help of the Reality Gems, which are the Gem of Life (ruby), the Gem of Form (topaz), the Gem of Fantasy (sapphire), and a final gem that serves as the power source of the Gauntlet, which Freakshow disguises as one of his earrings. Using the legendary Reality Gauntlet, Freakshow temporarily became the self-dubbed Ringmaster of All Reality until Danny had finally defeated him and destroying the Gauntlet. Thus temporarily Freakshow became the most powerful being in existence, having powers greatly exceeding those of [[Dark Danny]] and Pariah Dark, who are the most powerful ghosts in existence.
Since Sam is gothic in nature, its only natural for her to like the ringmaster before she found he was a psychopathic egomaniac.
Lydia[]
Lydia is more than a mere assistant or sidekick to Freakshow. It is hinted that the two has or had, a romantic relationship despite Freakshow being a human. It could be that she was Freakshow's wife, girlfriend, or fiancée as a human.
Freakshow sees Danny as his main enemy. He wants revenge for being sent to prison, and kidnapped Danny's family as a scheme in order to get the reality gems back. After Danny sent him to prison again, it is most likely that Freakshow's desires for revenge has only increased.
Jazz Fenton appears to be the only person Freakshow seems to respect that. Their relationship is based on their common ghost envy, though Jazz's is not as bad as Freakshow's. because of their common envy, Jazz understands him well. However, it is clear that Freakshow doesn't care about her because he attempts to kill her along with the rest of Danny's friends, family, and friends' families on the deathtrap-filled roller coaster.
