For more than 2 decades, The Fairly Oddparents has been igniting the imagination of cartoon lovers. Timmy Turner, just an average kid that no one understands, has resonated with viewers since he first burst onto the scene in 2001.
Throughout its 16-year run, Timmy has made plenty of wishes with catastrophic consequences, but none hit nearly as hard as season 8 episode 2. The hour-long special. Timmy’s Secret Wish turned the entire Fairly Oddparents’ universe on its head.
Timmy Everlasting
It’s no surprise that Timmy’s made more than 1 million wishes over the series’ 10 seasons. His parents are notoriously neglectful, his babysitter 1 step away from a war criminal, and his only teacher is the human embodiment of hatred. Luckily for Timmy, as reparations for his terrible existence, he was granted Cosmo and Wanda, loving fairies who can grant his every wish.
The only problem is, Fairy World has some strict rules around Fairy Godparents – once a child no longer needs their fairies, they leave forever. The tragic end to the relationship first appeared in season 4, when it was revealed that Cosmo and Wanda were once Mr. Crocker’s Fairy Godparents too. Whether through aging, accidentally revealing their fairy’s existence, or finally getting to live a decent life, all fairies eventually leave their kids behind – and once they’re gone, the kid forgets all about them.
Timmy Learns the secret in Channel Chasers and decides that he’s not going to make the same mistakes as his own parents. Hopefully providing a good enough life that his kids never need help from Fairy Godparents. Though the series is relatively non-linear, most fans point to this episode as the moment that Timmy determined that he would never grow up at all.
In Timmy’s Secret Wish it’s revealed that Timmy isn’t a 10-year-old at all; he’s actually a sexagenarian. Sometime after learning that he would forget about Cosmo and Wanda should he ever grow up, Timmy made a wish for the unthinkable – that he and everyone else in the world would be frozen in time. Though he isn’t sure how long ago it happened, Timmy guesses that it was somewhere around 50 years back. Beyond altering the fabric of time and space like he’s Doctor Strange and breaking one of the cardinal rules of the Fairy World, Timmy caps off his bad behavior by making Cosmo forget the whole interaction.
The whole plot sounds like one of those twisted internet theories centered on kids shows. The wish definitely should have landed Timmy in The Hall of Infamy – somewhere next to Maryann, who kicked off WWI by wishing for the death of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand. It leaves so many question. Did Timmy’s brain ever fully develop, or if he was mentally stuck as a 10-year-old through and through? Either way, it’s pretty messed up that he slept on such a big secret – one that led to the disappearance of his Fairy God-sibling.
When all is revealed, Cosmo and Wanda’s sweet baby Poof is erased from existence. Father Time is called to clean the mess, and when the wish is unmade, everyone on Earth ages 50 years in the blink of an eye. No one under the age of 50 exists, and those who were already elderly are now ancient. Everyone frozen in time suddenly jumps forward (we don’t even want to know how this effected pregnant people). The Fairy Council wipes Timmy memory alongside Cosmo and Wanda’s, and they no longer remember who Timmy Turner is – or that they ever had a child.
Of course, Timmy eventually remembers his horrible wish and teams up with Mr. Crocker to find Fairy World. He eventually rescues Poof from the Hocus Poconos – where undone wishes go – and selflessly sacrifices himself so that his fairies can live a good life together. The Fairy Council agrees to pull Timmy out of whish-purgatory and reinstate his fairies, and he wishes everything back to normal.
Or did he? Timmy is still 10 years old by the end of the series, so we think there is a real chance that the sneaky old man might still be messing around with the timeline. Maybe Paramount Plus will finally answer the question in its reboot of the series.