Beloved Nickelodeon Star Passes Away After Years of Battling Heartbreaking Disease

There are generations of people who grew up watching and enjoying a slew of different Nickelodeon shows. Thanks to shows like The Fairly OddParents, Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, Kenan & Kel, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others, millions of people have lots of memories of adoring the channel's offerings.

While many Nickelodeon shows feel timeless, the sad truth is that the people who helped entertain youngsters who habitually watched the channel have aged just like everyone else. Now, it has been revealed that one of the actors who played beloved roles in one of the most popular Nickelodeon shows has passed away after spending years battling a disease.

Jim Ward From 'The Fairly Oddparents' Has Passed Away at 66 Years Old After Battling Alzheimer’s Disease

On December 11, 2025, The Hollywood Reporter published an article revealing that the highly successful voice actor Jim Ward had passed away a day earlier, at the age of 66 years old. The outlet was told by Ward's longtime wife, Janice Ryan Ward, that the actor was living in a memory care facility at the time of his passing. Ward was living at that facility because he battled the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease for eight years before he passed away.

Anyone who has had to witness someone they love deal with dementia, a form of severe memory loss that is most commonly caused by Alzheimer’s disease, knows how heartbreaking that can be. An October 2024 article from the American Psychological Association quoted Pauline Boss, PhD, stating that watching a loved one's memory slip away can make the feeling of loss more difficult for the people who love them.

"This type of ambiguous loss, with the parent still physically present but cognitively absent, is one of the most difficult forms of loss, as there’s no resolution."

Jim Ward Had a Truly Incredible Voice Acting Career

My friend JIM WARD has passed away. I worked with him for many years on the Fairly OddParents. He did the iconic voices of Chet Ubetcha and Doug Dimmadome among many others and created characters that will live forever. He will be sadly missed. The voice over world has lost one… pic.twitter.com/HUiFsgl8d4

— Butch Hartman (@FairlyOddFather) December 11, 2025

The aforementioned The Hollywood Reporter article stated that Jim Ward began his career as a Universal Studios tour guide and an impressionist. It would be a wild understatement to say that Ward's career took off after that. Ward went on to become a very successful voice actor whose most notable credit arguably is voicing characters like Doug Dimmadome, Chet Ubetcha, Dif, and Pa Speevak from Nickelodeon's The Fairly OddParents.

While Ward left his mark on The Fairly OddParents, he also lent his voice a slew of other projects, including a long list of video games. Another one of Ward's greatest claims to fame was voicing Captain Qwark in the Ratchet & Clank franchise. It also should be noted that Ward co-hosted a radio show called "The Stephanie Miller Show" between 2004 and 2017.

Ward's filmography is also highlighted by the fact that he lent his voice to a series of animated shows and movies that were based on comic book characters. On the TV side of things, Ward starred in the Marvel shows, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Wolverine and the X-Men. Ward also played roles in several DC Comics animated movies, including Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, Batman vs. Two-Face, and Superman: Red Son.