Brief review: it’s very smart, provides a smart dose of what made the sci-fi fantasy series so exciting while providing new character rhythms and plot tricks to differentiate yourself from the series. If you liked the series, love the movie. If you’ve never noticed the series, well, there’s no better time than the present.
As it is today’s opening day, I express a great verbal exchange with the show’s creators, Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh. We discussed past versions of a theoretical film through Phineas and Ferb, attempts to shake up the character interaction and how to make the film giant enough and different enough to justify the comeback after the series finale. And now (edited for clarity and time), no additional retention.
Scott Mendelson: Was that still in (in 2012)?
Dan Povenmire: It was an absolutely different film. The only thing we store about this script is the strange meta-joke where the truth collapses, which has been my favorite joke in this other script. (Otherwise), this is a new logo we made in particular for Disney Plus.
Mendelson: Well, me in that sense, did they come to you or did you pass them?
Povenmire: Disney knew they were going to do a streaming service. They knew they were looking to have things on the streaming service that they call co-visualization, which means adults, children and grandparents can see them all together.
Phineas and Ferb, which partly explains why it was such a wonderful success, as about 40% of the audience were adults. So they said, “Hey, do you still need to get the old characters out?”
(Jeff “Swampy” March) and I were a little exhausted at the end of 10 years doing (the show). But five years later, we realized, “I miss those guys! We’re going into that toy box again.”
Mendelson: I’m one of those who has 40%. My daughter entered the screen in 2011, then lost interest after a month. My wife and I keep looking.
Jeff “Swampy” Marsh: You’re from this organization that gave us the opportunity to make this movie.
Mendelson: What did you have to do with this movie you think you didn’t do with the 222 10-minute episodes of the series?
Povenmire: Well, it was like the hardest thing was the first week in the writers’ room. In a way, we made the decision that we’d never told a story where someone was in danger. Phineas and Ferb is just a matter of fun, creativity and other things.
And it was like, well, and if Candice was in trouble, was he in danger? What if she was kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and had genuine disorders and the boys had to come in and save her? It’s not about what Doof does and what we do, Perry, Phineas and Ferb. This is more of that external force that is executing them.
Mendelson: There was an attempt in its component to locate new combinations of characters that did not have …
Povenmire: (Yes) Doof and Isabella can sing a duet in combination because we never thought it would happen. I don’t forget to call Alyson Stoner and say, “Hey, you and I are going to do a duet on the new movie.” And she says, “Really? How would that happen?” I said, “You’ll have to wait and see.”
Mendelson: It’s great to see and give Doof and the gang a chance to paint together.
Povenmire: But what the hell is Perry going to do the dressty room here? Because you can’t show doofenshmirtz to the boys, as an agent. And nothing like Ornithorrinco can help against Doofenshmirtz. So what, since it actually turns out to be the worst-case scenario imaginable for him? “
Povenmire: Yes. And then we made a joke and, you know, like most of the time we have disorders in the writers’ room, we say to ourselves, “Well, that’s the funny thing.”
Marsh: My God, why are we doing this interview? You’ve prepared, of course …!
Povenmire: All right. Well, wait. We’ll wait, let’s go …
Mendelson: Oh, it’s okay. I’ll be right back. (37 hours later) Is this the first time Doofenshmirtz has worked with young people on a story that has been revived after the events?
Povenmire: This is the first time it hasn’t been erased from your memories. It’s much more of a gang component in this domain than in the movie Second Dimension that we did where they met and things like that. They have their memories erased at the end, but they don’t paint in combination in this domain. So this is the first time they are like a team in combination.
Mendelson: Looking for why this movie exists? It’s as good an explanation as any. Is there anything that feels like you’re filming or just on the back of your head, if you ever come back to this property, this is what we have to do?
Povenmire: Yes, but I can’t tell you what it is because we can do it. There was a story we started exploring before we knew it was going to be a movie not only for other people who watched all the episodes of Phineas and Ferb, but also for those who never saw Phineas and Ferb.
Mendelson: Do you think you’re going to have a chance to do them?
Povenmire: It’s Disney and a lot of that, I think at some point in the future they’re going to let us do that.
Mendelson: Are we ever going to see what could have happened to the original movie you were coming in in 2011, 2012?
Povenmire: I would never say, however, it turns out it was something that stopped them in a moment. It was a strange scenario because it was a story they were looking to tell in a very express way. And we had to tell a story and surround it. So we’ll see if that ever happens.
Mendelson: Were there any obligations, restrictions in terms of doing this for the transmission service?
Povenmire: It’s like we have to provide everything to executives before they give us the green light, but yes. But there’s none, you have to do it like this or you have to do it like this. In a way, what would you do if you could do something? And it’s a much more liberating and fun pleasure for me.
Marsh: In fact, they gave us the support, the resources, the time and whatever it takes to make long-standing paintings. Actually, they’re short-format characters. To build those kinds of emotional arches there and everything, we needed paintings and we got hit.
Mendelson: Is there anything you would have liked that you asked that I didn’t do?
Povenmire: Yes. yes, I think we have a laugh. As for the songs. We had all those songs we wrote 10 years ago for the series. We’re trying to live up to that somehow. And I think we did, we have to use guest composers who came and written with us about other things.
We had Kate Micucci from Garfunkel and Oates. We had Kari Kirkpatrick who wrote Something Rotten! on Broadway and Emmanuel Kiriakou, who is a songwriter of pop songs.
There’s a segment we liked: “Oh, I need it to sound like a pop song that would be on the radio right now. Who do I know who’s writing pop songs on the radio right now? We’re going to put Emmanuel in.”
We laughed a lot with other voices in the room that we hadn’t used before. And then Swampy and I wrote a song for the end of the credits, literally on our iPhones on FaceTime because COVID had closed everything and suddenly we all painted remotely, and we needed one more song.
And I thought, “Well, just play FaceTime. And we’ll do it that way.” And we’ve never had to do that before, but it was fun.
Mendelson: Without revealing it, the average cookie credit some other example of anything: “Hey, you discovered something you never did in the series.”
Povenmire: It was kind of a concept by Bob Bowen, our director, who thought, “No, we do this. And we also do it because they never got rid of what they had built.” And I think he was joking when he proposed.
Like, “We couldn’t do that, but it would be fun if it happened.” And then I thought, “No, we can do this and raise this. It’s that kind of last-minute thing we went up. They did an audience check on that and for 19- to 24-year-olds, the other seniors who grew up up with Phineas and Ferb, in their 3 favorite scenes.
Mendelson: Well, thank you very much. Not to look like a cliché, however, the whole circle of relatives thanked him.
Povenmire: Excellent. Fantastic.
Marsh: Mission accomplished.
I studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an analysis in the workplace, for almost 30 years. I’ve written a lot about everything
I studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an analysis in the workplace, for almost 30 years. I have written extensively on all these topics over the more than 11 years. My media for film reviews, workplace reviews and film bias scholarships have included The Huffington Post, Salon and Film Threat. Follow me on @ScottMendelson and like The Ticket Booth on Facebook.