Phineas And Ferb

Joe Strike chats with Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh about their careers and the creation of Disney Channel"s new animated series Phineas & Ferb.

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You"ll have to lớn excuse Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh if they seem a bit jet-lagged at the moment. They"ve sầu just returned from hopscotching across Europe khổng lồ promote their new Disney Channel series Phineas & Ferb. Literally minutes after reaching their respective homes from the airport, they"re on a conference call with this writer to lớn talk about their new series yet again...

Dan Povenmire: We sat across from each other at The Simpsons . We were always laughing at the same jokes, & then we ended up as a writing team on Rocko"s Modern Life.

Jeff Marsh: That was a really good show for us to lớn be on. It allowed us the freedom to lớn learn how to lớn vì chưng this.

DP: We created Phineas & Ferb while we were there as a means of letting us work together more as writers. This was lượt thích 16 years ago.

JM: God, we"re old.

Lesser mortals might have sầu given up, but as their careers progressed, the pair kept pitching their concept...

DP: It wasn"t lượt thích we pitched it khổng lồ every network more than once. We pitched it khổng lồ four different places. We"d get real cthất bại, they"d say no, so we"d put it baông chồng on the shelf for a couple of years, then -- "I"ve sầu got a pitch over at Cartoon Network -- I"ll dust it baông chồng off & pitch it khổng lồ them; if they say no, I"ll dust it off và pitch it lớn Nickelodeon."

JM: Two reasons we kept at it: one, we are stubborn, & two, it"s always been the show we wanted khổng lồ make more than the others. With all the stuff we"ve sầu seen coming on the air, this one is really the best. There"s no reason to throw it away và move on. Every time you read it, you think this is a good show.

DP: It was really the show we wanted lớn see: if this was on the air, I"d watch it, và I don"t always feel that about every show I work on.

The entire series takes place over the course of a single summer vacation, as half-brothers Phineas Flynn & Ferb Fletcher create a variety of outrageous diversions for themselves & their friends with supernatural ease. One of the show"s running gags is a disbelieving adult asking Phineas, "Aren"t you a little young khổng lồ be ," khổng lồ which he replies, "Yes, yes I am."

DP: His confidence makes people think, "He must be a prodigy." Notoàn thân ever asks hyên ổn if he"s too young. He"d never lie to lớn an adult or try to get away with anything. He"s just motivated by fun. If he thought mom would actually dislike the things they"re doing, he would probably stop, but since he"s never gotten in trouble for it, he doesn"t think of it as getting inlớn trouble.

JM: The whole thing came about because we didn"t want khổng lồ khuyễn mãi giảm giá with school. We"ve sầu seen it over và over again in too many shows -- there"s nothing fresh khổng lồ it. We rethành viên growing up being kids. Every summer day we"d go out and vì something: dig a trench, or build a tunnel, fort, or a tree house.

DP: Don"t say that -- some kid is going to go out, dig a tunnel và have a cave-in.

JM: We built go-karts or bicycles; we were always out doing something. We wanted khổng lồ capture that imagination.

Much lớn her endless frustration, sister Candace is unable to lớn prove to lớn their mother what Phineas & Ferb are up lớn, as evidence of their activities perpetually vanishes moments before mom arrives. Meanwhile, & unbeknownst lớn all, the boys" pet platypus Perry is actually suave sầu Secret Agent P, engaged in perpetual battle against arch-enemy Dr. Doofenshmirtz. The three separate elements of each story regularly intersect in unexpected ways.

JM: The show has a màn chơi of plot complexity they won"t let most people bởi.

DP: That was actually the reason it didn"t get picked up until now. Fox Kids wanted to lớn put it on their next season; we had a couple of meetings with them. At Nickelodeon it kept going up higher and higher to the next echelon. Everyone loved it, but they eventually thought it was too complex to lớn pull off. Disney was the first to say, "Let"s see if you can vì chưng it in 11 minutes." We did it in the pilot & they said, "Let"s see if you can bởi it for 26 episodes."

JM: I think it"s great that the characters are cool, edgy và clever without the humor being mean-spirited. It was important to lớn us that they never did anything with any animosity. They never tried khổng lồ get their sister in trouble or outsmart their mother and get away with it.

DP: We were trying to lớn vày that and still keep an edge khổng lồ it. Our animation director Rob Hughes moved baông chồng from Michigan because he liked the pilot so much he wanted to lớn work on the series. He said on all the other shows every character is either stupid or a jerk, but there are no stupid characters or jerks in this one.

JM: Except the creators.

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DP: Candace does get frustrated. She thinks it"s not fair -- that if she were doing the things they"re doing, she"d get in trouble. It"s not, "I"m going to lớn get those guys & ruin their lives." She does bust them later in the season, but there are a couple of twists to it.

Strangely enough, the show tested just as well with girls as boys. In some age groups it tested a little higher with girls -- they love sầu it when Candace gets pounded, boys and girls alike.

JM: Girls would definitely lượt thích to lớn see her take more abuse; we"re gonna take their notes và, boy, are they lucky. They also like Perry -- they say he"s "hunky."

DP: His adventures often clean up the boys" mess. When we were writing Rocko, we always had one of two things, sometimes both: usually a song or a musical number, plus a big action/chase scene. Phineas và Ferb gave us a chance lớn write a song for every single episode, starting with the second episode, Flop Starz.

We played it and Perry"s theme for the Disney executives. We were a little trepidatious because Disney has a big history of music -- what if they hate it? The reaction was, "These are great -- can you write a song for every episode?"

JM: We both want to lớn be rock-and-rollers anyway -- Dan"s had a band for years, & I was in one once.

DP: Every episode since then has song in it. It"s not always the characters singing onscreen -- they don"t break inlớn tuy nhiên just lớn advance the plot. The music doesn"t come out of nowhere, sometimes it"s just a montage over action. We"ve done every genre known khổng lồ man: ABBA, Broadway show tunes, 16th-century madrigals --

JM: Sinatra lounge songs --

DM: -- punk and psychedelia, reggae, ska... We write the tuy nhiên on Friday with one of the scripters who"s also songwriter, then play it into our composer Danny Jacob"s answering machine, just guitars and us singing badly. On Monday we"d have sầu a finished song from Danny.

After Rocko và before Phineas and Ferb, the pair went their separate ways. Dan moved to SpongeBob SquarePants as a writer và storyboard director, then began directing Family Guy episodes. Jeff spent the next six years in Engl& (where he first earned his soggy nickname bachồng in his post-college days) working on an assortment of films và series, including Postman Pat and Bounty Hamster.

JM: London was absolutely fantastic. They bởi vì a much smaller number of shows; it"s much more a boutique business. I hadn"t worked that way in a long time; I"d always worked on big shows for big companies. I just had a great time being there.

Then Dan called. "Do you want khổng lồ work on Phineas and Ferb?" The next sound he heard was me packing. "Are you happy lớn be leaving London?" That had nothing khổng lồ vì chưng with it. I just wanted to lớn make Phineas và Ferb, but I got to come baông xã & take up surfing.

DP: My work on Family Guy didn"t scare Disney. In fact, it had a huge impact on them, wanting lớn see whatever I did, because Adam Bonnet is a big tín đồ. He called me for a meeting when I was working on a different pilot for them just lớn tell me how much he liked Family Guy. When I came bachồng lớn pitch my own show, I think he was more open to lớn it.

What we tried khổng lồ do with Phineas & Ferb was put some of that primetime animation timing & sensibility without any of the raunch. We bởi a lot of stuff where we try khổng lồ get a gag with a pause or a blank stare -- something really big happens and the other person just stares at hyên. That"s something Swampy and I brought in from our primetime experience and put it in a show that also has big wacky cartoon animation in it.

People think Family Guy is a success because of how raunchy the gags are. I don"t think it would have sầu been a success at all if the timing wasn"t absolutely crystal pitch perfect -- if there wasn"t just the right amount of pause before or after the line. Comedy is all about timing & I think that"s what people are responding khổng lồ. Of course the fact that people are gasping và saying "I can"t believe sầu they said that" helps as well.

Animation on season one of Phineas and Ferb is nearing completion overseas at Rough Draft Studtiện ích ios & Wong Film. But 16 years earlier...

DP: I was at the Wild Thyme restaurant in South Pasademãng cầu. They have butcher paper over the tables và crayons for you to draw with, và I drew a triangle-headed kid. I tore that piece off & told my wife, "This is the show I"m going to lớn sell." I called Swampy that night and said, "Okay, I"ve got Phineas." That drawing is framed in my office, complete with coffee stains.

JM: All the other characters grew out of that.

DP: This guy"s a triangle, this one"s a rectangle, this girl"s half a circle. Then we worked geometric shapes into lớn the background thiết kế to tie it all together -- give sầu it a visual/thematic through line. There"s a little bit of Tex Avery in there -- he had that very graphic style . A lot of what I see now is borrowed from Tex.

The show"s opening theme notes that "There"s 104 days of summer vacation," exactly half of which are covered in Phineas & Ferb"s season one segments. And the other half? According khổng lồ Dan Povenmire, boards are already being drmojaocena.com up for a second season; then there"s always Christmas recess, not to mention the summer after...

Joe Strike is a regular contributor to mojaocena.com. His animation articles also appear in the NY Daily News & the Thủ đô New York Press.