FRIDAY HALL OF FAMERS 06/21/19 - PHINEAS & FERB
With our June entries into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, we look for an applicant who’s either a puppet, a duo, a cartoon character, or just plain weird. This month we’ve got “weird” pretty much covered every week; we inducted a puppet last week; so let’s go for a cartoon duo for the penultimate Friday Hall of Famer!
From Wikipedia:
“Phineas and Ferb” is an American animated musical comedy television series. Originally broadcast as a one-episode preview on August 17, 2007 and again previewed on September 28, 2007, the series officially premiered on February 1, 2008 on Disney Channel, running until June 12, 2015. The program follows Phineas Flynn and his stepbrother Ferb Fletcher on summer vacation.
Every day, the boys embark on some grand new project; these are usually unrealistic given the protagonists' ages (and are sometimes downright physically impossible), which annoys their controlling sister, Candace, who frequently tries to reveal their shenanigans to her and Phineas' mother, Linda Flynn-Fletcher, and less frequently to Ferb's father, Lawrence Fletcher.
The series follows a standard plot system; running gags occur every episode, and the b-plot almost always features Phineas and Ferb's pet platypus Perry the Platypus working as a spy (named "Agent P") for OWCA (the Organization Without a Cool Acronym), to defeat the latest scheme of Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, a mad scientist driven largely by a need to assert his evilness (although he is not especially evil and has a good heart in some situations.) The two plots intersect at the end to erase all traces of the boys' project just before Candace can show it to their mother. This usually leaves Candace very frustrated.
A crossover between Phineas and Ferb and Marvel Entertainment aired in the summer of 2013, titled “Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel”. It features Marvel Comics superheroes Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Hulk and Thor and the villains the Red Skull, Whiplash, Venom and M.O.D.O.K.. It is the first major animated crossover between Marvel and Disney since the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment by Disney in 2009.
In July 2013, the producers announced a Phineas and Ferb/Star Wars crossover which was used as a sidebar to the events of “Episode IV: A New Hope”. The special aired on July 26, 2014.
Co-creator Dan Povenmire said that he would like to do a crossover with his and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh's follow-up show, “Milo Murphy's Law”, which takes place in the same universe as Phineas and Ferb. The episode premiered in January 2019. The entire cast [reprised] their roles with the exception of Ferb who was voiced by David Errigo, Jr.
Before the crossover aired, a character from “Phineas and Ferb”, Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, cameoed at the end of the episode "Fungus Among Us"; following the crossover, the characters Doofenshmirtz, Perry the Platypus, Major Monogram and Carl joined the cast of “Milo Murphy's Law” in a recurring capacity.
Disney produced a live-action talk show where the two characters (as cartoons) interview celebrities, similarly to “Space Ghost Coast to Coast”, which began airing in December 2010 as a two-minute talk-show format, featuring real-life celebrities such as Tony Hawk, Randy Jackson, Neil Patrick Harris, Seth Rogen, Taylor Swift, Andy Samberg, Tom Bergeron, Emma Roberts, Jack Black, Regis Philbin, Howie Mandel, David Beckham and Guy Fieri. The show ended on November 25, 2011.
So think of all the crossovers are contained within those episodes of ‘Phineas and Ferb’ as well as ‘Take Two with Phineas and Ferb’:
- Iron Man had several animated series of his own and guest-starred in shows about other Marvel superheroes.
- Spiderman teamed up with several heroes over the years in animated adventures as well as having a couple of shows of his own.
- The Hulk had his own series beginning in 1982 but also appeared in several guest spots.
- And finally the Mighty Thor had his own series beginning in 1966.
Phineas and Ferb weren’t confined to their own shows for their crossovers as they also appeared in an episode of ‘Milo Murphy’s Law’ as mentioned above.
As for “Star Wars”? George Lucas is going to hate this, but the boys are now connected to the animated portions of the dreaded “Star Wars Holiday Special”!
And any member of the League of Themselves who appeared on ‘Take Two’ and who also appeared as their fictional televersions in other TV series also provide the connections to those live-action series for this animated show. That’s not something many many characters can lay claim to.Welcome to the Hall, Phineas and Ferb!
So there's a multiverse of live-action earths but only one animated? I've always been far more willing to switch medium and styles (allowing, for example, the Superfriends to cross with the 1960s Batman show and thus to many others, because I allow actors to link it, and Adam West did the voice of Batman in the last two years of Superfriends), but there has to be a production-based link, such as a common actor. I had thought since you had the different universes besides Earth Prime Time that you did the same. But your suggestion of all the crossovers seems to suggest all animated Marvel is equal? Or do I misread?
ReplyDeleteI’ve always liked the idea, later seen with ‘Drawn Together’, that despite differences in artistic style, all toons share the same dimension. I think I had to make an exception once because it veered too far from established canon in other sources. Can’t remember what it was now, but I do think there has to be an evil cartoon dimension for cosmic balance. With certain dimensions I don’t expect it all has to make sense like the Tooniverse and Skitlandia.
DeleteIt’s the interface between the Tooniverse and Toobworld which I’m still on the fence about.
Since leaving the comment, I played with credits and found that many of the voices on P&F episode are the voices for Marvel animated output, particularly the shows in the last few years on ToonDisney and the like (it looks like a couple go further back, and they all have a mix of videogames, cartoon series, and direct-to-DVD animated movies).
ReplyDeleteFor me, the shows have to have a connection through either production or acting (as opposed to just common source material); otherwise, it would be the kind of work you do to sort out the various versions of Superman to have appeared over the years. I'm not shunting them off into different dimensions, necessarily, but I do try to keep them straight.
And, as I said before, I have no problem switching from live action to animation with a proper connection.