Posted in: Disney XD, Disney+, TV | Tagged: phineas and ferb

Phineas and Ferb Creators on Season 5 Return & Family-Friendly Humor

Phineas and Ferb creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh spoke with Bleeding Cool about the show's return, retaining humor, and more.

Phineas and Ferb creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh have had a long history together since their days on Rocko's Modern Life. As both poured their talents into their various animated shows, from acting, writing, and providing artwork, they pitched their series for over a decade before Disney finally took a chance, becoming a staple on the Disney Channel, premiering in 2007 and running for four seasons until 2012. The series, which also spawned several spinoff films and specials, follows the misadventures of the title characters, Phineas (voice of Vincent Martella) and Ferb (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) as they invent, scheme, and stay one step ahead of their bratty sister. Meanwhile, their pet platypus plots against evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz (Povenmire). With the bulk of the cast returning and David Errigo Jr taking over the role of Ferb since 2018, Povenmire and Marsh (who also voices Major Francis Monogram), spoke to Bleeding Cool about reflecting on Disney calling them to commit to work on the fifth season of Phineas and Ferb, if there was any pressure to balance retaining original fans and bringing in the new, keeping the humor wholesome.

Creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh on Returning to the 'Phineas and Ferb' World

Bleeding Cool: When Disney came calling to do season five, eight years after the original ended, what were your initial thoughts?

Povenmire: At first, we were expecting…they've been doing murmurs about doing 'Phineas' content for a while, and we were expecting maybe another movie. Instead, they said, "Could you do 40 more episodes of the series?" [Laughs]. We were like, "Oh, yeah! [Turns head left and right] I guess we could do that." Swampy and I were talking about it like, "Well, I hope we can come up with 40 episodes." That's like 80 stories, because most of them are 11 minutes, so how are we going to come up with 80 more stories with these characters? Is it going to be just us in the writer's room taking pictures and going, "Nope, we did that. Nope, did that already. Did it that already?" It hasn't been like that at all. There's been so much energy in the writers' room. People come up with great new ways to tell stories with these characters in this universe, and we've been having a wonderful time.

Was there any pressure with balancing the new season to pick up where you left off, or did you try to find a way for it to become an entryway to accommodate fans who might not have remembered all those previous seasons before and catch them up to everything?

Marsh: Well, we assume that those people don't exist.

Provenmire: [Laughs] Yes. The good thing is they said, "Look, we don't need you to reinvent the wheel. We like the show the way it is. You have carte blanche to do with what you want with it." What we wanted to do is something that felt like a continuation of the series, as we're setting it the next summer after the thing. The characters don't look any different. Phineas has one extra stripe on his shirt, and that's the only difference in the character designs at all. We try to sprinkle in what we call "evergreen episodes" that feel like, "Oh this could have been an episode of any season in the show, along with episodes that are breaking the formula of the show a little bit to for comic effect or poking fun at the show.

The good thing is it's not a terribly serialized show. Characters have changed, and so have character relationships have changed throughout a season, but there's not a story they have to follow. We try to go back to zero at the end of every episode. We try to reset everything at the end of the episode as far as that story goes. I feel like any episode they want to jump into on this season will be a good entry point for them, but if they've seen a bunch of the episodes, the episode may be funnier for them. It's like what 'Seinfeld' was, where if you've been watching the whole thing, there are a whole bunch of jokes that you're going to get that others might not. If they jumped into a third season episode, they would still think it's funny, and that's what we're hoping.

Did you ever get to a point during the show's original run or maybe this new season when you wondered, "How did we get away with this?"

Povenmire: [Laughs] It's fun for us to look and say, "How did this…?" like we went from wanting to pitch this show. We created this show in 1993 together when we were working on another show and at another network, and we always felt like this was the show we wanted to see. We wanted to make it so we could watch it, and then after 13 years of pitching it around, finally somebody said, "All right, let's see what a pilot would look like."

We did the pilot, which tested well, and then it kept surviving, all through this whole development process. Finally, we got to make the show, and it was almost an overnight success after 16 years or something by the time it went on the air. We sometimes pinch ourselves at the reception it's gotten, which is what we think, but we're not stymied much by standards and practices at Disney, because we're not trying to do anything. We don't put a lot of double entendres in, and we don't try to put stuff in…

Marsh: I remember from when we were doing the first series, there was stuff that was approved that we would cut. We get things, somebody said, "No, we're okay with it," and we're like, "You know what, we are not." Once we looked at it and saw it, we thought, "It's not where we want to go."

Povenmire: We always felt like we didn't mind and never minded putting a joke in that the kids wouldn't get as long as if the adults in the room laughed, and the kid asked them what they were laughing at, that was not an uncomfortable conversation. We want the adults to say, "Oh, you see, I launched right into why that's funny," so the kids have new information, but we try not to do shocking stuff. We tried not to do mean stuff, and those are the easiest places to go for humor is being shocking or mean. We had to work our way around that in a way that was still smart and funny, and it made us better writers.

Season five of Phineas and Ferb, which also features the return of Ashley Tisdale, Caroline Rhea, Alyson Stoner, and Dee Bradley Baker, premieres June 5th on Disney Channel and Disney XD with two episodes. The first episode will also be available on YouTube. The following day, both will be available on Disney+.

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