By Judy Shields
The new season of “Phineas and Ferb” premieres Thursday, June 5, at 8 p.m. PDT/EDT on Disney Channel and Disney XD with two episodes, and the first episode will be available the same day on Disney Channel YouTube. The first 10 episodes of the season will premiere on Disney+ in the U.S. and select international markets on Friday, June 6, with additional markets to follow later this year. The episodes will also be available to stream on Disney Channel on Demand.
According to Variety, the latest season of Phineas and Ferb will feature actors Alan Cumming as The Haberdasher, Jonathan Banks as Driving Instructor, Lake Bell as Villevielle, Leslie Jones as Alliance Commander, Anna Faris as Samantha Sweetwater, Rhys Darby as Lomond, and Ruth Negga as Lieutenant Zarna. John Stamos will voice the fan-favorite character Meap in the highly anticipated Season 5 episode, “Meap Me in St. Louis”.
Enjoy the official Trailer:
Series Regulars — Reprising their roles are: Vincent Martella and David Errigo Jr. as step-brothers “Phineas Flynn” and “Ferb Fletcher”, respectively, Ashley Tisdale as “Candace Flynn”, co-creator and executive producer Dan Povenmire as “Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz”, Alyson Stoner as “Isabella Garcia-Shapiro”, Dee Bradley Baker as “Perry the Platypus”, Caroline Rhea as “Linda Flynn-Fletcher”, and co-creator and executive producer Jeff “Swampy” Marsh as “Major Francis Monogram”.
Creative Team — Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh both return to their original roles to executive produce the series. They are also the series creators.
Also released is the ultimate summer anthem from the premiere episode, “Summer Is Starting Right Now,” performed by the cast of “Phineas and Ferb.” The new single is now available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and other digital platforms. View the “Summer is Starting Right Now” video HERE.
Those of you who are loyal fans of “Phineas and Ferb” are in for a treat for this new season 5. The first two episodes that I got to watch are way cool, inspiring, funny and creative. Those of you new to “Phineas and Ferb” will also enjoy the animated family and in the mean time, start binge watching the other 4 seasons. What animation is all about! Great show indeed. Judy Shields, The Hollywood Times
Here is a short video of the question I asked the cast:
Participating Talent on the Virtual Press Conference were:
Dan Povenmire (Co-Creator and EP, “Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz”)
Jeff “Swampy” Marsh (Co-Creator and EP, “Major Francis Monogram”)
Ashley Tisdale (“Candace Flynn”)
Caroline Rhea (“Linda Flynn-Fletcher”)
Vincent Martella (“Phineas Flynn”)
David Errigo Jr. (“Ferb Fletcher”)
Alyson Stoner (“Isabella Garcia-Shapiro”)
Dee Bradley Baker (“Perry the Platypus/Agent P”)
Here are several questions asked during the Virtual Conference:
Starry Constellation: Hi Dan and Jeff, how did you balance bringing the show to a new audience while also maintaining what was loved about the original run?
Dan Povenmire: Well, we really just wanted to make more of the same show. We tried not to make it feel different, but we wanted it to have sort of, you know, a fresh energy. About half the writers’ room are writers who were originally on the show and half the writers’ room are young writers who grow up watching the show. And so, you know, the people who have had a break from the show for a while all came in with great new ideas.
There’s a bunch of stuff that was like “Oh, why didn’t we ever think of doing this back in the day?” So we’re just trying to keep the feel of the show, ’cause that’s what I think the fans love about it.
Swampy Marsh: We just didn’t want to reinvent everything. It was working fine before and we just thought we should just keep doing what we’ve been doing.
SciFiVision: Hi, thanks for talking to us. So, uh, what’s it been like getting back into your characters after so long?
Dan Povenmire: Well, we’ve sort of always been doing it a little bit. I think we’ve all sort of done stuff for the Chibiverse and for interstitials, right?
Vincent Martella: Yeah, I’m like, I’ve played Phineas for, you know, 17, 18 years now, so Phineas has been a huge, huge part of my life, and what’s been wonderful about this show is that it has such an incredible audience. We’ve always had reasons to play these characters again, even in between the period where we stopped doing the episodes of the show and when we did, uh, the feature film in 2020, Candace Against the Universe, because we also did crossover episodes with Milo Murphy’s Law, where I got to play Phineas again for that. I’ve worked on the Chibiverse, which is also on Disney, a channel on Disney+. And so Phineas has never been too far away, but the first record that I ever had coming back to do new episodes of the show was definitely, like, an emotional experience. I was really moved and excited because like I said, I mean, 17, 18 years is a really long time to do anything or to know someone, and I’ve known all these, you know, these wonderful people I get to work with and I’ve known this character for so long. So it’s been really, really fun getting to, uh, be back doing this job every week. I hope we get to forever, it’s been amazing.
Dee Bradley Baker: I had to do a three-month, uh, deep dive to really try to recreate, uh, the essence and the subtextual context that I need to bring the Perry sound, uh, into life.
David Errigo, Jr.: And that’s actually a quote, like open quotations, D-E-E closed quote, P dive. That’s a Dee-p dive.
Dee Bradley Baker: Yeah.
Caroline Rhea: Oh, look at you.
Caroline Rhea: You know what’s really fun? When we started this, I think it was 2008 that we went on the air.
Swampy Marsh: Yeah.
Caroline Rhea: And my daughter had not been born yet, and now my daughter is 16, and so it’s very fun playing Mom talking to someone—now Candace is a whole different person to me. Like I kind of (inaudible). And now I’m like, oh, I kind of know this person in three dimensions. Isn’t it weird, Ashley, now that you have kids, doing it too?
Ashley Tisdale: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that it’s funny. We were in the studio the other day doing, um, press, and Vincent was, like, doing a little, like, IG story And he did his voice and he showed Dan doing his voice and he’s like “And Swampy’s here,” and he did his voice, and then he came to me and I just said, “Hi.” So it’s like, I’m like, literally Candace is my voice. Um, the only difficult thing is Candace’s craziness has so much energy. So when I was younger, it was so easy to tap into that.
Caroline Rhea: Right.
Ashley Tisdale: Obviously I’m older and I have two kids, and to be honest, the whole season, last season I was pregnant with my second. And all I kept thinking was, “I really hope this baby understands this is not real life outside!” It was like, crazy, and I was just, like, I could only imagine her in my womb being like “What is happening out there?” But, um…
Dan Povenmire: Yeah, “My mom is really high-strung!”
Caroline Rhea: Your daughter was watching, like, episodes from the womb.
Ashley Tisdale: Yes.
Caroline Rhea: I know we’re not supposed to do an aside, but you’re so brilliant as Candace and that’s been so much fun watching episodes. You are, I mean, everybody, is great.
Ashley Tisdale: Oh. It was really funny too, actually—the other day I thought I was pulling one over Dan and Swampy and I said to Vincent, I said, “You know, I never read a script before I come into work.” And Vincent goes, “What?” And I was like “I’ve never- I never prepared a script. Like, I never read the script, I always just came in.” And I still do today—I just come in and I start reading the lines. And I was like “Dan and Swampy didn’t know that,” and Dan goes, “Yeah, we did!” I thought I was pulling one over on them.
Swampy Marsh: It didn’t matter because it worked so well. There’s no way we were gonna mess with it. I don’t care how you get there.
Ashley Tisdale: It’s the genius of the character.
Swampy Marsh: It’s fantastic.
Dan Povenmire: Yeah.
Swampy Marsh: We’re just gonna let it go.
David Errigo, Jr.: And I’m just thrilled to be involved, uh, with this wonderful family of people, to have been invited in to play That’s to me, getting to come back to it after a couple little things in between and now to be a part of the series proper, I thank my lucky stars.
Caroline Rhea: Now you’re fully adopted by the family.
David Errigo, Jr.: Yeah!
Caroline Rhea: Like, we’re signed. You’re our first.
Dee Bradley Baker: You’re absorbed.
Swampy Marsh: All the legal papers have gone through. What I think is funny, especially with the, like, uh, Alyson and- and Vincent, when we started with them, they were…
Dan Povenmire: They were kids.
Swampy Marsh: Kids, little kids.
Caroline Rhea: Yeah.
Swampy Marsh: And now they’re fully grown people and all that, and somebody said, “Are you gonna be able to have the same actors back to do the voices?,” and it’s like, they’ve been doing it the whole time.
Caroline Rhea: Yeah.
Dan Povenmire: Yep.
Swampy Marsh: They’ll probably be doing it long after I’m gone.
Dan Povenmire: Yes.
Caroline Rhea: There’s 2,001 million days of summer vacation.
Swampy Marsh: Yeah.
David Errigo, Jr.: May you speak that into existence.
Caroline Rhea: Yeah.
Celeb Secrets: Hi, guys. My question is, um, is there, like a fan favorite moment or line from the original that still cracks you up or gets quoted at you all the time?
Dan Povenmire: There’s, the thing that, uh, I hear the most just because it’s become part of pop culture for that generation is, uh, is “If I had a nickel for every time I blank, I’d have two nickels! Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?” Which is from, uh, from the first movie we did. And, uh, and I have a friend who’s a professor at at a college in the Midwest who- who texted me out of the blue and said, “Oh my God, I’ve been hearing people use this bit over and over again in all of my classes for years. And I just finally found out that that’s Doofenschmirtz! I’ve never seen that one!” And he was like “That’s you! These people are quoting you when they do this!” And, you know, and everybody- people have used it online, like the Democratic Party, their official Twitter used their their official TikTok used that for something recently and I was like “Oh, that’s just that one has permeated pop culture in a very weird way.”
Caroline Rhea: I feel like I’ve offered pie to people than more waitresses at Denny’s. I think anyone “Would anyone like pie?”
Dan Povenmire: Yes.
Caroline Rhea: Which again, in my character’s mind, it’s her therapist saying, “Try the pie, it calms the kids down.”
Dan Povenmire: Yes, that’s exactly it.
Caroline Rhea: “Do you like pie?”
David Errigo, Jr.: I love to see the new ways that people engage with the “A platypus? Perry the Platypus?” Just like…
Dan Povenmire: Yes
David Errigo, Jr.: The very myriad of options that we’ve seen.
Dan Povenmire: Well, it’s become so- it’s devolved so much that they’ll just have anything that’s teal and orange, and then put something brown on it. And it’ll be “A platypus? Perry the Platypus!” I’s just broken down to its very basic form. I love that.
Bionic Buzz: It is. My question is for Swampy and Dan, for the new generation checking out the show. Could you tell us the origin story of the creation and the unique designs of the heads for Phineas and Ferb’s?
Dan Povenmire: Well, Swampy and I were writing together on a show called- well, on a show on another network.
Swampy Marsh: Another network show.
Dan Povenmire: And as they say we really liked writing together and wanted to create a show that we could continue to work together. And we went through a whole bunch of different designs, different, you know, like at one point we had meerkats, at one point we had a toucan and something you know, it was something else. And uh, and then I was just at dinner with my ex-wife and we were, uh, and they gave you butcher paper and crayons to doodle while you’re waiting for your food.
Swampy Marsh: For children.
Dan Povenmire: I had a purple crayon and I just drew this big triangle and said, “I wonder if I could make a character whose head was shaped like a triangle,” ’cause I’d never seen that. And I drew it and I loved it, like two more times and my ex-wife said, “Ooh. Who is that?” My actual words I said to her, the first thing that I said about it was “This is Phineas. This is the show that we’re gonna sell someday.”
Dan Povenmire: And, uh, and I went home and I drew, uh, Perry the Platypus and Ferb and Doofenshmirtz that night, and brought ’em into work and we built the whole show around those original drawings.
Swampy Marsh: And it was really the basis for what we wanted to do was Dan and I, always say it’s kind of having a middle-aged rant, as middle-aged guys will do, about how kids today didn’t get out and do the stuff we did. We were like “They just sit in and watch videos and play video games, and we used to go out and build things and do things and put on plays in our backyard and build go-karts and roll them down hills.” Um, and a lot of stuff that we don’t advise children to do, because it’s dangerous and crazy. But we kind of wanted to have that spirit back of what we did in the summer, and that was kind of the basis for the whole show.
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ABOUT: “Phineas and Ferb” is a five-time Emmy Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated show and the most successful animated series for Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 in Disney Television Animation history. It premiered officially in “Ferb-ruary” 2008 and became television’s No. 1 animated TV series of 2009 among Tweens 9-14, building to No. 1 among both Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 in 2011, along with the franchise’s first of two television movies, “Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension,” ranking in TV’s Top 2 movies for 2011. The series was a global franchise for Disney, a first for a Disney Channel animated property for older kids. By 2012, its popularity burgeoned with a live touring show and junior novels, with extensions across every consumer products category, including apparel, toys, video games, food, health and beauty. In 2020, “Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe” debuted on Disney+. All four original seasons and the films are currently available on Disney+.
