Dan Povenmire sketched out the two boys who would become Phineas and Ferb on a piece of butcher paper that covered his table in a South Pasadena restaurant one night.
And when Povenmire was done, well, there was just something about the kid with the triangular-shaped head (that would be Phineas) and the one made of rectangles (this would be Ferb) that felt right to him.
So he and his friend and colleague Jeff “Swampy” Marsh got to work creating the animated world of Phineas and Ferb, and when the show was ready they pitched to any studio or network that would let them.
It was a world where stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb constantly dreamed up extravagant ideas to stay busy and stave off boredom on their long summer vacation.
Big sister Candace snooped around trying to catch them doing things their mom would not approve, and their pet platypus Perry doubled as a secret agent at war with the evil scientist Dr. Doofenshmirtz.
And they got exactly nowhere.
For 16 years.
“We figured out the whole world back then and basically it never changed,” Povenmire says. “We just kept dusting it off whenever anybody said, ‘Hey, do you have anything you want to pitch?'”
Until one day, the Disney Channel decided to take a chance on a pilot, which led to a series that debuted in 2007, which led to this: In just over two years, “Phineas and Ferb” is at this moment the most-watched kids show in the land.
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Povenmire and Marsh teamed up as storyboard artists in the early ’90s on “Rocko’s Modern Life,” an animated Nickelodeon series, where their friendship and similar tastes – especially in humor and music – convinced them they should stay partners even when their time on “Rocko’s” ended.
” ‘Phineas and Ferb’ was kind of born backwards,” Marsh says. “We thought, ‘Hey, let’s try to find something that we can do to keep working together.”
But after their fun-loving stepbrothers got a universal cold shoulder from Hollywood, the pair moved on to other jobs, racking up credits on animated series that included “The Simpsons” (for both Povenmire and Marsh), “King of the Hill,” “Family Guy,” “Hey Arnold” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
Then somewhere around 2005, after Marsh had moved to England, Povenmire pitched “Phineas and Ferb” once more and this time got a nibble – an agreement to make a short pilot – from Disney.
“He had already planned a trip to L.A. and I had planned a trip to France,” Povenmire says. “And I just added England onto my trip.
“He came here for two days and we wrote the outline, for the rollercoaster episode, and then on my trip to France I drew the storyboard for it and figured out how it would all work. And then going back through England, we spent two more days on it just polishing the dialogue and making sure it would work the way we wanted it.
“And by the end of that, we had the pilot,” Povenmire says.
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Beyond the basic characters and world they created, Marsh and Povenmire also built their show – and its appeal – around a few things that many animated series neglect: humor that’s more sweet than biting and a healthy respect for the viewers’ smarts.
“We made a decision early on that most of the cartoons we’d seen in the last few years had a whole bunch of mean-spirited humor in them,” Povenmire says. “Which is fine, and is a very easy way to write humor.
“But we wanted to do a show that is different than that, where the characters are all very positive and the brothers and sisters aren’t always saying mean things to each other. Even Candace, who is trying to bust her brothers, is only going for fairness.
“So we made the decision to make the characters nice and sort of innocent and I think that has been able to pay off in a number of ways,” Povenmire says. “We’ve been able to maintain an edge to the comedy. The teenagers and college students we hear from love it. But the parents don’t’ feel at all bad about letting the younger kid watch it because it’s more positive and all about being creative.”
The series also doesn’t worry too much about whether all of the viewers will get every joke.
“A lot of the first season we got this note from executives: ‘You know, that’s a funny joke, but is our audience even going to get that joke?'” Povenmire says. “And we’d say we don’t care as long as that joke doesn’t make your audience want to change the channel.”
Adds Marsh: “What’s the worst that could happen? That the adult watching would have to explain some pop culture or historical reference to the kid?”
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“Phineas and Ferb” also differ from most animated series in that each episode features at least one original song by Marsh and Povenmire, a trait that dates back to the pair’s days on “Rocko’s,” where Povenmire jokes they wrote a song for each episode they worked on “whether they wanted one or not.”
“We remember the songs from the shows we watched as kids more than we do the shows,” Povenmire says, sparking an impromptu duet with Marsh on “Sugar, Sugar” from “The Archie Show” animated series.
“Who remembers any of the Archie’s episodes, but everyone knows that song, or the ‘Groovie Goolies’ or “Flintstones’ songs.
“So getting a song into a kids head is instant immortality, because 40 years on from now, they’ll still know those songs.”
A soundtrack album released last month features 26 of the catchy songs, from theme song performed by Bowling For Soup to tunes written in any number of styles – from power pop to reggae, disco to country – with lyrics that carry on the humor and story lines of the show.
By the end of October, the CD was the No. 1 kids’ album in the country, and in the Top 10 for all soundtracks.
“Getting together with guitars on a Friday night and writing songs for the episode, that to us is the most fun we have,” says Povenmire.
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The numbers show how hot “Phineas and Ferb” is right now.
For kids 6- to 11 years old, it’s been the No. 1 show for four weeks running now. For the key tween viewership of youths 9- to 14 years old, it’s been the No. 1 show for the past two weeks, topping such popular live-action shows as “Hannah Montana,” “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” and “The Wizards Of Waverly Place.”
Its success is allowing Povenmire and Marsh to realize a number of dreams that few show creators get to experience, such as creating their own Christmas special. “Phineas and Ferb’s Christmas Vacation” premieres on Disney XD at 8 p.m. on Dec. 6, and in a sign of how important the show is to Disney, will also be featured on Disney Channel, ABC Family and Radio Disney.
“It’s kind of intimidating,” Marsh says of that project. “You sit down and think, ‘This is something that’s going to live at Christmas for a long, long time.'”
But its also great fun, Povenmire adds. “We wrote seven songs for it, and hopefully they’ll be songs that this generation of kids will think of as Christmas songs the same way that kids think of ‘Dahoo dore’ (from ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’) or ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.’
“It’s a really sweet, warm special that we’re really proud to have our name on,” he says.
As for the way that success came after years and years of rejection, well, that’s a different kind of sweet all together, Marsh and Povenmire say.
“It validates all the years of running around pitching this show, saying, ‘Really, this is a great show!'” Marsh says. “And on a very petty childish level it gives you a chance to say, ‘I told you so!'”
