Phineas And Ferb / Tropes A to C

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#-A

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Pops up from time to time, but it is especially egregious whenever there is a vehicle, or giant mecha, or anything that moves more than five miles per hour... Usually occurs in Rough Draft Studios' episodes; though "The Beak", animated by Wang Film Productions, is guilty as well.
• 555: In "Phineas And Ferb Hawaiian Vacation", Candace says her mother's phone number is 555-0142.
• 6 Is 9: In "Bullseye!", Lawrence is heading to a conference at 9109 Palindrome Rd. to give a speech. On the way there, the paper with the address number accidentally gets flipped to read 6106, which is where L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. is hosting their Pageant of Evil.
• Abnormal Allergy: Candace is allergic to wild parsnips. Allergies to this plant are rare in reality but they are still dangerous for another reason. ^note  the liquid of wild parsnip when combined with sunlight can cause very bad burns on human flesh.
• Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Albert thinks "Ferb" has this in "Not Phineas and Ferb", though it's really just Buford messing around with his Ferb costume.
• Abstract Scale: The cuteness tracker in "The Chronicles of Meap." "I can't define cute, I just know it when I pick up in my cuteness meter."
• Absurd Altitude:
  • The rollercoaster is so tall, they catch fire in the atmosphere upon re-entry.
  • The high-rise was so tall, the antenna on top is implanted in the moon's surface, which caused it to rotate along with the moon when its supports broke.
• Absurdly Short Production Time: In-Universe, the title characters spend most episodes building professional-quality creations within the span of a day. Among other creations, these include a hit song (stated to take most of the morning), a movie (where highly technical post-production only takes minutes) and amusement rides (with parts being supplied in the time it takes to go grocery shopping).
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: In "Fireside Girl Jamboree", Candace wrestles an alligator in one of these.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz's parents, Played for Laughs. Their abusive acts ranged from forcing him to wear a dress, to forcing him to act as the family's lawn gnome, to not even showing up for his birth.
  • Averted by Dr. Doofenshmirtz himself, who, while a Bumbling Dad at times, visits none of the horrors of his childhood on his own daughter, and tries as much as he can to prove to her that he really cares for her, to the point of turning good.
• Accidental Aesop: What Major Monogram got out of "Attack of the 50 Foot Sister" in the In-Universe character commentary:
  Monogram: If you steal potions from people, you will grow 50 feet tall. You shouldn't steal, stealing is bad and it's against the law.
• Accidental Dance Craze:
  • The Squirrels in My Pants dance in "Comet Kermillian", done by Candace.
  • In "Nerdy Dancin'", Ferb is helping Jeremy win a dance contest, Let's All Dance Until We're Sick, by controlling Jeremy's movements with a mechanical exoskeleton. When he starts swatting at a bee, causing Jeremy to do the same swatting motion, the audience picks it up as a dance move.
• Accidental Hero:
  • "Misperceived Monotreme", where a platypus from the zoo is mistaken for Perry.
  • Happened to Doofenshmirtz in "Voyage to the Bottom of Buford" when he saved a kitten. He actually tripped over a bump on the sidewalk, and the kitten fell into his then-conveniently-located shopping bag.
  • When Doofenshmirtz needs a Perry stand-in, he creates Planty the Potted Plant. Even he manages to defeat Doof and gets accepted by the OWCA.
• Accordion to Most Sailors:
  • In "The Ballad of Badbeard", the kids get told about the legendary pirate Badbeard in the form of a song, which starts with Buford pulling a concertina out of Hammerspace to start it.
  • The song about the "Shark of Danville Harbor", which is a sea-shanty, involves an accordion player.
• The Ace: There's almost nothing Phineas & Ferb can't do.
• Action Girl: Just about all of the female characters can fall into this when it's called for.
  • Seriously shown in "Phineas and Ferb Busters" when Candace, Stacy, and Jenny are basically Charlie's Angels for a Day.
  • Of note is Agent Lyla, who does this part for a living by being part of the OWCA (despite not being an animal) and can hold a fight alongside Perry.
  • Alternate Dimension Candace certainly qualifies as well, being the badass leader of a rebellion.
  • Candace's aunt is an Action Girl personified, who does nothing but adventures that would make Indiana Jones pause.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Ferb's Precocious Crush on Vanessa Doofenshmirtz is a callback to the actors' previous roles in the movie Love Actually, where Thomas Sangster's character had a similar crush on Olivia Olson's character. For good measure, there's even at least one moment on the show where Vanessa kisses Ferb in the same way that Olson's character does to Sangster's character in that movie, too◊.
  • The show's Catchphrase that Phineas and Ferb being "too young for [x]" is directly borrowed from Love Actually, when Sangster's character gets asked isn't he a little too young for love (he responds with a flat Little "No").
  • In "Meet Max Modem", Lawrence sings a science-fiction themed song, and his outfit is quite reminiscent of Riff Raff's in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He even comments "I feel strangely comfortable in this."
  • In "Nerds of A Feather", Doof pitches a show to a man named Jeff MacGarland. Doofenshmirtz's voice actor (Dan Povenmire, the show's executive producer) used to work with MacFarlane on Family Guy.
  • In "Phineas and Ferb Save Summer", one of the lyrics in Irving's song about why the woods are terrible is "banjo-playing hicks should be avoided".
  • In "Druselsteinoween", Vanessa attends her Halloween party dressed as a vampire queen.
  • In "The Curse of Candace", Lawrence laments the horror movie he's watching is missing rock-and-roll musical numbers, a reference to how his voice actor Richard O'Brien wrote and performed in The Rocky Horror Show.
  • In "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted", the reform school's sergeant is voiced by Clancy Brown, who many will recognize from his iconic portrayal of the brutal prison guard captain in The Shawshank Redemption.
• Adorable Evil Minions: Malifishmertz's canned meat minions ("Meatlings") in "Excaliferb", at least until they become exposed to rain and grow huge. And more rampage-y.
• Affably Evil: Dr. Doof. There are several instances where he doesn't even bother to take over the Tri-State Area and instead has Perry team up with Doof to help with some of his problems. Taken up to eleven in "Skiddley Whiffers" where his whole scheme isn't really an evil scheme at all, but a plan to overprotect his daughter while she's camping in the woods. He even apologizes to Perry for not having a scheme and begs him for help in this effort. Lampshaded by Vanessa, as she tells him all of his plots are either revenge schemes at his brother or stabs at Saturday-morning villain plots.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Done by Candace to Ferb in the final song sequence in "Summer Belongs to You". Up to that point it was pretty much the only time that she'd shown physical affection to her little stepbrother, it's nothing short of adorable.
• Affectionate Nickname: Inverted with Jeremy. In the episode "The Baljeatles", Jeremy suddenly becomes The Nicknamer and nicknames everybody except Candace. When she finally stops subtly trying to make him nickname her and confronts him about it, he says "I call you Candace, but not because I don't care enough to come up with a cute nickname for you. I call you Candace 'cause I happen to really like that name."
• Affectionate Parody: The entire Agent P. and Dr. D plots are a parody of James Bond and spy-films in general, but the entire episode "Elementary, My Dear Stacy" becomes one when Perry is forced to work with British human Double-O-O.
• Again with Feeling:
  • Happens during the Christmas Special, where Doctor Doofenshmirtz sets out to destroy Christmas. The only problem with his plan lies in the fact that he lacks any real motivation to do so because Christmas was the one holiday that everything was bearable during his childhood. At the end of the episode, his plans are thwarted and he calmly states that he hates Christmas. Realizing that he finally has what he wanted for Christmas, he joyously repeats the line and smiles.
  • After going to space for yet another time, Phineas mentions to Candace how brave she was during the entire ordeal (Most of which she spent agonizing over asking Jeremy to a dance). She responds, "I was brave?" then repeats the line happily and confidently when she realizes that what Phineas was saying was indeed true.
• Ageless Birthday Episode: The episode "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama" revolves around Phineas' birthday, but his age remains a mystery (all we know is that despite aging a year he is still "younger than 15"). Isabella had her own later on.
• The Ahnold: Roger Doofenshmirtz, Heinz's brother. He's a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger due to his chiseled body, his background from a German speaking country, and him holding public office.
• Aliens Speaking English:
  • Played with; Meap and Mitch can, but only when wearing the Universal Translator.
  • Played straight with the other aliens they met the first time they went into space, who all speak English.
• Aliens Steal Cattle: A blink-and-you'll-miss-it gag in "No More Bunny Business" - when Phineas is trying out his x-ray specs, he looks into one funny-looking house to see aliens experimenting on a cow.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • Doof's more advanced robotic replacement for Norm, which immediately turns on him when supercharged with a wave of energy. Averted by Norm himself, who remains loyal to Doofenshmirtz and defeats the much larger and more advanced robot. With a cup of coffee.
  • The Phinedroids and Ferbots from "I, Brobot". After completing all the projects the brothers set out for them, the robots begin designing their own, then build their own overpriced coffee shop (Phineas: "That is so 90's!"), then turn on their creators when Phineas tries to shut them down.
  • Programming an artificial intelligence into a giant tower laden with traps might not have been one of the boys' best moves. Admittedly, its repeated attempts to kill them and trap the entire galaxy might have just been because of Doof's "rudeinator".
• All Animals Are Dogs: Perry exhibits various dog traits, like twitching his leg when he's being petted, turning in circles before lying down, and moving his legs as if running in his sleep. Justified in that he's pretending to be a mindless domesticated animal as a cover for his real job.
  
  Part of the reason a platypus was chosen as Perry's species was because they could make him act in just about any manner and very few people would notice if it was inaccurate - since, y'know, most people don't really think too much about how a platypus would really act.
• All Asians Wear Conical Straw Hats: The main cast's ancient Chinese Elseworld equivalents nearly all wear them in "Doof Dynasty".
• Alliterative Name: Let's see. There's Perry the Platypus (along with Peter the Panda, Sergei the Snail, and presumably the rest of the agency), Doctor Doofenshmirtz, Major Monogram, Inspector Initials, Jeremy Johnson (who gets double points for being voiced by Mitchel Musso), Ferb Fletcher, Professor Poofenplotz ... also Phineas Flynn and Carl Karl, phonetically.
• All Jews Are Cheapskates: A couple of jokes in "Picture This" at the Mexican-Jewish culture fair. Though it's done with piñata candy rather than money.
• All Just a Dream (Within a Dream, even):
  • The episode where Candace finally busts her brothers and then breaks them out of boot camp is touching but just a dream Candace had...inside a dream Perry was having.
  • Phineas attempted to invoke this trope in the Christmas Special, but was unsuccessful.
  • Lampshaded in The Wizard of Oz parody:
    Phineas: While this IS fun, it's a little girly for us, isn't it?
    Ferb: Well, it is Candace's dream.
  • Subverted in "Sleepwalk Surprise". Doofenshmirtz's subconscious self appears in the end, raising this possibility, but Doofenshmirtz himself affirms that it's not a dream, and the subconscious vanishes.
• All That Glitters: Subverted in "The Ballad of Badbeard", when Baljeet suggests that the pirate treasure doesn't exist and the real treasure is adventure, only for Phineas to point out where the real treasure is. Double Subverted when they open it and find that the treasure is a bunch of fake beards, which they are completely fine with.
• All There in the Script:
  • "Unfair Science Fair" has Candace battle another girl for a job at Mr. Slushy Dawg. She is unnamed in-episode, but the credits reveal her name as Wendy.
  • The captain at the harbor in "The Belly of the Beast" is named "Captain Squint", according to Swampy's Twitter. Candace addresses him as "Captain Kidd", however.
• All Women Love Shoes: In "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?", Doofenshmirtz tries to take advantage of this stereotype when fighting Perry who is in Candace's body. He tries to distract him (her?) by saying "Look, shoes on sale!" before running away. Oddly enough, it works.
  • In "Day Of the Living Gelatin", Stacy makes a gelatin pair of shoes. She says the reason why is that she loves shoes.
• Alpha Bitch: Early in the show's run, Candace had a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis named Mindy who'd appear out of nowhere whenever Candace was in an embarrassing situation and be a condescending jerk to her.
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: Isabella's catchphrase is "What'cha doin'?" usually in a curious voice and with the word "doin'" drawn out. Twice, however, she says it sadly: in "The Great Outdoors" when it's too rainy for the Fireside Girls to earn a patch and in "Mission Marvel" when she and Candace can't do anything to help. In the movie and in the Star Wars episode, her second dimension and space pirate counterparts say it in a strict, even angry voice, demanding to know what the brothers are doing.
• Alternate Landmark History: The face in Mars is Candace's sculpted face after it's hit by the shot of an inator.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
  • Vanessa feels this way about Dr. Doof, but it stems from his evil wannabe attempts.
    Dr. Doof: You were wearing headphones? So you didn't hear a thing I said?
    Vanessa: Why do you think I wear the headphones?
  • Also, when Candace meets Tiny Cowboy in "Meatloaf Surprise", Linda asks why they're large and not cowboys. Candace tells Linda to stop embarrassing her.
  • Linda does one embarrassing thing after another for Candace in "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?", particularly after playing Jeremy some home movies of Candace as a baby.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: All platypuses (not platypi, maybe platypodes?) are colored a bright turquoise (except for the one seen in Liam's flashback, which is brown).
• Ambiguously Bi: Baljeet. While there are episodes and moments where he is clearly interested in girls (Wendy and Isabella for example), other moments come across as questionable, like his unicorn game piece in "Skiddley Whiffers" and dressing up as a flower in "That's the Spirit". On November 11, 2013, Maulik Pancholy, Baljeet's voice actor, came out as gay.
• Amicable Exes: Charlene and Dr. Doofenshmirtz (she kept the name). He doesn't appreciate her snarkiness sometimes, and lets her have it in his songs, but they do get along the majority of the time. To the point of her calling him when she's tied up and can't pick up their daughter.
• Amplified Animal Aptitude: The OWCA. All the animal agents can understand and interact with humans perfectly, even though they themselves cannot speak.
• Amusement Park of Doom: The site of both plots of "Isabella and the Temple of Sap" is the "old abandoned Old Abandoned Amusement Park", where Isabella's scout troop try to retrieve rare sap, and Professor Poofenplotz tries to steal a stock of Stiff Beauty hair spray (coincidentally made from the same sap, discontinued because only the clowns of said amusement park bought it), a plot Isabella's chihuahua Pinky (who in fact is also an agent like Perry) tries to foil.
• Anachronic Order: According to Word of God, the episodes' production order does not necessarily correspond to the order they take place in.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • In "It's About Time", the characters encounter a T. rex and other dinosaurs in what is claimed to be 300 million years ago. In reality, this is long before the first dinosaurs even evolved.
  • Averted in "Boyfriend From 27,000 BC" which showed frozen prehistoric creatures representing the time periods they're from (Stegosaurus for Jurassic, Pteranodon for Cretaceous, a mammoth for Pleistocene, and a neanderthal for Paleolithic).
• And This Is for...: Candace, the neighborhood, and all the good gelatin left in the world!
• Androcles' Lion: The Lake Nose Monster. Phineas and Ferb befriend it first by destroying a camera (it doesn't want people to know it exist), and later by saving it with zinc. Nosey returns the favor by crashing against Doofenshmirtz's submarine when it was about to suck inside the kids.
• Animal Chick Magnet: Gender-flipped when Candace takes her brother's platypus to get the attention of Jeremy.
• Animal Espionage: Perry the Platypus, secret agent for the O.W.C.A.
• Animal Gender-Bender:
  • In "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?", Candace (in Perry's body) "sweats milk". (Platypus milk really does seep out of the mother's body like sweat.)
  • The cows in "The Magnficent Few" and "Moon Farm" and in Doofenshmirtz's flashback shouldn't be male. Cows are female.
• Animal Mecha: The Highly Unconventional Vehicle (with cheetahs muscle, a rhino horn, a giraffe neck, a monkey tail, gorilla arms, an elephant trunk and tusks, a lion mane, and baboon feet).
• Animal Superheroes:
  • Perry the Platypus, along with all the other agents of the O.W.C.A. Even more so in the Marvel crossover; Perry actually wears a superhero costume, and acts a bit like Batman.
  • Isabella's pet chihuahua, Pinky. Working across the street busting a mad scientist named Poofenplotz for a British woman named Wanda.
  • At one point Perry arrives to the mission briefing through the neighbor's koi pond. Major Monogram chastises the guys who installed that entrance and orders them to give the fish fedoras and make them agents - apparently that's their main way of covering their tracks. They show up later in the episode, saving Perry the Platypus.
  • During the Christmas episode, a reindeer agent is seen at the party. When Santa shows up at the end, one of his reindeer is wearing several fedoras...
• Animal Talk: When the Fireside Girls are turned to bees in "Bee Story", they are able to directly talk to other bees. Implied that the same is true when Candace is turned into a fly, but she only strikes up conversation with a formerly-normal fly hit with a Human-Head-Inator.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: The Beak, a bird-themed superhero created by Phineas and Ferb.
• Animals Hate Her:
  • This exchange:
    Candace: Mom! Mom! Animals hate me!
    Linda: Oh, that's ridiculous, honey. Perry likes you!
  • And again in Across the 2nd Dimension: No animals in the OWCA shelter will look at her, and the fish swim away when she stands by their tank.
• Animals Not to Scale: Peter the Panda is about the same size as Perry, much smaller than a real giant panda (if an adult).
• Animated Musical:
  • The entire show, since every freaking episode, minus a very small few from early in season one, have had some sort of music number in them.
  • "Rollercoaster the Musical" is a more specific example.
• Animation Bump: The animation quality gradually gets better over the course of the show's run (compare the first few episodes to Season 4 episodes), and improves noticeably for certain specials, especially the Christmas Vacation one, "Summer Belongs to You" and most of Hong Ying's episodes.
• Animesque:
  • Parodied in "Out of Toon", where Phineas and Ferb made a cartoon named Team Improbable, drawn in an anime style.
  • Parodied in "Summer Belongs to You", during the most terrifying Caramelldansen Vid ever created, performed by Stacy's relatives in Tokyo. Isabella was holding a leek during the dance as well.
• Annoying Younger Sibling:
  • Candace sees both her brothers as these, though they are a rare example where they are not doing it on purpose.
  • If the very first episodes are anything to go by, Phineas and Ferb would have played this straight.
• Another Story for Another Time: Isabella is surprised Phineas and Ferb built a portal to Mars but didn't use it but she's told they did use it but it's another story.
• Answer Cut:
  • Used Once per Episode:
    Phineas: Hey, where's Perry?
    (Cut to Perry suiting up and entering his lair)
  • Done in-universe in one episode:
    Linda: Candace, this is a dandruff commercial. Is there something you're trying to tell me?
    (Cut to Phineas in Mom's tricked-out car at the start line of the Swamp Oil 500)
• Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag: Perry the Platypus plays this intentionally to maintain his secret identity.
• Antidisestablishmentarianism: Apparently, they found a cure for it. Played for Laughs, of course:
  "Wait, I thought it was more of an ideological stance than a disease?"
  "I can finally take off this puce ribbon!"
• Anvil on Head: In the episode "Bully Bust," the anvil is used as part of a Mouse Trap-inspired contraption to trap Perry, being sprung up into the bottom of a large boxing glove. Later on, Perry springs to the top of the glove; Doofenshmirtz tries to follow, but hits the anvil instead. He falls, and so does the anvil.
• Anvilicious: In-universe example. Played for laughs in the lyrics of the song in "Sidetracked".
  Agent Lyla: It's a heavy-handed metaphor for how we work together!
• Anyone Remember Pogs?: Doofenshmirtz was once hula hooping and invited Perry the Platypus to join. However, Perry's hula hoop was a trap to capture him.
• Applied Mathematics:
  • In the episode "Out to Launch", Phineas and Ferb are trying to get a rocket to launch using an equation (Tsiolkovsky's Rocket Equation.), and with each new attempt, Phineas modifies one of the terms. After a few false starts, Ferb points out the problem: the equation equals the square root of a bomb. Phineas changes it to a smiley face, and their next launch is successful.
  • How Candace deduces her brother's involvement in "The Beak":
    Candace: Something Impossible + That Thing Existing In Real Life = * gasp* PHINEAS AND FERB!
  • She also determines how long 'soon' means (when Jeremy says he will call her soon) by dividing by Jeremy's face.
    Candace: Oh, my gosh. The square root of soon is never.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • In the episode "Summer Belongs to You", Buford suddenly begins to doubt that Phineas and Ferb could follow the sun around the world, thus experiencing a 40 hour day, despite spending the whole summer with them and seeing all the incredible things they've done. Buford even lampshades this.
  Buford: There's nothing I've ever seen that would make me believe that you could pull this off...Except for that time machine thing and oh, and that roller coaster, and other than that, nothing. Oh, and that time you played that song and the platypus came back. Man, nature just bends to your will, doesn't it?
  • In "Sci-Fi Pie Fly" Bufford does it again, refusing to believe in U.F.O.s even while flying one. It's possible he was just tormenting Baljeet.
  • Given the fact that Lawrence has actually seen a couple of Phineas' and Ferb's projects in person, you have to wonder about his dismissal of Candace's Cassandra Truth in "Traffic Cam Caper". The answer may be in his enjoyment in the projects that his sons do.
• Arc Symbol: Triangles. There's the obvious ones, such as Phineas' head, and then there's the ones that are snuck in the background to show texture in literally every episode, usually in foliage and rooftops.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • "Greece Lightning":
    Announcer in movie: Historically, the enemies of the platypus were well-known. The poisonous swamp viper, the snaggle-tooth badger, and duplicating imitatable (sic) stunts seen on television.
  • "Ready For The Bettys":
    Phineas: Laser gun, magnet ray, cup holder...
  • "Hide and Seek":
    Irving: And this is from the time you built that roller coaster, and this is from the time you raced those chariots, and this is from the time you ate that soup...
  • "We're Talkin All Terrain"
  • "One Good Scare Ought to Do It"
    Doofenshmirtz: Perry The Platypus!? (Scare Chord) The Disintevaporator!? (Scare Chord) My golf clubs!? I don't even play golf!
  • "The Lemonade Stand":
    Announcer in movie: The wheel, the light bulb, the frozen pop with two sticks so you can give half to a friend. All profound inventions in their time
  • Inverted in "Quantum Boogaloo" with the Moral Guardian-run dystopia, with swing sets condemned and turned into hospital beds, coloring books pre-colored in the lines, storing away children until adulthood!
  • "Where's Perry" Part 1 ends on a massive Cliffhanger: Perry is zapped by multiple inators and apparently disintegrates, Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, Baljeet and Buford are falling into the gorge, Candace thinks Jeremy wants to break up with her, and Linda and Lawrence find out that they don't have reservations for dinner in a fancy restaurant. All are treated as if they're equally horrible.
  • In "Swiss Family Phineas", Doof talks about students earning "a certificate in mayhem, larceny, or Ponzi schemes."
• Art Evolution: Not heavily, but the animation from later seasons is noticeably more consistent and colorful than earlier ones, especially present after the movie, with less exaggeration on facial expressions and limb movements. Candace in particular has been affected by this change.
• Artist and the Band: When the title characters decide to become one-hit wonders, they name their band "Phineas and the Ferbtones."
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • In one episode, someone pitches ideas for an "inaction figure" based on Perry the Platypus, one of which is "The Mad Marauding Marsupial of Death." Right continent, wrong order. The platypus is a monotreme, not a marsupial.^note Thankfully, the creators took notice of this and have later episodes platypodes described as monotremes Ferb has also stated that the platypus is the only mammal that lays eggs; apparently, he's never heard of echidnas. Also, in one episode Phineas states that platypuses are supposed to stay inside at night. One problem, platypuses are mostly nocturnal (on the other hand, this may be why a pet platypus is supposed to be kept inside at night). Perry's behavior and appearance in general is nothing like that of normal platypodes (yes, that's the plural). He doesn't have webbed hands/front feet and his tail is more like a beaver's (the platypus is covered in fur all but for their bills and feet). Overlooking all this is seemingly played for Rule of Cool, though. Perry also doesn't have a venomous spur like male platypodes do, but this gets lampshaded when Doof wonders if he has one.
  • Doofenshmirtz's De-evolution-inator. Aside from the concept of Evolutionary Levels being biologically incorrect to begin with, most of the ancestral forms that Doofenshmirtz and Perry are reverted into are rather nonsensical and inaccurate. Probably justified as "Brain Drain" suggests that Doofenshmirtz himself doesn't know what evolution actually is, only that it is "something to do with monkeys".
  • The ostriches in the show have three toes on each foot, instead of two like in real life.
  • Crows are drawn with yellow bills and feet, when real crows have black bills and feet.
  • In "Candace's Big Day", Phineas says he brought in Venus Fly Traps just like Bob and Tiana's adventures in the Amazon. Venus Fly Traps only live in North and South Carolina.
  • Alligators are drawn as more closely resembling crocodiles (i.e. V-shaped snouts, lower teeth visible when mouth is closed). "Druselsteinoween" had a gator with a more correctly shaped snout, but unfortunately still has interlocking teeth. The intro of "OWCA Files", however, briefly showed gators with proper overbites, but the ones that appear later on are given crocodile-like mouths.
  • "Belly of the Beast" claims sharks have molars and incisors (they do not).
  • "Phineas and Ferb Save Summer" has a cave salamander that is colored more like a surface-world salamander and has fish-like gills. Real cave salamanders are usually a pale-pink and have feather-like gills not unlike those of young salamanders or axolotls.
  • Dennis is shown to have pads on the bottom of his feet, something real rabbits do not have.
  • Pelicans are drawn with oversized bill pouches and generic bird feet with only three toes.
  • Bats are drawn with three small fingers like pterosaurs, instead of a single thumb.
  • Maggie the Macaw in "The O.W.C.A. Files" would inconsistently have zygodactyl feet^note Two toes pointing forwards, and two pointing backwards (accurate for parrots) in some scenes and ansiodactyl feet^note Three toes pointing forwards, and one pointing backwards in others.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: Besides the Anachronism Stew mentioned above, "It's About Time!" features a Tyrannosaurus with three fingers instead of two, sauropods up to their shoulders in water (although they could be just lounging rather than being actually aquatic), a bat-winged, toothy and crested pterosaur, and several dinosaurs that don't resemble any real-life ones.
• Artistic License – Physics: Each and every episode, Which is, of course, thoroughly lampshaded every once in awhile.
  • One of the more mundane ones (and all the odder for it) was in the episode The Doonkleberry Imperative. A backwards country used a giant shaft to generate power, but the operators on one end tried to run it clockwise while those on the other tried to run it counterclockwise and it went nowhere. The problem is that this should have worked perfectly; what's clockwise on one end of a cylinder is counterclockwise on the other.
• Artistic License – Space:
  • Doofenshmirtz so much in "The Doof Side of The Moon" when he wants to rotate the moon so "the dark side" is always facing Earth. Lampshaded at the end when he discovers that the moon doesn't emit its own light, but it's actually sun's light reflected, at which point he says he should have rotated the Sun.
  • "Unfair Science Fair Redux" plays fast and loose with astronomy. In that episode, Mars has an indigenous civilization, breathable atmosphere, a comfortable climate, and is visible in broad daylight from an ordinary telescope. It also looks quite different from the real planet, lacking the dark "seas" and giant valleys. And it's probably best not to think too hard about the twist that the Face on Mars is a damaged version of Candace's giant stone portrait.
  • "Escape from Phineas Tower" tries to pass off a photo of an unbarred spiral galaxy as the Milky Way. It's also surrounded by (badly Photoshopped) stars, meaning it's being viewed from within a separate galaxy.
• Art Shift: Soon after the gang arrives in Tokyo, the entire scene shifts into a Caramelldansen Vid complete with disturbingly huge eyes.
• Artsy Beret: In the opening theme song, Phineas wears a beret while painting a mustache on his sister's face.
• Ascended Extra:
  • In-Universe example: in "Wizard of Odd," the talking tree (played by Jeremy) becomes a major character while the Tin Man is ignored.
  • The Fireside Girls get two episodes about them after appearing as regular secondary characters.
  • Stacy. In the early episodes, she appeared only infrequently, if at all (she was originally just an unheard voice on the other end of Candace's cell phone conversations). As the series progressed, she appeared much more often, and has actually played a role in the plot of some episodes.
  • Norm. Started out as one of Doof's inventions (after learning "the enemy of the platypus is man", he built a robot man), and then began making more appearances as Doof's lovable but bungling henchman, and even had two episodes centered around him ("A Real Boy" & "Norm Unleashed"), the latter being his most diabolical act ever.
• Ascended Meme:
  • As the opening will tell you, "Meapless in Seattle" was originally just a joke.
  • "Act Your Age" uses the term "Phinabella", which finally happens after all these years.
• Asian Airhead: Stacy Hirano is a mild case. She is very book dumb (she thought the pyramids were in France and then Belgium) but otherwise very capable. As the show goes on, her airhead nature takes a backseat to her being more levelheaded to Candace's neurosis. Both sides of her are displayed well in the movie:
  Stacy: I'm not buying it. I am a woman of science. Or at least that's what my horoscope says.
• Aside Glance:
  • Perry does this from time to time, seeing as he cannot speak. Usually when when either Doofenshmirtz or Monogram say something particularly daft.
  • Phineas does one in "The Magnificent Few", telling the audience "She means well."
  • Ferb and Phineas both do one in the Christmas Special to accompany the Lampshade Hanging on the foreshadowing.
  • Perry and Doofenshmirtz share a particularly awkward one in to lampshade Doofenshmirtz's claim that This Is Reality.
• Ass in a Lion Skin: In the episode "Got Game?", Perry the Platypus dresses up as a dog (i.e., he wears an earband and fake tail) to infiltrate a pet shop where Dr. Doofenshmirtz has been shopping, and ends up being bought by the doctor, who is unaware of Perry's disguise.
• Ass Kicks You: Zig-zagged. When Perry takes Candace's form, he appears to be doing this— he was trying to do his trademark tail slap. It misses anyway, as Candace has no tail.
• Asteroid Thicket: In "Out to Launch", the boys and Candace have to fly through one of these.
  Candace: Uh, guys? What are all these red flashing things heading toward my rocket?
  Phineas: Yeah, those are asteroids.
  Candace: ASTEROIDS?!
• As You Know:
  • In the pilot, Phineas, Ferb, and Candace are referred to as step siblings both by themselves and others numerous times, despite no In-Universe explanation being given as to why everyone would suddenly feel the need to specify that. It’s not a case of Early-Installment Weirdness either; this stops as soon as the second episode. The only reason why this happened was so the audience knew the Flynn-Fletcher family was a blended one.
  • Monogram also reminds Perry that he must keep his cover as a house pet intact. He even says “as always” before telling Perry, really hammering that there was no reason to remind Perry of that.
• Athletically Challenged: Doofenshmirtz is too uncoordinated to be good at nearly any sports, with his main "athletic" talent being in cup-stacking. He has an entire song where he laments that his "mother's love was always inexplicably linked to kickball", and that while his brother was always a natural, he was too uncoordinated to be good at kickball, rugby, soccer, football, kick-the-can, or martial arts, all of which he tried in an effort to win her love.
• Atlantis: In an episode appropriately titled "Atlantis", the boys, their friends and Irving embark into the ocean to discover Atlantis. Includes a very catchy song called, you guessed it, "Atlantis"!
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: "Attack Of The 50 Foot Sister", and "The Lizard Whisperer". Also what medieval Candace turns into, being a gigantic chimera monster.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Invoked in "Tri-State Trilogy of Terror" when the kids battle the evil platypus clones. They (initially) lose though, even after they request for a more upbeat tune. Fortunately, the entire story never actually happened.
• Award-Bait Song:
  • "Aerial Area Rug" from "Magic Carpet Ride" is somehow both a parody of this kind of song, and an actual example.
  • Other, more obviously just-parody examples include "Hole In My Heart" and "Come Home Perry".
• Awesome Aussie: The platypus hunter, Liam, is portrayed this way in "Primal Perry". Subverted in that the ending of the episode reveals he is actually from Pittsburgh.
  • In the episode "De Plane! De Plane!", Candace overhears Jeremy's cousin Nicolette recounting her exploits involving a 300-foot cliff, West African pit vipers, and a school of piranhas. Subverted when it is revealed that Nicolette was actually just telling Jeremy about a video game she had played.
• Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity:
  • Lawrence and the boys go fishing in the episode "The Lake Nose Monster". Needless to say, they are happy to sneak out of it.
  • Occasionally, Lawrence watches his favorite childhood show with the boys, Pinhead Pierre, which typically only results in inspiration for the boys' latest wild project.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Possibly subverted (the sibling version) as this is only one-sided with Candace towards her brothers, and her endless efforts to bust them. We see in several episodes, including "Dude, We're Getting The Band Back together", that when Candace isn't trying to bust the boys they have a fairly close, loving relationship. Also, when she does bust them in "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted", we see how much Candace really cares for them, and values their creativity. Of course, all this was in Perry's dream, anyway, so it may not count.
  • In the two instances where she actually gets a CD of evidence to bust them, she's forsaken it to save Phineas's life ("Traffic Cam Caper")/let Phineas enjoy his birthday ("Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama!").

B

• The B Grade: Baljeet became really stressed out when his teacher told him that if his project doesn't have a working prototype, his highest grade would be A minus.
• Backstory:
  • Doofenshmirtz has a new anecdote just about every episode. Usually lampshaded by Doofenshmirtz himself.
  • In "I Was A Middle Aged Robot", Perry leaves Doofenshmirtz for another mission just before the backstory monologue. Doofenshmirtz angrily claims that this event (Perry leaving Doofenshmirtz) would someday become a backstory.
  • Actually becomes the subject of a Clip Show episode - Doofenshmirtz distills his bad memories into a serum that gives him evil powers. Perry diffuses the evil by reminding Doof of their happy times together.
• The Backwards Я: Played with a bit in "Mommy Can You Hear Me." Averted, in one scene as the Cosmonauts throw Sergei a party, with a banner printed in Russian, but played straight as when an asteroid is on a collision course with the station, the computer console displays "ASTEЯOID WДЯИIИG!" in perfectly readable English (except for the Cyrillic character replacements)
• Badass Adorable:
  • Meap. He's small, cute, and is capable of "behaving in a manner counterintuitatively to how he superficially appears"! And emitting a Death Ray from his mouth. A rainbow-colored Death Ray.
  • Perry definitely counts. He may be a semi aquatic egg-laying mammal of action, but he's still pretty cute looking.
  • The Fireside Girls can earn patches for wrestling alligators and moving mountains...
• Badass Bookworm: Ferb. Knocks out Buford with one pinch, can more than hold his own while teaming up with Action Girl Vanessa, and is able to build literally anything. If it weren't for Phineas, though, he'd probably sit under that tree in the backyard and read all summer.
• Badass Crew: The central kid group of Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, Buford and Baljeet form one; Isabella and her Fireside Girls troupe also form their own.
• Badass Family: Phineas, Ferb, and Candace show it off more than the rest of their family, though notably Grandpa Fletcher was a stunt biker and Grandma Flynn was a roller derby queen. Their aunt (Linda's sister) is a world-traveling thrill seeker.
• Bad Future: In "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo", a version of Candace from twenty years in future goes back in time to bust the boys, then comes back to realize her actions resulted in this. Creativity has been banned, children are all stored in People Jars until adulthood, and, as a side-effect of her efforts to bust her brothers, Perry the Platypus was incapacitated long enough for Doofenshmirtz to take over the world. Everything is fixed by the end, but the present-day Candace never gets the hint.
• Bad Liar: Phineas in "The Beak", or more specifically, while lying to Isabella. He can be seen scratching his ear every time he doesn't quite speak the truth to her. However, in that same episode, he seems to be comfortable with lying to his mother and Candace.
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Jeremy occasionally wears a hat with a wiener on top (Candace likes it, though). In "Toy to the World", Candace has to wear a large platypus costume, and later a brick costume.
• Baffled by Own Biology: In "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?", the boys' latest invention cause Candace and Perry to switch bodies. Candace has trouble adjusting to her new platypus body, like when she finds herself lactating through her pores. Perry also seems to have trouble adjusting to combat without his large platypus tail.
  Candace: Am I sweating milk? Being a platypus is so gross!
• Bait-and-Switch: With as many Running Gags as this show has, the writers like to play with our expectations every now and then:
  • If Doofenshmirtz's latest inator appears to be just the thing to hide whatever the boys are doing, it's basically certain something else will be the cause:
    • The best example is from "Voyage to the Bottom of Buford", where Candace has evidence of the boys' activity on a disposable camera. Doofenshmirtz happens to have a Media-Erase-Inator that will blank out any media the beam hits. The Erase-Inator is pointed and fires at Candace, misses the tape by an inch, hits a stop sign making the word 'Stop' disappear, so that a truck doesn't stop and crashes into a water tanker, which bursts and washes over Candace, destroying the film.
    • Another example is when the boys create a ski resort and Doof. has a Melt-Inator, but the resort melts once the power goes out when the inator is plugged in, even though it was fired before it was plugged in....
    • An even more obvious example is from "It's a Mud, Mud, Mud, Mud World". Phineas and Ferb are holding a monster truck rally, and Doofenshmirtz has literally invented a Monster-Truck-Away-Inator. Just when you start to feel all I-know-where-this-is-going and superior, the Monster-Truck-Away-Inator is transported to another dimension and the monster trucks are cleaned up in a completely unrelated manner.
    • In "Phineas and Ferb Interrupted" the brothers get hit by a 'Dull And Boring-Inator' and Perry spends the rest of the episode trying to build a dynamic-inator. Finally, after a battle with Doof, he shoots it- but misses, and it is destroyed. Phineas and Ferb instead return to normal through a hybrid "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight speech from Isabella, Baljeet, and Buford, and the realization that Candace's life is in danger if they can't find some imaginative way to save her.
    • In what the creators have acknowledged is one of their favorite endings, in "Attack of the 50 foot Sister", instead of just shrinking Candace back to normal, they have the universe grow fifty times bigger so Candace appears normal sized by comparison.
    • In "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama!", Doofenshmirtz's machine seems poised to hijack footage of the boys' projects. Instead, it hijacks an instruction video playing at a construction site, setting off a series of chain events that threaten to ruin Candace's plans as usual... except Candace successfully saves the DVD containing the footage. She only destroys it later of her own accord when she hears Phineas's birthday speech.
    • In "Flop Starz", Doofenshmirtz's robot is about to step on a building that has an advertisement for Phineas and the Ferb-tones, but Perry tampers with the wiring and makes the robot turn and go the opposite way. The building is instead destroyed because it had been scheduled for demolition to begin with.
  • The very first episode, after Ferb is established as a man of few words, has him going up to a microphone as though he is about to speak, only for him to make way for Phineas. This gag has since been used several other times in the series.
  • "Happy Birthday, Isabella" has Stacy Hirano learning about Perry's secret and not getting her memory erased in the process.
  • In "The Monster of Phineas-n-Ferbenstein" the platypus monster is seen walking up behind Isabella and growls before she notices him and says "Whatcha doin'?", but a few scenes later, she is seen again. She says they spent the entire afternoon together.
• Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: The first time we see Perry the platypus in "Rollercoaster," he's just lying next to Phineas and Ferb with a dopey expression, and Phineas remarks that, "He's a platypus. They don't do much." A few scenes later, we watch Perry hide behind the house, stand up, put on a fedora, and disappear into a secret lair beneath the house. This is when we learn Perry is Agent P, a crime-fighting secret agent who only pretends to be a simple platypus around his family to keep his identity safe.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment:
  Doofenshmirtz: Hey! Hey, this isn't as bad as I remember! ... It's SO MUCH WORSE!
  • It seems like Roger has been affected by Doofenshmirtz's Rude-inator in "Escape from Phineas Tower" and is about to make fun of the attending English ambassador's large mole, when he proceeds to reveal that it was an act the whole time.
  • In "Last Day of Summer," Doof has this upon realizing that Norm is a bad cook and ultimately he was going to lose Vanessa forever.
• Bait-and-Switch Sentiment:
  • Isabella is prone to this due to her unrequited love for Phineas. In "The Inator Method," The boys decide to race planets on a giant orrery. Isabella is thrilled at the fact Phineas saved Venus for her, but it doesn't last:
    Phineas: I saved Venus for you, Isabella.
    Isabella: Aww, because Venus is the goddess of love?
    Phineas:Actually I hadn't thought of that, but sure.
  • In "Bee Story", Isabella falls victim once again. This time Phineas and company are being served Iced Tea:
    Phineas: Isabella, we're having iced tea. You want some, Honey?
    Isabella: What did you say?
    Phineas: I said, We're having iced tea! You want some honey?
  • The following conversation occurs in the episode "Minor Monogram":
    Major Monogram: Carl... Did I ever tell you you're like the son I never had?
    Carl: [smiles] Really sir?!
    Major Monogram: Yes, it's because you're so unlike the son that I did have and here he is, come on over here, Monty.
• Bait-and-Switch Silhouette: The Running Gag where we see a silhouette of the boys, only to reveal that it's "Marty the Rabbit Boy and his Musical Blender."
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: A lot of women around the Tri-State area tend to show off their belly buttons (even mothers with kids). To witness:
  • Candace often opts for midriff-baring clothes when not wearing her iconic red top-white skirt combo, such as in the episodes "Comet Kermillian", "One Good Scare Ought to Do It" and "Nerdy Dancing"
  • Linda used to wear midriff-baring clothes during her teenage years and while performing as Lindana. She grew out of it once she became a mother.
  • Stacy, Adyson, and Isabella all wear midriff-baring clothes during the "Disco Miniature Golfing Queen" number in "Put that Putter Away!", as the song is a throw-back to 1970s disco numbers when this style was in fashion.
  • A male example: Sherman of Love Händel did before the band broke up as part of the band's Glam Rock look (glam rock musicians often wore androgynous clothing). He understandably refuses to wear the same clothes after obtaining a beer belly.
  • All the female backup dancers/singers wear midriff-baring clothes in "Rubber Bands, Rubber Balls", as the song is a parody of Bollywood musical numbers where these outfits are extremely common.
• Ballad of X: "The Ballad of Badbeard", along with its eponymous song, and song "The Ballad of Klimpaloon".
• Balloon Belly: Doofenshmirtz on a few occasions. Phineas in the Guy Feiri episode of Take Two with Phineas & Ferb as well.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space:
  • "The Secret of Success" ends with Doofenshmirtz stuck on the moon with nothing but a space helmet, somehow not suffocating.
  • Doof, Phineas, Ferb, and Candace had no problem breathing on Mars in the "Unfair Science Fair" episode.
• Batman Gambit: In the Christmas Special, it's done by, of all people, Santa Claus himself, perfectly manipulating events so that everyone gets what they want for Christmas.
• Battle Tops: In "Phineas And Ferb-Busters!", the kids play a 4-person game of "Spinning Tops of Doom". The tops are something like 20 feet tall, and the players ride inside them.
• Bavarian Fire Drill:
  • The basis for one of the show's notable catchphrases. When Phineas is asked about his recent project, no one worries about it because he acts as though there's nothing wrong with building a rollercoaster through the downtown area of the city, etc. Though, it's often noted that the boys typically go through the proper channels needed to make their projects technically legal (except for the fort in "Thaddeus and Thor", which is why they immediately took it down after showing it off).
  • Deconstructed in "Out to Launch", where Candace has to save the day because Phineas is too young to legally start a car and has led this starter remote at home. When she questions why the boys can't just tinker some solution into existence, Ferb reminds her that they are just kids.
  • Invoked by Doofenshmirtz in "The Beak" when he declares himself supreme leader, hoping that people will be too dumb or lazy to question it. It works, but for entirely other reasons.
  • When passing himself off as an 80's one hit wonder, Lawrence goes from "Who's that?" to "I have all of his albums!" by the time he's crossed the room.
• Beach Episode: A few times, but thankfully not of the overt fanservice variety. One involves the boys actually making a beach, and a couple where the crew goes to an actual beach for various activities, including trying to find the lost city of Atlantis and saving Buford's fish.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In "Phineas And Ferb Get Busted", Candace busts Phineas and Ferb on building an unsafe airlift, and their mother sends them away to a reformatory school; at first, Candace is glad they are away, but it is not too long before she begins to miss them. It gets worse when she finds out how the reformatory school is run. Lucky for all parties involved, it was All Just a Dream.
  "You finally have everything you ever wanted. Call me when you get over it."
• Beef Bandage: In "Comet Kermillian" Doofenshmirtz invented "Steak Specks", glasses with steaks instead of lenses, saying he invented them after his las fight with Perry, taking them off to show he has a black eye.
• Been There, Shaped History: Though not Phineas and Ferb themselves, the Time Shift episode reveals that their ancestors apparently built the wheel, the Great Wall of China, the car, the Panama Canal, and the English language.
• Behind a Stick:
  • In the "S'Winter" song, two of the Fireside Girls keep appearing from behind Isabella, and vanishing behind her again.
  • Subverted in "That's the Spirit." While running away from the villagers, the were-cow hides behind a pole. While he doesn't completely vanish, it does prove, somehow, effective in that it works.
  • Subverted in "Hail Doofania" as part of a series of failed attempts for Doof to teach Norm how to play Hide and Seek.
• Beneath the Mask: There are plenty of confirmed cases with Perry, Candace, Suzy and Doofenshmirtz: Candace secretly being a Ducky-Momo fan and Cool Big Sis when the moment arises, Suzy being a Clingy Jealous Girl around her brother whilst pretending to be a sweet little girl, Perry.... well what do you think, and Doof trying to be a cool dad for Vanessa.
• Berserk Button:
  • When any of the Flynn-Fletcher kids are threatened around Perry, his usual lenience goes out the window.
  • Call Buford a wimp/sensitive, and you will receive a painful wet willy.
  • Do not make Baljeet do schoolwork and not give him a grade afterwards.
• Beta Couple: Stacy and Coltrane to Candace and Jeremy; Ferb and Vanessa to Isabella and Phineas (in that both former characters are exhibiting a one-way crush).
• Better than a Bare Bulb: From about "Leave the Busting to Us!" onward, the show really started playing with its formula and point out their running gags more frequently.
• Between My Legs: During the end of the musical montage in "Hey Ferb" an entire line of dancers frames Phineas in this way.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Doofenshmirtz in "Quantum Boogaloo" has become supreme leader of a dystopian Tri-State Area.
  • Norm in "Norm Unleashed". He actually was about to take the Tri-State area by himself by outright attacking the city with weapons instead of doing some overcomplicated plan like Doofenshmirtz would.
• Bicolor Cows, Solid Color Bulls: Bulls are always depicted as brown or black, while cows are almost always depicted as being bicolor, the one exception being in "That's the Spirit" where Doofenshmirtz turns into an anthropomorphic brown cow, despite being a male.
• Big Anime Eyes: When Phineas and Ferb visit Tokyo, they briefly Art Shift into anime-style, in particular, their eyes change to be huge and sparkly.
• Big Bad: Dr Heinz Doofenshmirtz is the brilliant, but evil Mad Scientist who is constantly planning to take over the Tri-State area (and sometimes, the world) with his various inventions.
• Big Brother Instinct: Perry has this of some sort for his family. He's usually the most cool-headed secret agent platypus you'll ever meet, but in "Journey to the Center of Candace", when Doofenshmirtz indirectly threatened the lives of the boys, Perry had him chained to a pipe and was calling backup within ten seconds. Take note that under normal circumstances he'd never do that until after Doof was done telling him his plan.
  • It's also been implied Candace has some Big Sister Instinct of her own.
    "Nobody picks on my brothers but me!"
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In "Hide and Seek", when Isabella is threatened by the robot sent by Doofenshmirtz, Phineas immediately comes and rescues her.
  • The more action-packed episodes (such as Across the 2nd Dimension and "Mission Marvel") seem fond of scenes where one Big Damn Heroes moment is shortly followed by another. The penultimate battle in "Mission Marvel", for instance, has Baljeet, Phineas and Ferb, Perry, and Doofenshmirtz rescue the captured superheroes before Candace and Isabella arrive to return the superheroes' powers.
  • Major Monogram recruits a rat for this role in "Save Summer", then joins the agents it frees for a second one later on.
• The Big Damn Kiss: One between Linda and Lawrence in "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together", two between Candace and Jeremy in "Summer Belongs to You" and "Happy New Year", and Phineas gives one to Isabella in "Act Your Age".
• Big Eater:
  • Apparently, Buford can down an entire jar of jellybeans in under a second.
  • In "Journey to the Center of Candace", we see some tacos inside Candace's stomach. Whole tacos.
• Big Finale Crowd Song: Naturally, the series has several contenders for finale crowd songs.
  • "Summer Belongs to You"'s final number has a triumphant dance party as Phineas and the gang celebrate successfully managing to travel the world before sunset, with Phineas, Candace, and Isabella each getting their own verses in the song.
  • "Rollercoaster: The Musical" ends with "Carpe Diem" and features nearly every character who had appeared on the show up to that point.
  • "Last Day of Summer" serves as the Grand Finale of the whole series, so naturally this trope would apply here as well. "Thank You For Coming Along" has the cast recapping some of the their major adventures with even Doofenshmirtz and Monogram getting in on the number, along with Phineas and his friends.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti:
  • Doofenschmirtz uses an -inator to turn himself into one in an episode.
  • The main plot of "Get That Bigfoot Outa My Face!" involves the legend of bigfoot.
• Bigger on the Inside:
  • Lampshaded in "Out to Launch" in Ferb's mission control building.
  • Also mentioned in "Mission Marvel" with SHED, which was apparently made with Ferb's "British sci-fi technology".
• Big "NO!":
  • Phineas lets one out in "Backyard Aquarium" when an orca eats Goldie only to spray her out of its blowhole unharmed.
  • Phineas lets another one loose in "Gaming the System" when his and Ferb's video game final boss comes after Isabella.
  • Candace also let out a heart-broken one in the same episode when her brothers suffer a Disney Death.
  • Two of them done by Amanda in the alien movie in "Invasion of the Ferb Snatchers" upon seeing the alien who took over Dr. Abernathy's body. Candace also lets out one in the end after once again failing to bust her brothers.
  • Doofenshmirtz on occasion when he's about to be foiled.
  • Mitch lets out on in "Meapless In Seattle", though since he's not wearing a Mustache Translator, it only comes out as a Big MEAP!
  • Several from a variety of characters in "Night of the Living Pharmacists" as the Dwindling Party aspect kicks in.
• Big Red Button:
  • Doofenshmirtz's inventions almost always have a button/setting that proves to be his undoing. He naturally lampshades why he installed such an option.
  • In "We Call It Maze", he is Genre Savvy enough to avoid putting any such option on his machine. He gloats to Perry about how there's nothing he can do to stop the invention, since it has no self-destruct or reversal or other type of setting. Naturally, just as you're thinking that Doof might actually win one, Perry finds a way to prevent it.
  • Phineas and Ferb have also been known to install big red buttons on their projects, such as in the treehouses and the tricked out kiddie rides.
• Big "WHY?!": Candace screams one in "Tri-State Treasure: Boot of Secrets", combined with Skyward Scream, when she fails to be given the rare Ducky Momo trinket when Doofenshmirtz' De-Age-inator reverts the antique baby rattle to pristine condition, leaving her trading quest to be all for nothing.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Dan Povenmire is a German speaker himself, which has come in handy for giving Doofenshmirtz accurate German lines (such as calling himself a Dummkopf) and even managing to sneak in cursing by basically saying "You scared the shit out of me" in German. Also, in German, Doofenschmerz means "moron's pain".
  • "The Great Indoors" gives us several from El matador de Amor:
    • Por lo tanto su malvada hermada gemela ha sido envenenado is Gratuitous Spanish for "Therefore, your Evil Twin sister has been poisoned."
    • La esponja milagroso means miraculous sponge.
    • When this Show Within a Show is suddenly cut off, the male character is about to reveal to the female character the reason he really likes her —exactly what Jeremy is constantly being prevented from revealing to Candace in the B-plot.
  • And coupled with Fun with Acronyms: O.W.C.A. means "S.H.E.E.P." in Polish. Although this one's probably accidental.
  • The hotel Jeremy stays at while in Paris is "La Poubelle"....known in English as a 'garbage can'.
  • The only non subtitled line of the Dutch-speaking landscape artist in "Imperfect Storm" (when he introduces himself) is "Getverderrie", which is not Dutch for "It's nice to meet you." but actually means "Yuck". Also, for Dutch-speaking people, the joke of having a Dutch-speaking person was telegraphed by the landscaper's flyer which states "Wij spreken Nederlands" ("We speak Dutch")
  • Combined with As Long as It Sounds Foreign in "At the Car Wash". In Doofenshmirtz's flashback, the fridge says "колдбох", which is "koldbox" spelled in Cyrillic.
• Bindle Stick: Perry has one in "Oh, There You Are, Perry"
• Bird-Poop Gag: In "Tree to Get Ready", Dr. Doofenshmirtz makes a "poopinator" to make the pigeons poop on his brother. Perry sabotages it so they'll poop on Doofenshmirtz instead.
• Birthday Episode:
  • There was an episode where they celebrated Linda's birthday.
  • Also, there was an episode which was dedicated to Phineas' birthday in the form of a Clip Show.
  • "Candace Loses Her Head" celebrates Candace's birthday.
  • Doofenshmirtz preparing for Vanessa's birthday is the subplot in "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together", and Doofenshmirtz himself tries to celebrate his own birthday in "Raging Bully".
  • Isabella celebrates her birthday in "Happy Birthday, Isabella"
• Birthday Hater: Doofenshmirtz, describing his as "The lousiest day of the year". Justified by the fact that every birthday of his has been a total disaster, including his actual birth, when neither of his parents bothered to show up.
• Bishie Sparkle:
  • Happens in "Jerk de Soleil" when Candace sees Jeremy and he gets all sparkly; given that he is her crush, it's not surprising.
  • Also, there is a variation: twice when Ferb sees Vanessa, he sees her surrounded by various flowers.
• Bizarchitecture: Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated is shaped like a wrench or Ferb's head. In fact, the upper stories are supported on one side by a single narrow strut.
• Black Comedy Burst: In "Fly on the Wall", Ferb messes with Buford by claiming that sorbet is "made out of fancy people". In addition, in this episode Candace's misfortunes stem from the threat of being killed by people she knows (since she has been turned into a fly).
• Blah, Blah, Blah: "You know 'blah blah blah, Jeremy is so amazing, hearts, unicorns, and rainbows, blah!' that me!"
  Phineas: Okay, so we built a roller coaster, traveled through time twice, found Atlantis, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• Blob Monster: The gelatin monster, being, well, gelatin.
• Blunt "Yes": The catchphrase is a form of this:
  Random Adult: Aren't you a little young to be [insert dangerous activity here]?
  Phineas: Yes. Yes, we are.
  Random Adult: Okay then.
• Body Horror:
  • The episode "Canderemy" centers around Doofenshmirtz's latest creation: The Combine-Inator, which he uses to combine various objects and people. While the titular combination of Candace and Jeremy is clean, humorous, and not scary in the slightest, the other ones...aren't◊.
  • Also, in "Phineas's Birthday Clip-O-Rama", we get a brief glimpse of his Inside-Out-Inator, which he accidentally hits himself with. It's Played for Laughs, but uggghh...
  • "Night of the Living Pharmacists" has some truly unsettling images as characters' features warp into Doof's.
  • Milder examples include Candace and Buford being turned into human-fly hybrids (on different occasions), Candace-Expy Constance mutating into a monster, the skin on Ferb's face slipping off his skull, and Ferb's grandfather getting his feet removed and reattached backwards. Not all of these are reversed by the end of their respective episode.
• Book Ends: In the Grand Finale, Perry uses the same lair entrance he used in The Pilot.
• Book on the Head: When Eliza Fletcher tries to teach Candace how to behave like a proper British Lady, she includes this in her lessons. Candace thinks British Ladies carry books on their heads because they don't have bookshelves.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: All regular catchphrases tend to be used in at least one point by other characters.
  • Noteworthy example is the "Whatcha' Doin'?" line. Isabella can sense halfway across town if someone else uses her catchphrase, and tends to get angry whenever someone else says it to Phineas. If he says it to her, then she'll be okay with it (as long as he says it only to her).
  • "Hey, where's Perry?" is another noteworthy example, said often by one time characters or guest stars (For example, Chaka Khan in Summer Belongs to You.)
  • Lampshaded in "Phineas and Ferb Busters":
    Phineas: Baljeet, would you do the honors?
    Baljeet: Boy howdy! Hey — (The scene abruptly cuts to Perry's lair.)
    Major Monogram: Where's Perry?
  • Lampshaded again in "Bad Hair Day".
    Stacy: Hey, where's Perry? What, I'm like the only one who hasn't said it.
• Bowdlerise: The Netflix stream of the show changes an announcer's line about Buford in "Raging Bully" from "He's missing a chromosome" to "He enjoys breaking bones."
• The Boxing Episode: In "Raging Bully", Buford challenges Phineas to a match after Phineas embarassed him. Complete with a Training Montage with Evander Holyfield. Subverted when the match turns out to be for thumb fighting due to Disney's rules (which they of course Lampshade).
• Brains and Brawn:
  • Very subtle, but Phineas is more inclined to the planning and actually knowing how everything works, while Ferb is more inclined to building.
  • More obviously, Baljeet, the nerd, and Buford, the bully. They even have an argument about which is more practical in "Where's Perry?".
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
  • "It's green and it's evil. It's greevil!"
  • And later in the same episode, "She's like catnip for boys! She's boynip!"
  • And later still, "...diving and snakes and diving with snakes..."
  • In "The Chronicles Of Meap", Doof's inator targets clowns, children, and clown children.
  • In "Excaliferb", Malifishmertz says he's not scared of anything except unicorns, whales, scorpions, squids, Pegasus, and girls. Down comes the Uniwhalescorpiopegasquidicorn girl, which he views as not-so-scary after thinking about it.
• Breakfast in Bed: All of the kids attempt to serve breakfast to their mom for her birthday in "Mom's Birthday", but Candace's attempt gets ignored due to being outdone by her brothers.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Enough instances to have its own page.
• Breakout Character: The show may have been called "Phineas and Ferb", but three-quarters of the way through the show, it may as well just be called "The Doof and Perry Show". It had gotten to the point where the Phineas and Ferb plotline was either Demoted to Extra or reduced to a Funny Background Event.
• Brick Joke: Enough to have its own page.
• Bridal Carry: In "One Good Scare Ought To Do It!", Isabella ends up with Phineas in her arms in this pose upon saving him from falling from the unexpectedly-airborne haunted house.
• Bring My Brown Pants:
  • Baljeet has the tendency to lose control of his bowels when intimidated, and hyperventilate when in danger. His hyperventilation was a plot point, when it saved them from a weird urban sculpture in "Bubble Boys".
  • Doof gets in on it once or twice, too.
    Doofenshmirtz: Say goodbye to this pair of lederhosen...
  • Buford had this moment in "That Sinking Feeling".
    Buford dressed like Cupid: Well, that's the end of this diaper.
  • And another in "Rollercoaster: The Musical" while on the roller coaster through downtown:
    Buford: I'm glad I'm wearing trousers that are already brown!
  • Happened to Perry due to Doofenshmirtz's horrible skill at driving.
    Doofenshmirtz: I'll pay for the dry cleaning on your Rockenhosen.
• Bringing Running Shoes to a Car Chase: In "Split Personality", Busting!Candace goes on foot to catch up to the car Linda and Romantic!Candace are in.
• Broken Echo: In "We Call it Maze," Dr. Doofenshmirtz shouts "Welcome to my evil space station!" To which his echo replies, "Station... station... COOKIE!... Station" This happens to him again later in the episode. and then to Buford at the end of the episode.
• Broken Record:
  • In the episode "Mom's Birthday", Candace goes to buy her mom a cute little sun dress that they saw in the window of a store. So, she keeps repeating, "Cute little sun dress, cute little sun dress, cute little sun dress..."
  • In the episode "It's About Time!" at the credits, the dad keeps repeating, "Fossils! Da, da, da!"
  • Also happens in "A Hard Days' Knight" when Perry pretends to read one of Dr. Lloyd Wexler's books out loud; he is using a CD, which skips in the middle of a word.
    Doofenshmirtz: Hmm. That's funny, I don't remember you saying "spec" so many times.
  • Candace often goes "but, but, but, but..." when Phineas and Ferb's invention ultimately disappears. For example, In "Picture This", she repeats "Bu-bu-bu-bu-but..." ad infinitum, and the kids turn it into a rap number.
• Brought Down to Badass: Once the superheroes in "Mission Marvel" get some help from Phineas and Ferb and their friends and a chance to exercise their ingenuity, they put up a pretty good fight against the villains even without their powers.
• Brown Bag Mask: In an episode, Candace dons a paper bag to hide the skin condition caused by her parsnip allergy (which also gave her the voice of a male blues singer!).
• Buffy Speak: A lot of Doof's Inators fall under this heading. Particularly the 'Giant Robotic Penguin Icy Freeze Your Socks Off Breath-Inator Thingy'.
  • Also, in "What Do it Do", he has a difficult time coming up with a name:
    Doofenshmirtz: See, Perry the Platypus, my new jet rocket skiff has more hidden traps than... (snaps fingers) Um, uh—What's something with a lot of hidden traps? Huh, wow, I felt so confident going into that sentence.
  • Candace also uses it mockingly in "Tip of the Day":
    Candace: That's why they make smart word box for tell hard brain hurty things!
  • Candace doesn't know all the vocabulary for the parts her brothers are making:
    Candace: Mom! Phineas and Ferb are in the "Gadgets Through the Ages" exhibit, and they're doing something to this chair thing, and Ferb is using this hose thing that makes sparks, and he's wearing this mask that goes like this!
• The Bully: Buford, who regularly bullies Baljeet. He even calls himself a bully, proudly.
• Bully and Wimp Pairing: Buford and Baljeet, who seem to be best friends and form a "symbiotic relationship" together.
• Butt Biter: In 'One Good Scare Ought to Do It' Little Suzy Johnson's poodle helps Candace live up to her Chew Toy status with a painful-looking bite on the bottom.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Lampshaded in the episode "Blackout".
  Phineas: Hey Ferb, isn't it cool how you can still see people's eyes in - Ferb, where'd you go?
  [Ferb opens his eyes]
  Phineas: Oh-hoh, you prankster!
• By Wall That Is Holey: In "Spa Day", Candace and Stacy are helping build homes for the homeless. Candace lets go of the wall they are holding in position so she can ogle Jeremy. She passes harmlessly through the hole for the window. Stacy is not so lucky.

C

• Call-Back:
  • In the episode "Swiss Family Phineas", when the group is stranded on an island, Candace questions Phineas why he didn't make a giant slingshot to fling them back to the mainland. This is particularly amusing later in "Summer Belongs to You", when this is exactly how Phineas manages to arrange their escape from yet another island.
  • Phineas' specific line in reference to Candace's idea is "Giant slingshot... mind if we use that someday?"
  • In "Gaming the System", Major Monogram lets it slip in Perry's mission briefing that Doofenshmirtz has bought him a vase for Christmas. Sure enough, in the Christmas Special, Perry gets that vase.
  • In "Road Trip" when Perry briefly jumps into the drivers seat of Doof's semi "Mobile Mammal" from "Suddenly Suzy" plays.
  • In "Bubble Boys" Buford says he wants to float around like "a little woodland pixie". Later, in "Meatloaf Surprise", when the bouncy house takes off into the air, Baljeet teases Buford, saying "Are we going to float around like little woodland pixies?"
  • Parodied in the "Temple of Juachadoon" episode, where the Norm stand-in copies the slow clap the Doofenshmirtz stand-in did at the beginning of the scene, with Doofenshmirtz chastising him that "It's too early for a Call Back."
  • In "Fly on the Wall" Buford, Isabella, and Baljeet begin to sing "Summer (Where Do We Begin?)", with Phineas interrupting saying how they all know the song. And then wondering HOW they all know it, referring to the mind wipe at the end of Across the 2nd Dimension.
  • In "Gi-Ants" Doof gets his head stuck in a turkey and says that it couldn't be the first time that has happened to someone. It was how Perry defeated his counterpart in Across the 2nd Dimension.
  • In "Phineas and Ferb Save Summer", Buford gives us a callback to "Summer Belongs to You" and "Mission Marvel":
    Buford: This must be a special episode. He's yelling at his sister again!
  • In one episode, Doofenshmirtz manages to beat himself up with a Perry the Platypus stand-in, Planty the Potted Plant, who is made an agent in the stinger. At least a season later, Linda accidentally puts a fedora on Planty and comments that it looks like a secret agent. The moment her back is turned, Major Monogram reassigns Planty to another family.
  • In "This is Your Backstory," moments from many of Doof's clashes with Perry are seen.
  • Following the episode "What I'd Miss?", whenever the gang goes surfing or skateboarding, their boards use the designs Phineas made for Isabella.
  • Ever since "Fireside Girl Jamboree", whenever Candace interacts with Isabella and the Fireside Girls, the fact that Candace is technically a Fireside Girl will invariably come up.
• Call-Forward: In the Season 3 episode "Tri-Stone Area", Conk the Caveman from the Season 1 episode "Boyfriend from 27,000 BC" makes a brief appearance as he waves to Phineas and Ferb's caveman equivalents Phinibunk and Gerb, before realizing he got his foot stuck in the ice that would freeze him.
• Caltrops: Doofenshmirtz tries to use this trick during a race. It backfires because the caltrops come from the front of his car.
• Calvinball:
  • The F Games (F stands for Ferb). A game where the contestants share a horse costume while holding rackets and wearing roller skates, and the score can be the square root of pi or a duck.
  • A quiz show variant in "Let's Take a Quiz", "where the rules are 'answer fast and answer often'"... and that seems to be it.
  • In "Return to the Second Dimension", this is the result when the 2nd-dimension kids decide to play a game of Sports. As the narration explains, " Once the gong is rung, the offensive team serves the pom-pom and advances down the field. The defending cyclists race past the tackling dummies and try to get into scoring position. If they manage to return the pom-pom into one of the scoring locations, they will be awarded a chance to chase the jumbo riding ball past the midfield skiing defender, while the other team tries to hit as many tennis balls as they can using golf clubs. I don't know why this guy has a canoe paddle".
• Camp Straight: Baljeet has shades of this. He has a girly voice, apparently likes rainbows and unicorns, dressed up as a daisy for Halloween, and has other generic feminine traits, but has been shown to have a crush on three girls so far.
• The Cameo:
  • Clay Aiken and Chaka Kahn in "Summer Belongs to You". Bowling for Soup in "Quantum Boogaloo". Laird Hamilton in "Hawaiian Vacation". Evander Holyfield and Michael Buffer in "Raging Bully". Kenny Ortega in "Rollercoaster: The Musical". Jamie Oliver in "Meatloaf Surprise". Kelly Clarkson in "Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas". Freaking RAY LIOTTA in "What a Croc".
  • The hosts of Top Gear UK as themselves (more or less) in "Live and Let Drive".
  • Simon Pegg and Nick Frost show up in "Night of the Living Pharmacists" to complain about the logic in the zombie apocalypse.
• Camera Abuse: In "Tree to Get Ready", Doofenshmirtz sings about the people he hates, including camera crews. At that point in the song, the scene shifts to a camcorder's perspective, which he pushes out of his face and apparently to the ground.
• Camera Obscurer:
  • In "Raging Bully", Candace manages to nab a photo of the thumb-wrestling match, but when she takes it to Linda, she reveals she had her thumb over the lens, obscuring it.
  • In "Atlantis", Irving resorts to taking imaginary pictures of the trip to Atlantis after an eel steals his camera; in The Stinger, he claims he had his thumb over the lens the whole time, so all he remembers is his thumb.
  • In "La Candace Cabra", the boys' photographic evidence of the Chupacabra were obscured in various ways, sometimes showing their fingers blocking it.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin':
  • Both played straight and subverted. Phineas and Ferb can get away with just about anything. Dr. Doofenshmirtz on the other hand will be thwarted by Perry the Platypus even when he isn't trying anything particularly evil.
  • Monogram: "Agent P, nothing seems to be happening. Nothing from Doofenshmirtz; everything seems pretty quiet. So he must be up to something. Go!"
  • See the example under Companion Cube, thwarted by a potted plant.
  • Candace can't either. Every time she does something on her own, Linda catches her. Up to eleven in "Candace Gets Busted", where it seems like the random circumstances that help her brothers stay out of trouble actually make sure she gets caught.
• Caps Lock, Num Lock, Missiles Lock: Dr. Doofenshmirtz frequently invokes this due to his Running Gag obsession with placing a self destruct button on everything he creates. The ultimate example would have to be when he built an army of giant robots and placed the buttons on the bottom of their feet. The army took one step and was instantly wiped out.
• Captain Colorbeard: "The Ballad of Badbeard", which is about the fictional Badbeard.
• Captain Ersatz: The hippie that the Fireside girls meet in "Isabella and the Temple of Sap" is a reasonable facsimile of Tommy Chong.
• Captain Obvious: The chorus to Candace's song "Little Brothers"
  "You will always be my little brothers, 'cause you're younger, we're related and you're boys."
• Carcass Sleeping Bag: Lampshaded in the episode "Hide and Seek." The kids shrink themselves, and Baljeet is stranded in the chandelier. He cuts open a fly and gets inside to stay warm.
  Candace: Who smells like fly guts?
  Baljeet: I had to survive, Okay?!
• Card-Carrying Villain:
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz, and for that matter probably most of his colleagues in the League Of Villainous Evildoers Maniacally United For Frightening Investments In Naughtiness (LOVEMUFFIN). They disqualify one of their members from entering a contest because he's short, and when he objects, they just say they can do that because they're evil.
  • Also Mitch, who refuses to be called a zookeeper ("You're a poacher!" "Yes, that's it") because it legitimizes the whole thing.
  • In the Indiana Jones parody episode, Isabella carries a business card that literally says "Dirty Double Crosser".
• Care-Bear Stare: Meap's "really cute death ray" may very possibly be this, given the fact that everything on Planet Meap is cute-based, along with it resembling a sparkly little rainbow.
• Carnivore Confusion: Comes up when Agent C (a chicken) tries to eat Agent W (a worm), and apparently Perry's colleague Agent T has been missing since last November.
• Cartoonland Time:
  • All of Phineas and Ferb's projects are completed by the end of the day.
  • So are all of Doofenshmirtz's.
  • Lampshaded by Baljeet in "Just Passing Through".
    "You can build a rollercoaster in a day but it takes you 20 minutes to repair a flat tire?!"
  • Exaggerated in the episode "Run Away Runway", where fashions change on an hourly basis and Vague Magazine prints three issues in one day.
• Cartoon Whale: Agent W is usually depicted realistically, but in his first appearance, he's depicted as a sperm whale with its eyes too close to its mouth.
• Cartoonish Supervillainy: Dr. Doofenschmirtz provides the page image.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Candace's attempts to bust Phineas and Ferb. Her mother never sees what they're doing, and thinks she's crazy.
  • Also Vanessa's attempts to persuade her mother that her father is an evil Mad Scientist. Her mother refuses to believe her. She eventually gives up on it when she realizes how her dad actually cares.
  • And one time when Django, the son of an artist, was introduced, wherein he made a very large painting on the Unpainted Desert for his father (with the help of Phineas and Ferb, of course) and he led his father to see it but by that time, Doofenshmirtz's invention-of-the-week had already destroyed the dam and the resulting flood washed it away, thus rendering the whole thing pointless.
  • Occasionally happens to one-shot characters, such as the host of "Bust 'Em" and Baljeet's teacher, when they try to get their bosses to see a project, only for it to vanish once they get there.
• Casting Gag:
  • In "Phineas and Ferb Hawaiian Vacation" we have Phil Lewis voicing a hotel manager attempting to stop the brothers' antics.
  • Richard O'Brien, who does the voice of the boys' dad, is best known for his role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and is very confused when the horror film he's watching has no rock and roll musical numbers.
  • The Twilight parody Candace sees casts Michael J. Fox as a werewolf and Anna Paquin as the Bella analogue.
  • In "Last Train to Bustville", Lawrence is seen making chitchat with Grandpa Clyde Flynn, who is voiced by another Rocky Horror performer, Barry Bostwick.
  • Irving's brother is voiced by Diedrich Bader. This isn't the first time he's dealt with a crazy fan.
• Catapult Nightmare:
  • Happens twice in "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" once by Candace she discovers that the whole episode is actually a dream. Happens later to Perry after dreaming that his secret has been discovered.
  • Invoked by Phineas in the Christmas Special when he wakes from a dream where he ruined Christmas, only for Isabella to tell him that's not going to work and that Christmas isn't coming.
• Catchphrase: The show has so many that it has its own page.
• The Cavalry: Alternate Phineas and Ferb from "Excaliferb" bring a monster army to fight Malifishmirtz's minions.
• Celebrity Paradox: Candace's voice actress Ashley Tisdale is Photoshopped over Candace for her part in "The Curse of the Princess Monster", like so.
• Central Theme: Life is full of endless possibilities.
• Chain of Deals: In 'Tri-State Treasure: Boot of Secrets', Candace is trying to get a rare Ducky Momo collectable, but the man selling it will only trade for something that another person has.
• Character Blog:
  • Candace has one.
  • Doofenshmirtz has a Twitter and Youtube Channel.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • "Rollercoaster" (and even more so the original story pitch) portrays Phineas as irritable and sarcastic, while the rest of the series makes him ridiculously upbeat and mellow. Word of God says this was because they originally wanted to highlight his role as Candace's Annoying Younger Sibling, but he quickly developed in a different direction.
  • In her first appearances, Vanessa was bent on proving to Charlene that Heinz was evil. (Her first major musical number was the famous "Busted" with Candace.) Later episodes depicted the relationship between Heinz and Vanessa as semi-strained but loving, especially after "Finding Mary Mac Guffin" and "Summer Belongs To You".
  • It seems that in the second season a lot of the characters have undergone a fair personality development, but it's "Summer Belongs to You" that really skyrockets with deepening the characters' individualities. Phineas showing that he's not completely resourceful, getting frantic once he's realized his perplexity and showing anger and impatience for once, Candace gaining belief in herself and things seemingly impossible, Vanessa accepting her father's quirks and peculiarity, Jeremy earning the ability to tell Candace about her annoying obsessive behaviour (which further led them to become an Official Couple), Isabella crossing the edge of her endurance to Phineas's ignorance towards her and revealing to be the only one able to encourage him into not giving up. Even Buford gets some screen time showing that he is fluent in French and can quote Voltaire from heart. Only Baljeet remained unaltered by the episode.
  • Nowhere is Phineas' characterization more apparent than from "Rollercoaster: The Musical". Instead of "We should have charged more", it's "It was sure nice to see Meap." And instead of that Blatant Lie to Candace, he says, "The condition didn't have to do with the moose, did it?"
  • Consider Jeremy's mother. In seasons 1 and 2, She was a voiceless background character usually appearing nearby Linda. For season 3, they signed Jane Lynch for the character and they had to write a personality that made more sense for the actress. Try comparing the season 1 and 3 versions and you will notice different face structure and clothing.
  • Not to mention Jeremy himself. In episode one, he was just "the guy" Candace liked, episodes afterwards made him just "the Nice Guy who cheered Candace up". After that, the show slowly chipped away at his Relationship Sue-ness, revealing things such as the fact that he is the lead singer in a band and is very dedicated to his little sister, Suzy. "Summer Belongs to You" made him officially her boyfriend, and just about every episode he's been in since has given him a bit more development as a character, so now he's a Nice Guy who likes British things that is on occasion a Deadpan Snarker that messes with Candace's literal mind but still likes her just for who she is. He also, for some reason, carries a drain unclogger around.
  • Major Monogram. In season one, he was a very formal, authoritative no-nonsense boss who behaved in a totally cold demeanor to anyone he spoke to. Now, he's an eccentric Manchild whose mission briefings are never complete without at least one joke.
  • Very minor one for Ferb. Early episodes demonstrate him being a bit of a klutz, falling off of things and often getting hit (by himself or Phineas). This went away as Ferb developed into The Ace.
• Chariot Race: In "Greece Lightning", the boys stage a chariot race through Danville's streets after learning about ancient Greece.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Parody: The boys remodel the Har D Har Toy Company's factory to look like Willy Wonka's (complete with Chocolate River and Oompa-Loompa Expys, which surprises Phineas).
  Badinkadinks: We will now lay waste to the surface dwellers!
• Chaste Hero: Phineas is almost ridiculously clueless to Isabella's affections, with little exception.
  Isabella: I still need to get my You-Wouldn't-Know-Cute-If-It-Bit-Your-Leg-Off Accomplishment Patch.
  Phineas: (Beat) Cool, let's go!
• Cheated Angle:
  • You almost never see Phineas and Ferb's faces from the front.
  • Also, Ferb's front-facing eye is always smaller than the eye behind it, no matter which side you're looking at. Whenever he turns his head, if you look closely, his eyes actually shrink and grow in order to fit this.
  • Major Monogram has a variation, in that his nose is always in profile in a way that makes it look like his eyes are on the same side of his face. It's frequently lampshaded, and freaks out Doofenshmirtz a bit.
• Chekhov's Armoury: Tiny little details in the A and B plots combine in the final vanishing of the evidence. The writers are well aware that the viewers will be looking for this and so seldom take the obvious resolution. See Bait-and-Switch above for more details.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: In "Bee Day" we watch Baljeet chatting with Ginger, then Ginger suddenly disappears. The explanation for the event becomes a gag in "Bee Story". Then near the end of "Bee Story", Baljeet's explanation of how bees dance turns out to be a lot of help to the fire side girls.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Would you believe a Christmas CD? It seems like a gag for Perry to get it as a gift, but then it becomes key to helping Perry defeat Doofenshmirtz, and is a big clue that Santa is behind it all.
  • Perry's picture of Phineas and Ferb. First introduced in "Where's Perry," it is used in "Where's Perry (Part Two)" to reflect the Re-Good-inator's beam at Carl, turning him good again.
  • "Summer Belongs to You" has a series of Chekhov's Guns in near-succession: Doofenshmirtz's giant water balloon, Ferb's map, the road construction, and finally Buford's stolen bikes.
  • "Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars" turn the running gag of Stormtrooper Candace having to buy socks for Darth Vader into a Chekhov's Gun when she uses them to distract Darth Ferb during his fight with Phineas.
  • In a season spanning example, the mechanical Flynn-Fletcher family that Carl made in the Season Two episode I Was a Middle-Aged Robot return in a far more dramatic fashion in the Season Three two-parter Where's Perry.
  • One for the whole series: it's a running gag that Doofenshmirtz compulsorily puts self-destruct buttons on everything he makes. Guess what allows Candace to save everyone when one of his inventions goes awry in the finale.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In "Attack of the 50 Foot Sister", the agency randomly makes a group of fish agents after their pond was drained when Perry had to use it as a lair entrance. They turn out to be crucial in helping Perry save the day.
• Chekhov's Skill: Subverted in "Where's Pinky?" when we are told that the eponymous agent is "good with computers". He is in a way... well, if you consider grabbing them and using them as weapons, that is.
  • Played straight in "Minor Monogram". In the episode, it is revealed that Major Monogram took Monty through acrobatics training as a child because he figured that Monty would want to be an acrobat (much like Major Monogram wanted to be an acrobat as a younger child), not realizing that Monty wanted to fight evil like his father. Monty later combines acrobatics with physical combat to defeat Doofenshmirtz's rogue intern, Rodrigo.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Candace has had quite a few of these, mostly when she's about to bust her brothers or is on a date with Jeremy.
• Chez Restaurant: In the episode "Chez Platypus", the boys build a restaurant in their backyard named... well, you can imagine.
• Child Popstar: "Flop Starz" was about Phineas and Ferb becoming a one-hit wonder, managing to fill venues, sell records, and hold contest, all in a single day.
• Child Prodigy:
  • Phineas, Ferb, Baljeet and Gretchen from the Fireside Girls. They're all extremely smart and talented for their age.
  • As Fireside Troop leader, you gotta figure Isabella counts as well. She's a smart and skilled leader.
  • Buford shows flashes of this, from quoting Voltaire in "Summer Belongs to You" to knowing King Wenceslas' background on the Christmas album.
• Children Are Innocent: Phineas and Ferb seem to be almost completely unaware of how risky the stuff they do might be (besides helmets), and that they get their sister mad all the time. However, Ferb seems to be quite a bit more mature than his brother....
• Chorus Girls: In general, Doofenshmirtz's songs tend to have a large number of backup singers wearing sexy outfits relevant to the song. They also occasionally appear during other characters' songs; clearly, "sexy back-up dancer" is a lucrative career in Danville.
• Christmas Episode: "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation!", the Christmas Special, and "A Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas", which takes place during July in-universe.
  Candace:: "Mo-om! Phineas and Ferb are making a Christmas special!"
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Django Brown was featured prominently in four early episodes, and was even a member of Phineas and Ferb's close-knit group of friends. After "Oil on Candace" he disappeared from the main cast, and has been seen only in a handful of non-speaking cameos.
• Clark Kenting:
  • Doofenshmirtz cannot recognize Perry the Platypus without his Signature Headgear.
    Doofenshmirtz: What kind of plumber are you?
    [Perry takes off his plumber hat]
    Doofenshmirtz: A platypus plumber?
    [Perry puts on his agent hat]
    Doofenshmirtz: Perry the Platypus Plumber?
    [Perry drops his tool-belt]
    Doofenshmirtz: PERRY THE PLATYPUS!
  • Candace tries to disguise herself as "The Dangeraffe". It...doesn't work.
• Clear My Name: In "Cheer Up Candace", Doofenshmirtz has mass-produced Perry robotic duplicates so they would commit crimes and Perry gets the blame, so he has to stop him to clear the confusion.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Suzy is very protective of her relationship with Jeremy (she even hints in her first appearance and outright shows in "Suddenly Suzy" that she's perfectly fine with Candace so long as she's well and far away from Jeremy). Not to mention that Candace flips out pretty much any time Jeremy is seen with another girl. Or a guy who kinda looks like a girl from the back, for that matter.
• Clingy MacGuffin:
  • Played for Laughs in an episode. The family goes on vacation to Hawaii and Candace finds a Tiki necklace that seemingly curses her with bad luck. She tries to get rid of it, but it keeps coming back to her. It later turns out the Tiki necklace was a restaurant gimmick, and earned her a free dessert, which she turned down.
  • And then there is the episode that parodied The Wizard of Oz. When the Wicked Witch/Warlock of the West (played by Dr. Doofenshmirtz) demands that Candace hand over the magic boots, she replies that she would, but they've grown on her. By that, she means that they've literally grown vines on her and they won't come off. It's only after Phineas and Ferb give her a matching shoehorn that she's finally able to remove them.
• Clip Show:
  • "Phineas and Ferb's Musical Cliptastic Countdown", as the name implies.
  • A montage of past events appears in "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted".
  • Similarly, another montage of notable past events/episodes appears during the ending of "Summer Belong to You".
  • "Phineas' Birthday Clip-o-rama" is a more straight example. But mostly, it's within the framing device of setting up a montage for Phineas' birthday. And Doof trying to understand what makes his plans fail. Subverted somewhat by including original clips during the clip montages.
  • The last clip show was "This is Your Backstory," which is a compilation of all of Doof's flashbacks.
• Clock King: When Linda commented it's been a long time ever since she and Lawrence went out together, he said it was 13 days, 22 hours and 17 minutes. When asked how he knew it to such precision, he explained it was thanks to a device on his cell phone.
• Clothing Switch
  • Candace and Vanessa in "Hail Doofania!" pick up each other's clothing. Candace complains about dressing like a weird goth girl, and Vanessa thinks Candace's outfit is too preppy.
  • In "Ain't No Kiddie Ride", Phineas and Ferb each pick the other's outfit out of a shopping bag, look at each other and quickly trade.
• Cloudcuckooland:
  • The residents of Patchkinland from "The Wizard of Odd" certainly push the sanity envelope.
    Patchkin: [spits on ground] I have saliva!
  • Danville itself is also a mild example. Though it's not quite as strange as Drusselstein, it is inhabited by people who, for the most part, wouldn't be the least bit phased if a giant television screen suddenly got up and started dancing, and would gladly let an anthropomorphic platypus borrow their truck.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Lawrence - Ferb's father and Phineas and Candace's stepfather - is fairly grounded, but prone to making curious statements and not batting an eyelid at things like the TV talking back to him.
  • Candace definitely has her moments. For instance, there's her tendency to talk into things that aren't a phone, then not be surprised when she hears a "response".
• Coincidence Magnet: Happens to most characters on an ongoing basis, but the Farmer and Farmer's Wife appear as side characters for no reason other than being coincidence magnets. They are usually seen starting a new business, but the farmer forgot to stock the business with the required merchandise. The wife starts nagging him for that and claims the needed item "isn't going to just fall out of the sky", only for the item to accidentally fall out of the sky due to something Phineas, Ferb or Doofenshmirtz did.
  Farmer's Wife: So, you bought a Museum of Biological Oddities, but didn't get any biological oddities?!
  Doofenshmirtz falls through the roof, followed by a dodo bird
  Farmer's Wife: ''There it is!
• Coincidental Accidental Disguise: In "Are You My Mummy?", Candace ends up wrapped in toilet paper like a mummy. And in "Get That Bigfoot Out Of My Face!", Doofenshnirtz ends up covered in mud and leaves and looking like a bigfoot. In another episode the two of them trade an accidental disguise of being an orangutan.
• Comforting Comforter: In "My Fair Goalie". After being defeated, Doofenshmirtz (who was too sick to properly execute his plan in the first place) falls sleep in the floor, with Perry taking a blanket out of his hat and covering Doof with it.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • "Phineas & Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo". It's bad enough that young-Candace can't get it into her head that its her obsession that makes her blind to the boy's true motives, especially when told directly by her future self (who finally learned it during her time travel trip). But this line really takes the cake.
  Future!Candace: (to Phineas and Ferb) And remember be nice to your sister.
  Past!Candace: (in a somewhat mocking tone) Yeah, be nice to your sister!
  • Doofenshmirtz, in his plan to leave "carbon footprints" all over the Tri-State Area... with a giant paper-mache foot made of carbon paper. Well, at least he admits that he has no idea what a "carbon footprint" is.
  • In "The Beak", Candace thought the entire thing was a game, rather than an actual super villain thinking The Beak is a superhero. In reality, even he was missing the point, as Phineas and Ferb only built the suit to get through a very dangerous skateboard ramp. The latter's missing the point can be justified because he read the news article that mistakes him for a superhero.
  • In "What Do It Do", Linda completely fails to understand that her situation in that episode is identical to what Candace experiences in her everyday attempts to bust her brothers.
  • In "Last Train to Bustville", Candace hears a speech about never giving up which inspires her to...give up.
  • In "Happy Birthday Isabella" when Stacy is watching The Grievance, she's scared of the bugs and mess the ghost girl is leaving in the house rather than the ghost girl herself.
  • Phineas's entire attempt at a romantic dinner in "That Sinking Feeling". It included classical music (the musicians playing loud, bombastic music right next to the table), rose petals (a massive pile dumped on the couple), and cupid (Buford in a diaper suspended a foot over the table). No wonder he never caught on to Isabella's feelings.
• The Comically Serious: Perry is more serious-minded and professional than anyone else involved in his plotline, only rarely smiles and often expresses displeasure at Monogram and Carl goofing around or the absurd nature of Doofenshmirtz's plots. But he's still a platypus in a hat busting a ridiculous Mad Scientist.
• Comical Overreacting: One of Phineas & Ferb's devices accidentally splits Candace into two personas: one that embodies her love of Jeremy, and one that embodies her obsession to bust her brothers. The latter got so shocked by someone not wanting to bust her brothers that she screamed and pointed in a Shout-Out of the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
• Comic-Book Time:
  • The longer the series runs, the less likely that the events are taking place within the span of a single summer vacation, especially since there are Christmas episodes.
  • Lampshaded in "The Curse of Candace."
    Phineas: I know what you mean Ferb. It does seem like more than one hundred and four days.
  • Lampshaded again in "Fly on the Wall", when Doofenshmirtz says he is getting out of ideas for evil plans.
    Doofenshmirtz: And the summer just keeps going on and on and it feels like it's been goin' on for, like, four years!
  • Averted with the technology (take Candace's phone for instance), which all looks to be conveniently dated to the Summer of 2007, when the show began.
• Commercial Break Cliffhanger:
  • Literally (and, naturally, lampshaded) in "Excaliferb", which is a story being told by Carl to a sick Monogram, and Carl stopped just when the heroes jumped from a cliff.
    Carl: I think we need to take a little break.
    Monogram: Wow, bad time for that. You totally left me hanging in that cliff scene.
    Carl: That's kinda the point, sir.
    Monogram: Oh, I see. Very clever.
  • "Meapless in Seattle" cuts just as Doofenshmirtz and Meep fell from their spaceship. When they came back Meep mentions they have been falling for a long time, and Doof gets annoyed that he jokes about the commercial break.
• Companion Cube:
  • Balloony, Doofenshmirtz's childhood friend, which is... a balloon.
  • Later, Doofenshmirtz sets up Planty the Potted Plant as a substitute nemesis...and it somehow manages to thwart him, totally trash the lair, and become a legitimate secret agent.
  • Candace's stuffed animals in a few episodes, Mister Miggins the Bear and Ducky Momo.
  • And later there was bobble-head Perry the Platypus.
    Doofenshmirtz: (To Perry, after he sees the bobble-head Perry) What? It was an arts and crafts project! I have a life outside of you!
• Company Cross References: One episode is titled "Troy Story", a reference to Toy Story.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: In "Christmas Vacation", Perry receives a Sal Tuscany CD, with Carl wondering who it could be from. Monogram rebukes him, noting that the party's supposed to be a Secret Santa gift exchange, and the more Carl denies giving the gift, he gets blamed by Monogram. Later, when the CD is revealed to be a gift from Santa, Monogram still blames Carl: even though he didn't give the gift to Perry, everyone in Danville ended up on Santa's naughty list.
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: An in-universe example:
  [Candace is examining a row of books with no visible titles]
  Candace: Boring, dull, stupid, lame, heavy-handed and derivative.
  Mom: Oh, thank you for those insightful reviews of books... you haven't read.
• Complexity Addiction: As stated in Compressed Vice below, Phineas is literally addicted to building complex machines. In one episode, Ferb accidentally left his skateboard in England...
  Phineas: I know! We could create a highly-intricate and sophisticated machine that will transport any object from anywhere on the globe to our backyard!
  Dad: Well, why don't you just build a new skateboard?
  [Phineas and Ferb stare at him in silence]
  Phineas: Hmm, yeahhh, I don't think so.
  Ferb: If it's all the same with you, Father, we're going to build the machine.
  • In "Elementary, My Dear Stacy", Dr. Doofenshmirtz plots to use rockets to launch Big Ben into space and fly it all the way to the Tri-State Area. When Agent Double 0-0 suggests that he should just get a bigger watch or a wall clock, Doof explains that driving to a store, finding a parking spot, and choosing between dozens of styles is too much work.
• Compressed Vice:
  • The episode "Bully Bromance Breakup" reveals a hilarious, but undeniably bizarre flaw of Phineas': If he is given an opportunity to invent something, but doesn't/is forced not to, he slowly becomes more and more panicked, curling up into a Troubled Fetal Position while listing all the things he could build, then eventually snapping and building a house out of ice just for the sake of building something and ease his nerves. This not only comes completely out of nowhere, but it directly defies the episode "The Best Lazy Day Ever", where he is repeatedly, intentionally given opportunities to build something, and calmly declines.
  • Ferb has the same flaw/addiction, but he handles it a bit better, being The Stoic.
    Ferb: If we hadn't been able to invent something soon, I was going to scream.
• Concert Episode: The episode "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together!". The titular brothers try to reunite the '80s glam rock band Love Händel for a "one-night-only" concert for their parents' anniversary. The episode is a double-length, and is one of the rare occasions when the formula is subverted, with Perry and Candace both temporarily working with the people they normally oppose.
• Concert Kiss: Phineas and Ferb's parents in "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together". Lawrence explained that he first kissed Linda when caught under the spotlight during a Love Handel concert. Later, when the kids got the band to. reunite, they put the spotlight on them again to revive the moment.
• Cone of Shame: Even platypuses aren't immune. Perry had to wear one for most of the morning, which was so big that it kept him from entering his lair, and subsequently, from thwarting Doofenshmirtz.
• Conflict Ball:
  • Given that Phineas and Ferb's antics never cause permanent harm and are always swept away at the end of the episode, you have to wonder why Candace is so hell bent on busting them.
  • Lampshaded in the episode "Flop Starz", where the boys become one-hit wonders:
    Candace: I'm gonna tell Mom.
    Phineas: Okay... tell her what?
    (Beat)
    Candace: Ooh, I'm just gonna tell!
• Conjoined Twins: In "Canderemy", we get an artificial case between Candace and Jeremy, who become literally fused together.
• Conspiracy Placement:
  • When we get to the very first scene with Doofenshmirtz, the "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated" jingle (or a variant of it) plays. This video shows a vast majority of them.
  • In the Musical Episode, Doofenshmirtz introduces us to the second line of the song.
    Doofenshmirtz: Where being evil is not debated...I've really got to finish that jingle.
  • "Malifishmirtz's Evil Incorporated, but not really a corporation because corporations haven't been invented yet so it's more like a guild or a trade association!"
  • A non-Doofenshmirtz example is the OWCA Secret Base, which has a sign out front reading
    OWCA Secret Base
    (Please Ignore This Sign)
  • "Kunka-lunk kunka-lunk kunka lunka!" (Caveman-speak)
• Contagious Cassandra Truth: There's an episode where Candace finally convinces her mom that her brothers have done something bad, then she has trouble convincing Lawrence.
• Continuity Cavalcade: Good Lord Almighty, the Musical Episode. They bring back the first guy who delivered "Aren't you a little young to...", in Candace's second song she mentions several past events the boys have been involved in, the adult Candaces from "Quantum Boogaloo" show up in the background of the supermarket parking lot, and in the final number almost EVERY SINGLE character, animal, invention, ANYTHING the boys have encountered in the series comes to sing the final song. And a few others, mostly minor one-shots (notably, less characters were forgotten than remembered).
• Continuity Nod: Enough to have its own page.
• Continuity Porn: Every single episode contains some sort of call back to at least a few previous episodes. Seriously.
  • The final music number in Rollercoaster: The Musical! took this up to eleven. Just watch it.
  • If that song took it up to eleven, then Phineas's Birthday Clip-o-Rama! took it up to twelve. It's literally a Clip Show with clips from just short of every single previous episode.
  • And then there was "The Monster from the Id" which, taking place in Candace's subconscious, mentions everything that makes Candace squirm, a sample from its song.
    "Were you traumatized by squirrels?/or a little girl with curls?/Do you fear the number 7?/ Does a zebra call you Kevin?"
• Continuity Snarl: While the show largely maintains surprisingly good continuity, do not try to find a way to reconcile the post-summer episodes (i.e. the Christmas, Halloween, and New Years specials) with what happens later in the series.
• Contrived Coincidence: These are the fuel the show runs on. Has its own page.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Phineas and Ferb roast weiners on a passing lava flow in "Candace Loses Her Head".
• Conversational Troping: One episode features Doofenshmirtz going on an entire rant about Literal Genies, questioning the point of misinterpreting a wish when there's no benefit for anyone to do so. He eventually concludes that the OWCA should be sending Perry after genies instead.
• Cool Big Sis:
  • Double Subverted with Candace. She normally is quite the opposite, but the boys still look up to and admire her and during the show, she actually performs many cool things. Indeed, Phineas points out in "Summer Belongs to You" how she's always taken part in their adventures and done so many cool things: driving monster trucks, traveling through time, becoming the Queen of Mars, and so on. To them, she is that cool She could be considered this to Isabella (helping her sometimes in later seasons and special), even though they aren't actually related.
  • Ginger Hirano considers her sister Stacy to be "the coolest big sister a girl could ever have".
• Cool Car: The Neblington Nymph in "My Sweet Ride", and basically whatever the boys have done with their mom's car this time.
• Correlation/Causation Gag: In "Don't Even Blink", Candace concludes that her mother returning home is what makes her brothers' inventions disappear, not knowing that Doofenshmirtz's Inators halfway across town are the true cause. She decides to test this by asking Linda to repeatedly back in and out of the driveway; by pure coincidence, Doof's latest Inator affects the visibility of things and it happens to zap the invention invisible when Linda backs in and visible when she backs out.
• Cosmic Plaything: Hoo boy, Candace.
  • A particularly ridiculous instance is lampshaded in "S'Winter" when Candace rides on a snowboard with the boys and they collide with a snowman. Candace ends up as a comical snowman lookalike despite sitting behind her brothers, much to Phineas' confusion. The trio later goes through a tree, and the same thing happens to Candace again; Phineas comments, "That's just weird."
  • In "The Belly of the Beast", Candace is splashed with water twice. Each time the splash is a concentrated stream of water which hits only Candace. She even lampshades this the first time by saying "Okay, now how did that only hit me?". The splash must be laser-guided.
• Cosplay: Phineas, Ferb, Buford, Baljeet, Candace, Irving, and Irving's brother Albert all go to the Sci-fi Fantasy Convention in cosplay.
• Covered in Mud:
  • In "That Sinking Feeling" Baljeet and Mishti, in a flashback, before she "turned into a girl". They were playing and covering each other in mud.
  • "Run Candace Run" has Candace and Jeremy both covered head to toe in mud after her borrowing the boys' speed shoes helps them win a wheelbarrow race.
• Covert Pervert: Ferb.
  Phineas: We don't do this to compete—we do it for fun!
  Ferb: And for the ladies. *Purrs and wiggles his eyebrows*
  • Phineas also has shades of this in the Christmas Special:
    Phineas: You know Ferb, just think of all of the wonderful things Santa does for us. And he never asks for anything in return. Wait, that's it! Ferb, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
    (Ferb hands Phineas a blueprint)
    Phineas: As usual, we're— OH! OH! Man, no! That's not at all what I was thinking! Oh, dude!
    (Ferb flips blueprint upside)
    Phineas: Oh, yeah. That's it!
• Cowboy Episode: One involving a robot rodeo, another involving a cattle drive at the mall.
• Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: Done quite a lot, from Isabella, to the girls in Sexy Santa Dresses during Doofenshmirtz's song about not hating Christmas.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Doofenshmirtz tries to be this. His success rate tends to vary, but 99% of the time he has a trap ready to spring on Perry mere seconds after he arrives.
  • The Fireside Girls. Their motto is "Fireside Girls are always prepared!"
  • Phineas and Ferb themselves definitely qualify.
    Phineas: Ferb. Water hazard ahead. Commence Operation Unforeseen Circumstance.
  • Carl built robot doubles of everyone in the family just in case they're ever needed.
    Major Monogram: Wait a minute. You anticipated a specific situation like this?
    Carl: Yep.
    Major Monogram: Wow. That's a little creepy, Carl.
    Carl: Yes. Yes it is.
  • Perry is either this or such a Guile Hero that he can MacGyver his way out of any situation with what's on hand.
  • Linda sometimes wears bicycle helmets while taking a shower.
  • In "Norm Unleashed", Norm had a weapon ready each time Perry tried to stop him.
  • In "Bully Bust", Buford almost succeeds and is even prepared for hungry space harpies when Candace lists it as a possible way for the boy's invention to disappear. The only things he didn't prepare for were random green rays from the sky, which he took care of by throwing conveniently placed objects to intercept the ray (including himself) and apparently parts that were sticking out of the invention that got snagged on his "Tuff Shoo Laysizz!" when he began floating after being hit by Doofenshmirtz's ray. Once again, the backyard is empty when Linda gets home, except for the kids, including Buford who is hanging from the tree by his "Tuff Shoo Laysizz!" after the effects of the ray wear off.
• Crazy Workplace: The O.W.C.A directs "secret agents" — vaguely Intellectual Animals who foil a designated supervillain daily. One especially bad mishap at headquarters ended with a goat eating documents and Carl (one of the few human employees) locked in a dog cage.
• Creator Cameo: All the time.
  • There are at least two Dans in Danville, Danny and a lookalike who shows up as a cameraman, doctor, and car racing commentator.
  • Dan and Swampy voice the Death Star's tractor beam operators in "Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars".
  • And now the creators themselves in stop-motion animation for 'Tri-Stone Area'. (Live-action filming wasn't in the budget)
  • And of course, the creators have regular roles on the show—Major Monogram and Dr. Doofenschmirtz.
• Credits Gag: During The Wizard of Odd's credits, you can see that the last part of "Doofenwitch" is crossed off, with "warlock" written next to it.
  • A "Swampyski Marshkarov" is credited as Sergei in "Mommy, Can You Hear Me?"
• Creepy Twins: From "She's the Mayor".
  Roger: You know what they say - you can't be T'd off once you've teed off. (chuckles) That was very funny...
  Doofenshmirtz: What? Who says that?
  Roger: You know. They. Those guys over there.
  They: (along with ominous music) You can't be T'd off once you've teed off.
  Roger: Creepy, huh? I've been trying to ditch those guys all day.
• Crossover:
  • After Creator/Disney's acquisition of Marvel and Star Wars, Dan Povenmire and Swampy Marsh stated that they contacted Disney executives to see if they could work on crossovers between the two properties and their show. They eventually premiered in Season 4 as two respective special episodes.
  • Also did a somewhat strange one with Shark Tank, in which Dr. Doofenshmirtz tries to get funding for a shrink ray.
• Crossover Punchline: While not part of the show proper, per say, some of the edited episodes that aired as part of the "Spot the Diff" promotion features split-second cameos from Kim Possible characters, including Kim Possible herself◊ and Ron Stoppable with Rufus◊.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • Candace is prone to panicking and tends to act rather erratically in general. But time and time again she has also shown capable of amazing feats given enough motivation (most commonly when she's trying to bust or protect her brothers). As a general rule, she's a complete Butt-Monkey when dealing with her personal obsessions, but when faced with an actual crisis she's remarkably capable.
  • Bollywood Nerd Baljeet has had his moments. He once took out dozens of Doof-2's Normbots using the Beak suit... by sissy slapping them. Also, an alternate version of him from ancient China in "Doof Dynasty" also helps an alternate Buford defeat numerous castle guards, albeit offscreen. (And, unlike Buford, he wasn't even holding a weapon!)
  • Irving once single-handedly took out a fleet of robots in the same battle as above. And Doof once saved his daughter and her friends from and angry swarm of bees, and...lets just say, if any character on the show is depicted as a wimp, expect this trope to come into play at least once.
• Crush Parade: In "Candace Disconnected," this is the fate of her new, not-to-be-lost replacement phone. Courtesy of the boys, of course.
• Cryptid Episode:
  • "The Lake Nose Monster", where the kids want to find the eponymous monster. They decide to not expose it so it can live in peace.
  • There's an episode about bigfoot, though no actual bigfoot actually shows up.
  • They go to find the Chupacabra, but Perry sneaks him out before anybody gets a good look, since he is also a secret agent.
• Cup Holders: From "Greece Lightning":
  Phineas: Remind me, why did we put spikes on Buford's chariot again? And a bowling ball catapult?! I mean, what were we thinking?! Why'd we give them all the cool stuff? What do we have?
  Ferb: (opens cup holders)
  Phineas: Cup holders? Sweet! Now we're cookin'!
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The vast majority of Perry's fights with Doofenshmirtz ends with Doof being completely destroyed.
  • The one in "Journey to the Center of Candace" takes the cake. Perry had Doof chained to a pipe in under ten seconds. That's what happens when you indirectly threaten Phineas and Ferb when he's in hearing distance.
  • The depowered superheroes in "Mission Marvel" suffer quite a few of these at the hands of the villains before they finally get to dish it back out.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: It's not uncommon for Doofenshmirtz to put up a reasonable fight against Perry.
• Cursed with Awesome: In "The Ballad of Badbeard", the kids hear that whoever finds the lost treasure of the Pirate Badbeard will be cursed with a bad beard forever. The kids (boys and girls both) think this sounds awesome, and go looking for the treasure. When they find it, it turns out—to their delight—that the "treasure" is a chest filled with cheap fake beards.
• Curse of the Pharaoh: Parodied in the episode "Hip Hip Parade". Candace and her mom Linda are taking a girl's day, but Linda makes Candace promise not to try to bust her brothers, or she will suffer the pharaoh's curse. At the end of the episode, Candace gives in to her busting habit, and so an overweight man dressed as a pharaoh shows up to say, "Curse you."
  ''Linda: "I tried to warn you."
• Custom Uniform: The Fireside Girls' uniforms are unique in one way or another, as each have a personal touch to each other (Adyson's shirt is sleeveless, Milly wears Mary Janes, Ginger wears a turtleneck, and so forth). The most notable example is Isabella's uniform, which is a Palette Swap of her everyday clothes, and her beret has her signature hairbow instead of a red diamond (though it might be covering it). One episode even reveals this is because the girls sew their own uniforms.
• Cutaway Gag: Given that most of the songs are there only for the Once an Episode flavor, their lyrics sometimes devolve into Word Salad Lyrics involving some pretty bizarre stunts, most of which get animated anyway. Lampshaded in "The Secret of Success" when an actual Manatee hangs out with them for portions of the song, leaving the boys with a rather uncomfortable look on their faces.
• Cute Bruiser: Isabella may be adorable, but she is tough. If Buford annoys her, she'll sissy-slap him in the face, and if he threatens to kill her friends, she will dissolve him into nothingness. In fact, in "Meapless in seattle", Isabella uses her cuteness as a weapon to beat Mitch.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • In "Meapless in Seattle", Prof. Yore was able to inflict this on everybody after enhancing himself with Cuteonium. And again, with Mitch, after doing the same thing. Isabella is able to do this without Cuteonium.
  • In his infancy, Liam's mother became distracted by a platypus this way and caused his stroller to roll down a hill, leading to his hate towards platypuses. Later, the docents at the botanical garden are distracted by Perry in the same way.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Just about every 'inator' Doofenshmirtz makes works.
  • Played with when he creates the "Age Accelerator-inator", but only intends to use it for his new career as a cheesemaker, allowing him to age cheese without actually waiting. Of course, he does start using it for evil later, but only after Perry ate his entire cheese wheel.
  • In "Knot My Problem," he creates a device that speeds up his metabolism and allows you to eat as much as you want without gaining weight solely for the purpose of running All-You-Can-Eat restaurants out of business. When a patron points out that he could make millions by mass-producing the device, Doof scoffs at him and sticks with his original plan.
  • Forget about the 'inators' he makes, Doof could make a ludicrous fortune as a security systems contractor and consultant - yes, Perry always gets out eventually, but not only does Doof catch him in almost every single episode, he knows exactly where Perry is going to enter, and what to use to capture him!
  • In one episode, Doof actually does get royalty checks for some of his technology being used in eye exams. He references this trope, saying that he likes the extra money, but the fact that his inventions are actually being used for good really bothers him.
  • This is also the likely source of the funding for the boys' grand projects. The majority of Danville has been in their backyard to participate in some kind of show/business/ride. At least one of these was a for-profit venture ("At The Car Wash") and the star-nosed mole left to destroy Tokyo before they could use their earnings to protect him. Surely that helped their bottom line. Of course, plenty of their projects, such as the lemonade stand, did make them actual money.
• Cutting the Knot:
  • One of the puzzles in "We Call it Maze" involves finding out how many jellybeans there are in a jar. While Phineas, Ferb, and Baljeet try to solve the problem mathematically, Buford simply eats all the jellybeans and types in the answer "0".
    Baljeet: Okay, technically, that is correct. But you did not show your work!
    Buford: I will, in about twenty minutes.
  • The episode "Knot My Problem" initially averts this, as the kids recreate the Gordian Knot so that they can be the first to actually untie instead of cutting it. They get most of it, until Candace, after being hit by Doofenshmirtz's -inator, eats the (licorice) ropes.

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