While the boys and their friends create hot air balloons and have a race, Candace is inspired by a train engineer's attitude and decides to finally "give up" busting her brothers. Meanwhile, Doofenshmirtz builds an inator that will hatch a dodo egg, thinking it will be a fierce, rampaging monster when it hatches, only to discover the exact opposite.
Tropes in this episode:
- 10-Minute Retirement: Candace overhears Glenda saying "give up" a lot, inspiring her to give up busting her brothers and feel relaxed from it. It doesn't last long however, as upon helping the train get up Gearheart Summit, she learns her lesson and vows to no longer give up, thus reigniting her busting.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not stated whether Glenda forgot to bring coal or whether or not she lied to motivate Candace.
- Bait-and-Switch: The Farmer's Wife is mad at her husband for opening an oddity museum without any oddities. When something crashes through the ceiling, it is assumed to be the dodo, but it is actually Doof, who just looks at them and goes, "What?", before the dodo finally lands on him.Farmer's Wife: There it is!
- Blind Without 'Em: It is revealed that Linda wears contact lenses and is waiting for her new prescription to arrive, so Betty Jo gives her one of her spares, but her vision doesn't improve. It is so bad that she believes they are playing Gin Rummy when they are actually playing King's Corners, and she says hello to the boys when they are actually balloon heads with forced perspective versions of their clothes on racks.
- Broken Record: Candace's thoughts of Glenda after hearing "give up" over and over.Glenda: Give up! Blah blah! Give up! Blah blah blah blah blah! Give up! Blah blah blah! Give up!
- Bubble Pipe: Glenda has a corncob pipe, but when she blows into it, because this is a kids' show, bubbles come out of it instead of smoke.
- Comically Missing the Point: Candace's takeaway from Glenda's speech about not giving up is that she should give up. When Glenda lampshades this, Candace points out that she did use the phrase "give up" a lot.
- Connected All Along: Remember the Wilkins boys? The pump trolley troublemakers from "Just Passing Through" voiced by The Dukes of Hazzard who share their names with The Wright Brothers? Turns out, they are Glenda's sons.
- Emergency Cargo Dump: A variant of this occurs when the train slows down after running low on coal. When Candace learns that the train is going to be torn apart and sold for scrap, Candace decides to dismantle the cars on the train and use the wood for fuel.
- Played straight when Buford throws a stuffed marlin out of his and Baljeet's balloon when it starts to sink. Unfortunately, the marlin bounces off a tree limb and pokes itself into the top half of the balloon, forcing them to abandon it.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Doofenshmirtz's scheme hinges on the logic that, because they're extinct like dinosaurs, dodo birds must be as dangerous and vicious as dinosaurs like T-Rexes. He's disappointed by the results (he's not wrong in there being a genetic relation, but he would have been better off either actually researching dodos or figuring out how to bring back actual dinosaurs).
- Faceship: Phineas, Ferb, and Buford's balloons are shaped like their respective faces, while Isabella's is shaped like a heart.
- Perry the Platypus also has a balloon. Unlike the others, it's shaped like his entire body, not just his face.
- Failed a Spot Check:
- Linda actually sees Phineas and Ferb's balloons, but due to her poor eyesight combined with them conveniently placed behind replicas of their clothes on a rack, she thinks they're the actual boys and walks away.
- Linda and Candace's grandmother both fail to notice that Candace has dismantled their train car.
Linda: Do you notice anything different here?
Grandma: Well, yeah, everything's half off at the gift shop! - Impairment Shot: Linda's view of Phineas and Ferb's balloons placed directly behind their clothes on a rack, which lets her assume it's really them.
- Incorrect Animal Noise: Real dodos made a "doo doo" call, not the "narg narg" call the one in the episode makes.
- The Last Dance: A non-human example. Glenda's train is being decommissioned and today is the last ride, so she uses the opportunity to finally go up Gearheart Summit, which she had never been able to do before.
- The Last Title: The episode title itself.
- Me's a Crowd: Candace's "Give Up" number climaxes with a cherub choir consisting of clones of herself.
- Metaphorgotten: A variation. During the outro of "Give Up", Candace says the opposite of various popular sayings, such as:
- "That's right! I never even suited up, folks!"
- "I threw the baby out with the bathwater!"
- "I forgot the Alamo!"
- "I'm not even going for the bronze!"
- Offscreen Teleportation: When Isabella sees Phineas trying to fix the loose steering wheel, he stops mid-sentence and looks back, and the camera pans to reveal Isabella somehow got into his balloon.
- Opening Shout-Out: Phineas and Ferb finally find a dodo bird. Ferb claims finding Frankenstein's brain is next (which was in Buford's balloon), but they kinda already found it in "The Monster of Phineas and Ferbenstein."
- The Power of Apathy: Candace decides to give up, having an entire musical number where she and a choir of her sings about it as she walks around encouraging other people to give up. Giving up makes her uncharacteristically relaxed.
- Pun-Based Title: The title is a pun on The Monkees' hit, "Last Train to Clarksville".
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Candace in the end: "Oh, I give up."
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: When the train starts to run out of coal while going up Gearheart summit, after successfully reaching the top, Candace assumes there actually was coal in the box Glenda was sitting on, and she gave up on purpose to teach Candace a lesson to not give up. Possibly subverted by Glenda:Glenda: I coulda forgot the coal!...I'm old!
- Shout-Out:
- The title is a reference to the song by The Monkees, "Last Train to Clarksville".
- When the train finally makes it over the pass, Candace chants, "I knew we could, I knew we could, I knew we could!"
- Special Guest: Joan Cusack voices Glenda.
- Status Quo Is God: In the end after helping the train get up Gearheart summit, Candace decides she won't give up on busting her brothers, having learned her lesson.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A noted part of this episode is that Linda doesn't have her contact lenses and is practically blind without them. Grandma loans Linda her spare pair of eyeglasses, but since both women would have different prescriptions, when Linda puts the glasses on she comments that everything is now just a different kind of blurry.
- Touché: Glenda's only response to Candace pointing out that her speech about not giving up uses the phrase "give up" a lot, which is why Candace concluded what she did, is that the former did in fact say it a lot.
- What's a Henway?:Isabella: Whatcha doin'?
Phineas: About five knots.
Isabella: Thought so. I'm doin' six! See you at the summit, slowpokes! - You Know What They Say: This awkward conversation between Lawrence and Grandpa Clyde.Grandpa Clyde: So, uh, how's the antique business?
Lawrence: Oh, it's just fine. You know they have a saying in the antique business.
(Beat)
Grandpa Clyde: Mmm, what is it?
Lawrence: What is what?
Grandpa Clyde: The saying? That you use in the antique business?
Lawrence: Oh, I don't use it. But there is a saying.
