Recap / Phineas And Ferb Terrifying Tri State Trilogy Of Terror

Three tales of terror from Danville.

In the first, Candace is alone in the house. She finds a spell to bring a doll to life, and jokingly tries it out on her Ducky Momo doll. Distracted by her phone call, Candace is oblivious to Ducky Momo now stalking her around the house. Candace finds herself feeling paranoid and as if she's being watched. She freaks out upon seeing Ducky Momo coming after her and runs upstairs. Ducky Momo gets around all the things Candace tries to put into his path and corners her in her bed. Turns out he just wanted a hug and wasn't actually evil because he was never exposed to moonlight.

In the second, Doofenshmirtz builds an inator to attract the Inexplicable Giant Floating Baby Head (*cue thunder*) because touching it will give you three wishes. His first wish is for a glass of iced tea, which arrives unsweetened making him realize he will need to be more specific. His second wish is to "have control over..." and then Perry knocks a bookcase onto his foot, causing him to exclaim "cheese and crackers!" Not discouraged by his wish being wasted, he declares that "the only wasted wish is a wasted wasted wish". He commands the cheese and crackers in his pantry to attack Perry, who eventually defeats them by eating them and summoning mice to help. Doofenshmirtz's realizes that he'll have to be careful with his last wish. He experiments with wording for a bit, before finally settling on "I wish I was the head of the Tri-state Area!". As such, he turns into a literal giant floating head himself as Perry leaves him to his predicament.

In the third, the kids are camping in the backyard and telling scary stories. Phineas finds an entry in the book of terror about how pouring grape juice on a platypus will create an evil purple clone. Buford, of course, immediately tries it out to the other kids' horror. Of course an evil purple clone immediately appears and steals their grape juice to make more clones. The kids try to think of ideas as the purple platypuses rampage through the town. They visit Baljeet's cowboy life coach, who inadvertently gives them the idea to use soap. The soap works, but there's too many evil platypuses. The kids get chased into a grape juice factory, where they get set upon by evil platypuses and ripped to shreds. Except it was actually a story told by Phineas. He gives us the "Hollywood Ending" when the other kids complain, which involves the cowboy life coach riding a unicorn and a dancing box of grape juice.

Tropes:

• Abnormal Ammo: Perry uses toothpicks to shoot down Doofenshmirtz’s flying boxes of crackers.
• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Candace tries to barricade her bedroom door, only to find that Ducky Momo has already gotten inside and she's just blocked herself in with him.
• Alliterative Title: Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror
• Arc Symbol: The titular "weird book" appears in each of the stories.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The Evil Platypus Clones are seen wreaking havoc all over the Tri-State Area, vandalizing police cars, chopping down telephone poles and... playing a game of tennis.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: Pretty much any and every G-rated horror trope is either subverted or deconstructed here. Ducky Momo goes after Candace not because it's evil as Candace assumed, but they simply want a hug (the teddy bear did turn evil, however).
• Body Horror: After touching the Inexplicable Giant Floating Baby Head, the three wishes are represented by Doofenshmirtz's fingers gaining weird little baby heads.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Mr. Macabre breaks the fourth wall by explaining the stories, and later in The Stinger, Rusty Britches does so by encouraging the viewer to read the credits and telling us that the production logo will be coming up.
• Cat Scare: Candace hears something under her bed and when she goes to check it out, she ends up being scared by a cat that comes running out from under it.
  Candace: Hey, we don’t even have a cat.
• Christmas in July: Phineas & Ferb takes place during summer vacation, yet this is the series’ Halloween special. This is lampshaded by Phineas:
  Phineas: Wow, this is such a Halloween thing to happen in the middle of summer.
• Curse: Mr. Macabre puts a curse on the man who said he was going to give him a bad review because he mistook the Macabre Book Mobile for a food truck.
  Macabre: May the ancient mouths of Sumeria feast upon your skinny jeans!
• Door Handle Scare: Ducky Momo jiggling the knob to the backdoor, trying to get in. Although, this wasn’t much of a scare for Candace as she didn’t even notice it was happening.
• Downer Ending: Phineas’ original ending to his story:
  Phineas: And so, our heroes were ripped to shreds and left to die.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: Buford thinks the most unrealistic part about Phineas’ story is the cowboy character, because he doesn’t believe in them.
  Baljeet: You do not believe in cowboys?
  Buford: Have you ever seen one in real life?
• "Eureka!" Moment: Phineas figures out how to take down the Perry clones by listening to one of Rusty Britches’ nonsensical sayings.
• Evil Doppelgänger: Buford creates an evil clone of Perry by pouring grape juice on him.
• Exorcist Head: Ducky Momo does this during the montage in which he’s stalking Candace around the house.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Phineas's story initially ends with all the kids ripped to shreds by evil platypuses.
• Faux Horrific: Dramatic Thunder and lightning strikes as Ducky Momo raises a credit card above his head to unlock the kitchen door, similar to the Hand of Death in slasher movies.
• Framing Device: The three stories are told by a Cryptkeeper-like narrator named Mr. Macabre in his Macabre bookmobile. Later, the third act is revealed to be Phineas telling a story, but then later, it is revealed that the whole episode was Mr. Macabre attempting to get a bank loan for a Macabre bookmobile.
• Gainax Ending: After his friends convince Phineas to change his Downer Ending into a "Hollywood ending," his story ends with Baljeet’s cowboy life coach bursting in to save them while riding a unicorn. Then, an anthropomorphic grape juice box in an officer’s uniform joins them for a Dance Party Ending.
• Good All Along: It turns out the only reason Ducky Momo was following Candace around was because he wanted a hug. The moon was behind a cloud, so the spell brought him to life without turning him evil. Mr. Miggins on the other hand...
• Good Thing You Can Heal: After getting slammed in the door multiple times by Candace, Ducky Momo is left stuck outside with stuffing coming out and one of his eyes dangling from a thread. He quickly heals himself and is back to looking like new.
• Hair-Trigger Sound Effect: There's thunder and lightning every time Dr. Doofenshmirtz says the words "Inexplicable Giant Floating Baby Head".
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Doofenshmirtz gets tricked into wishing for the power to control cheese and crackers, however he then uses this power to attack Perry.
• Here We Go Again!: After Candace finds out that Ducky Momo isn’t evil after all, the moon comes out from behind some clouds and shines on her teddy bear Mr. Miggins, who is looking quite nasty.
• Horror Host: Mr. Macabre
• Inconvenient Itch: After he gets turned into a giant floating head himself, Doofenshmirtz gets an itchy nose and is unable to scratch it.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: Ducky Momo's theme music is played in a creepy minor key as he stalks Candace around the house.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Mr. Macabre introduces the second story as having happened “on a dark and stormy night”
• It's Probably Nothing: Candace blames the door opening by itself on the wind, as Ducky Momo walks in right past her.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Rusty gets attacked by platypuses right as he’s about to share one of his nuggets of southern wisdom.
• Killer Teddy Bear: Candace accidentally brings her Ducky Momo doll to life, which stalks her through the house. Also her teddy bear, who becomes actually evil
• Last-Second Word Swap: Doofenshmirtz tricks the Hair-Trigger Sound Effect by saying "Inexplicable Giant Floating Baby Hhhham Sandwich" instead.
• Literal Genie: The wishes granted by the Inexplicable Giant Floating Baby head are extremely literal.
• Minimalist Cast: The first and second acts are essentially one person shows, as Candace and Doof are the only persons with dialogue in their respective segments. This is also one of the few episodes where Major Monogram doesn't appear.
• Mundane Wish: Dr. Doofenshmirtz uses his first wish on a glass of iced tea. Justified, as he was testing to see if it would even work.
• Nested Story Reveal: It’s revealed that the whole episode was a story being told by Mr. Macabre in order to convince his lender to give him a loan for a book mobile.
• Newhart Phone Call: Stacy does not appear (except for her photo on Candace's phone) nor is heard in Candace's segment, so Candace's conversation with her on the phone is presented this way.
• Noodle Incident: Doofenschmirtz has apparently discovered that there exists a Giant Floating Rest Of The Baby and has no enthusiasm to research it further.
  • Also serves as a Brick Joke in the third segment when Phineas skims through the book: "Make a Doll Come to Life... How to Get Three Wishes... Giant Floating Rest of Baby..."
• "Psycho" Strings: When Perry is attacked by various kinds of cheese, he uses a grater to slash at them with this sound effect playing in the background.
• The Renfield: Mr. Macabre apparently has an assistant named Renfield that tickles him with a feather when he’s trying to do an Evil Laugh.
• Rule of Three: This exchange between Mr. Macabre and his lender:
  Macabre: What if I were to say please?
  Lender: That’s not going to work.
  Macabre: Please?
  Lender: Get. Out.
  Macabre: Pretty please with a cherry on top?
  Lender: A cherry, huh? Okay, but this is the last loan I’m giving you.
• Running Gag: Characters saying “cheese and crackers!” when they’re surprised.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Dr. Doofenshmirtz makes his own dramatic music: “BUM! BUM! BUMMMM!”
• Scary Flashlight Face: Happens several times in the episode, but most comically when Mr. Macabre does one while asking for a loan for his Macabre Book Mobile.
• Schmuck Bait: Doofenshmirtz asks Perry to lean in to look at the “Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror” book he was reading and slams it closed, trapping him between the pages.
  Doofenshmirtz: I’m surprised you fell for that old "slam the platypus in a book" trick.
• Screen Tap: When the episode’s title shows up on the screen in bloody font, Mr. Macabre takes a squeegee and cleans it off.
• Send in the Clones: After the first evil clone of Perry is created, that clone then makes even more clones by pouring grape juice on himself. Soon, there’s an army of evil platypuses.
• Special Guest: David Koechner voices Rusty Britches and Alex Hirsch of Gravity Falls fame voices Officer Concord the Juice Time Juice Box Flavor Cop.
• Shout-Out:
  • Candace's Ducky Momo doll coming alive and turning evil is a very similar plot to Child’s Play, complete with an evil spell in another language.
  • The third story, with evil platypuses that reproduce when you pour grape juice on them, is a nod to Gremlins.
  • When Isabella sees the evil platypus clone run off with Buford's grape juice, she suggests they "Take off and nuke the site from orbit; it's the only way to be sure."
  Buford: Cheese and crackers!
  • Isabella says, "They're here" like Carol Anne in Poltergeist when the gang approaches the evil platypus clones in the grape juice factory.
• Single Substance Manipulation: Doofenshmirtz has three wishes from the Giant Floating Baby Head which he intends to use to take over the tri-state area. However, he is interrupted in the middle of making a wish and ends up with power over cheese and crackers.
• Special Edition Title: This episode has a Halloween-themed version of the opening with spooky details added.
  Candace: Mo-om! Phineas and Ferb are making a Halloween special!
• Spraying Drink from Nose: Discussed. When Candace calls Stacy to tell her that Ducky Momo came to life and is chasing her, she has to stop to tell Stacy to quit laughing and that she can hear the milk spraying out of her nose.
• Thing-O-Matic: The Inexplicable-Floating-Baby-Head-Attractinator. It’s just a machine that shakes a set of keys.
• Unexpectedly Real Magic: Candace is messing around with a book of spells (“The Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror” to be exact) and finds one that can bring dolls to life. Not believing that it’ll work, she uses it on Ducky Momo and soon finds out just how real it is.
• Vignette Episode: This is the only half-hour episode done in three parts instead of the usual two. It is also the only episode where the three separate storylines (the Candace storyline, the Doof & Perry story, and the Phineas and the gang storyline) do not interconnect with each other.
• You Know What They Say: Rusty Britches has many nonsensical proverbs at his disposal:
  Rusty: Well, it’s like old Pap used to say, ‘If your horse starts drawing a bath instead of a wagon, it’s time to change the welcome mat.

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