'Phineas And Ferb' Revival Finally Releases Opening Song And Reveals Guest Stars

Have mercy! Meap has a new mustache!

Ice cream cones and cherry soda dripping down your chin. It’s summer, man where do we begin? The world’s next best story is waiting to be told. The return of Disney Channel’s Phineas and Ferb is just a couple of weeks away, where after a two-episode premiere on Thursday, June 5 on Disney Channel, they and eight after will be put on Disney+ on Friday, June 6. Wednesday saw the release of a Variety feature that served as a victory lap on the comeback after a decade away. Embedded in it was the first four minutes of the first episode “Summer Block Party”.

The excerpt includes the opening musical number, “Summer Is Starting Right Now”, finally making its public debut after playing for D23 and New York Comic Con audiences last year. The clip opens on the logo, transitioning to Phineas and Ferb finishing their story on what they did on their summer vacation by recounting the original series finale on its ninth and final monthly installment. Of course, that’s mean it’s time for the next summer vacation, which Phineas reminds his classmates (Buford, Baljeet, Isabella, Irving and Gretchen also in his and Ferb’s class) through the song that there’s still the hours post-dismissal that count. Wait do kids not get last day half days anymore? Upon dismissal, the rest of the student body joins in, including Ginger Hirano and Django. A relapsed Doofenshmirtz back in his old ways gets a line and Candace does too. With a video presentation of some of the original series adventures, they’re ready to top it. Perry is called back from a Robo scorpion mission that took up the entire school year (although let’s hold onto “The OWCA Files” and Milo Murphy’s Law because we should) and put back on Doofenshmirtz duty. The kids are brainstorming ideas for the summer kickoff block party and at Candace’s encouragement head to work on all of them.

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Now, we all know Phineas and Ferb’s journey back had plenty of onscreen presence, from the Milo Murphy’s Law crossover to Doofenshmirtz’s becoming a supporting character for the rest of that season to the second movie Candace Against the Universe to references on Hamster and Gretel, but it’s the social presence of the show, its songs, and co-creator and voice of Doofenshmirtz, Dan Povenmire, who has over 9 million followers across his platforms. And now, Disney has even provided numbers: according to internal streaming data, the show has been streamed 650 million hours on Disney+ globally to date. In anticipation of the revival, Phineas and Ferb launched a new Streams channel on Disney+ this month, the second series to receive one wholly dedicated after The Simpsons, and is already showing significant growth. Even Nielsen came in with 12.6 billion hours watched across linear and streaming over the franchise’s lifetime dating back to the original post-High School Musical 2 premiere of the first episode “Rollercoaster” in August 2007, which was treated as a sneak preview.

“They were like, ‘What was the last big seller we had?’” Povenmire says. “And it was Phineas and Ferb. And they were like, why did we stop doing that?” Adds his partner co-creator Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, the voice of Major Monogram: “Nobody could answer that question effectively.” Povenmire jokes that if Disney wasn’t making more official stuff the bootlegs would sell in its place. “Look all over social media, there’s all sorts of people in this platypus onesie that’s obviously Perry the Platypus,” he says. “They may just be leaving money on the table by not doing more of the show.” Marsh once again added “The great joy for me was when they came back and said, ‘we’re not looking for you to reinvent this, or evolve it, just whatever you were doing, do more of those’. That was really appealing.”

And more of the same they have. Many of the original writers have returned, while the cast as we last saw them, taking into account David Errigo Jr.’s replacing of Thomas Sangster as Ferb after the original series, have done so as well, meaning Bobbi Gaylor is back as Buford, Maulik Pancholy back as Baljeet and Richard O’Brien as Lawrence. Vincent Martella as Phineas Flynn, Ashley Tisdale as Candace Flynn, Caroline Rhea as Linda Flynn-Fletcher, Dee Bradley Baker as Perry the Platypus and Alyson Stoner as Isabella Garcia-Shapiro were all previously confirmed, while it’s worth mentioning Tyler Mann’s return as Carl the Intern because he’s basically the one voice yet to be mentioned. “We put together a writer’s room that was a good blend of people who’d done the job before, who knew all the characters, with some young folks who are huge fans of the show,” says Marsh — and that even includes one of their voice actors, Olivia Olson, who plays Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, Heinz’s daughter. “In fact, we have one of the new writers who actually knows more about what was on which show when. We used to go to the wiki fan site. Now it’s just easier to ask him.”

Povenmire and Marsh were excited to explore more of the show’s secondary characters, including Baljeet and Buford. Carl will be getting his backstory in “More Than an Intern”, where he tries to help Perry stop Doof while working three other part-time jobs. Stacy (Hirano, Candace’s best friend voiced by Kelly Hu) learns more about Perry’s double life as Agent P, revealed to her down the stretch of the original run too close to the end to actually do anything with, but now they have the room. In “Agent T (for Teen)”, Stacy takes on an agent role with OWCA to rescue Perry from some evil scientists. There’s an episode where a large, inanimate object has what they promise is a “very meaningful storyline,” including a song by Michael Bublé. And indeed, we’re getting that third “Chronicles of Meap” story, “Meap Me in St. Louis”, where it seems Meap gets a new mustache giving him the voice of John Stamos. But of course, they aren’t the only guest stars. Alan Cumming was the first to be revealed quite a while back, and he’ll be playing the haberdasher, where in an episode by his character’s name, he’s paid a visit after Doof turns into a Mothman and eats Perry’s hat. Ted Lasso fans will be treated to Brendan Hunt as Dr. Shamai and Cristo Fernández as himself. Elsewhere there’s Megan Rapinoe as herself, Jonathan Banks as a driving instructor, Lake Bell as Villevielle, Leslie Jones as Alliance Commander, Anna Faris as Samantha Sweetwater, Meghan Trainor as Vending Machine Prime, Kelly Dempsey as a receptionist, Rhys Darby as Lomond and Ruth Negga as Lieutenant Zarna.

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Sources: Variety, Disney Press