Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!

"Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!", broadcast outside the United States and Canada as "At Last", is the forty-fifth broadcast episode of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. The episode aired in the United States as the premiere of the show's second season on February 16, 2009. The episode follows Phineas and Ferb finally being caught by their mother and sent to reform school, where a harsh and cruel sergeant attempts to destroy their imagination by sitting them down to a commercial about good boys that mind-controlled them. Candace goes to save them after she sees a news report about their horrible condition.

The episode's story was written by the writing team Martin Olson and Bobby Gaylor and constructed into storyboard by Jon Colton Barry and Piero Piluso. Dan Povenmire, co-creator of Phineas and Ferb, directed it. The episode is titled "At Last!" in several countries, such as the United Kingdom. Talk show personality Geraldo Rivera and veteran actor Clancy Brown guest starred as television reporter Morty Williams and the school sergeant, respectively.

Episode summary

Phineas and Ferb rebuild their mother Linda's station wagon into a flying car and build a giant tower for landing and driving on. When Candace drags Linda to see it, she finally sees it and yells at them for being unsafe and doing all of this without her permission. Phineas confesses that they've been doing similar stuff all summer causing Linda to become awestruck and apologize to Candace for not believing her after finally discovering the truth. When Lawrence sees the scene he suggests forgiving Phineas and Ferb when they reveal that they thought they had permission to do it and Candace suggests several punishments and Lawrence agrees, but a bolt they accidentally left off the tower causes it to collapse and destroy half of the house, enraging Linda and Lawrence and Candace becoming happy that she has finally busted her brothers. Fearing for the boys' safety, the boys' parents send them to the "Smile Away Reform School" unaware that the place is a prison where kids are brainwashed with films that show them not to be creative or imaginative. They also are made to "Think inside the box," which is a form of solitary confinement where kids that show creativity must spend an hour in the box. For example, Phineas and Ferb are imprisoned in the box when they show creativity by engaging in actions such as painting pictures, sculpting the Thinker, making an Eiffel Tower out of silverware, etc. The sergeant manages to erase the boys' minds by brainwashing them with films in order to remove their creativity.

Candace, meanwhile, enjoys life without her brothers to bother her, hanging out with her friends and doing different fun activities with them. A few days later Candace is bored and tired after doing so much, she watches TV with her best friend Stacy. Candace gets haunted by sad consequences of her busting Phineas and Ferb and realizes that she has truly loved her brothers for their genius skills and did not realize it.

A changed woman, Candace decides to look up the Reform school; she and Stacy stumble upon a news telecast by reporter Morty Williams about the reform school Phineas and Ferb are at, which prompts her to go and save them with help from her crush, Jeremy. Candace and him use Phineas and Ferb's flying car to get there, but on the way crash it and walk the rest of the way. Once there, they try simply walking in as a Trojan Horse, both failing; finally, they disguise themselves as Morty Williams and his camera man and the sergeant lets them enter. He begins happily ranting to them how good he has done with brainwashing the kids and when they find Phineas and Ferb, Candace tries to secretly ask them to escape with her and Jeremy.

They refuse, so Candace and Jeremy trick the sergeant into locking himself in a closet as they escape and forcibly help Phineas and Ferb escape also. When realizing that he has been tricked the sergeant has guards patrol the prison yards and seal the exits. The sergeant spots Phineas, Ferb, Candace and Jeremy escaping and gives pursuit.

They reach the cliff where they parked the flying car and they see Mom and Dad come. Candace admits she's always been proud of her brothers, snapping them out of their doctrine and getting back to their genius skills. But by the time they prepare to fix it, the sergeant has arrived and reveals his scheme to put Candace and Jeremy in the reform school with Phineas and Ferb to punish them for escaping. Suddenly, Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus interrupt with their seemingly never-ending fight, which causes the sergeant to be knocked off the cliff to his death. Perry and Doofenshmritz then disappear and the kids' parents show up. Following this, a series of strange events occur, such as the parents turning into marionettes controlled by a giant Baljeet, then Baljeet turning into one as well being controlled by the strange talking zebra and Jeremy proposing to Candace as Candace discovers that she was dreaming all along.

It turned out that Candace was dreaming, and none of the events in the episode really happened. At breakfast, Candace explains the dream to her family, even talking about Perry's secret identity. This makes the family guess that every time Perry goes away, he goes to defeat Dr. Doofenshmirtz. With Perry's ID exposed, an army of OWCA (Organization Without a Cool Acronym) agents and Major Monogram burst into the house arresting the Fletchers to be mind-erased of the whole thing; as Monogram tells Perry that they must relocate him to a new home as a result of his cover being blown.

Just then, a whimpering Perry wakes up in the true real world in Phineas's bed. Revealing that everything was all just a bad dream and Phineas says "Oh hey Perry...looks like you just had a nightmare. Well, it's over, you can go to sleep now." Phineas goes back to sleep and then Perry goes back to sleep.

Production

Series co-founder Dan Povenmire directed "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted".

"Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" was written by Bobby Gaylor and Martin Olson as a story, but the storyboards were adapted and constructed by Jon Colton Barry and Piero Piluso.^[1] Robert F. Hughes and Zac Moncrief as well are credited for additionally writing for the episode.^[2] Dan Povenmire, the show's co-creator and executive producer, directed the episode.^[3]

The episode is titled "At Last" in several different countries, such as the United Kingdom.^[4] Latin America as well labels the episode name in its end credits for the episode, despite entitling it "Al Fin;"^[2] however, "Al Fin" literally translates to "At Last."^[5]

Geraldo Rivera guest starred as the voice of investigative talk show host Morty Williams. Clancy Brown, known for his work in The Shawshank Redemption, provided the voice of the drill sergeant.^[6] "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" was originally broadcast in America as the premiere of season two on Presidents' Day, February 16, 2009 on Disney XD,^[7] at 4:30 PM Eastern/Pacific Time.^[6] It was rated TV-G^[8] and followed by first season reruns aired in a marathon.^[7]

Cultural references

The scene where Phineas and Ferb are strapped to seats and have their eyes forced open to watch films that attempt to destroy their imagination is a direct parody of the film A Clockwork Orange; in the latter, a young man is held down in the same fashion, being forced to watch acts of violence to rid himself of his own violent tendencies.^[9] While Candace and Jeremy are driving the "Flying Car of the Future, Today," a riff from the Back to the Future theme plays in the background.^[9] The scene where Candace wakes up and discovers that busting Phineas and Ferb and rescuing them was all just a dream is a reference to Pam Ewing waking up and discovering that her husband, Bobby is killed was all just a dream from the television series, Dallas. Even Perry had the same reference.

Reception

When the episode broadcast on Disney Channel on March 13, 2009, it garnered a total of 3.7 million viewers, 1.4 million of them ages 9–14. It was the series second most watched telecast, behind only "Flop Starz," and was the top-rated in Kids 6-11 in almost 6 months, ranking in Phineas and Ferb's top four most watched in the category. Moreover, it was the day's most watched in Tweens 9-14 and Kids 6-11 and the most watched for cable television in total viewers.^[10]

Matt Blum of Wired wrote about the episode, "if it’s any indication, the second season will be even more brilliant than the first season was." Blum as well praised the appearance of Clancy Brown as a guest actor.^[7] One of the songs in the episode, "Little Brothers" was voted #4 on Phineas and Ferb's Musical Cliptastic Countdown.^[11]

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Phineas and Ferb Get Busted

• "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" at TV.com
• Phineas and Ferb Get Busted on Phineas and Ferb Wiki, an external wiki
• Official Phineas and Ferb website