Saturday, March 5, 2011

On the Air: Phineas & Ferb (2007)

ABC' Saturday morning lineup has been frozen, for lack of a better term, the last few years, as Disney has refused to make any significant changes, especially with all of the shows in the ABC Kids block now out of production. ABC lost the rights to the Power Rangers franchise at the end of last season, and turned over the air time to affiliates, rather than import more series from Disney Channel or DisneyXD that could stand the wider network exposure.

One of those shows is Phineas & Ferb, which began as a sneak preview in 2007, then began a regular run a year or so later. The title characters are a pair of enterprising step-brothers who find creative ways to use their time during summer vacation, much to the consternation & frustration of Phineas' control freak sister, Candace (Ashley Tisdale, "High School Musical"). Meanwhile, the boys' pet platypus, Perry, is secretly a secret agent for an animal-centric government agency, battling the bumbling Dr. Doofenshmirtz. In one episode, Perry, who rarely talks, had his mind swapped with Candace's. How Disney could not see the ratings potential in airing Phineas in place of, say, The Replacements, I have no idea.

With Spring Break right around the corner, here's a sample of the episode, "Hawaiian Vacation":



The show's theme is performed by the rock group, Bowling For Soup ("1985"), in case you're wondering. The closest the boys have come to being on ABC is appearing in short skits during college football programming, which included Phineas interacting with sportscaster Brent Musburger. Maybe Disney should take a deeper look into shaking up their stale ABC Kids block, preferably yesterday......

Rating: A.

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