#for some reason we have a LOT of pride themed dog toys and its very common for people to buy a lot of them at once

[grandemasterpyrokitsune]

Happy 10th!

The time has finally come to talk about why PaF is so important. Really, anyone could do this anytime, but this date alone has a significance to it. To any of my followers who don’t know(and will sit through this brick wall of text to find out), today is the 10th anniversary of the sneak peek premiere of Phineas and Ferb; technically, February 2008 is when it officially premiered around the world, but I’m sure that everyone else in the fandom is eager to kick off the celebration today. I’m sure this will turn out to be a multi paged thesis, so I’ll try to split this up into parts.

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PART 1: Best Day Ever

Anyway, ten years ago today marks the 10th anniversary of Phineas and Ferb. This show is considered an old soul of sorts, enjoying a long lifespan of 8 years, tons of merchandising and entertainment opportunities, the admiration and respect of many celebrities, and a very long summer. As formulaic as it appears, this show has more history to it than it appears to have.

PART 2:Busted

(This part details history of Disney’s TV animation ventures and basically life before PaF. Feel free to skip if you’re clued in to its history.)

The 2000s were considered a lousy time for TV animation . While many say it's the "worst" decade for it(whether worldwide or just in North America), I'd call it a transitional period. The 90s was an exciting a refreshing time for TV animation where the stories were driven by the creators, not toy designers. I would generally consider it more of the same from the Golden Age of Animation but more modern. The 2000s had newer technologies to work with and perfect while the ‘90s mainly just worked w/ cel animation and did it so well. Flash and CG were in their infancy, so I assume the software got a bit more attention than the stories. Primarily, companies were just looking to work with more cost effective options to make their shows with. It was a rough period,but far from the worst. Anyway, this kind of TV animation is still a relatively new type of animation. Disney were the first ones to spearhead this movement and they made three or four blocks of new cartoon for different generations of kids. 

The first block(formally known as Disney Afternoon)was ushered in with three pilots; Fluppy Dogs, Wuzzles and Ducktales. While the former two merely tested the waters and the latter was the only one successful, all three were made with stellar animation and complex storytelling for what everyone knew as entertainment for kids. After the success of Ducktales, Disney was brimming with pride and made seven years worth of cartoons for this block. Even if some cartoons didn't strike people the right way, they were still wildly memorable. While their D.C. original programming generally doesn't get more than short compilation discs, the DA 'toons get full series releases digitally and through DVD. This prompted to launch One Saturday Morning on ABC. 

With the acquisition of Nicktoon Doug, Disney paired it up with Recess and Pepper Ann, chasing after the success they had a few years before. The aforementioned series were the highest rated on the block while other series are more obscure and buried by Disney. They are acknowledged as good but were overshadowed by 24/7 network like Nick and Cartoon Network bringing a lot more cartoons to a lot more times of the day. 

Disney started to notice how much of an animated surplus they had and that they air their cartoons for weeks on end. Thus, Toon Disney was founded,which became a more visible hub for the cartoon blocks of the 90s and all other ages of Disney. At one point,they started airing Sonic the Hedgehog and making their own co-productions under their most popular TV cartoon brand, Jetix. As extensive as these programs got, they were being seen by fewer and fewer people. 

To overlap slightly with the end of OSM, Disney started making more cartoons for the Channel’s demographic. Shows like Kim Possible, Lilo and Stitch, and American Dragon:Jake Long began airing and netting extraordinary ratings. In fact, Disney Channel was probably most successful in the early 2000s. It found its new groove if you will with its signature style of tween/teen sitcom and animated series. The former seem to have more clout on the network after the premiere of Lizzie McGuire,solidifying the formula. Similar to OSM, many cartoons were more or less not acknowledged the way they were 10 years before. Since sitcoms dominated because they were faster and cheaper to make, it seemed that the outcome was better. Over the course of the period (c. 2002-2008) they released the smallest selection of DC cartoons ever while the sitcoms got more and more press. It’s unclear what Disney was going to do next, but soon summer of 2007 came along...

PART 3: Gotta Make Summer Last

Disney Channel aired the premiere of High School Musical 2 and decided to air the first episode of PaF afterwards. As a result HSM 2 netted 17.6 million views and PaF 10.8 million views. We could easily deduce that eager HSM fans made up the clout of viewers, but that’s not to say the show couldn’t prove interesting to viewers anyway. In fact, Disney delayed its original 2007 release in the US to release it in February in multiple countries. Places such as Latin America, Brazil, Japan, France and Portugal got to experience the show right along with us. International promotion was rolled out which only netted PaF even more press. It became one of Japan’s most popular Western cartoons, it got wild promotion in Latin America and most of Europe(all around) made excellent dubs and gave it the lion’s share of time slots. This was a pretty good outcome all things considered.

Thus the cycle began. First came DVDs and games, then came interviews and guest spots, than movies, Disney park attractions, live events and then omnipresence.... scratch that last one, but you get the idea. The TV Movie itself was more or less the peak of the show. It remains the 10th most watched DCOM premiere of all time and the show remains one of the longest running animated series of the main Disney networks(DC, XD, and Junior). I think the last time Disney mass merchandised a TV cartoon this much was Lilo and Stitch(last one not already a franchise was Doug or Recess). The show is even part of the Marvel and Star Wars universes(non canonically of course)Even then, Disney elevated the show to new heights. It had everything Disney wanted; likeable protagonists, innocent motifs, enough songs to last for days, episodic adventures, and tons of mass marketing appeal. This simple show connected people across the world(if the Tumblr/DA fandoms for PaF were any indicator)through its mult-faceted music and rudimentary themes. While this show raised the bar, it also left the bar to be raised another notch by...

PART 4: Meet the Man of Mystery

In 2012, Gravity Falls premiered as a sneak peek behind DCOM Let it Shine. While not an instant ratings hit, it quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed Disney TV cartoons of all time. The spotlight quickly began to fade on the smartest stepbrothers around as new episodes were coming infrequently. While the numbers were still big enough to make Teen Titans Go mutter in awed jealousy, it still was becoming less of a force on the main network. However on Disney XD, it was still Adored by the Network. I remember how I felt watching day long marathons several times a month, sometimes without reason. Despite its mass appeal, Phineas and Ferb could be classified easily as a boy targeted program due to the protagonists and the subject matter. Until XD found its groove, they would continue to spam PaF for what felt like eons. To this day, they still occasionally air it in primetime slots.

The way I wrote this last part may sound cynical,jaded, and/or pessimistic. However, it’s written that way to emphasize another point. After the success of this series, Disney went from relying on a few filler shows to releasing a new show basically every year and truly giving them all the promotion they could. While not all series got the treatment we all wanted them to have, a lot more of them have come and gone to try to re-innovate and reinvigorate the brand. Phineas and Ferb (more or less) singlehandedly convinced Disney TV to put more stock in their animation division. Don’t know how many Fallers know this but Disney actually asked Alex Hirsch to make his pilot for them after seeing his work. They were actively seeking out new talent and new stories. Honestly, while Kick Buttowski and Pickle and Peanut got a lot of flac in the day, they were(to an extent) a sign that the House of mouse was trying to experiment and make something they liked to see. The latter especially seemed like a personal pet project of XD’s off sense of humor. 

I’m sure the networks would have reinvented their cartoons eventually, but PAF brought it out in the best way.  In a way the boys were kind of dc celebrities in their heyday. When you can summon a bunch of popular characters from the live action sitcoms to dance for possibly hours for a two minute music video in the name of a teal platypus made out of digital ink and pixels, that’s pretty special indeed.

CONCLUSION

Phineas and Ferb is my favorite animated series,explaining why I can info dump mostly from memory as I have in this post. While many have told me that it’s nothing special, to me it stands out as the brightest diamond in the rough and a shining testament to the duality of animation in general. Ten years from now, I hope that I can write better when I must wax sentimentality about my favorite cartoon show. Thanks to the cast, crew, creators, and fans for making summer last. See you at the 20th!