Why Phineas and Ferb Ended

so i don't think it's a stretch to say that phineas and ferb is one of the biggest animated tv series in the history of disney television animation right up there with ducktales kim possible and gravity falls in terms of its legacy and impact on the animation industry as a whole but unlike those series there wasn't a lot of fanfare around the finale of phineas and ferb while the last day of summer is a wonderful episode and one of my favorite specials in the show's entire run if you ask most fans they'll tell you that the one where they went to college was the last one but why does no one remember phineas and ferb's last episode and of course the other major question why did phineas and ferb end in the first place let's dive into the strange situation that was the ending of phineas and ferb [Music] today's episode is brought to you by expressvpn go to expressvpn.com dimension to get three months free on a year-long subscription so in order to understand phineas and ferb's ending you also have to take a look at how disney traditionally treated its animated series throughout its history there was a strange rule in place called the 65 episode rule at disney tva for a long time throughout the 1990s and early 2000s essentially guaranteeing that a show would be canceled after 65 episodes or about three seasons while this didn't apply to early shows created with the intent to be primed for syndication as those shows would often have to have close to 100 episodes this applied to disney's live action and animated series for a long time why exactly well even if a show was popular 65 episodes meant that shows were easy to rerun when scheduling 65 episodes fit perfectly into 13 five day a week slots allowing a full rerun of the series to fit quite neatly in a quarter of a year this allowed for a clean rotation of shows on the schedule and so despite any given show's popularity it just made more sense for the executives to cut off each show after three seasons some of the biggest exceptions to this rule included shows based on disney feature animation films such as timon and pumbaa goof troop aladdin adventures of wonderland dumbo's circus and a few other extremely notable series for the channel such as darkwing duck ducktales and just barely gargoyles but fans of disney channel shows well uh they weren't happy about this rule so many shows during this era were cancelled at the height of their popularity simply because the executives wanted everything to fit in this perfect box for scheduling shows like recess tailspin quack pack lizzie mcguire even stevens and many others that i'm not as familiar with had their lives cut short by disney's scheduling department and that's on studio leadership however one show from the early 2000s changed everything the fan demand for this show to live on beyond the 65 episode rule was incredible and unlike anything disney had encountered before before the prevalence of smartphones and social media trends the fans banded together to flood disney tv's offices with letter after letter demanding the show be continued and emails oh yes so many emails at the end of the day disney couldn't ignore how popular kim possible was so the drama broke so many records for disney and showed the demand for the show was there to go beyond 65 episodes and here's where we get to the real reason disney continues to make shows merchandise remember that disney likes merchandise money kim possible sold lots of merch and so it got a fourth season breaking the 65 episode rule for all time but from that point on disney had a new problem it was now easier to cancel their shows before they hit 65 episodes if they felt the show wasn't doing well or if the executives just didn't feel like making merchandise even if the show was popular that's something they still struggle with today but that brings us to phineas and ferb this show was designed from the beginning to be a franchise for disney once it was greenlit as it was created in collaboration with disney channel worldwide things like album releases plush toys and so much more were all created from the start to support the show and increase its popularity the first episode aired immediately after the highly anticipated high school musical 2. and as certain someone me is voicing one of the characters i'm the voice of canis fyi and the rest of the first half of season one debuted in a special event known as february in 2008 with a new episode nearly every day no it's not february it's phineas in february and it only grew more popular from there [Music] phineas and ferb was a cultural juggernaut from the release of season one kids and adults alike enjoyed it and the songs were so popular and easily accessible on physical media and disney decided to capitalize on it further they ordered season two season three across the second dimension take two with phineas and ferb a theme park experience walk around characters live shows video games you name it the show flew past the 65 episode rule before you could say and then it came time for season four which disney officially announced on august 25th 2011. work on the season began on november 9th 2011 but here's the problem disney had already made enough regular phineas and ferb episodes to do reruns for a good while so what direction did they decide to take the show for its fourth season special episodes since the show spent three seasons doing mostly the standard formula season 4 took the show in strange new directions with episodes like primal parry sidetracked mission marvel the clumpaloon ultimatum and returned to the second dimension these episodes were bolder wackier and often much more self-referential than the early seasons and in my opinion this direction was perfect season 4 is above and away my personal favorite season of the show but the final episode produced for the regular order of season 4 was a special designed to be the emotional finale for the core phineas and verb characters actor 8. ugh i'm running out of time ferb i gotta choose a school this episode was teased on twitter by dan and swampy for years and the hype for it was immeasurable while many have mixed feelings about the episode overall now there's no doubt that its impact on the series and how people felt after growing up with the show was great it seems like only yesterday we were drawing our first doodles of these kids i know it's it's a sweet episode but it's ridiculous it's really it's just a cartoon but here's the thing disney was in a tough spot when stan and swampy finished act your age they couldn't really make up their minds you see production on season 4 had run through 2013 but instead of releasing episodes as they were finished disney aired season 4 very slowly starting on december 12 2012 and going from there randomly dropping episodes on any day that they felt like it the reason well they were waiting to greenlight a fifth season based on the merch numbers to see if they wanted to invest in more merchandise for the series the problem with that though is stopping work on an animated series is incredibly difficult if disney put phineas and ferb on pause to wait for the numbers to come in most of the show's core staff would have to find new jobs and then if phineas and ferb did come back at some point it wouldn't be the same and it would be expensive to re-staff plus the backdoor pilot known as doof 101 had been passed on and was included as one of the final regular length episodes for the series so without wanting to lose all of the phineas and ferb crew but also not confident enough to renew the show or pick up the spin-off disney decided to play to their season 4 strategy so far instead of cancellation phineas and ferb was greenlit for 5 hour long specials big bombastic events that were easily marketable for the channel to draw in droves of viewers to witness their high concept high stakes or simply highly specialized stories of course dan and swampy were up to the challenge but they were also concerned that they might not get a chance to end the series properly especially with disney seeming very hesitant about picking up a fifth season while brainstorming ideas for the five hour long specials dan and swampy came up with an idea what if we made one of these specials the series finale our last day of summer so they pitched it to the disney executives who were actually okay with the idea they only had two stipulations for the team one no characters could die or move away as that would interfere with any future stories and two they had to make the finale in such a way that disney would be able to make more if they wanted to basically they wanted to have their cake and eat it too here have a finale but we still need to be able to make season five if we want to in like 10 years but for dan and swampy they were totally down with those guidelines after all if they ever wanted to tell more stories in the summer they could just you know go back to the original summer like in candace against the universe or even tell stories afterwards such as the phineas and ferb effect in milo murphy's law but anyways after much deliberation here are the five specials the phineas and ferb team decided on in order of production phineas and ferb save summer night of the living pharmacists phineas and ferb star wars the last day of summer and the alcohols which we'll talk about in a little bit look without naming any names here we all know there have been tv shows that overstayed their welcomes who did themselves a real disservice by hanging in there a season or three too long and we just don't want that to be the case with phineas and ferb we didn't want our show to be one of those that wore out its welcome we really wanted to go out strong shut down production while people are still fond of the show and its characters besides in the animation world it's just so rare that the show actually gets to do a finale which is why we feel so honored and privileged that disney allowed us to do this disney decided to air the specials alongside the regular already completed 22 episodes of season 4. that's why episodes like phineas and ferb save summer came out in june of 2014 and night of the living pharmacists came out in october of 2014 to match their corresponding holidays but that also speaks to how slowly disney was airing season four these hour-long specials produced after all of the 22 minute episodes were finished were airing alongside the 22 minute episodes that's why you may remember these big specials airing before episodes like actor age one on disney plus all five specials are stacked at the end of season four that's because disney plus puts the episodes in order by production code rather than air date however finishing so many big episodes early meant that there were controversies over leaks from countries that didn't want to wait to air the episodes quite how dan and swampy wanted there was an entire situation with actor age leaking in russia long before it aired in the u.s because here disney had decided to save it as a valentine's day special in fact in 2015 only the two final episodes of phineas and ferb aired in the u.s actor age aired on february 9th 2015 on disney xd as the valentine's day special and the last day of summer built up too with a series-long marathon on june 12 2015 as a simulcast that's how slow these final episodes were coming out it was kinda nuts the last day of summer is a beautiful send-off for the show and my friend brian does a great job talking about it in his video on why it's genius but ultimately it works in conjunction with actor age to give every character a conclusion while actor age was designed to be the series's emotional finale and conclude the stories of the kids the last day of summer focused on candace and doofenshmirtz and was all the better for it the series ended on an incredibly emotional musical number recapping the entire summer so far and thanking us for joining them [Music] anyone want some pie yes yes we do it's just about the time we spent together it's just about the time we spent together with you and then it was over after that disney passed on phineas and ferb season five the merch sales were down and the show had a proper finale dan and swampy who both signed deals with disney back in 2011 to develop new series were working furiously on new pilots to pitch to disney and those seemed to have far more promise than continuing to make a show that had more than enough episodes to rerun for years to come but that fifth hour long special that was produced right after the last day of summer was a modified version of one of the pilots that disney decided to pass on so let's talk about phineas and ferb after it ended so the alka files this special deserves its own video and i have talked about it before on the channel my phineas and verb spin-offs video but alka files was reworked from a series pitch to be a stand-alone special and provide an exclusive disney channel event in november the reason it wasn't picked up for a full series is that simply put the idea was too expensive to pull off on a tv budget when working in tv animation you can do expensive expressive shots but a lot of the time the runtime is simply carried by dialogue shots that are relatively easy in a show like alkaphiles where the main cast is all non-speaking animals other than doof trying to tell stories solely through the character's expressions is incredibly difficult and expensive and ultimately led to milo murphy's law getting greenlit instead and milo murphy's law debuted on october 3rd 2016 just about a year after phineas and ferb ended and less than a year after the alcohols aired and then milo murphy's law had a phineas and ferb crossover and introduced doofenshmirtz as a main character in season two and then in 2020 we got candace against the universe an all-new phineas and ferb movie on disney plus so while phineas and ferb may have ended it's clear that disney truly doesn't know what they want to do with the franchise dan and swampy have openly talked about how they're open to making more movies returning to do milo's third season or any number of things with the franchise it's just up to disney to decide what to green light the most interesting part about all this is that by keeping dan and swampy in their good graces and working on shows for the channel disney has been able to keep phineas and ferb relevant on the disney channel as the creators are readily accessible to do things like random rings karaoke crossovers and chibi tiny tales that's why phineas and ferb is still part of disney channel's marketing to this day because disney wanted to keep the creatives behind the show around just without making more of phineas and ferb specifically it's a really smart and unique decision and is likely why phineas and ferb content still drops regularly to this day so the tldr version of all that is this phineas and ferb ended because disney just didn't want to spend more money for an entire fifth season order but they still seem to enjoy making phineas and ferb specials in movies and supporting the creative team and i have no doubt that will continue into the future given both the show and the new movie's popularity on disney plus but that's where i'll leave this video i have plenty of other videos on the channel discussing milo murphy's law if you're interested in how that show connected to phineas and ferb so be sure to check those out if you're interested in knowing more let me know in the comments dimension hoppers how would you like to see phineas and ferb continue next if you enjoyed this video be sure to give it a like and i will see you back in dimension one i think one of the things that i maybe forgot to emphasize a little bit more in the video is just that dan and swampy were kind of done with phineas and ferb after season four like yeah disney didn't pick them up for a season five but like they also were very happy to end on such a good note and not do more after that but now that they're more willing to return i think that complicates the situation a little bit but that's one thing i wanted to clarify i hope you learned a lot from this video and if you're interested in learning more about phineas and ferb milo murphy's law i've definitely got you covered here on the channel thank you so much for watching and have a great rest of your day [Music]

Channel: The 2nd Dimension

Views: 832,985

Rating: 4.9207907 out of 5

Keywords: Milo Murphy's Law, Phineas and Ferb, Amphibia, The Owl House, Why Phineas and Ferb Ended, Why Did Phineas and Ferb End?, Last Day of Summer, candace against the universe, perry the platypus, milo murphys law, disney channel, disney plus, last day of summer, dan povenmire, jeff swampy marsh, phineas and ferb act your age, the true story of phineas and ferb

Id: wI7IANM3suI

Length: 15min 34sec (934 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021