The highly anticipated new season of Phineas and Ferb (which takes place in the very next summer for these iconic characters) premieres Thursday June 5 on Disney Channel and Friday June 6 on Disney+. Joining me to talk all about it are creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, as well as cast members Ashley Tisdale, Caroline Rhea, Vincent Martella, David Errigo Jr. and Alyson Stoner. (These interviews were conducted separately and edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: Dan, the new season is right in line with the others. You don’t miss a beat at all. Was that always the plan?
Dan Povenmire: That was exactly what we were trying to do. I just wanted it to feel like if you were watching the fourth season and you started in the fifth season, you wouldn’t notice the difference.
JM: Wow. And Disney+ has really changed the game. Swampy, you had the fantastic movie in 2020 and the viewership numbers for the other seasons. Has the mindset of streaming changed at all the formation of episodes?
Jeff “Swampy” Marsh: I don’t know if it changed the formation, but it definitely was the streaming service that gave us the opportunity to have a second life. They looked at the numbers and went, “Man, after all these years, there’s tons of people still watching it.” Thanks to streaming for that. I don’t think it’s changed the way we make the show because we’re still always trying to service those characters and that world and keep it true. Some of the social media stuff has impacted it. Some of the stuff that we believe would connect with audiences — that maybe some other folks weren’t sure if they would — we can look and go, “That’s working.” It seemed bonkers and crazy and like nobody would care, but there’s folks out there who are getting it and tuning into it, and that’s always great to have that validation and justification for your idiocy. (laughs)
JM: In this first half-hour episode, there’s a lot of wind. The production value is fantastic. Bigger budget? New people coming in? Same animators? What’s the vibe of creating an epic “Phineas and Ferb” episode like this?
JSM: We assembled a writers’ room with a bunch of folks who came from the old production, who’d been with us since the beginning. In fact, one of our writers was one of our voice actors and has moved into the writers’ room (and is still voice acting). And we brought in a couple new folks, who are young people who grew up with the show. So that’s really interesting. That was their childhood. A bunch of people in the room who knew the show, understood the show, love the characters — and we brought a ton of the artists back in that we worked with before. A good mix of the old and the new. And that gives you a lot of confidence. You know that there aren’t a bunch of people out there that you’re gonna have to watch carefully to make sure they don’t break the characters, world or rules. They all seem to know where it’s supposed to go, and that lets you push. When you’re confident with people, you can go to unusual, new and unique places and not worry that people are gonna mess up or violate the characters in that world.
Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh
DP: The writers’ room is really just a big group of friends. We enjoy hanging out together. They’re either people that I’ve known for years or people that I now consider some of my closest friends. They’re the people you see all the time.
JM: Ashley, you’ve been voicing Candace for 18 years and were Annie nominated for the [2020] movie, which was fantastic. How has this character changed your life?
Ashley Tisdale: Oh my gosh. In so many ways! (laughs) She’s so much fun to play, and I feel like I won the lottery with the animation that goes on for 18 years. That’s pretty fun. I love it. It’s one of my favorite jobs. It’s something that I can go to in my sweats. It doesn’t matter what I look like — what I’m wearing. I get to see my two favorite people: Dan and Swampy. They’re like my dads. It’s awesome.
JM: And Caroline, you’ve been in the business for a long time. What does it mean to be a part of something that is consistent — for people to go to as comfort viewing and trust something like this?
Caroline Rhea: I personally love the show because it made my nephews really really happy. I think I did the Pilot in 2005 and it went on the air in 2008. It took so long for the animation to be done. My daughter was born in 2008, and I took off about six or seven years where I didn’t want to go on the road anymore — I wanted to be at home with my daughter… and “Phineas and Ferb” let me be at home with her. It’s such a great job. I would go to midtown three times a month and record. And I love Swampy and Dan. I’ve been a part of “Sabrina”, and I’ve been a part of this, and these are two iconic kids shows. Anytime you’re a part of anything making children happy, it’s a total gift.
Ashley Tisdale and Caroline Rhea
JM: Absolutely. Ashley, you also voiced in “Baby Shark’s Big Movie” a couple years ago. What do you love about going into the booth and singing — for that and “P&F”?
CR: You’re in the “Baby Shark” movie?!
AT: I am! I did that specifically because my child was the biggest Baby Shark fan. When I got that offer, I literally screamed. It was the best job ever. I purely did it for her. It’s so much fun. That I actually recorded at my house. My husband’s a composer. We have a studio, so I recorded the whole movie in the studio. It’s so much fun to sing and do music, and I love all the songs that Dan and Swampy come-up with for Candace. It’s one of the things I love about “Phineas and Ferb”. I come from theater and New York. I love singing and performing. To get roles that I can combine the two — acting and singing — it’s always just a dream.
JM: Nice. And Caroline, you’re a game show queen. You’ve been a part of so many of them. You gotta host a “Phineas and Ferb” trivia-style game show with diehard fans. That’d be perfect.
CR: That’s such a great idea!
JM: Vincent, you have voiced Phineas for 18 years. How have you evolved as a voice actor over that period of time?
Vincent Martella: It’s been the best experience of my life working on this show for so long and playing this character. I have learned a lot about voice acting since starting on the show. Just having the experience of working on something every single week that is so demanding in a variety of ways, where I am singing a lot of music with a lot of genres of music. I am yelling a lot and doing a lot of things and going on adventures ’cause we’re building all these big inventions. And then just the people that I work with and seeing how they prepare and seeing what their skillset is — and how I can improve mine. I love making cartoons and I wanna do it for the rest of my life. I do my best. To this day I’m taking workshops and I’m doing classes. And I’m learning new vocal techniques and new warmups to always try and get better. So, I’ve learned a lot on the job, but then I’ve just learned a lot from the experiences I have with working with other people and the preparation that goes into it.
JM: That’s awesome. And David, Ferb doesn’t have as much dialogue as some of the other characters. So does that add more pressure for you or put you in more of a context of, “This is how I’m gonna deliver the line — this is how important the line is”? Do you have that mindset in the booth with this character?
David Errigo, Jr.: Um, no.
Alyson Stoner: Now he does.
DEJ: (laughs) Not necessarily. The pressure is more to keep him in line with who he has always been. He’s always been a man of action. He’s always been a man of few words. Just making sure that his DNA stays the same and he keeps his same heart and soul — that’s kind of the pressure more than being like, “Oh, it’s only this number of lines, or this number of words.” Not a ton of extra pressure. Just always trying to keep him him.
Alyson Stoner, David Errigo Jr., Vincent Martella and Jackson Murphy
JM: You do a great job. There’s a lot of heart with this show. There’s always been. There is with this new season. Alyson, I saw a video you posted on social media about your first day returning to the booth and doing vocal exercises in the car. Do you do that all the time to get ready to voice Isabella?
AS: Yes. Before every session I have at least 30 to 45 minutes, which I know other folks can just snap in and out. We’ve got legends on the show like Dee Bradley Baker, who can go from one [character] right after the other. But for Isabella, she sings in a very high register. So if our sessions are early in the morning, I usually start about 45 minutes beforehand, just trying to warm up the voice and get prepared. And I think what’s really beautiful now is that we all are older, so we have the chance to play additional character voices. So when we go into the booth, we do our main characters’ lines, and then typically the creators will throw us a couple miscellaneous characters, and we’ll get a chance to explore other ranges of our voice.
DEJ: You just wait till you hear all those other options.
JM: That’s fantastic. Vincent, this new season is right in line with the others. I was amazed. It’s seamless. You don’t skip a beat. Were you initially surprised by that? Did you expect that maybe after 10 years it would go in different directions? How did you feel initially about learning all this?
VM: No, it didn’t surprise me at all. I knew what Dan and Swampy wanted to do with this continuation of the show — they wanted it to feel seamless. They wanted it to feel like it was a continuation of everything that they had done and that we had all done in the original run of the show. And it didn’t surprise me because I have so much trust and faith in our writers and our amazing team at the show. It has resonated with audiences so well because of the great team that we have. So it didn’t really surprise me coming back. It just made me so happy. I think it shows in all these new episodes. And I think audiences will resonate the same way that they did originally and that they have continued to on Disney+. The numbers on Disney+ are always really great in terms of what our audience is. There’s a lot more stories to tell and I trust our writers to give us the best stories possible for however long they let us keep doing this show.
JM: I think you’ll keep doing it for a long time. That movie was big in 2020. And now with this, with this new season, it’s new generations… of kids as well who are gonna watch. What does that mean to you?
DEJ: I am so proud to be a part of something that’s going to touch so many people’s lives. Folks will bring what they loved to their family and they’ll get to experience what they loved while now simultaneously getting to live, breathe the same air the first time that they get to see a new episode together.
AS: I think what’s wonderful is that several of the cast members have actually had their own children since the start of the show. So they’re now raising children who get to watch “Phineas and Ferb”, and in my case, I am an aunt to two nephews who were not alive when the show started. So this is a really surreal experience to be able to have that kind of heartfelt, wholesome, joyful, familial thing that you can do together. And I do trust that it’s gonna be a spot of hope, a spot of joy, and the creative lightning in a bottle that it already has been. Now the writers, I really believe, are finding out ways to make lightning in a bottle every single episode.
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