Day Thirty-nine - Phineas and Ferb: Season 3, Episode 33, or "Return of the Eighties!"

Crazy busy day today, so I only had time for an episode of P&F before work.

Don't worry, we're coming to the end of the episodes available on Netflix, at least until season 4 is done airing on Disney (so, 2015 maybe).

I wanted to touch on this episode due to its second half, but we have to deal with the first to give our due diligence, yeah? And that first half tells the tale of a rescue attempt for cute little Crikey the Crocodile, who has become lost in the Danville sewers. It's up for the boys to find him, though Candace rides along since she wants to get a hold of P&F stalker Irving's "UPAFDS" which holds a visual record of all their summer exploits.

Prime busting material, yeah?

Anyways, the episode devolves into a chase sequence where Candace and the rather LARGE Crikey race through the sewers on a fan boat while Isabella brings in reinforcements via jet skis. Plenty of sight gags are to be had, as per the norm, and the b-story has a good joke running with Doof's latest -inator which replaces anything with a chicken... using the closest chicken available. That, in itself, sets up a rather lackluster gag where the Complaining Couple have a moment about their chicken farm turning into a swap meet.

It's weird... usually the Couple have a much better setup, but this one didn't really make sense. Maybe because the punchline takes its sweet time to become clear.

Anyway, not the best, but still alright.

Part two of the episode, though, is Ferb TV! Another experimental episode... in this one everyone is the star of their own show, sometimes bleeding over into others. Baljeet is a Doctor AND a Ninja. Buford is a celebrity chef a la Gordon Ramsey. Norm and Suzy star in a laugh-tracked comedy and Roger Doofenshmirtz (Heinz's brother) is in a Knight Rider spoof with a car that's also a cat.

It's cute and a fun way to break out of the mold of the show. Although I didn't review them, earlier in season 3 there were three or four concept episodes where the cast acted out old history and mythology/fairy tale stories. It was alright, but didn't quite gel.

This feature, though, worked pretty darn well.

I don't know if it was the short segments where the channels would flip every thirty seconds or so in a rotation of five or six shows repeated, but nothing got stale. I especially like how they lampshaded the 80's formula for so many things... particularly catch-phrases (Jeremy gets one in "That's the Norm"). Funny, funny stuff.

Anyway, part one was okay... part two was where it was at.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~