Nightmare Fuel / Phineas and Ferb

Aren't you a little too old to think that this picture is scary? YES! YES WE ARE!

"Okay, this is another CG element with the balloon, and I have to say, that's one of the most disturbing images I've seen."

— Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, referring to Balloony

"Aren't you a bit old to be scared from a kid's show?"
"NO! No we're not!"

Expect unmarked spoilers as Spoilers Off applies to Moments pages.

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Media with their own pages:

• Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension
• Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe

Other:

Season 1

I, Brobot

• The Phinedroids◊ and Ferbots◊ are quite terrifying the first time you see them. The Candroid is even more so. There's one particular shot, right after the boys shut down their coffee stand, where they look toward the camera in the creepiest fashion...

Out to Launch

• This. Whereas in "The Chronicles of Meap" Ferb's skin slips neatly off his face in a similar situation, Phineas's... doesn't. And that's scary.

Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!

• Smile Away Reformatory School.
  • Phineas and Ferb essentially being waterboarded into submission. The scariest part is when Phineas can't even finish his catchphrase.
  • The Mind Rape-like reeducation.◊^note It doesn't help that it's a Shout-Out to A Clockwork Orange. Note that they are watching a video that is telling them, in a Creepy Monotone voice:
    "Age inappropriate building is unsafe and irresponsible. Good boys don't make anything but their sisters happy. Creative acts are unattainable and dangerous. Using your imagination is morally wrong."
    • The boys later repeating the above phrases to Candace in an equally-monotone voice also definitely counts. They basically get turned into imagination-deprived zombies.

Season 2

The Lake Nose Monster

• An unintentional case happens in the scene where Candace mistakes a piece of driftwood for the lake monster, in which she freaks out by screaming into megaphones, which causes her screams to come out distorted, as if she's demon-possessed.

Day of the Living Gelatin

• The face on the living gelatin, and the way it eats Jeremy's gelatin head like it was the real thing.

Vanessassary Roughness

• The unnamed biker at the beginning. As Doof and Vanessa are riding on Doof's scooter to get to the store, the biker spots Vanessa and tries to make a pass on her by offering her a ride on a 'real bike', implying that he intends to enter into a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Vanessa for his own purposes. However, Doof deduces this and sends the biker to an alternate dimension, where the biker gets squashed by a giant baby alien's rubber mallet.

Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo

• The Bad Future, caused by the Future Candace busting her brothers on the first day of summer. Because of Candace's meddling, not only were children forbidden from doing anything fun and unique again and eventually stored away in People Jars until they became adults for their safety, Doofenshmirtz managed to succeed in taking over the world. The world is a polluted dystopia where everyone is famished, unhappily named "Joe", and all worship Doofenshmirtz, and must pay money for his food or be taken away to prison. Plus, Perry the Platypus and the O.W.C.A. agency can't even hope to stop him due to swearing on the oath to never thwart him.

Hide and Seek

• The dead fly scene. To elaborate, Baljeet has shrunken down to the size of a dust bunny, and is trapped on an overhanging lamp, with the air conditioner blowing directly on him. Due to his minuscule size, the chill could kill him if he doesn't find some sort of heat preservation. So, he curls up inside the body of a dead fly, complete with bug guts and everything, until the others find him. Works excellently as Nausea Fuel as well.
  Baljeet: I did what I had to do to survive!

Picture This

• The scene where Buford turns into a fly, an homage to The Fly.

Suddenly Suzy

• The happy face Candace made to Phineas. It screams "HELP ME" like no other facial expression.

Invasion of the Ferb Snatchers

• Doof has a whole bedroom set appear inside of him.
  Doof: Why did I buy such a large bedroom set?

Split Personality

• Busting Candace, one of the titular split personalities, makes this inhuman noise at one point while making a similarly inhuman face. It's unsettling in-universe too, as the brothers quickly decide that when this is over they will destroy their invention that made the split personalities to prevent it from ever happening again if it doesn't vanish on its own.
  • The fact Ferb looks bothered by said noise says some things.

Season 3

Canderemy

• Phineas and Ferb combined by Doofenshmirtz's "Combine-inator". Made worse when Phineas smiles and Ferb... smiles more (as pictured on the right).
• The garlic ice cream and cockroach Combininated test subjects were no slouch either.

A Real Boy

• The ending, where Doofenshmirtz slams the closet door on Norm, leaving him in complete darkness. All we see is Norm's eyes and mouth in the corner of a black screen.
  Norm: Apology accepted, Dad...

That's the Spirit

• Doofenshmirtz's Painful Transformation into a Were-cow was no picnic. The background music while it happens does not help.

Escape from Phineas Tower

• This episode is creepy on so many levels. That's right, Phineas and Ferb deliberately created an AI smarter than them to trap them repeatedly - a new trap every time they escape one - so that they may never be able to get out. The mallet they built to smash it from the outside in case of the inevitable emergency? Doesn't work. And then, when they finally get into their backyard (by tunneling through the ground), the thing traps them with a shield and announces its plan to cut off their air supply. The happy ending? The shield expands to include the entire galaxy. Cold comfort.

Monster from the Id

• The sheer and absolute Mind Screw that is this entire episode. Special mention goes to the titular monster itself.
• The characters helplessly being pulled in by a gnawing Id Candace is very chilling. Candace puts it best when she says she's got a really weird mind.

The Remains of the Platypus

• An in-universe example, bloated Monogram asking for a high five, seeing as it scared everyone from Cheesetopia.
  Phineas: Huh. Who would have thought a high-fiving swollen guy would have scared everyone off like that.

The Doonkelberry Imperative

• The Drusselstein Driving Test Waltz is actually quite terrifying given it's so dangerous that Doofenshmirtz barely run over pedestrians and nearly got himself and Perry killed. Speaking of Perry, he is legitimately terrified that he secures himself with several extra seatbelts and later writes out his will.

Cranius Maximus

• Baljeet getting an increase in his IQ leads to him almost moving all of the Earth's atmosphere onto the moon. He seems to be aware that everyone on Earth will die, but he does not care because For Science!. Even the gang's reactions are chilling.

Norm Unleashed

• For such an upbeat-sounding song, the lyrics of "Weaponry" are pretty shockingly dark:
  Just make an example of
  Representative sample of
  And most of them will not be missed! [...]
  Never mind the fatalities
  Where there's municipalities
  To crush a set of with the threat of
  Weaponry!
  • It doesn't help a bit that it is cheerfully sung by a smiling Norm, of all people.
  • Norm actually threatens the Tristate Area with a nuclear weapon.

This Is Your Backstory

• When Perry kicks Doofenshmirtz out of his chair, this gives him one more bad memory that helps power the Backstory-inator! What follows is a very long cackle from Doof that's genuinely menacing and ominous, fully confident that he's won.
  Doofenshmirtz: Remember two seconds ago when you foiled my latest plan? I do! [laughs evilly]
  • This transforms Doof into an evil monster, and Perry is actually scared of him. Seriously! Check out this image◊ if you don't believe us!
• The stinger has Phineas and Ferb create a quantum vortex that sucks the entire world in. Except Candace, who, in a scared voice, asks "Mom?"

Season 4

Primal Perry

• Liam. After Doof hired him to trap Perry, Liam decides that he wants to turn Perry into a trophy. When Doof tries to stop him, Liam merely decides that he'll just turn Doof into a trophy as well.

Mind Share

• The aliens' plan. To begin, they trick the boys and their friends into switching minds with them, trapping the kids in prison. Then, in order to make sure they can't be sent back, set the boys's machine to self-destruct, meaning they were totally willing to leave the kids in jail. Only Phineas managing to warn Candace saves them.

Der Kinderlumper

• The Kinderlumper. Apparently, it kidnaps naughty kids and puts them in his sack, with "naughty" being defined as drinking water, slightly tilting their head or even just blinking. Although according to Roger, it rewards good kids. Indicating once again how abusive Doofenshmirtz's mother is towards him and treats Roger the opposite way.
  • Remember that Doof's mother sang that song to him every night before he went to bed, making this literal nightmare fuel and meaning that his mother wanted him to have nightmares. You know, sometimes it's amazing Doof turned out as well-adjusted as he is.
• Are we forgetting that bit in the end credits with the Kinderlumper looking through young Doofenshmirtz's window, sniffing him and smiling evilly?

Druselsteinoween

• When Perry and Doofenshmirtz are exploring Doof's castle during a costume party, they come across an elevator that opens and two identical twin girls walk out and down the hall, quickly and in unison with blank expressions on their faces. It doesn't help that they are dressed in the same outfit or that they're wearing normal clothes rather than costumes. What do Perry and Doofenshmirtz do? Get on the elevator without a word and continue the hunt.
• There's a painting of Doof's great aunt scowling behind them in the elevator. When the elevator breaks and they start falling, the painting is suddenly smiling.

Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror

• The first 'story', following Candace is probably the scariest one. It involves Candace accidentally turning Ducky Momo (as in, her doll) evil. While that may not sound frightening, we're treated to a lovely scene where it gets stuck in a door Candace is obliviously trying to close, and it ends up loosing one of its eyes, which is still barely holding on by a string, and having a seam ripping open, with stuffing falling out. And then, as the song begins, it simply... draws everything back to it's body. Slowly. It's creepier than it sounds, especially if you listen closely as it happens. Also Ducky Momo spinning its head around didn't help things.
  • The song is also unnerving, and the tune and haunting lyrics are just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine being Candace: You're alone, in a dark house and it's storming. Then, you hear a creak. Then later, footsteps. Then you see something out of the corner of your eye or in the corner of a mirror and when you turn around, there's nothing there. Throughout the song, Candace starts off calm, and by the end she's calling Stacy in terror. Then she drops the phone and it lands right next to Ducky Momo. Who then ends the call.
  • The bits of the Ducky Momo theme song strung into the song also can be chilling, in a similar fashion to horror movie trailers using lullabies as background music to murder scenes.
  • And let's not forget the end. Ducky Momo isn't evil, he just wanted a hug. Why? Because Candace didn't expose it to moonlight, which was the key factor for it being evil. Then the moon comes out and shines on Mr. Miggins who grows claws and teeth and sports a horrible expression and lunging at the screen to the sound of Candace screaming. Cue commercial break, then a new, unrelated segment altogether.
• Finally, there's the third 'story', involving Perry having grape juice spilled on him (via Buford) which creates an evil, purple clone. The clone, after scarring the kids, pours more juice onto itself to create more clones, and then they spread out throughout Danville causing havoc and playing tennis. In the end, the kids, after trying and failing to wipe out the at least several hundred clones, they end up in a grape juice box factory and end up being ripped to shreds, thankfully offscreen. Of course, it was all just a story, and the ending got changed to "the Hollywood ending", but that arguably makes it worse... Phineas wanted the story to end that way.

The Klimpaloon Ultimatum

• Klimpaloon is unnerving. The knock-off Klimpaloons are horrifying. Not only do they look a hundred shades of wrong, the noises they make sound utterly agonized.

Specials and Miscellaneous

Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel

• Seeing Phineas act so harsh and coldly because Candace continuously screws up the attempts to give the Marvel superheroes their powers back just because of how serious he thought the situation was is pretty unsettling to watch, if only because we are so used to Phineas being much happier than this. And this was the third time he ever had an outburst; the first was the movie after finding out Perry's secret and the second was when he tells Candace to firmly get on the trike.
• How about the cause of all this mess: the Power-Drain-inator. Doofenshmirtz created it to drain Roger's power of mayor and did not even realize that it could actually be dangerous if used against a different target. Such as Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Spider-Man.
  • And Red Skull upgrades it to not only drain powers but matter as well. Which means anything it hits. It's one of those -inators that can be truly dangerous if put into the wrong hands.
  • His plan with it. Red Skull states he and the other villains aren't interested in conquering the Tri-state area, they are destroying it. He demonstrates the -inator by destroying a hog dog vendor before threatening to increase its area of effect to hit the entire city, and before the -inator was crushed by the falling space station, he nearly set it off to destroy the city, just to kill the heroes.

Phineas and Ferb: Save Summer

• Speaking of dangerous -inators, there's the Shift-The-Earth's-Position-Away-From-The-Sun-inator, which can shift the Earth out of orbit to an early autumn. However, it's nothing compared to the likes of Rodney's Shift-The-Earth's-Position-Away-From-The-Sun-inizor, which is upgraded 10 times bigger and stronger that can plunge the Earth into a new ice age and endanger billions of lives. Doofenshmirtz himself thought this too.
  • There's also Rodney's willingness to throw the Earth into a new Ice Age is kinda disturbing, even going so far to destroy the reverse switch and self-destruct button on his latest machine to ensure that he would accomplish that, which would endanger all lifeforms on it. Fortunately, Doofenshmirtz's Heel–Face Turn was enough to prevent it from happening as he holds sheer disgust over Rodney's plot; even Perry too shares Doof's feelings over the event as the imminent event would put his host family (especially Phineas and Ferb) in danger, which drove Perry to personally help Doof in taking down the machine to save the Earth and foil Rodney for good.

Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars

• Ferb's transformation into "Darth Ferb" was pretty unsettling when you think about it. Just imagine, anyone, even one of the nicest people around transformed into a cold-hearted monster. What's worse, no amount of talking is going to turn that person back to normal.
• The moment when the Death Star is seconds away from being destroyed. For a moment, Phineas and the others are certain they're all about to die when it explodes. Remember, most of these people are kids.

Night of the Living Pharmacists

• Compared to the rest of the series (except for maybe "Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror"), Night of the Living Pharmacists is definitely one of the darker episodes of the series. Here are a few notable points:
  • The trailer for the special is already pretty creepy, especially since there are so many pharmacists.
  • The transformation from a normal person into Zombie-Doofs is beyond disturbing, as it's sheer Body Horror. Add to the fact that their entire motivation is to turn you into another Doof...yeah.
    • It's even worse with the animal agents, who become fusions between animals and Doofenshmirtz. Not only that, but they are also more aggressive and violent than the normal Doof-zombies.
  • Agent P getting infected. Yes, you read that right. Perry the Platypus, who has gone through another dimension and fought endless times with Doofenshmirtz with little to no trouble, and has overall been shown to be extremely good on the job, is touched by one of the Doof-zombies and is helpless to do anything as he transforms into yet another fusion between Doof and an animal. It also highlights the fact that, as pointed out earlier by Phineas, even someone who is a complete badass at hand-to-hand combat (as many of the characters are) is helpless against the zombies if they are unarmed, because any physical contact will cause infection. What's worse, he speaks. Perry's infected form goes from his familiar chatter to a growling "Lots of me."
  • When Phineas, Isabella, and Ferb are going to activate the vortex sprayer to spray all the Doof-zombies back to normal with water, the Doof-zombies climb the pillars of the water tower towards them! It gets worse when, just as they are about to be touched, Ferb sacrifices himself so they can go by kicking them away... and is then touched by one of them, shortly turning into a Doof-zombie in front of Isabella and his step-brother!
    • He's soon followed by Phineas, so it's up to Isabella to cure the virus. This is the moment where the suspense is at the highest level: a good deal of our heroes, and a good deal of Danville's population for that matter, has turned into Doof-zombies, the only thing capable of producing enough water in order to make sure the virus doesn't spread again is being overrun by them, and Isabella is all alone in this, having lost Phineas and Ferb, and is touched by one of them just before she hits the button capable of saving Danville. If she had pushed the button just a bit too late...
  • Near the end of the episode, we see a now walled-off Danville. Surrounded by Doof-zombies.◊
  Ferb: Well, everyone seems to be noticeably labcoat-free.
  Phineas: At least everyone within the walled city of Danville.
  Isabella: Yeah, too bad about the rest of civilization.
  • Hearing the Doof-zombies say "lots of me" is already quite creepy, but hearing characters say it in the middle of transforming in their own voices just makes it even worse.
  • What makes the episode so scary is that it is played terrifyingly straight. You could exchange all of the Doofs for actual shambling corpses, and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
    • To make matters worse, the episode starts out perfectly normal, then halfway through it suddenly takes a hard left into horror.
  • "Are you insinuating that my clothes are alive? That's scarier than these pharmacists!"
  • There's something disturbing about the way major characters like Linda, Lawrence, and Jeremy are taken out so casually.

Last Day of Summer

• Five words: "Who are Phineas and Ferb?"
• The effects of the time loop are explained in detail by Baljeet. In his representation, time is like a paper towel sheet moving forward. When something prevents time from flowing normally, he represents it with a hook that latches on to the sheet, eventually ripping a portion of paper from the strain, leaving less paper(or in this case, time) to work with. As the time-loops become shorter with repeated iterations, there will come a point when the final loop will result in the destruction of time itself. Whether that means the universe becomes frozen forever in a singular moment, or gets erased from existence, everyone is screwed. Brr...

The O.W.C.A. Files

• Dr. Parenthesis plan to brainwash almost all of OWCA agents and having them attack the world just so they hate OWCA and their leader, Francis Monogram.
• The scene where Napoleon, Floyd, and Wendell get brutally ripped to shreds by a desk fan can be jarring for some, this gets averted the next scene they’re in when it’s revealed that they didn’t die.
  • Dr.Parenthesis doesn’t get spared, either.

Other

• The costumes in the live stage show with the big, constantly staring eyes. Not to mention that the heavily stylized cartoon anatomy of the characters overall just doesn't really... fit when it comes to a live action adaptation.
• Sorta an in-universe example, in the DVD commentary for "The Chronicles of Meap" by Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Major Monogram, the latter actually calls Meap "Nightmare Fuel".

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