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    J 
  • Jackass Genie:
    • Discussed by Doofenshmirtz in "The Lake Nose Monster" during his rant to Perry.
      Doofenshmirtz: Speaking of wishes, you know what I never understood? Genies. They tell you to wish for aaaaanything you want, and then they add some terrible twist. Like, you wish to jump high, so he turns you into a frog. Why? Who gains from this? The genie? I... where's the benefit? You should be fighting genies, man, not me. I'm not the problem: genies. Genies are the problem.
    • In another episode, he randomly comments that you should never try to sue a genie.
  • Jackhammered Conversation: Occurs in the episode "Excaliferb" when Malifishmertz talks about his plan for seizing control of the Tri-Kingdom Area.
    Malifishmertz: Let me tell you about my plan for seizing control of the Tri-Kingdom Area: You see, I was bullfrog hunting down by the rat-catchers shack and came across...[Malifishmertz rounds a corner while descending a circular staircase; his voice becomes muffled and indistinguishable; comes back into view] ... with the biggest raspberry I've ever seen! It was the size of a cucumber![rounding another corner, becoming again muffled; returns to view] ... is what I said because I had a gag over my mouth.[rounding another corner and muffled once again; comes back into view] And THAT'S why I decided to take over the Tri-Kingdom Area. True story.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
    • Candace, while not a jerk per se. For all her obsession with busting her brothers, she does care about them, she's just too impulsive to stop and realize it.
    • Doofenshmirtz is one, especially in the episode "Finding Mary McGuffin" when he told Vanessa that he's spent about a decade searching for the Mary McGuffin doll she wanted as a kid. He may be obsessed with taking over the Tri-State Area, but it doesn't mean he's not a dedicated father.
    • Buford, definitely. Everyone refers to him as a "bully", though it's probably more accurate to say he's just a friend who threatens you a lot.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
    • Khaka Peü Peü's motive is revealed to be sympathetic: he never had a best day ever. So Phineas and Ferb stop being the Beak and invite him to join in on their best day ever. His response is to insult their idea for the day, stating "that sounds dreadful!" He promptly receives his comeuppance, and never does have a best day ever.
    • In spite of their Jerk with a Heart of Gold tendencies, Buford has his moments too. Most notably, in "Meatloaf Surprise" Buford accidentally breaks a bouncy castle before any of the little kids can play on it. He convinces Phineas and Ferb to build an even better one and he brings it to the kids, just to pop it before they can use it.
  • Joker Immunity: Doof. Lampshaded by Vanessa in "Dude, We're Getting The Band Back Together":
    Vanessa: He'll be fine. He blows up all the time.
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: In "Monster of the Id". Candace lost a present from Jeremy and wanted for Phineas and Ferb to create a new one, but couldn't actually describe it, so they entered her mind to see the image themselves.
  • Jump Rope Blunders: In "When Worlds Collide," Perry gets caught in Dr. Doofenshmirtz's double dutch jump rope machine and, after jumping for a few seconds, trips and gets tangled up in the ropes. Doofenshmirtz is surprised at this because he didn't even intend it as a trap for Perry. Later, while Doofenshmirtz and Perry are fighting, they activate it again and try to fight and jump simultaneously. When Doofenshmirtz almost gets knocked off the side of the building, Perry throws him a jump rope to hold onto, but this starts the machine one more time, banging Doofenshmirtz across the side of the building as the rope turns.
  • Jury Duty:
    • In "Norm Unleashed", Doofenshmirtz was called to be a juror. He expected to be let out of it by admitting he's an Evil Scientist ("Evil", not "Mad") but the judge decided having one as a juror would be useful as the defendant was another one. Dr. Diminutive was to be put on trial for the damages he caused by using the Schmaltz-inator he "borrowed" (read: stole) from Doofenshmirtz. Doof, despite wanting out of jury duty, denied being acquainted to Diminutive. Both of them started arguing and ended up in prison.
    • In that same episode, another juror, when asked to state his occupation, claimed to be "between jobs". Doof thought he said that to get out of jury duty and that it wouldn't work. He did get out of it but he ironically wanted to be a juror so he could add that to his resume.
    • In another episode, Major Monogram got jury duty. When he was about to state the verdict, he was hit by an inator that makes people say double negatives, causing the defendant to be declared "not not guilty" instead of "not guilty".
    • In "The Beak" when Candace is complaining about the various times her mom has brushed her off, the final one is "Candace, I'm in a sequestered jury, how did you even get in here?"
  • Just Eat Gilligan: It rarely ever occurs to Candace that busting her brothers would've been easier if she just taken photos or videos of the Big Idea to show Mom. The only character who does this is Irving.
  • Just Take the Poster: Discussed in the first episode:
    "You think we get a discount if we bring the poster?"
    "Maybe we better take it!" *rip*
    • In the episode's musical version, they stated it didn't work last time, but take the new one just in case. Then Buford snatches it away from them, saying that if anyone's going to get to ride the rollercoaster, it's going to be him, not a bunch of extras.

    K 
  • Kansas City Shuffle: In "Where's Perry? - Part 1", Doofenshmirtz had an inator that'd keep everyone's gym equipment locked away so people would be too out of shape to prevent him from taking over. When Perry arrives, Doofenshmirtz accidentaly destroys it by pressing the self-destruct button. After Perry leaves, Doof reveals to Norm that was just to trick Perry into thinking he wasn't up to anything else. Doof's real plan was to use another inator to turn Major Monogram evil so he'd take over the O.W.C.A.
  • Karma Houdini: In one episode, Doofenshmirtz's Evil Plan is foiled but he doesn't pay for it, which he proceeds to lampshade.
    Doofenshmirtz: Well, that's done. And I got no comeuppance! ... Why do I feel so empty?
  • Karmic Butt-Monkey: Candace is a snide killjoy who brings most of her misfortune on herself with her pointless and spiteful appointed mission of putting a stop to her brothers' daily activities. She's not an outright asshole and does care deep down, but it's shown she wouldn't suffer as much humiliations if she would leave well enough alone. Indeed her luck massively increases when she's pursuing another tasks.
  • Kidanova:
    • For a Butt-Monkey, Baljeet seems to have a lot of success with girls his age. He went on a romantic cruise with his childhood friend Mishti, actually kissed a female friend named Wendy, was hit on by several girls while he was dressed as a fish, and managed to unwittingly become the crush of Fireside Girl Ginger.
    • Ferb makes a quip about building inventions "for the ladies." However, considering that the only girl he's ever shown genuine interest in is Vanessa, he could have easily been joking.
  • Kids Driving Cars:
    • "The Fast and the Phineas" has Phineas and Ferb convert their mother's car into a race car, which Phineas then uses in an actual race. Their age is once again lampshaded, with the car being controlled via remote. A similar system would be used with their All-Terrain Vehicle in "The Secret of Success". However, in "Out to Launch", after they drag their mother's car into space and leave the remote on earth, Phineas and Ferb admit that they can't start a car properly. It's up to Candace (who has her learner's permit) to save the day.
    • It isn't that they don't know how to operate a car, it's that they are legally not allowed to. Throughout the show, they have no problem using gas and break pedals on technically-not-cars like the Spudsalot in "Lotsa Latkes" and their nanobot-cars in "Norm Unleashed", not to mention a sizable list of planes, submarines, boats, et cetera.
    • Their Paleolithic counterparts in "Tri-Stone Area" take it up a notch, as Phinabunk and Gerb invented the car.
  • Kids Love Dinosaurs: The boys loves dinosaurs, and they frequently show up in the series. Lampshaded in "The Lizard Whisperer" where the boys insist on calling the enlarged Steve the chameleon a dinosaur simply because it sounds cooler.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: In "Gaming the System" (Though it was a Disney Death, as Phineas and Ferb still had four lives left.):
    Phineas: Alright, Candace! Way to-

    L 
  • Lactating Male: In "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?", Candace switches bodies with Perry the Platypus. While in his body, she is able to sweat milk.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Deserves its own page. Arguably, the plot of 7/8 (or more) of the episodes consist entirely of Running Gags; therefore, they must be lampshaded in every single possible way. Not to mention the fact that the above listed Catchphrases are constantly lampshaded, and that there are two episodes (or one, if you consider that they were 15-minute segments) dedicated almost entirely to hanging lampshades.
  • Landmarking the Hidden Base: In "Candace Loses Her Head", Doofenshmirtz has a base in Mt. Rushmore.
  • Large Ham:
    • Dr. Doofenshmirtz has a nefarious plan to spread this trope across the entire Tri-State Area!
  • As well as the one-time villain, The Regurgitator, seeing as how he has a tendency to talk in a loud, booming voice accompanied by dramatic thunder.
    Regurgitator: (holding out a coffee pot to Doofenshmirtz) You can start by making me a fresh pot of coffee!! (cue dramatic thunder)
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: The entire purpose of the "Forget-About-It-Inator" from "A Real Boy", which works on Linda several times in the space of a few minutes. And in "Tip of the Day", the "Erase-What-Was-On-My-Mind-Inator" causes everyone to forget the name for those little plastic shoelace tips.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: No one in the series is immune from this. Phineas and Ferb are doing fine running on top of giant ball of gumballs until they decide to show off. Suzy gets away with dumping on Candace all she likes, but gets slapped down when she tries to directly interfere with her brother's warm and fuzzy moment.
  • Laughably Evil:
    • Doofenshmirtz, to the highest possible degree. Yes, he wants to take over the entire Tri-State area, and has created everything from Killer Robots and mind-control helmets... but he's so bad at it, it's hilarious!
    • The various members of L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., who spend their days in the same endless cycle as Doof.
  • Laugh of Love: Candace tends to giggle a lot when she's around Jeremy.
  • Lava Surfing: Perry catches some lava waves in the episode "Swiss Family Phineas". And of course by "lava", we mean pink soapy water taken up to eleven.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • "If we were cartoons, we could have all the superpowers we wanted!"
    • "[Summer] feels like it's been going on for like, four years!"
    • "I know what you mean, Ferb. It does feel like more than 104 days."
  • Least Rhymable Word:
    • In the episode "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?", Doofenshmirtz tries to write his own evil jingle to replace a fast food Ear Worm, but can't come up with any good rhymes for "evil."
    • Subverted at the end of the movie, where 2nd Dimension!Doof manages to use two during the course of the song "Kick it Up a Notch".
    • In the second Cliptastic Countdown, he tries to rhyme silver. When pointed out that nothing rhymes with silver, he replaces it with orange.
  • Left the Background Music On:
    • When Candace finally managed to bust her brothers (and made them go to military school) she started thinking about how she missed her while a sad song plays...which turns out to be Stacy singing just besides her.
    • Doofenshmirtz sets up a trap with a piano hanging over the door. As the trap is revealed dramatic music plays ... from a man sitting at the piano.
    • A random musician in "Just Our Luck", and Ferb inexplicably has an orchestra when the kids realize something's wrong with the planet's position in "Save Summer".
  • Legion of Doom: L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., an organization composed of all the mad scientists in Danville founded by Doofenshmirtz.
  • Leitmotif:
    • Almost every character has their own theme. The opening of every episode in the Flynn-Fletcher backyard has a guitar riff, Phineas and Ferb build things to an upbeat little ditty (called "Quirky Worky Song"), Perry has an instrumental version of his theme song, Candace has a minor key variation of "Ring Around the Rosie" akin to the Wicked Witch's theme play whenever she gets suspicious of her brothers, and Doof has an Acapella group open whatever scene he's in. They tinker around with this almost as much as they do running gags and catchphrases.
    • There's one for the line 'I know what we're gonna do today!', which is even used when Doofenshmirtz says it. There's also one for Isabella's entrance and 'What'cha doooin'?', but it's almost exclusive to her. (Or she wishes it was.)
    • If you listen closely, Phineas' theme is almost the same as Perry's. The difference is that the boys have a scat, instrumental version while Perry has a spy version with lyrics.
    • The Fireside Girls have their own theme, although it isn't heard often.
    • A few early episodes use a Scare Chord when Candace is ready to show the evidence to her mom.
  • Lethal Chef:
    • Inverted in "Moon Farm", where despite getting the recipe wrong and including things like a blender and self righteous flower, and cooking it at 9000 degrees, it turns into perfect lamb cobbler. Despite the fact that they didn't put any lamb in it to begin with.
    • Vanessa's cupcakes are apparently so terrible that even her adoring father can't stand them.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again:
    • Buford and Baljeet agree on this after their clothes get mostly blown off by Ferb test-driving Meap's repaired spaceship.
    • Candace and Stacy do this after they try to give each other a high-five and miss.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!:
    • While Isabella is normally pretty competent, anytime Phineas looks to be in real danger, she becomes even more so.
    • Candace also falls into this if her brothers are ever in danger, or when she's on a more serious busting attempt.
  • Like a Son to Me:
    • Doofenshmirtz's father and his dog, Only Son.
    • Norm wishes for this reaction from Doofenshmirtz after the doctor is hit with Laser-Guided Amnesia from his "Forget-About-It-Inator."
  • Lineage Ladder: In the episode, "Unfair Science Fair", Baljeet has a musical number where he sings about his family's insistence about being a straight A+ student: "From the mountains of the Himalayas, to the valleys of Kashmir. My forefathers and their four fathers, knew one thing very clear..."
  • Little Boy Seeks Big Girl: Ferb, whose age is estimated to be about eleven, has a crush on Vanessa, who is sixteen. Word of God says that they will eventually go out in the future, when the age difference isn't as glaring. That day arrives in Flash Forward episode "Act Your Age".
  • Limited Social Circle: Lampshaded with prejudice - Candace has only four people on her cell phone phonebook.
  • Limited Wardrobe:
    • Commonplace for such shows, but lampshaded by Candace:
    Candace: I am gonna wear my cute white skirt with my favorite red blouse, white shoes and matching red socks! Whaddaya think?
    • Later Lampshaded again by Phineas and Ferb, when their mom has them go shopping for school clothes and it takes them less than five seconds. "Well, we do have a signature look."
  • Lipstick Mark:
    • Parodied by Doofenshmirtz having a pawprint on his cheek from a new nemesis he was trying to conceal from Perry.
    • Played straight in another episode. "Oh, there you are, Perry. Why ya all covered in lipstick?"
  • Literal Metaphor: In "Mind Share", when Doof tells Perry to sit with the other "wingmen", he points to an area where three fighter pilots are giving hand signals to their buddies, with a fighter jet parked behind them.
  • Literal-Minded: Everyone whenever it suits the Rule of Funny. For example, Linda is confused to see that a band called "Tiny Cowboy" consists of two tall guys who clearly aren't cowboys.
  • Literal Split Personality: The aptly named episode "Split Personality". Candace gets hit by the boys' molecular separator and is divided in two. One Candace is obsessed with her relationship with Jeremy, and the other is utterly obsessed with busting her brothers.
  • Living Clothes:
    • Done literally in "Out of Toon", when Doofenshmirtz attempted to create a ray that would dry his clothes after his dryer broke, but instead made one that made anything hit with it dance... which includes his clothes. "Still sopping wet..."
    • "Summer Belongs to You" features Klimpaloon, a living "magical old-timey bathing suit that lives in the Himalayas."
  • Logical Fallacies: Doofenshmirtz reason to revive a dodo was: dodos are extinct; dinosaurs are extinct; therefore, dodos must have been like dinosaurs! note 
  • Long List: "Mom's Birthday" has a scene with an increasingly-frantic Candace going through a list of instruments with the letter "b" as they're shrunk into nothingness by Doofenshmirtz's latest invention.
  • Long Runner: The longest running Disney Channel/Disney XD Original Series to date, with over seven years on the air and over 130 half-hour episodes to its credit.
  • Long-Runner Tech Marches On: At the beginning of the series, the characters use flip phones. By the end of the series, the characters use smartphones.
  • Loony Fan: Irving, especially in the episode "Hide and Seek". Phineas and Ferb are slightly creeped out by him (understandably) - most likely an Affectionate Parody of the show's own fanbase.
  • Loophole Abuse:
    • Phineas and Ferb are kids, and thus don't have driver's licenses and aren't allowed to drive. Thus, they simply drive vehicles via remote controls.
    • In episode "Agent Doof", Doofenshmirtz decided to become an agent of O.W.C.A. Because of the time he was raised by ocelots, he technically meets the basic requirement for the job (being an animal).
    • Candace and Linda once signed an agreement regarding Candace busting her brothers. One of the terms was that Candace couldn't try to bust them more than once per day. Cue to midnight, and Linda was considering adding a new clause to their agreement.
    • In "Perry the Actorpus", Major Monogram sends Sergei the Snail to stop Doofenshmirtz, who neutralized Sergei by surrounding him with salt. When Perry showed up, Doof invoked a rule from the O.W.C.A. bylaws that prohibits any agents from beating up villains another agent was assigned to stop unless the other agent is incapacitated and pointing out that, despite being surrounded by salt, Sergei the Snail technically isn't incapacitated. Perry solved the problem by removing the salt while Doof was distracted reading the rule.
  • Lovable Lizard: In one episode, the boys find a chameleon and name him Steve. Ferb especially takes such a shine to the reptile that when he goes missing, Ferb delivers an epic (and utterly out of character) Rousing Speech when Phineas and Isabella are about to give up.
  • Lovely Assistant: Parodied in "Let's Take a Quiz!" While Phineas plays game show host, the role of the Lovely Assistant is taken by Ferb, who appears in several glamorous women's outfits.
  • Love at First Sight: Ferb is smitten the moment he lays eyes on Vanessa.
  • Love Makes You Dumb: In the episode where Candace is split in two, the Candace that is obsessed with Jeremy is a total flake.
  • Lower-Deck Episode:
    • "Bubble Boys"/"Isabella and the Temple of Sap".
    • And technically "Unfair Science Fair" and "Unfair Science Fair Redux (A Different Story)", though the latter takes place a day or so before the main chunk of the former.
    • "Not Phineas and Ferb" centers around Irving trying to convince his brother that Baljeet and Buford are Phineas and Ferb. The only things Phineas and Ferb do in the episode are watch a movie and show up in the backyard just in time to make Candace look insane.
    • "Delivery of Destiny" shows a day in the life of a delivery truck driver named Paul who gets caught up in the wacky hijinks of both Phineas and Ferb and Perry the Platypus.
    • "Bee Day"/"Bee Story".
    • The "Star Wars" special is essentially this for the original Star Wars. Amazingly enough, it actually doesn't violate that film's continuity at all!
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Parodied, but averted in "The Chronicles of Meap".
    Mitch: Just so we're clear, I am not your father.
  • Lyrical Dissonance:
    • In "Meapless In Seattle", we have a super-cutesy song about the Meap army...going to war and destroying their enemies.
    • "Norm Unleashed" has "Weaponry", where Norm sings a jaunty, cheerful tune about arming himself with various weapons and laying waste to Danville.

    M 
  • MacGuffin: The Pizzazium Infinionite in "Vanessassary Roughness". One episode involving Candace losing her favorite childhood doll, who is appropriately named Mary McGuffin...
  • MacGyvering:
    • Inevitable when the main characters are a pair of Gadgeteer Geniuses, most notably at the climax of "Summer Belongs to You!" when they create a giant slingshot-powered airplane using a map and a rubber band.
    • Averted most of the time, however, as they typically order the parts they need.
  • Made of Explodium:
    • In "Ask a Foolish Question", Doofenshmirtz lampshades this by, after a series of violent explosions, saying "Why does everything explode so easily?" followed by another explosion.
    • "Road Trip" has Doofenshmirtz driving a truck full of "Boom Juice".
  • Made of Iron: Major Monogram has stated that he is 35% metal in "Summer Belongs to You". Everyone probably fits the normal manner of this trope, but it's most obvious with Doofenshmirtz and Candace.
  • Mad Libs Catchphrase:
    • Candace has her famous "Phineas and Ferb/the boys are making/building (insert Big Idea here)!"
    • Doofenshmirtz has "BEHOLD! The (subject)-inator!"
  • Mad Love: Norm has this for Doofenshmirtz in a "Well Done, Son" Guy sort of way. Doof has no parental affection for him, but it doesn't stop Norm from trying.
  • Mad Scientist
    • When Phineas and Ferb create a helmet that increases his intelligence, Baljeet temporarily becomes one and makes a plan to transfer the Earth's atmosphere to the Moon.
    • Dr. Doofenshmirtz, whose plans are intended to take over the Tri-State area, humilate his brother, or defeat Perry the Platypus (or all three together). Often based on faulty logic.
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Vanessa Doofenshmirtz. Played with in that instead of betraying her father for good, she more-or-less tries to ignore the moral battle she has to deal with every other weekend.
  • Magic Carpet: "Magic Carpet Ride".
  • Magic Skirt: Candace and the Fireside Girls, in numerous episodes.
    • In "Leave to Busting to Us!" Candace and Isabella's skirts defy both gravity and inertia in order to always cover their panties during the waterslide sequences.
    • "The Paper Pelican Floor Show", a musical number in the episode "De Plane! De Plane!" has Isabella completely upside down at one point, but her skirt acts like it's made of fiberglass. Candace's skirt does the same trick when she's on the monkey bars in "Journey to the Center of Candace".
    • Even when Isabella's in a zero-gravity environment, her skirt does not behave as such.
    • In one episode the Fireside Girls are on a rollercoaster track with a high gust wind. Mother Nature made sure she didn't flip their skirts all the way up.
    • In "The Ballad of Badbeard" an eagle is carrying Candace by the edge of her skirt in shots of her front, but in shots of her rear it switches so the talons are gripping the middle of her skirt. So her panties are invisible from all angles, even if it creates a continuity error.
    • In "Hawaiian Vacation" Candace falls down a water fall feet first, her hair flies up but not her dress.
    • "Backyard Aquarium" is even more blatant, as she gets thrown around by huge sea creatures and her skirt never flies up despite falling feet first.
    • "Run Candace Run" brings this up to new heights. She's running so fast that her skirt constantly flips and flops around, but it stays glued to her crotch area.
    • In "Let's Bounce", Linda implies that Candace is wearing a skort.
  • The Magic Versus Technology War: Played in the episode "Nerds of a Feather". Phineas and Ferb head to the Tri-State Area's annual sci-fi and fantasy convention where start a duel between the fantasy fans and the sci-fi geeks.
  • Major General Song: I am the very model of a modern Major Monogram / I've information vegetable and animal and hologram.
  • Manchild: Doofenshmirtz. He's physically in his 40s, but mentally around 8.
  • Manipulative Bitch: Suzy. She loves to manipulate people, from Candace to Jeremy to (alongside Candace) Phineas and Ferb.
  • Manly Tears: In the episode "Oh, There You Are Perry", Perry discovers that he is being transferred to another villain and, therefore, will never see his family again. Back at the house, Phineas is inside, scared that his pet is missing and stating that he would be devastated if anything happened to him. Cut to Perry, watching from the window, stopping by to get one last look at them. And you can tell he's on the verge of tears.
  • Masculine Lines, Feminine Curves: Phineas is blocky with a triangular head; Doofenshmirtz is the the same but his edges are rounded off. Ferb, Lawrence and Major Monogram are made of a series of boxes. All the men and male teenagers lack visible pectorals. Candace is quite angular but has a round face; Isabella and the Fireside Girls are similar. Linda and Vanessa are all curves.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings: Lawrence Fletcher's brother Adrian has six children. Three boys named Beckham; two boys named Pele; and one girl named Eliza Beckham Fletcher. Just shows how much Adrian loves Association Football.
  • Masquerade: Perry must keep his secret agent identity concealed from the Flynn-Fletcher family to avoid being relocated by the OWCA. He acts like a mindless domestic animal around them and only dons his fedora in private, with Phineas noting his sudden disappearance prior to his mission briefing. The reason for this is that the information of who Perry is could potentially put not only Perry, but Phineas and Ferb in danger. Or it could just lead to a lot of empty doorsteps when the family heard the doorbell, as Doofenshmirtz said (in the episode "Hide and Seek") doorbell ditching was a reason he wanted to find out where Perry lived.
  • Mathematician's Answer:
    • A meta example. A fan asked Dan Povenmire "What is Ferb short for?" He answered, "Brevity's sake."
    • In "What a Croc," Candace answers Irving this way:
    Irving: (knocks) "Hello, Candace! Are Phineas and Ferb here?"
    Candace: "Yes." (closes the door on him)
    Irving: (knocks again) "Can I see them?"
    Candace: "Probably not from there." (closes the door on him again)
  • May Contain Evil: Baljeet's curry-flavored gelatin is suspected to be the cause of the gelatin monster.
    "It is not inherently evil. Maybe a little spicy."
  • May–December Romance:
    • Baljeet's parents must be a case of this. Baljeet's father is already a mustached adult by 1957 according to "Tour de Ferb", indicating that he's probably 70. Since Baljeet's mother looks like she's as old as Linda...
    • Linda herself seems to be in her late 30s and Lawrence is most likely in his mid-to-late 50s (having worked as a researcher in Africa from 1976-1989).
  • Meaningful Name:
    • The name "Doofenshmirtz" can be rather amusing to viewers with German knowledge because it loosely translates to "stupid pain" in German. Made more amusing in the original pitch; originally his name was 'Meddleshmirtz' but pronounced 'Mittleshmertz' (for those who don't feel like reading the full definition, 'Mittleshmertz' is a term for a pain that occurs prior to ovulation).
  • Meaningful Gift: Defying the Gift of the Magi Plot, Jeremy and Candace get each other gifts that absolutely reflect their knowledge of each other. Candace had sold a necklace to get Jeremy a silver guitar he'd been eyeing, and Jeremy had sold his old guitar to get Candace a pair of earrings that she'd been looking at. The two of them are delighted with how well they know each other.
  • Meaningless Villain Victory: Doofenshmirtz has succeeded sometimes, just not at anything important. For instance, once he successfully stole the key to the city:
    Doofenshmirtz: "It's almost like it's not a real key, just symbolic..."
  • "Meet the Celebrity" Contest:
    • In "Ready for the Bettys", Candace and Stacy win a radio contest and get to know their favorite band of the week "The Bettys" and get to ride in their band bus.
    • In "Delivery of Destiny", a delivery driver wins that the recurring band Love Händel is playing while he's on work.
  • Memento Macguffin: the episode "finding Mary McGuffin" revolves around Candace's titular doll being sold at a yard sale and her wanting it back. Dr Doofenschmirtz had been looking for the doll for his daughter Vanessa since she was 7 years old, which gives the doll a lot of sentimental value for her as it proves how much he cares for her. The two fight over the doll until it ends up in the hands of a little girl. Candace decides she's too old for dolls anyway while Vanessa ponders whether she should give up the doll that means so much to her. She doesn't.
  • Merit Badges for Everything:
    • The Fireside Girls have patches for just about everything, including those that shouldn't be undertaken by nor rewarded to little girls. Like "Wrestling an Alligator In A Sewer Patch" or "Reckless Disregard for Life and Limb Patch"note . Naturally, the patch they're working on usually jibes with whatever they need to do to help with the P&F's scheme-of-the-day.
    • Subverted in two instances. There's no patch for Persistence, and there's also no Underwater Equestrian patch, because seahorses are too small to ride.
    "Not if you scoop a big bunch of them and ride it!" It works.
    • There's also no patch for Helping Phineas and Ferb. Isabella calls out Adyson for making up patch names like that.
  • Messy Hair:
    • Both the titular characters have rather unkempt hair.
    • Isabella's hair gets messy in one episode to the point of it having its own song.
  • Meta Guy: Dr. Doofenshmirtz has become more and more aware of the Fourth Wall as the series has gone along. Usually he does this by poking fun at his own increasingly complex and nonsensical backstory, but he also told a chorus girl to wait to leave until the show faded to black in "Rollercoaster: The Musical", and complains when Perry disrupts the usual order of their story.
  • Metaphorgotten:
    • As the band Love Händel broke up due to infighting:
      "Lines were drawn. Then lines were crossed. Eventually, the lines were erased and the piece of paper was crumpled up and thrown away."
    • Phineas's narration in "Finding Mary McGuffin" goes a little farther than necessary:
      Phineas: The sun beat down on the city like a hammer; a relentless, hot, beating hammer hammering down like a big metaphor that was... hot, for some reason.
    • And we'd be remiss to not include this bit from "Misperceived Monotreme":
      Doofenshmirtz: Oh, I see what you're doing. You're messing with my head, trying to get into my mind, walk around in there, rearrange the furniture, maybe repaint the kitchen...
  • Mid-Battle Tea Break: In "Doofapus", after an intense battle between Perry and Doofenshmirtz transformed into a platypus, they decide to stop to drink some tea and chat.
  • Mind-Control Music:
    • The point of Doofenshmirtz's "My Name Is Doof" song in the cliptastic countdown.
    • Doof also tries this with country/western with the song "Yodel Yodel Yodel Yobey me!" which openly admits it's a mind-control song.
    • The alien criminals in "Mind Share" go into a very suggestive state when exposed to square dance music.
      Alien Criminal: Oh, rhinestone encrusted oracle, command us with your quadrilateral right angle voice commands!
  • Mind Screwdriver: "Remains of the Platypus" starts in the middle of the episode's plot, then gradually reveals the earlier events that led up to the opening scene.
  • Mini-Golf Episode: The episode "Put That Putter Away" features the titular characters building a gigantic miniature golf course in their backyard when they find out that Little Duffer's, the town's only miniature golf course, has gone out of business.
  • Minored In Ass Kicking: Ferb is normally extremely quiet, reserved and peaceful, but in the episode "Raging Bully", he took out Buford, the bully, in one Vulcan-esque nerve pinch.
    Ferb: Well, he was all up in my face.
    Buford: Ugh, what happened?
  • Mirror Morality Machine: The Turn-Everything-Evil-inator and the Misbehave-inator, which also turns Buford temporarily nicer.
  • Misplaced Wildlife:
    • The title sequence shows the boys discovering a dodo bird on a mountaintop. Dodos lived exclusively in the undergrowth of tropical deciduous forests, and would be ill-suited to an alpine environment. In the actual episode where this happens, it is justified because the dodo was artificially hatched by Doofenshmirtz.
    • The episode "Greece Lightning" claims that vipers and badgers are the natural predators of platypi. Platypi are exclusive to Australia, which had neither badgers nor vipers until the latter were accidentally introduced in recent times.
    • Steve the North American chameleon. Though the New World anole lizards are sometimes called "chameleons" and have some color-changing ability, true chameleons (which Steve is clearly based on) are known only from the Old World (mostly Madagascar).
    • This is a plot point in "Tri-State Treasure: Boot of Secrets". When Lawrence is deciding from a collection of boot scrapers which one is the genuine artifact he is after, his rival barges in and snatches a hedgehog-shaped boot scraper. Lawrence points out that the boot scraper can't be the right one, as there are no hedgehogs in America, and indeed a booby trap is triggered moments afterward.
    • "Where's Perry?" showed ring-tailed lemurs on mainland Africa, as well as a gorilla and a chimpanzee on the savannah.
    • An apparently wild red-billed oxpecker (from Africa) in Danville shows up in "What'd I Miss?"
    • A tiger is shown in Danville in "Tour De Ferb", though it is implied that it escaped from captivity.
    • The numerous platypuses in "Oh, There You Are, Perry" might count, as it is hinted in the same episode that platypuses are not common pets even In-Universe (in real life, even captive platypi are legally restricted to Australia).
    • Grandpa Fletcher claims he once fought wild tigers in the Amazon.
  • Mission Control:
    • Major Monogram is the one giving Perry his mission each day, and sometimes can send him gadgets to help him out in the field.
    • Isabella and the Fireside Girls in fill this role in "Out to Launch", when Phineas and Ferb build a rocket to travel to a star they just bought.
    • Irving in "Moon Farm" remains on earth while the main group goes to the moon so they can create the best Ice Cream ever.
  • Mistaken for Aliens:
    • In "Invasion of the Ferb Snatchers", a series of unlikely coincidences convinces Candace that Ferb is an alien. He wasn't, though he and Phineas were fixing a spaceship for one.
    • Both Phineas and Ferb are mistaken for aliens in "Sci-Fi Pie Fly". They meet real aliens that actually do resemble them later in the episode.
  • Mistaken for Bad Vision: A proxy variant, doubles as Cassandra Truth. Candace sees Phineas and Ferb performing onstage and brings her mom Linda over to look. By the time Linda gets there, somebody else is performing onstage, so she takes Candace to get an eye exam. Ironically, the performer who was actually onstage — "Marty the rabbit boy and his musical blender" — is an even stranger sight that nobody questions.
  • Mistaken for an Imposter: "Not Phineas and Ferb" plays it straight, attempted unmasking and all. "Get That Bigfoot Outta My Face" is a subversion because it's a more elaborate imposture and Candace is in on the joke.
  • Mistaken for Profound:
    • A bunch of goth kids mistake Doofenshmirtz's line "there's a platypus controlling me" as a metaphor for whatever is keeping you down, when he really means there's a platypus controlling him.
    • In "She's the Mayor", Candace wins the Mayor for a Day contest because the judges assumed "Why My Little Brothers Should Be Busted" was a political metaphor.
  • Mistaken for Subculture: Candace and Vanessa end up wearing each other's clothes after their dry cleaning is switched. Candace is mistaken for being a Goth, and Vanessa is mistaken for being a clown by her father.
  • Mister Exposition: Major Monogram.
  • Moby Schtick: The episode "The Belly of the Beast". There is a captain obsessed with catching a legendary giant shark for eating his leg. Phineas and Ferb create a giant robotic replica for a festival, so Candace is also obsessed with busting them.
  • Model Planning: Doof does this a lot. He frequently will create models for his plans to be able to explain them to Perry.
    Doofenshmirtz: "I think you'd be surprised how much free time I have."
  • Modesty Towel: Candace spends almost the entirety of "Gaming the System" in one that, despite running, jumping, and fighting her way through a video game, stays put. Technically, she even went on her date wearing it under her dress. That must have been kind of uncomfortable to dance in (well, that or she went on the date with nothing underneath).
  • Candace forced it on her mom in "Tour de Ferb" by dragging her after a bath to her bycicle to bust her brothers.
  • The A Capella Choir of Whimsy sings when the boys are industriously building something.
  • Doofenshmirtz's theme is also an A Capella Choir of Whimsy, and so is Perry the Platypus' theme.
  • Montages: Generally Once an Episode showing how the boys are building their ideas.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • Immediately after the cutest Villain Song ever written, "Evil Love", Doofenshmirtz's date gets her love removed and indifferently leaves him heartbroken.
    • In the middle of the heartwarming / tear jerking song "Come Home Perry", we have Candace "running out of rhymes". It doesn't really detract that much from the original spirit of the song, however.
  • Mondegreen Gag:
    • In "Imperfect Storm", Candace tells Candace that "Du Bois" have messed up her yard. She believes that she is referring to "the boys", AKA Phineas and Ferb, and begins to sing how she has finally won.
    • In "Just Our Luck", Candace comes out with a pie for the boys for their "Bust Day". Phineas mishears this as "Bus Day", which isn't for a while.
  • Moral Guardians: Given quite the Take That! in "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo". They basically destroy society by protecting children through having them grow in tubes until they're adults.
  • Morality Pet: Vanessa to Doofenshmirtz. Whenever he does something nice, (on purpose) it would be to please his daughter (with varying results).
  • Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Doofenshmirtz admitted to obtaining his degree over the internet with his ex-wife's money. He also has a scheme involving offering these in the Doofenshmirtz Institute of Evilology, and apparently took Evil 101, but he never got a diploma. There seems to be a lot of support for the evilological field in this universe.
  • Most Writers Are Adults: There are some jokes and shout outs that would be hilarious to anyone but the target audience. There's a 2001: A Space Odyssey parody, for crying out loud.
    Doofenshmirtz: I know, weird, right? They go all Kubricky on it.
  • Motive Decay: Candace's quest to show her Mom what Phineas and Ferb are up to started off as wanting to protect them from the big and dangerous things they make. After months, if not years, of failing to do so, the goal of simply "busting" them took on a life of its own with barely a reference to why them being busted would be a good thing.
  • Mistaken for Insane: Candace suffers from a severe psychosis because she can't convince her mother that her little brothers make a habit of violating the laws of common sense, physics, or current technological progress. Every time she tries to expose them, some remarkably convenient plot device eliminates the evidence just as their mother arrives on the scene. Her mother has commented on this being a delusion.
  • Mister Seahorse: Referenced, as a joke, in "Oh, There You are Perry!"
    I am not here to apply for an internshi-...Ooh, you offer maternity leave!
  • Multiple-Choice Past: Doofenshmirtz.
    • "It all started on the day of my actual birth. Neither of my parents showed up." He had to pretend to be a lawn gnome after theirs was repossessed, he had to wear dresses, he wasn't allowed to go swimming in public pools, his father preferred the dog and named it "Only Son" and he was abandoned and raised by ocelots. Of course, for Doofenshmirtz, the correct answer is always E: All of the above.
  • Multiple Demographic Appeal: For a Disney Channel cartoon, it sure pulls in more than its target demographic.
  • Mundane Made Awesome:
    • A Crowd Song, and indeed entire episode, about aglets, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
    • One whole episode was spent playing on those kiddie rides by stores you can ride for a quarter. Much more awesome than it sounds.
    • In "Candace Gets Busted", the party-goers get overexcited watching Phineas and Ferb just sit on the couch eating potato chips.
    • "Make Play" begins with Lawrence describing a jukebox. He greatly over-romanticizes it.
    • Meatloaf. Not only was Linda crowned the 'Meatloaf Queen', but, apparently, Danville has an annual meatloaf festival (with meatloaf themed rides, a bounce house and 32 varieties of meatloaf flavored ice cream.) Candace brushes it off as stupid until her favorite band starts singing about how they love the stuff.
    • Carl driving an ice cream truck to distract Buford and Baljeet (so that Perry can leave for his mission).
  • Some of the ways Perry defeats Doofenshmirtz can fall into this, especially when accompanied by his theme song. In "Hide and Seek" all he needs to do is crush a small robotic eye between his fingers to foil Doofenshmirtz's plan.
  • Everything The Regurgitator says is accentuated by his lightning effects, even lines like "You can start by getting me a fresh pot of coffee!"
  • Apparently, antique steamrollers have groupies. They don't associate with pump trolly operators.
  • Mundane Utility:
    • In the Science Fair episode, a girl shows up with a set of Doctor Octopus-esque set of mechanical arms... which she used to build her real entry, a baking soda volcano. She (and it) win first prize.
    • In "Run Away Runway", Doofenshmirtz clones himself just to his copies will wait in long lines and not him. This is a recurring motif with his schemes; for example, he plots to steal Big Ben Clock Tower from London just so he can check what time it is. According to him, it's much less complicated than buying a new watch.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Parodied in "Suddenly Suzy" when Candace hides anything that could potentially be used as a murder weapon before Suzy arrives.
  • The Music Meister: Doofenshmirtz accidentally builds a machine that forces people to dance (he was trying to build something that would dry his clothes). It ends up zapping Perry, Doofenshmirtz, itself, and Phineas and Ferb's latest invention by the end of the episode.
  • Musical Episode:
    • Pretty much every episode has a song or two, though occasionally there will be full-on musical episodes. These include "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together!", "The Wizard of Odd", the double-length "Summer Belongs to You!", and the appropriately titled "Rollercoaster: The Musical!"
    • The beginning of Rollercoaster: The Musical lampshades this at the beginning.
    Phineas: We should do it again, but this time, as a musical! What do you say, we'll do all the same things, except we're breaking into spontaneous singing and choreography with no discernible music source.
  • Musical World Hypotheses:
    • The characters do definitely live in a musical world, although an...interesting one. While people do burst into song and dance at random times, Doofensmirtz has been known to hire back-up singers specifically for this purpose. Also, the Musical Episode lampshades it to hell and back.
    Phineas: We should do it again, but this time, as a musical! What do you say, we'll do all the same things, except we're breaking into spontaneous singing and choreography with no discernible music source.
    • Also, they appear to be able to hear the soundtrack- and their singers. They have, in fact, had arguments with them.
    • City Hall has a diorama room dedicated to Danville's spontaneous musical numbers in "Where's Pinky?" You can even spot a couple like "I Ain't Got Rhythm".
  • Music Genre Dissonance:
    • Love Handel plays pop music despite being referred to as Glam Metal.
    • Zanzibar is a New Wave band, but their music is plain pop.
    • Vanessa is punk, but she listens to Hard Rock, and her signature song, "It's Me", is very hard sounding rock that does not sound at all like Punk Rock.
  • Mustache Vandalism:
    • In the title sequence, the boys draw a mustache on what looks like a painting of Candace, until she pops her head out of the picture frame to yell, "Phineas!" Kind of odd, since vandalism really isn't the boys' style (currently provides the page image).
    • An episode had Perry use the mustache-inator to deface all the posters and billboards of him.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg:
    • "Friends... Bullies... Irving."
    • Ferb also addressed Isabella as this during his speech in "The Lizard Whisperer".
  • My Future Self and Me: In "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo". After the boys travel to the future, Adult Candace then travels to the past to the first episode so she can bust her brothers. After she undoes it after creating a bad future, she goes back to her time, but Teen Candace tag along planning to bust her future brothers by going to her older mom.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: In "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!", Candace yells this out after her brothers' personality wipeout ended up as the result of her finally managing to expose their experimentations to their mom. Luckily, this turned out to be a double nightmare Perry was having. Of course, Candace continues her fruitless attempts to bust her brothers, but at least the episode showed that she loves them regardless.
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling:
    • In "Thaddeus and Thor", when Candace hurriedly stacked cans in the kitchen so her mother could see Phineas and Ferb's latest creation, we cut to Doofensmirtz who says "I just sensed a disturbance in the cup stacking universe. I think my record's been broken".
    • Candace says, "My busting sense in tingling" in "Quietest Day Ever" when Phineas and friends were nearby, hiding as ninjas.
    • Isabella senses Candace using her Catchphrase in "Phineas and Ferb's Christmas Vacation." While in a different house.
  • Myspeld Rökband: Love Händel.
  • Mystery Meat: On the episode where they build a truckstop diner, Ferb can be seen scooping out ingredients from a large can labeled "assorted mammal chunks."

    N 
  • Name and Name
  • Nature vs. Technology: In "Perry Lays an Egg", Phineas and Ferb want to use technology to take care of the egg they found, while Candace wants to rely on nature. Discussed heavily in the song for the episode.
  • Negative Continuity: In "Ain't No Kiddie Ride", Carl mentions that he was born without nostrils, but in "Brain Drain" he said he was afraid of the smell of garlic and he takes a smell of perfume in "The Curse Of Candace". Also the part of "Curse" where Candace turns into a vampire, and then dies. Other than that, this trope is actually averted very well.
  • Nerd Core: This show writes songs about everything, and "nerdy" subjects are certainly included. There's even a few songs on Baljeet's part about actually being a nerd.
  • Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: Baljeet, oh so very much. He is introduced in the show reading a big pile of school books...during summer vacation.
  • Never Bareheaded: Isabella wears a bow on her head almost 90% of the time, and almost never takes it off.
  • Never My Fault: Doofenshmirtz has this tendency a lot:
    • He blames Perry for his plans failing, even when he screws them up himself. In "That Sinking Feeling" he curses Perry when his lighthouse rocket ends up lodged in the Evil, Inc. building even though Perry had completely failed to foil him that time.
    • Also, when he failed to destroy the adult diaper factory, he blamed Perry despite acknowledging Perry had no role on it whatsoever.
    • Dr. Diminutive once "borrowed" (read: stole) Doofenshmirtz's Schmaltz-inator and used it for something he was arrested for. He blamed Doof for his arrest just because it was Doof who invented the inator.
    • Doof gradually outgrows this tendency as the show progresses, admitting that he could have prevented many of these problems himself.
    Doofenshmirtz: Curse you, Perry the Platypus! And my own poor planning skills!
  • Never Say "Die": The show zig-zags this. Actually averted by Candace in "Gaming the System" when she thinks Phineas and Ferb went to a better place.
  • Never Smile at a Crocodile:
    • In "The Ballard of Badbeard", Doof had two crocs, both named Susan, though they were not seen again.
    • Averted, though, with Crikey the Crocodile from "What a Croc!". The worst that he does in the episode? He eats Irving's UPAFDS (A digital tablet scrapbook) on an impulse after Candace tries to wrestle it away from Irving.
    • Also averted in that OWCA has a crocodile agent.
  • Never Trust a Trailer:
    • Many scenes from fake trailer for "Meapless in Seattle" were incorporated when they made actual episode the way that completely alters their meaning.
    • For example, the scene with Major Monogram ordering Perry to turn over his hat suggest Agent P would be fired but it was revealed it was just to upgrade the hat. The scene with Perry throwing a chair at Monogram's screen was revealed to be a way to test the screen's unbreakable aspect. It passed and Monogram ordered an unbreakable chair.
    • The trailer scene featuring Suzy for "Meapless in Seattle" became a trailer for the prequel. Doofenshmirtz even called everyone's attention to this.
  • New Media Are Evil:
    Monogram: You know, that building across town with the giant vacuum cleaner on top? Man, I can't believe that place closed. I blame the internet.
  • Newhart Phone Call: Candace has one of these with Stacy in the pilot:
    Candace: "What are my brothers doing right now? Why do you ask? What do you mean you can see it from your house?! SEE WHAT?!"
  • Nice Guy: Phineas. Seriously. Early-Installment Weirdness notwithstanding, he has gotten truly angry perhaps twicenote  so far in the entire series and managed to recover fairly quickly on both occasions. He even agreed to help his sister bust him once without batting an eye just because it would make her happy, and that was on the one occasion where he even acknowledged that she was trying to bust him at all.
    • Jeremy as well, no matter how crazy Candace becomes in her "mission" to bust her brother, he never gets mad at her and is always there for her.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Linda is the one who gave Doof the idea of taking over the Tri-State Area.
    • Future Candace travels back in time to successfully bust Phineas and Ferb, which allows Doofenshmirtz to take over the Tri-State Area.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Once per Episode, Doofenshmirtz's schemes and inventions are what erase any evidence of Phineas and Ferb's big idea right before Mom comes, which saves them from getting busted and letting them get off scot-free.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • In-Universe, Doofenshmirtz's own personal case: He tumbled through an assembly line while being pelted with hundreds of Perry the Platypus look-alikes from "Toy to the World". He spent most of it screaming, and when he got a brief break he remarked how disturbing it was.
    • Also for Doofenshmirtz, one of the stories of his childhood involved his mother purposefully trying to give him nightmares by singing him a song about a child-hunting troll called "Der Kinderlumper" every night before bed.
    • In the commentary for "The Chronicles of Meap", Major Monogram says Meap is this, even using the term "Nightmare Fuel".
  • Nightmare Retardant:
    • An in-Universe example: In the episode "One Good Scare Ought to Do It", when Baljeet (dressed as a failed math test) and Buford (disguised like Suzy Johnson) try to scare Phineas and Isabella.
    • Malefishmirtz lists off everything that he's scared of, but when he actually sees them all in one with the Uni-Whale-Scorpio-Pega-Squid-Icorn-Girl, he finds that the fears don't really stack.
  • Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie:
    • Ninja vampires from Heinz's show.
    • Doofenshmirtz also cast himself as a "rogue trillionare-inventor-extreme fighting champion FROM THE FUTURE! in "Doof n'Puss".
    • Candavier as Uni-Whale-Scorpio-Pega-Squid-Icorn-Girl.
  • "El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño": "As they say in Mexico, 'Dasvidaniya!' Down there, that's two vidaniyas!"
  • No Endor Holocaust: A lot of their inventions would have ramifications that are never explored, but the best example is from Phineas and Ferb Save Summer where Doofenshmirtz pulls the Earth slightly further out in it's orbit, causing temperatures to drop, trees to lose their leaves, and more. Even though Phineas and Ferb (and similar geniuses from around the world) put the Earth back in a matter of hours, the damage it should have caused would be catastrophic to ecosystems around the world. But it shows that everything is fine afterwards (even the trees have their leaves back).
  • No Eye in Magic: In "Meapless in Seattle". A substance named "cutonium" can make its user so cute that everyone would fall in love with them just by seeing them.
  • No Fourth Wall: This became more prevalent in the later seasons.
    • In "Make Play":
    Monogram: Oh wow, what are the odds?
    Carl: Well it is a cartoon, sir.
    Monogram: What did I tell you about breaking the fourth wall, Carl?
    • One only has to watch the first couple of minutes of "Rollercoaster: The Musical" (not to mention the rest of it) to see that the creators really don't care about the integrity of the fourth wall anymore.
    • During the "Moon Farm" episode's song, Baljeet gets into an argument with the "Disembodied Reggae Space Voice" singing.
    • The show edges towards this more and more. Like how characters remark that they have to do things because it's in the theme song? Or Ferb saying that it usually takes them "at least a montage" to build things? Doof saying his head hurts to much to go into Flash Back mode? Phineas insulting advertisements for ruining his visual gags?
    • The entire episode of "What'd I Miss?" has No Fourth Wall, with characters mentioning the narration and noting that they can't see the flashbacks.
  • No Infantile Amnesia: Invoked with Dr. Doofenshmirtz, who claims that his parents somehow missed witnessing his birth date, even though logically his mom should be present.
  • Noir Episode: "Finding Mary McGuffin". In which the boys try to recover the eponymous doll for her sister while imitating old black and white movies. To the point of using make-up to literally be in black and white.
  • Non-Action Guy: Baljeet is normally the most likely to have problems with physical activities. Though you shouldn't push him.
  • Non-Indicative Name: "Wizard of Odd" gives us this gem:
    Phineas: [After Candace and various others start falling from a plane] Wow, dumb luck. And over the Sea of Razor Sharp Rock Spires too!
    The Others: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
    Phineas: Good thing it was so inappropriately named!
    [cue them falling onto an extremely bouncy mountain of pillows]
  • No Peripheral Vision: One of the main reasons Linda never sees the boy's inventions. Lampshaded in “Last Train to Bustville” where she reveals she has poor eyesight and wants to get contacts.
  • Non Sequitur, *Thud*:
    Stacy: Uh, it's not my ferret!
    Major Monogram: Wrong pants!
    Doofenshmirtz: Hold the door, Barbara, I think this is our floor. Mama, I'm pretty.
  • Non-Standard Character Design:
    • Vanessa, in a minor example. She's literally the only high school age character on the show to have a "womanly" kind of body.
    • Also, pretty much every time there's a guest star, their Ink-Suit Actor is slightly more realistic than most characters.
    • Phineas himself counts. He's the only character with a triangle for a head. Other characters have various levels of realism to their shape, but none to that degree.
  • Noodle Implements:
    • "Why don't you grab your peanut butter and your swimsuit and meet me at the flagpole?"
    • The outlandish items Lawrence tries to have Linda pack for their trip in "Summer Belongs to You".
  • Noodle Incident: Enough to have its own page.
  • No Ontological Inertia: About half of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's inators are like this, and when Perry destroys them, their effects instantly wear off. Others don't, and require the effects to be undone a different way.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Apparently, the boys are a little young to know anything about OSHA. Some examples:
    • The set of armor that almost chopped Candace's head off. Admittedly, it was due to power overload, but still...
    • The giant gap in their maze which Candace, Isabella, & Melissa had to cross.
    • Using the teleporter to get to the ground after launching themselves high into the air. Now think what would have happened if the teleporter had a malfunction...
    • It became a major plot point in the episode "The Beak" when the boys built a set of power armor because they realized they otherwise won't survive their obstacle course.
  • No-Sell:
    • Doof's Delete From My Mind-inator can erase whatever he is thinking of from any mind and computer in the Tri-State Area; however, people who haven't seen or are unaware of said subject will be completely unaffected.
    • The Worst Fear-inator causes whoever is zapped by it to have their worst fear come to life; it has no effect on Perry because he's fearless.
  • No Snack for You: Baljeet falls victim of this in "Ain't No Kiddie Ride" when the kiddie ride keeps ejecting his bill.
  • Nostalgia Filter:
    • The kiddie rides outside the store that can be ridden for a quarter.
      Phineas: You know, in retrospect, I may have over-romanticized those memories.
    • In the future episode, when Candace claims she and her brothers were always friendly with each other.
  • No Sympathy: Averted without shame, especially by Jeremy toward Candace. Unlike other series which would have Jeremy getting frustrated with Candace's constant shenanigans, her no-showing to their dates (due to Phineas, Ferb, Suzy, or any combination of the three), Jeremy is understanding and helpful toward Candace, always with a kind word or action to cheer her up after a seemingly ruined day.
  • Not Me This Time: In "Phineas and Ferb Save Summer," when Candace asks Phineas if he and Ferb moved the Earth out of orbit, his answer is "Not this time, no."
  • Note to Self: Perry utilises this to fight Doofenshmirtz's brainwashing by writing "I Fight Evil" backwards on his chest, so he'll be able to read it in the mirror.
  • Not Helping Your Case: Candace does this a fair amount. For instance:
    Candace: "No, Mom; I'm not crazy. AH HA HA HA HA HA!"
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: A series known for its extreme Status Quo Is God tendencies invokes this in "Happy Birthday, Isabella", when Stacy learns about Perry's identity, and avoids getting her memories erased.
  • Not So Above It All:
    • Candace sometimes gets involved in the boys projects in a friendly way even while she's trying to bust them. "It's a Mud, Mud, Mud World" and "Spa Day" are but two examples out of many. Taken up to eleven in "Finding Mary McGuffin" when she gives them their project. (To be detectives.)
    • Also done by Linda, of all people, with Lawrence and his brother.
      "Next time, destroy him. Smear the punk. Annihilate him. Make him cry."
  • Not-So-Imaginary Friend: In "The Lizard Whisperer". The kids find a chameleon and name him Steve. But whenever they try to show it to their mom he becomes invisible, so she just think it is some imaginary friend.
  • Not So Stoic:

    O 
  • Oblivious to Love: This was a typical case with Phineas and Isabella:
    • Isabella makes obvious advances towards him as early as the pilot episode, and him being so obsessed/distracted with his latest project that he fails to notice, but the "Summer Belongs To You" special takes the cake. In a show known for leaning frequently on the fourth wall, this episode has Isabella singing an adorably sad song about her affections for him, followed by a sour depression when he fails once again to notice her affections, all of which takes place in Paris (referred to by the various characters as "The City of Love"), but not a minute later, he laments for each of the OTHER unfortunate couples, who have very obvious attractions to each other, causing Isabella to shake in rage. All the while the idea of Isabella perhaps liking him is completely alien to him. Despite that, though, she does get a well-deserved hug from him later in the episode after she rallies him from an unrelated depression on his part.
    • She gets an even sadder song in "Happy Birthday Isabella", where she is desperately singing that she'd be satisfied with increasingly small returns from Phineas.
    • In an episode where Phineas is fully aware of everyone randomly breaking into song and non-discernible music sources (Rollercoaster: The Musical), he STILL doesn't notice Isabella and her song, "Whatcha Doin'?"
    • Flipped in "Act Your Age" where it's revealed during High School, Isabella had moved on, right when Phineas started crushing on her, and he admits he never had the slightest idea Isabella liked him that summer.
  • Obliviously Evil: Baljeet in "Cranius Maximus". His enhanced intelligence blinds him so much regarding his idea to clear the atmosphere to have clearer skies to study space, that he doesn't think of the minor detail that everyone will asphixiate.
  • Obvious Object Could Be Anything: In "Summer Belongs to You", Phineas and Ferb makes a series of machines to travel around the world, which looks ridiculously similar to famous world sites if put under a big cloth.
  • Odd Friendship:
    • Buford and Baljeet, who are an oddly sympathetic bully and a Bollywood Nerd.
    • Isabella and Candace are, as different as they are, on quite friendly terms. One might call them close acquaintances.
    • Candace and Vanessa become pretty close friends by the end, despite Vanessa being a year older and being a punk hipster, compared to Candace's classic teen boy-crazy style.
  • Ode to Apathy: In "I Really Don't Hate Christmas", Doofenshmirtz sings about how, despite not really liking the holiday, he doesn't hate it, either. He sums up his feelings as "ambivalence" and "complete and total apathy". This upsets him, he wants to hate Christmas.
  • Ode to Family: Candace has the song "Little Brother", about her two younger brothers. It plays this trope for laughs as instead of it being genuinely heartfelt Candace is being factual.
  • Ode to Food: "Meatloaf" is a song about how awesome meatloaf is, sung by a band at a meatloaf contest.
  • Official Couple:
    • Candace and Jeremy, by admission of Jeremy's voice actor, which was made official as of "Summer Belongs To You!" with their referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend and their first on-screen kiss.
    • This also applies to Stacy and Coltrane (the bassist in Jeremy's band) as of "The Baljeatles".
    • The episode "Brain Drain" added Vanessa and Johnny, until it was dropped in "Minor Monogram", where Vanessa breaks up with Johnny. Though, it adds Ship Tease of Vanessa and Monty Monogram to compensate who officially become a couple as of "Druselsteinoween".
    • Phineas and Isabella, as well as Ferb and Vanessa, and Ginger and Baljeet in "Act Your Age".
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
    • The majority of the rescue sequence in "Doof Dynasty", notable for not even even having Buford's flashback shown to the audience.
    • The Fireside Girls somehow literally moving an entire mountain.
  • Old-Timey Bathing Suit:
    • Klimpaloon is a sentient magical old-timey bathing suit who lives in the Himalayas.
    • Dr. Doofenshmirtz has also been seen wearing this type of bathing suit in some of his backstories.
  • Ominous Message from the Future: In "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo", a Candace from the future comes back to keep the boys inventing so that Dr. Doofenschmirtz can't take over the tri-state area. Different versions of her are met, but we never see more than three at once, as they're erased with their version of the Bad Future.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ:
    • Invoked by Doofenshmirtz in "Bad Hair Day". When Perry enter Doof's building, ominious music starts playing, then we see that is Doof himself playing a pipe organ in a Shout-Out to Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
    • Invoked in "One Good Scare Ought to Do It!"; Phineas and Ferb's haunted house's animatronics are controlled by the latter playing an organ.
  • Omniglot:
    • Ferb knows Dolphin, Martian, Japanese, French, and pretty much whatever else the plot requires.
    • Buford shows signs of this as well, he knows Latin and French and doesn't think much of it.
  • On Second Thought: In "What a Croc":
    Candace: I'm in charge, right?
    Linda: No, because your father's home.
    (cut to Lawrence and the boys watching Horse in a Bookcase)
    Linda: ...You're in charge.
  • Once an Episode: The show runs on this trope. Every episode features one original song, a plan hatched by Phineas and put into action alongside Ferb, Perry trying to stop an Evil Plan created by Doofenshmirtz. Too many running gags to count. In later episodes, a good chunk of the comedy comes from Lampshading, parodying, and/or subverting these.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten:
    Baljeet: Hey Buford! We are going to be floating like little woodland pixies!
    Buford: You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?
  • One Dialogue, Two Conversations:
    • Between Linda and Phineas at the end of "The Fast and the Phineas". Her car has lost all the modifications from going through the car wash which she loves, and she assumes the boys did it; Phineas thinks she saw him on TV during the race, without any hint of confusion.
    • Linda's first phone call to Lawrence in "What Do It Do?". Linda believes they're talking about the anti-romance rocket; Lawrence thinks they're talking about his birdhouse.
  • One-Joke Fake Show: A reoccurring gag was Laurence's interest in a show called "Horse in a Bookcase". It features a horse stuck in a bookcase looking sad. It somehow lasted 19 seasons.
  • One-Letter Pun: In the song "Humiliating Stumblegimp Dance of Contrition" from the episode One Good Turn, the singer is yelling about how he will not speak French, and then he paints a big red number 9 on a poster and yells "Nein!"
  • One of the Kids: Both Linda and Lawrence have their moments, such as the latter geeking out over Pinhead Pierre Live in "Magic Carpet Ride" or the pair of them playing with a vacuum cleaner in "That Sinking Feeling".
  • One-Person Birthday Party: Exaggerated and parodied in the backstory of Doofenshmirtz. He states that neither of his parents bothered to show up to his birth, and that he had to throw surprise birthday parties for himself. Also, at age eight, he was abandoned at the Captain Ersatz Chuck E Cheese to the point that the employees working there let him lock up the shop at closing.
  • One-Steve Limit:
    • Flamboyantly averted, enough to make you think the creators knew of the trope name. The boys lose their chameleon, which they named Steve, after Doofenshmirtz' "Gigantinator" ray... Well, what do you think? When they're looking for him, they discover an entire convention of people named Steve in the middle of Danville, which Steve told them about after they waved Steve off.
    • A more subtle aversion: the time machine was invented by Xavier Onassis, while Xavier is also the name of Candace's future son. Made more interesting because they both start out as characters mentioned but never appearing...then appear for the first time in the same episode, "Quantum Boogaloo" (though Onassis isn't referred to by name).
    • Just recap how many characters were named Elizabeth among the years, including Rodney.
    • There's two different Suzys; Jeremy's little sister and an unseen girl in Candace's grade who she mentions in "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror".
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Ferb is short for something, but nobody, not even his own stepsister, knows what it is. Dan Povenmire eventually confirmed that it was short for "Ferbs" which is what Vanessa calls him in "Act Your Age".
  • Only Sane Man: While Jeremy is in on the show's zaniness, once in a while, the viewer can see the Flat "What" expression on his face. Case in point:
    Phineas: So if we just find mom, we'll find both Candaces!
    Jeremy: Uh... tell them I said hi...?
    • Also Stacy. When Candace is getting to crazy with busting her brothers, Stacy tries to bring her back to reality, usually to no avail.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • Phineas is barely ever sad, scared or angry, but when he is...things are either teetering on true hopelessness, or sweet platypus, you are screwed.
    • "The Lizard Whisperer": Ferb must really love Steve the chameleon, because when Steve goes missing and Phineas and Isabella are on the verge of giving up the search, he delivers a long and epic speech to urge them on.
    • The only other time Ferb talks a significant amount is REALLY serious, since it was Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars and he had just been turned into a Sith lord.
    • Lampshaded in "Phineas and Ferb Save Summer" when Phineas warns Candace not to push the controls of the rockets into the red:
      Buford: This must be a special episode. He's yelling at his sister again.
  • Opening Shout-Out:
    • Lampshaded by Ferb in "Swiss Family Phineas".
      Candace: You're giving a monkey a shower?!
      Ferb: Yep, had to be done.
    • The episode "Fireside Girl Jamboree" has a quick cameo by the unicorn-turtle thing shown with "discovering something that doesn't exist", with those words even used.
    • Happens again in both "Canderemy" (the boys build a giant robot dog, and the monkey is referenced again) and "Last Train to Bustville" (Ferb's list of things in the title sequence).
    • And again in "Last Train To Bustville":
      Phineas: A dodo bird! What's next on the list?
      Ferb: [as he crosses out all but one thing listed in the opening song] Discovering Frankenstein's brain.
      Buford: Aaahhh, that was in my balloon.
    • They created nanobots in "Norm Unleashed" and made them form into word "Hello". Again, lampshaded.
      Buford: Yeah, yeah, opening credits.
  • "Open!" Says Me: "Atlantis" has Phineas noticing a door with rune instructions on how to open it. Buford simply punches it and it opens.
  • Opposites Attract: Neurotic, Jerk with a Heart of Gold Genki Girl Candace and laid-back, Only Sane Man Nice Guy Jeremy.
  • Organ Autonomy: Phineas and Ferb controlling Candace's arms and legs in "Journey to the Center of Candace".
  • Orphaned Punchline: Done fairly often, most notably in 'The Lake Nose Monster'. Lawrence Fletcher attempts to tell the boys about his capture of a giant fish named Big Mouth Ramon, but the boys leave. Through the episode, we hear snippets of this tale.
    "A chilly April morning, 1980, disco was on the way out, and it was just beginning to dawn on everyone how ridiculous they looked in their...so it was either go up the fire escape or lose the pants altogether...I said, John, it's great, I love the tune, but the words! 'All you need is a Philips-Head screwdriver'? It just doesn't really ring true, now does it?...It seemed there was no way we could get through the entire petting zoo...and well, haha, and he was...and that was when I saw the way down, I saw Ted standing on the handles of the swing...so anyways there I was, four hours from the nearest dental supplies store, oh, there you are, Perry, and what a burglar I gasped...so I learned that it was too late, we were already headed off for Southampton...and that is the story of how I caught the Big Mouth Ramón."
    • In "Leave the Busting to Us":
      Candace: And then Ferb says...
      Ferb: And that is why I will never wear suspenders in public.
    • Played with in "What'd I Miss?"
    Buford: So then the seamstress walks back into the stateroom and says, " 'Titanium'? I thought she said 'cranium'!" Hahaha, yeah. Pretty good punch line, huh?
    Baljeet: Yes. All you need now is the first part, and then you will have a whole joke.
  • Other Me Annoys Me: When Candace is split into two personalities, the Busting Mode is angered by the Romantic Mode due to her lack of seriousness in busting her brothers.
  • Our Werebeasts Are Different: In "That's the Spirit!", we get Doof as a werecow.
  • Out-of-Character Moment:
    • Buford suddenly changing from surly, arrogant boy who won't accept the fact that he lost to a girl to a humble, praising, fun person due to Doofenshmirtz's Misbehave-Inator in "Got Game?". Lampshaded by Ferb, too.
    • Phineas actually yells angrily at Candace to "Get on the trike!" in "Summer Belongs To You".
    • Phineas being scared in "Night of the Living Pharmacists" counts double, since a) he never gets scared, and b) he actually seems to share Isabella's feelings, saying how he'll never forgive himself if she's turned into a zombie.
    • Another one comes in the Opening title sequence itself. Phineas defacing Candace's picture with a marker isn't typical of his usual big projects, nor his usual admiration for Candace. Overlaps with Early-Installment Weirdness.
    • Invoked with Doofenshmirtz's Least-likely-inator, which causes anyone fired to do the least-likely action possible. It caused Candace to clean the boys' project herself before her mother saw it.
  • Out of Focus: In "Vanessassary Roughness", Phineas does nothing but sit in a massage chair for the entire episode, leaving it to take a closer look at Vanessa and Ferb's exploits.
  • Oven Logic: Stacy applies it in "Moon Farm", which is pretty foreboding considering she and Candace weren't even using actual food to begin with. It works.
    • Also applied by Candace in "Bad Hair Day". Phineas and Ferb build Candace a hair regenerator after Candace botches an attempt to give herself a new haircut. They tell her to sit in it for 30 minutes on setting 5, but since she's on a time crunch, she reasons that it will work in ten seconds on setting 20. It works, but it has the unintended side effect of extreme hair growth.
  • Outlandish Device Setting:
    • Candace is trying to make lamb cobbler for Jeremy. Setting aside the outlandish ingredients she uses due to garbled transmissions with Ferb on the moon, she is told that it must bake at 350F for an hour. Pressed for time, Candace reasons that it will take three minutes at 9000F, and promptly sets her oven that high. Given that it's Phineas and Ferb, and other modifications the audience has seen them make around the house, no one even questions how a conventional oven can get that hot.
    • The episode "Attack of the 50 Foot Sister" has the Smellinator, designed by Doofenshmirtz to spray concentrated dirty diaper smell at an ongoing festival to ruin it. Among the settings for the range is "universe", which is somehow able to make the machine spray the entire universe in Phineas and Ferb's growth serum and cause everything to grow to a size proportionate to Candace's newfound giant size, making everything look normal again without anyone realizing the changes.
  • Over-the-Top Roller Coaster: In the appropiately named first episode "rollercoaster", the titular characters build one of these in their backyard and into the city with a lot of impossible turns. And then it goes even further since, due to Perry and Doof's interference, the ride gets moved from its original position and they end derailing and bouncing aroiund, ending in France, and even outer space.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Candace. And who can blame her.
    Candace: Why is it when Phineas and Ferb have an idea, everyone's like "Oh, wow, you guys are really clever!" and when I come up with something everyone's like "What, did you say something, Candace?"
  • Overly Long Gag:
    • Candace running and screaming all the way to the panic room in "I, Brobot".
    • The "Fossils! Dun-dun-dun!" bit from The Stinger of "It's About Time".
    • "It's back! It's gone!" from "Don't Even Blink".
  • In "Imperfect Storm" when Candace believes the boys were busted by Mom, she goes into a celebratory musical number, "Straight-Up Bust". By the time we see her again a few scenes later, she's still singing it.
  • Overly Long Name:
    • Aloyse Everheart Elizabeth Otto Wolfgang Hypatia Gunther Galen Gary Cooper von Roddenstein aka "Rodney".
    • Some of Doof's inators, like the "Platypus Secret Agent Arrival In Order To Foil My Evil Plot Capture-Inator".
  • Overly Narrow Superlative:
    • Reversed. The teenage Doofenshmirtz isn't particularly fond of the song "What Do It Do?", even after putting it in one of these:
      Doofenshmirtz: Eh, it's in my top seven, eight favorite songs about reverse engineering.
    • Out of all the aquatic mammals Doofenshmirtz hangs with, Perry is the most uncooperative.

    P 
  • Palette Swap:
  • Papa Wolf: Dr. Doofenshmirtz. He may be evil, but he still loves his daughter a great deal and would do pretty much anything to keep her safe and happy. He doesn't succeed at this most of the time, but hey, he gets points for trying.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise:
    • Doofenshmirtz is completely incapable of recognizing Perry without his hat, even when he sees him doing his usual agent moves in front of him.
    • In "Flop Starz" Perry finds himself parked next to Linda. He hastily puts on a pair of Groucho Marx glasses and she's none the wiser (needless to say, Doof is fooled by them too).
    • Also played with in that when Perry and Candace switch bodies, Doofenshmirtz can still recognize Perry by the hat.
      "A teenage girl?" [Perry in Candace's body puts on his hat] "Perry the teenage girl?!"
    • In "Oil on Candace", Doofenshmirtz wants to impress his professor, stating "Look, I even have my own nemesis!" only to receive the scornful reply of "He doesn't even have a hat."
    • Irving has to show his apparently insightful brother Phineas and Ferb, who are occupied, and hastily throws together bad costumes that Buford and Baljeet wear. He's stunned when it actually works.
    • In "The Lemonade Stand", when Perry shows up as a plumber, Doof doesn't question it at all, calling him "A platypus plumber". Then, when Perry dons his fedora, Doof calls him, questioningly, "Perry-The-Platypus Plumber?" When Perry scowls and removes the plumber's belt, THEN Doof yells in his usual inflection.
    • Perry uses it to his advantage again in "Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Max Modem!". He's forced to do battle with a robot that has been programmed with all of Doofenshmirtz's knowledge of Perry's personality and battle strategies. He foils it by taking off the hat, which confuses the robot and causes it to assume that the OWCA provided Perry with a cloaking device.
  • Paranoia Gambit: Candace falls to pieces when the boys decide to take the day off and do nothing, and ends up building a project herself to try and encourage them.
  • Parental Abandonment
    • The title characters are missing a biological dad and a biological mom, respectively. However, their remaining parents are Happily Married to each other and have Happily Adopted their stepchildren, so any issues with this are pretty much confined to Fan Fic.
    • As a side-note, some fans have noted that throughout the whole first two seasons, Vanessa seems to be the only child/teen character with two biological parents; everyone else seems to have a mom but no dad (or in Django's case, a dad but no mom). This recently changed when we finally saw Jeremy's father.
    • Doofenshmirtz's parents couldn't even be bothered turning up for his birth.
  • Parental Bonus: By the bagful, though mostly in the form of obscure socio-cultural and literary references.
    • Ain't that the truth! Hanuman Man, anyone?
    • "Rollercoaster: The Musical!" cuts to scenes of a dozen different broadway musicals that young children aren't likely to recognize.
    • In "Get That Bigfoot Outa My Face!" Dr. Doofenshmirtz's "woodland retreat" is Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright which not many kids are expected to recognize.
    • "Don't Even Blink" ends with Ferb lecturing Candace on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Yeah.
    • The ending scene of "Mommy, Can You Hear Me?" has a scene from Space Odyssey.
    • "Phineas' Birthday Clip-o-rama" has a clip of Isabella as a beat poet, saying "I've seen the best girls of my troop hungry, badgeless and out of uniform". Allen Ginsberg references for the pre-teens?note 
  • Parents for a Day: Phineas, Ferb and Candace are all left to care for "Perry's" egg in "Perry Lays an Egg". As it turns out, it was just a very unusual bird.
  • Percussive Maintenance: In "Hide and Seek": "What do you know, random pounding works!"
  • Periphery Demographic: In universe, Ducky Momo is implied to have one that includes Candace and even (as hinted in "My Fair Goalie") Major Monogram, though at the same time it also appears to have a large Periphery Hatedom.
  • Periphery Hatedom: In Universe, Ducky Momo. Unfortunate for Candace who lies well outside the target demographic.
  • Perplexing Plurals: In "Greece Lightning", the narrator of an educational filmstrip is unsure how to refer to platypi. Platypuses. Platypeople?
  • Personality Powers:
    • The neighborhood kids imagine themselves as superheroes with such abilities.
    • Baljeet zigzags this, by establishing his personality as a scientific, rational being, than at the last minute asks for the power to turn into Hanuman.
  • Persona Non Grata: Doofenshmirtz is "never welcome in Albania ever again" for reasons involving a bunch of Canadian college students, a rivalry with a guy named Dylan, and a complaint from the ambassador's wife.
  • Pet the Dog: Played with in "Voyage to the Bottom of Buford", when Dr. Doofenshmirtz gets good publicity after accidentally saving a kitten, because people think he's turned good.
  • Petty Childhood Grudge: This is the whole schtick with Doofenshmirtz. He had something bad happen in his childhood and he wants the world to pay for the injustice. Of special note is when a childhood bully who always threw a bucket of water came to town and he was planning to splash her with a giant bucket. When he met her again, she was a nice woman, and even apologized for doing that and they were on good terms... Until she found out about his plan of revenge and called him out for still being spiteful for something that happened when they were kids.
  • Phony Degree: Dr Doofenshmirtz got his doctorate online for $25.
  • Phrase Catcher:
    • "Perry The Platypus!". Perry get these a lot. (Although Phineas does get "Whatcha doin'?" from characters other than Isabella on rare occasions). Hell, he even delivers it on occasion. (Isabella doesn't mind when he does it).
    • "Aren't you a little young to [insert activity here]?"
  • Pictorial Letter Substitution: The title logo uses Phineas' head for the "P" and Ferb's head for the "F".
  • Pig Latin: "Ferb Latin". You take the first letter of every word, you move it to the end, and then say -erb!
  • Pinball Gag: In "Bowl-A-Rama Drama". The boys created the largest bowling ball ever, and Candace took it to show it to her mom, but then she lost control and started bouncing around the city, the kids decide to keep her doing that to create the largest pinball game ever.
  • Pink Means Feminine: Isabella wears this kind of attire.
    • Candace and Stacy also fond of the color.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: Meap and many of the animal agents, but especially Sergei the Snail.
  • Planet Baron: Candace very briefly becomes the Queen of Mars when sent there by the boys' teleporter. They even carve her face into the surface in her honor. After she's forced to go home, Doofenshmirtz and a baking-soda-volcano wind up there... and the Martians crown the volcano as the new ruler.
  • Pirate Episode: The Ballad of Badbeard, which has the kids don pirate outfits and seek out the ancient treasure of Badbeard the pirate, which turns out to be a collection of fake beards.
  • Plaster Cast Doodling: Doofenshmirtz breaks his leg and all fellow evil scientist visit him and write their name on his cast. He even reserved a place for Perry by drawing a circle with "Save for Perry" on it but by doing so removed the space for anyone to sign.
  • Play-Along Prisoner:
    • Perry has a distinct tendency to stay in a trap and break out and stop Doofenshmirtz at the very last second. In "Greece Lightning" he was trapped by chair-cuffs, removed his hand to grab some popcorn, then put it back.
    • In "Candace's Big Day", after Doofenshmirtz had been stuck in an elevator and Perry has entered his apartment, Doof tells him that he "at least could've gotten into [his] trap" (it was on the coffee table). Perry does so while Doof explains his plan.
    • Doofenshmirtz seems to even be aware of it, he gets very miffed at Peter the Panda when he does not wait out the Villain Song.
  • Playing Pictionary: In "Put That Putter Away", Candace apparently has such poor handwriting that when she writes the word "busted" on a piece of paper, both Stacy and Phineas mistake it for a drawing of dancing weasels.
  • Plot Hole:
    • The classic knowledge version, during the birthday clip show, Phineas flashes back to things he never saw. And Irving has footage of things that happened in dreams, in alternate timelines, and that were supposed to have been erased from every computer and memory in the world.
    • Just a basic fact from as stated in the theme song. According to that, there are 104 days in summer vacation (though there are no school systems that would give a vacation that long). There are actually 225 episodes each of which supposedly cover one day. Now, subtracting specials, two-parters, or any episode not set during the summer, that's still way over the supposed 104 days.
  • Plumber's Crack: Perry once disguised himself as a plumber wearing nothing but a plumber's hat and a plumber's belt. Doof felt the natural disgust during the few seconds Perry actually did some plumbing.
  • Pluto Is Expendable: In "Science Fair Unfair", a kid enters with a project on Pluto. Doof insults his project, quoted in the trope. Needless to say, the kid was just holding it for his brother, who gave Doof a beating.
  • Pointy-Haired Boss: Major Monogram. Consider this: He refuses to ever give Perry a vacation, even though he only ever pits him against an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain that any marginally competent crimefighter could've handled easily. And you sometimes get the impression that he haven't bothered to do any research on said villain's activities recently ("Uh...Stop Doofenshmirtz"). Heck, one time Heinz actually called in sick to be bothered with their usual routine. Monogram's response while he was sick no less: "How dare he call in sick when everyone already gathered. Screw that, were going on as planned!".
  • Poke the Poodle: Doofenshmirtz lives this. In the case of "Perry Lays an Egg" the Doctor actually had a scheme so ridiculous that Perry came to investigate, saw the entire plan... and turned around and left without even bothering to stop it. Doof then spends the rest of the episode chasing Perry, popping into every place he tries to hide, and demanding, "Thwart me"!
  • Politicians Kiss Babies: In the episode "The Mom Attractor," Dr. Doofenshmirtz's evil scheme is to create a giant baby that cries whenever his brother (the Mayor) kisses a baby, so people won't vote for him.
  • The Pollyanna: Phineas, who has near-constant optimism and a can-do attitude. Because of this, he quite literally can and does achieve the impossible, every episode, with the help of his friends and family. That being said, he can occasionally crack...
  • Poor Communication Kills:
    • In the ending of "The Fast and the Phineas", the boys come home with the trophy won from the Swamp Oil 500; Linda does not see this and tells them, "I saw what you did today." Keep in mind that at this moment, she is seeing her car, all the modifications removed from the car wash and completely clean to her delight. Phineas does not notice the car and thinks she saw him on TV, and replies "Yeah? How'd you like it?" with no confusion whatsoever. Not helping is Candace is standing, completely gobsmacked and jaw dropped, and unable to give a proper explanation.
    • A Running Gag in "Ready for the Bettys". When the boys discover Perry's lair and are pulled into his mission, Phineas believes Ferb put the whole thing together; Ferb tries to tell him he didn't, but he keeps getting interuppted.
    • More like (very) Poor Reading Skills Kill, but... Candace receives a text message from Stacy saying "CYL. BFF. S." Candace misreads this as "Candace, you loser. Bad friendships fail. Stacy." What Stacy actually meant was "Call you later. Best friends forever. Stacy."
    • Similar to the "Ready for the Bettys" example above, in "Hail Doofania!" Phineas thinks Isabella never saw a rainbow and he and Ferb build a Rainbow-inator so she can witness one. Isabella didn't actually see a unicorn, not a rainbow as she had seen them before, but Phineas keeps interrupting her every time she tries to tell.
    • Isabella is hit with this in "That Sinking Feeling". When Phineas invited her to join the romantic cruise, she thought he was finally asking her out and accepts; she does not realize the cruise is actually for Baljeet and Mishti, revealed when Phineas asks Ferb to "show the happy couple to their table," and she was beyond annoyed. In reality, Phineas invited Isabella to be part of the ship's crew, not for a date.
  • Poorly Disguised Pilot:
    • "Isabella and the Temple of Sap". A NY Times article, back in June of 2010, brought rumors of a possible spin-off show focusing on the Fireside Girls. The above episode would probably be the closest thing you would get to it.
    • In an article that surfaced on the internet around August of 2011, it was reported that Disney has hired them to do a pilot for potential Spin-Off.
    • In season 4, we have "Doof 101" which stars Doofenshmirtz teaching Vanessa's science class, focuses on Vanessa's peer group, expands Johnny's personality, has only one scene with Phineas and Ferb, and even introduces a brand new B plot in the form of intelligent insects trying to make contact with the "Giants" only to suffer horribly as Doofenshmirtz fails to notice them.
  • P.O.V. Sequel: "Isabella and the Temple of Sap" and "Bee Story" show what the Fireside Girls were up to during their respective preceding episodes ("Bubble Boys" and "Bee Day").
  • Powder Gag: "Let's Take a Quiz" features a gag taken from the old Milton Berle show. When Candace shouts, "MAKEUP!", she gets whacked with a giant powderpuff, therefore ending up coated in white powder.
  • Power Armour: In "The Beak." The eponymous hero that is Phineas and Ferb sharing a huge armor to fight crime (they originally only wanted to survive their extreme skate course, but anyway.)
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Ferb-a-lot gives a rather lengthy one in "Excaliferb".
    Ferb-a-lot:Behold evil wizard Millifishmirtz, I hold the sword Excaliferb. This mystical vorpal blade was given to me by The Lady of the Puddle. Get a good look at it, for it is the instrument of your demise! (The blade of the sword falls off the hilt) Well, uh, okay. So big deal, the end comes off.
  • Precocious Crush:
    • Ferb, an obvious kid no older than 14, has a crush on Vanessa, a 16-year-old.
    • Irving in "Moon Farm" flirted with both Candace and Stacy before being locked out of the house.
  • Preemptive "Shut Up": Doofenshmirtz to Perry: "I'm not an idiot! ... And not one word out of you."
  • Prehensile Hair: In "Canderemy", Perry manages to get out of his trap by picking the lock with the three little hairs on his head.
  • Prepositional Phrase Equals Coolness: "He's a semi-aquatic, egg-laying mammal OF ACTION!" Platypodes just became badass.
  • Prince and Pauper: In "Make Play", where the Princess of Drusselstein visits Danville, and just happens to look exactly like Candace. Of course, this is lampshaded.
  • Pretty in Mink: Isabella and the Fireside girls wear fur-trimmed coats in "S'Winter".
  • Princess for a Day: Candace in "Make Play", who switches places with Princess Baldegunde, see Prince and Pauper.
  • Prison Episode:
    • "Phineas And Ferb Get Busted." While what they are sent to is called a reform school, it is most certainly run like a prison.
    • Later on there's "Mind Share" where the gang ends up trading brains with alien convicts. Much of the episode is a parody of The Shawshank Redemption.
  • Proper Lady: One episode has Candace demands to her English cousin Eliza to train her in the basics of being a proper lady, to which the Englishwoman reluctantly approves. She reverts back to being her usual self at the end.
  • Prophetic Name: Dr. Doofenshmirtz. "Doof" means "stupid" in German (though it's not pronounced like in the show) and "Schmerz" means "pain".
  • Psycho Poodle: Little Suzy Johnson has one, who she has attack and pee on Candace.
  • "Psycho" Strings: Heard occasionally.
  • Puff of Logic
    • The Bad Future adult Candace disappears in one of these after Phineas points it out to her that said bad future had been undone.
    • Doofenshmirtz's subconscious disappears when Doof points out that he's not currently dreaming.
  • Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: One episode has Doof attempt stage magic. After he first recounts his failure to do this, he makes Perry disappear with a trick. Naturally, Perry later jumps out of Doof's hat and beats him up.
  • Pulling Your Child Away: In the 1950s, Professor Ross Eforp was forced into hiding because his name is a palindrome. In the present day, after his concept for a three-dimensional association football stadium is actualized by the titular characters, he comes out of hiding, announcing his name. A random boy observes his name is a palindrome, and his mother promptly pulls him away.
  • Pumpkin Person: "That's the Spirit!" features a pumpkin-headed monster chasing Phineas and Ferb throughout a haunted house — only the pumpkin-head is a robot, and the haunted house is a prank being put on by the neighbors.
  • Pun-Based Creature: The music video for "Today Is Gonna Be a Great Day" has the brothers taming a tiger shark, a shark with black and orange stripes.
  • Punch-Clock Hero: Perry The Platypus dons his hat and does his duty as a secret agent whenever Monogram contacts him. The rest of the time he doesn't do much.
  • Punch-Clock Villain:
    • Suzy Johnson is revealed to be one of these in the episode "Suddenly Suzy".
      Candace: Aren't you going to do something horrible to me?
      Suzy: Oh no, making you look bad is just one of the ways I control Jeremy. If he's not here, I'm off the clock!
    • Doofenshmirtz comes off like one of these. His Mad Scientist activities really are treated more like his job than anything he does for personal enjoyment. Lampshaded occasionally when Perry the Platypus bursts in on him doing nothing particularly evil.
      Doofenshmirtz: It occurs to me that all this machine does is open and close a lobster cage, so, you know, that's not even illegal, much less evil.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: From "The Chronicles of Meap":
    Mitch: You're all trapped! On my ship! FOREVER!!
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes:
    • Phineas uses these on Candace at the end of "The Lake Nose Monster" when trying to convince her not to reveal that the eponymous monster is real (since it wants to be left alone).
    • The Fireside Girls use these when selling their cupcakes, prompting Dr. Doofenshmirtz to build an invisibility ray.
    • Candace attempts it in the episode "Suddenly Suzy", when trying to convince her brothers to basically bust themselves. It fails... horribly.
    • Invoked by Doofenshmirtz in "Blackout!" He creates an Inater to give himself a pair of huge eyes in attempt to earn the pity of others .
    • Lampshaded in "Perry the Actorpus", when Major Monogram tries to convince Perry to go back to work after they gave him a day off.
      Major Monogram: I know that we gave you some time off, but would you please come back to work, please? I can't hold my eyes like this much longer.
  • Putting the Band Back Together: In the appropriately titled episode "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together!". It even provides the page quote.
  • Puzzling Platypus: Downplayed. Most characters barely blink an eye at the titular characters' pet platypus Perry, with a dismissive "they don't do much" instead being a recurring description. However, he is sometimes confused for a duck, a beaver, or both by one-off characters. In "Where's Perry (Part Two)", Ferb has this to say:
    Ferb: Well, ever since George Shaw wrote the first description of the platypus for highly skeptical European scientists in 1798, this unique creature has become synonymous with the word "impossible".

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