It's the day of the Danville Harbor Festival, the anniversary of the day the inhabitants of Danville drove out the infamous Shark of Danville Harbor; the Festival hosts a reenactment of the event every year. Unfortunately, the reenactments have gotten poorer in quality in time, so Phineas and Ferb decide to build a life-sized mechanical shark to give the people a quality reenactment; meanwhile, Candace enlists the help of a man named Captain Squint and his ship to capture the shark and show it to Linda. At the same time, Dr. Doofenshmirtz is building a device under the ocean called the Saltwater Taffy-Inator, a giant saltwater taffy machine; he plans to sell saltwater taffy to give tooth decay to all the children in the Tri-State Area.
Tropes:
- Absurdly Long Stairway: Captain Squint, Candace, and Stacy walk a very long and jagged plank way to the ship.
- All There in the Script: The captain at the harbor is named "Captain Squint", though called "Captain Kidd" by Candace.
- Answer Cut: As the Saltwater Taffy-Inator goes awry, Doofenshmirtz wonders how it's affecting the surface water. Cut to Candace chasing the shark as the water gets choppier.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Among Captain Squint's gripes about the shark are that it ate his leg, drives alone in the carpool lane, threw little Timmy down a well, and won't give up its seat for the elderly on the bus.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: When Candace takes over as captain of the Pea-quad, she starts acting like Captain Squint, and says, "Stacy, I'm tired of this conversation!"
- Butt-Monkey: Somehow, every time there's a big splash, it always hits Candace, which both she and Stacy lampshade.
- Captain Oblivious: Phineas is completely unaware that Candace is the captain of the ship attempting to capture their shark and simply thinks they're going off-script, since the wives and mothers in the original story drove the shark out to sea, not pulled it into shore.
- Catchphrase Interruptus: When Doof is stuck underwater, two bubbles come up to the surface. When one pops, we hear Doof scream, "Curse you, Perry the Plat—", and then another one pops, and we hear him finish, "—ypus!"
- Cloudcuckoolander: Captain Squint clearly has a few loose screws. He thinks a birthmark is a shark bite, believes penguins can fly, uses rubber ducks for cannon fodder and toilet plungers for harpoons. He also believes an octopus ate his pancreas.
- Distinguishing Mark: When Captain Squint shows Stacy where the shark supposedly chewed his arm, Stacy points out it's only a birthmark.(Beat)Captain Squint: I'm tired of this conversation.
- Eye Scream: Linda briefly gets starfish on her eyes.
- Human Ladder: When Doofenshmirtz asks Perry how he got out of the crab storage unit on the boat, the resulting flashback reveals that Perry convinced the crabs to form a ladder that he used to climb up and escape the storage unit.
- Moby Schtick: With both Captain Squint and Candace taking on the Captain Ahab role. Also, the ship is called the Pea-quad, a parody of the Pequod from the novel.Candace: From Danville Harbor, I stab at thee. For busting's sake, I spit my last spit at thee!
- Not What It Looks Like: When Candace is trying to show the boys' shark to Mom, it is pulled underwater by Doof's boat last minute, and when Mom finally does look, she thought she meant Buford and Baljeet dressed as the shark.Candace: That's not what I meant!
Linda: It never is, honey. - Pirate Song: "The Shark of Danville Harbor" is a jolly sea shanty.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder:
- Shout-Out:
- Candace and Stacy's costumes are akin to Donald Duck's.
- Candace misquotes a line from John Masefield's poem Sea-Fever, "And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by."Candace: All I need is a metal shark and a mom to bust her by.
- The episode contains two obvious nods to Jaws (although it should be pointed out that the
actual quote was, "You're gonna need a bigger boat"):Stacy: We're gonna need a bigger captain.
A few scenes later:
Phineas: We're gonna need a bigger shark.
- Special Guest: Nick Frost voices Captain Squint.
- Stylistic Suck: The "shark" is portrayed by Buford and Baljeet with Buford wearing a fin and fake nose and floating on a tube and Baljeet wearing floaties and a tail, and Baljeet's shirt saying "SH" and Buford's saying "ARK".Buford: Look at me! I'm a shark! I can poop in the ocean!
Baljeet: But you are not going to, right?
Buford: Keep pushin', dweeb! - Sure, Let's Go with That: Monogram claims that Perry's lair is submerged in water in honor of Harbor Day, but Carl says it is because the basement is flooded.
- Timmy in a Well: One of Captain Squint's gripes about the shark.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: At the beginning of the episode, Lawrence says "Let's check-eth it out!". Linda calls him out on it, and he says, "I stand by my Old English".
- Taken further with the show's catchphrases:
Phineas: I know-eth what we're going to do-eth today.
Lawrence: Hey, where-eth is Perry?
