What An Idiot / Phineas and Ferb

Whether it be Candace screwing up another attempt to bust her brothers or Doof making a mistake involving his daily plan, bad decisions abound here.

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General

• Candace's main obsession in the series is to bust her brothers for their escapades. It's not exactly clear why. It could be that some of the inventions and adventures are dangerous, that she wouldn't be allowed to get away with it if she tried to do the same, or that her brothers inadvertently make her a Butt-Monkey despite the fact that both care about her a lot and will do what they can to make her happy. It's also shown that Candace would be happier if she just joined in on her brothers' adventures rather than try to kill their fun.
  You'd Expect: Candace would eventually realize this. It's not like the boys are intentionally causing trouble or trying to make her a Butt-Monkey, and will make her happy. Even her subconscious in "Wizard of Odd" told her off for focusing more on the rule-breaking than on the fact that the boys are having fun and bringing joy to their city.
  Instead: Aesop Amnesia is always in full force, up until the series finale. Candace does what she can to reveal to her mother that her brothers are engaged in rather illicit activities that, in the timelines where her mother does find out, put the boys on lockdown and cause a Bad Future.
  You'd Also Expect: For Candace to take a picture or video of the boys' inventions, given that she has a videophone which allows her to do such.
  Instead: She almost never uses it. The only character who does so is Irving.
  The Result: Candace's attempts to bust her brothers never works and ends up hurting her more than them.
• Well, alright, but there's still Isabella's crush on Phineas, and how obvious she makes it.
  You'd Expect: Phineas eventually put two and two together.
  Or: Isabella would straight-up admit her love to Phineas.
  Instead: He's just completely oblivious to it, which sadly continues throughout the series. She's also too afraid to tell him herself.

Season 1

• In the pilot episode, "Rollercoaster":
  • Ferb puts up a poster advertising the Coolest Coaster Ever. Later, Candace sees it at the supermarket.
    You'd Expect: Candace to take the poster with her to show it to Linda.
    Instead: She leaves it where it is and runs away.
    The Result: The moment Candace leaves, three boys take the poster with them, thinking they'd get a discount. When Candace attempts to show Linda the poster and realizes that it's gone, Linda accuses Candace of being crazy. The same thing occurs in "Rollercoaster: The Musical!".
  • Near the end after Candace and Linda come home, Candace looks in the backyard, sees it's empty, and has a moment of triumph; but while showing Linda, we hear a rustle of leaves, and when Linda takes a peek, Phineas and Ferb are suddenly sitting under the backyard tree as in the start of the episode.
    You'd Expect: For Linda or Candace to notice anything unusual about the backyard since the boys have appeared out of nowhere; a pull-back shows their coaster train crashed into the treetops and burning up due to falling from space.
    Instead: Both Linda and Candace somehow did not notice it, despite being within their vision range.
• In "Candace Loses Her Head", the boys have carved Candace's face into Mt. Rushmore for her birthday, which she loves. She excitedly calls Linda up, but she is struggling and tired because it's the second time she climbed up.
  You'd Expect: Candace to help Linda up.
  Instead: She just stays where she is.
  The Result: A lava flow caused by Doof's Drill-inator causes the formation to be destroyed right when Linda returns.
• "The Fast and the Phineas" can be the textbook definition of this trope, on Candace's end at least:
  • First of all, when she decides to take a photo of Phineas at the race:
    You'd Expect: Candace to photograph Phineas with her cell phone.
    Instead: She uses the photographer's camera instead.
    Also: Some time earlier, when she sees Phineas being interviewed, she calls Linda to turn the TV on so she can witness it.
    You'd Expect: Candace to call Linda on her cell phone.
    Instead: She uses the payphone at the racetrack instead.
    Then: Previously, the photographer takes a photo of her covered in soot. Candace cannot take both photos as each costs a dollar, and she only has one dollar to begin with.
    You'd Expect: Candace to look at the pictures before she picks which one she wants to take.
    Instead: She randomly takes one picture and pays, without even looking at it.
    The Result: She only shows Linda the photo of her covered in soot, and boy was she shocked.
  • In the end, Candace notices the boys are not yet home with the car and sees the empty garage.
    You'd Expect: Candace to take a picture of the empty garage to show Mom or send it to her.
    Instead: She never does such.
    You'd Also Expect: Candace to tell Mom "Your car is missing," or something like that when she goes back to the Garcia-Shapiro house.
    Instead: She vaguely tells her, "It's about your car."
    Then: Candace brings Linda home.
    You'd Expect: Candace to show Mom the "empty" garage from the driveway.
    Instead: She brings her past the garage and only shows her from the kitchen entrance inside the house.
  • Throughout the whole episode, Candace tries to show what they're doing to Mom as usual.
    You'd Expect: Candace to tell Mom something like "The boys have messed up your car" and "They're entering the race," so Mom has detail.
    Instead: She only vaguely tells her to come see them, as usual.

Season 2

• "Thaddeus and Thor": Candace insists Phineas and Ferb build a better fort than their lookalike mean visitors Thaddeus and Thor. While T&T's fort turns out to be impressive, it seems P&F have made just an ordinary fort which Candace does not take well.
  You'd Expect: For Candace to let Phineas explain further, as this was only the top of their real fort which is a homage to old-school construction. The real fort is about ten stories high and being kept underground.
  Instead: She keeps cutting Phineas off and calling him out for letting her down, then bails on the two right before the unveiling. It wasn't until T&T's sister Mandy calls her out for her brothers being better, does Candace realize Phineas was right.
• In "Ain't No Kiddie Ride", once the kiddie rides are parked Candace is ready to bust her brothers.
  You'd Expect: Candace to stay with the rides in case they disappear (as she said at the beginning).
  Instead: She leaves to get Mom, as usual.
  The Result: Once Candace is out of sight, the kiddie rides are switched with run-of-the-mill lookalikes.
• In "Hip-Hip Parade", Candace is asked to go a day without trying to bust her brothers. This proves difficult when the two are throwing a parade, and it just so happens to be next to the restaurant she and Linda are having lunch at, with Linda seated facing away from it. She promised her mother earlier not to think of her brothers, or otherwise she'll suffer the "Pharaoh's curse". However, she comes up with a loophole and believes the curse won't take effect if Linda sees the parade herself. Thus, her mission is to get Linda to notice the parade without her usual cries of "Mom, Mom, Phineas and Ferb are doing this!"
  You'd Expect: Candace could innocently shout, "Look, a parade" without speaking of Phineas and Ferb's involvement in it.
  Instead: She vaguely tries to get Linda to turn her head around. Linda doesn't understand why, nor does she notice the parade.
  The Result: By the time she turns her head around, the parade has passed.
  • "Phineas and Ferb-Busters!": Candace forms a team with Stacy and Jenny known as the Phineas and Ferb-busters, which includes communication headsets so they can signal each other. Around the same time, Phineas and Ferb build a set of giant tops for them, Isabella, and Baljeet to ride in, inspired by a board game they were playing with them and Buford. These tops are powered by a power source that radiates energy across the yard. As Candace, Stacy, and Jenny spy on Phineas and Ferb, Buford turns up the power source, causing the tops to spin out of control, and also overloading and destroying Stacy and Jenny's headsets, so they're unable to signal Candace. When Linda arrives home, she hears noise in the backyard and decides to go there to see if Phineas and Ferb are up to something wild and dangerous, like Candace said they would be, but Candace cannot let her in yet until she gets the signal "The pea is in the pod" from Jenny and Stacy, who are somehow not responding.
    You'd Expect: Candace would let Linda investigate anyway, so that she can see Phineas and Ferb riding the tops and punish them for it, thus finally letting Candace accomplish her goal of busting Phineas and Ferb.
    You'd ALSO Expect: Candace to check the backyard to see if Stacy and Jenny are around.
    Instead: Candace, obsessed with having her new team's work go according to plan, refuses to let Linda in the backyard until she gets the signal from Stacy and Jenny. Because the headsets are destroyed, they can't signal her.
    The Result: When Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, and Baljeet stop riding their tops, the tops fly away. Around the same time, Perry shuts off the power source. Thus, when Linda finally does get to the backyard, she finds Phineas and Ferb playing the top-themed board game with Isabella, Baljeet, and Buford. When Stacy and Jenny tell her what really happened, she doesn't believe them, as per the norm with Candace.
• "The Secret of Success":
  • Candace attends a seminar with Stacy to discover the secret to busting her brothers. It is announced that the final step to success will be revealed after the break. During the break, Phineas and Ferb drive by in their all-terrain vehicle they built.
    You'd Expect: Candace would ignore Phineas and Ferb and wait until after the seminar is over before she busts them. Her previous attempts to bust her brothers have always failed, so there's no reason to assume this time should be any different.
    Instead: Candace decides to go ahead and bust her brothers by driving their vehicle so she can show Linda, and she tells Stacy to take notes for her.
  • Once Candace gets home and tells Linda about the ATV, she mentions she was driving it which leads Linda to find out that Candace has been driving without adult supervision, thus she grounds her. While going to her room, Candace remembers Stacy was there all day and quickly phones her what the final step was. Since Stacy forgot, she asks Chad to tell her for them. The answer is "F.R.E.E.P.O."
    You'd Expect: Chad to explain further what "F.R.E.E.P.O." means.
    Instead: Stacy hangs up right after saying "F.R.E.E.P.O.", and Candace cannot figure out what it stands for.
    You'd Then Expect: Candace to quickly redial Stacy and get the meaning to the acronym before Linda finds out.
    Instead: She doesn't even bother to do this and tries to find out the acronym herself. That is when the ATV activates rocket mode and it flies away, and she groans, "Aw, F.R.E.E.P.O.!" Naturally, her attempts to bust her brothers continue to fail throughout the rest of the series.
• In "Tip of the Day", Dr. Doofenshmirtz attaches a universal delete button to a mind reading helmet, which when he presses the button, would cause everyone to forget about whatever he's thinking (except anyone who is not thinking whatever he's thinking). He intends to make everyone forget about that embarrassing viral video of himself.
  You'd expect: Doofenshmirtz to immediately press the button the minute he puts on the helmet, while he's still thinking about the embarrassing video, then his plan would succeed.
  Instead: He wastes his time explaining his whole plan to Perry while he's wearing the helmet, adding the fact that anyone who hasn't seen or is unaware of the video for any reason will be unaffected by the inator, then ends up getting distracted when he trips, setting his mind to something else and causing everyone (except Candace) to forget about the aglet instead.
  What's Worse?: Is after thinking his plan worked, he decides to destroy the helmet without a second thought for some reason. You'd think he'd want to keep an invention like that around in case of a similar ordeal like this happening to him again in the future.
  The Result: "It's that idiot from the video again!"
• In "Split Personality", Phineas and Ferb's Molecular Separator ray causes Candace to split into two versions of herself: one Candace obsessed with busting, and another Candace obsessed with Jeremy. When Busting Candace sees what Romantic Candace did to her bedroom, she phones Linda and proceeds to talk about the project.
  You'd expect: Busting Candace to put the phone in video calling mode and frame herself and Romantic Candace side-by-side.
  Instead: She leaves the phone in voiceover mode and lets Romantic Candace take over briefly.
  The Result: Linda assumes that Candace is doing an imitation of herself and hangs up.

Season 3

• In "Bad Hair Day", Candace has trouble with her hair before attending an endangered animals benefit with Jeremy, so Phineas and Ferb fix her up a machine to fix it; for the best results, she must stay under the machine for thirty minutes on setting 5. But then she gets a call from Jeremy saying he'll be picking her up in ten minutes, which is long before her hair is supposed to be done.
  You'd expect: For Candace to politely tell Jeremy she won't be ready by then and to tell him to meet her some time later when her hair is done.
  Instead: Fearing that Jeremy will come to the house to pick her up unprepared, Candace urges Stacy to speed up the machine so it fixes her hair in ten seconds on setting 20.
  The Result: Not only does this fix Candace's hair, it also causes hair to grow all over her body and be mistaken for the tangerine orangutan.
  You'd Then Expect: After the hairy orangutan-like Candace is revealed onstage, for the audience to recognize her given her visible facial features and that she has her own nose and mouth in place of an orangutan muzzle.
  Instead: Nobody, not even Mrs. Johnson, seems to recognize her and flat-out mistake her for a real escaped orangutan leading Mrs. Johnson to chase after her.
• In "Ask a Foolish Question", Candace discovers the Super Computer which answers any question. She then decides to use this as a chance to bust her brothers.
  You'd expect: For Candace to ask the computer something like "How can I bust my brothers?", "Will I ever bust my brothers?" or "How can I get Mom to see you?"
  Instead: She phrases her question vaguely: "How can I get my mom to see what my brothers had done?"
  The Result: This leads to a series of unforeseen events and Candace only constructs a toaster oven with a dispensable hand mirror on an accordion arm, which allows Mom to see the results of said unforeseen events. They fixed her bad hairdo, which she did not expect at all. It even helps that the Super Computer knew all of this would happen.
• In "Quietest Day Ever", the boys create ninja suits that hide the wearers from anyone who isn't wearing them at the moment. Candace wears hers and takes it to Mom to show her while she's trying to take her online knitting test which Candace keeps disturbing her from.
  You'd expect: Candace to turn the suit off before she shows Mom.
  Instead: She constantly tries to get Mom to look, only to bounce out of frame, and when she takes the suit off, it bounces out of her hands.
• In "Mommy Can You Hear Me?", Candace is unable to get her Mom's attention of the boys making a stratospheric ionizer because of a broken leg, and the fact she is listening to loud music over her headphones and cannot hear. She sends Stacy to get her.
  You'd expect: Stacy to take off Linda's headphones.
  You'd Also Expect: Stacy to drag Linda over to see the boys' project.
  Instead: She just tells her to "turn around" and leaves, and all she sees are the azaleas which block the project, and goes back to gardening.
• In "Agent Doof", Phineas and Ferb are turned into babies by Doof's Babe-inator. Candace thinks this is another one of their projects, and decides to photograph them to send to Mom.
  You'd expect: Candace to take a selfie of herself with the baby boys joining her.
  Instead: She only just photographs the boys, making Mom assume it's an old baby picture of them, prompting her to take them to Linda herself. She never even bothers to take a selfie of all three throughout the episode.
  Alternatively, You'd Also Expect: Linda to realize something was off with the photograph since Phineas and Ferb didn't meet each other until they were toddlers, so it would be impossible for there to be baby pictures of them together.
  Instead: She just assumes it to be an old baby picture of them out of the blue with no suspicions.
• "This Is Your Backstory":
  • Doofenshmirtz's newest idea is to use his traumatized backstory to turn himself into a Hulk-life monster and defeat Perry. Thing is his best relationship, excluding the one with his daughter, Vanessa is with his platypus archnemesis.
    You'd Expect: When Perry arrives that Doof would empty the platypus's pockets or restrain him a little better than how he does.
    Instead: He invites Perry to take a seat without frisking him for potentially deadly weapons. Or, in this case, photos that Perry took of their various adventures.
    The Result: Perry manages to break through his archnemesis's hate by showing the photos and revealing one person cares about him.
  • Some mechanical hands attached to chains aren't restraining Perry, but they are forcing him to clap when cued, scratch his head in confusion and mime out his behavior.
    You'd Expect: Perry would distract the mechanical hands before Doof can go critical and then show the photos that show he cares about Doofenshmirtz.
    Instead: He sits and watches the whole show despite the hands forcing him to whistle and cheer against his will. Meanwhile, Doofenshmirtz grows bigger, angrier and more hateful.
    The Result: Hulk-Doof nearly crushes him before Perry shows that, for all their fights, he does have good moments in his life.
• "Interview With A Platypus" sees the boys build an animal translator, which ends up attracting a lot of animals to their backyard in hopes of having the boys tell their owners what they want. Candace returns from Jeremy's after a rough time with Suzy's pet poodle and sees this.
  You'd Expect: Candace to, keeping in mind that her brothers' inventions normally work, not to say anything bad about the animals, some of which are clearly vicious (there are a bear and lion in the backyard, for example).
  Or: Wait until she is in the safety of her room before badmouthing them.
  Instead: Candace starts badmouthing the animals right in front of them almost as soon as she is told about the device.
  The Result: "Get her!" goes a rottweiler and Candace is chased across town by the animals.

Season 4

• "Lost in Danville":
  • Candace tells the boys that she wants a day off from their inventions so that she can relax and listen to an album. It turns out they aren't responsible for this day's shenanigans — a strange capsule with an old man inside it. The capsule is revealed to contain a black hole, which nearly sucks in the boys and their friends. They call to Candace for help when Isabella remembers the inventions always disappears when Candace tries to show them to her mom.
    You'd Expect: Candace on seeing that her brothers are in danger would do her usual Let's Get Dangerous! mode or ask Phineas how she can stop the black hole.
    Instead: She goes for her mom, completely disregarding that Phineas and Ferb need her help.
    Fortunately: Just before the black hole can kill the gang, Professor Mystery's -inator destroys it and saves everyone.
  • Meanwhile, Doofenshmirtz has been kidnapped by Professor Mystery, who accuses him of stealing Peter the Panda as a nemesis. Professor Mystery refuses to explain what the -inator aimed at a Bound and Gagged Doofenshmirtz is.
    You'd Expect: Doofenshmirtz would realize he's dealing with a murderous Clingy Jealous Guy and tell Professor Mystery that he hasn't seen Peter in a while — not since the latest Meep invasion— and that they aren't a thing.
    Or: Stall for time and keep the other villain placated. A dangerous weapon aimed at your head is never a laughing matter.
    Instead: Doofenshmirtz keeps criticizing how Professor Mystery is Lost in Character, invoking how a standard villain and hero relationship needs communication, from explaining backstories to monologuing about -inators. He then does a song and dance number, complete with chorus girls. And he doesn't ask the chorus girls to free him after the number.
    The Result: Professor Mystery is not placated at all and getting more irked by the minute. He nearly destroys Doofenshmirtz with the Unexistenator, if not for Peter the Panda showing up to beat the crap out of Professor Mystery and Perry redirecting the Inator's beam.
• In "Primal Perry", the boys' Infinite Probability Generator causes Baljeet to split into multiple copies of himself whenever he is indecisive. Candace tries, again, to show this to Linda in the kitchen, who is busy with early spring cleaning. Naturally, she doesn't notice because her back is turned.
  You'd expect: Candace to just pull Linda outside to show her the generator, which is just out the door.
  Instead: She just keeps shouting, "Mom!", but she ignores her.
• In "Just Desserts", after the Bring-Out-the-Dessert-inator lifts off, Perry goes to destroy it.
  You'd Expect: Doofenshmirtz to not say anything and let Perry figure out the location of the self-destruct button on his own.
  Or: Lie to Perry about the self-destruct button's location and hopefully get him to press the fire button instead.
  Instead: He reveals the exact location of the self-destruct button (next to the speaker), allowing Perry to destroy the rocket.

Movies

• In the opening of "Candace Against the Universe", Candace sees a humongous clown robot the boys built, and tries to get her mom to turn around and see it. Linda however, has entered Deadpan Snarker territory and refuses, and begins ranting about Candace's constant blabbing.
  You'd Expect: Candace to turn Linda around herself.
  Instead: She keeps begging her to turn around, but she doesn't listen and keeps on ranting. By the time she finishes and does turn around, the clown has disappeared.
• Also from "Candace Against the Universe", Candace gets another moment at the end of the movie. Super Super Big Doctor has just revealed her true colors to her and has her strapped to a treadmill so she can generate more Remarkalonium, which turns out to be carbon dioxide, something every human on Earth breaths out, for Mama.
  You'd Expect: Candace to not reveal this fact to Super Super Big Doctor and let her think that she is the only source of the stuff. With any luck, Super Super Big Doctor won't figure it out and Candace can work on an escape plan.
  Instead: Candace states that every human breaths out carbon dioxide and that it's not special.
  The Result: Super Super Big Doctor promptly sets course for Earth.

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