It's Linda's birthday! The kids try to give her the best birthday ever, but Candace keeps getting upstaged by her brothers.
Meanwhile, Dr. Doofenshmirtz builds a machine that can shrink everything he hates.
Tropes
- Birthday Episode: For Linda, as the title says.
- Breakfast in Bed: All of the kids attempt to serve breakfast to their mom for her birthday, but Candace's attempt gets ignored due to being outdone by her brothers.
- Brick Joke: At the episode’s start, Phineas offers Candace a chance to help by manning the omelet station, but turns him down to give Linda a gift herself. After her attempts all fail, she laments that she should’ve manned the omelet station.
- Continuity Nod: Events from the episodes "Rollercoaster", "Are You My Mummy?", "The Magnificent Few", "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror", "Flop Starz", and "It's About Time" are shown in Phineas' flashback.Phineas: (on the rollercoaster) We can't forget Mom's birthday.Phineas: (mummy hunting) We can't forget Mom's birthday.Phineas: (cattle herding) We can't forget Mom's birthday.Phineas: (surfing) We can't forget Mom's birthday.Phineas: (playing music on stage) We can't forget Mom's birthday.Phineas: (being chased by a t-rex) Isn't there something I'm supposed to remember?
- Chekhov's Gun: At the start of the episode, Candace is seen and heard writing a song for Linda and practicing. Near the end, when Candace's musical instruments were all shrunken down (due to them all starting with the letter 'B'), a video of her practicing the song is presented at the party.
- Female Rockers Play Bass: On "I Love You, Mom", Candace accompanies herself on the bass.
- Flashback: Phineas has one showing events of previous episodes with him saying that they can't forget their mom's birthday. Except the last one, set during "It's About Time", where he asked what was he supposed to remember.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When we see Linda's wedding photo, you can see the photographer has their finger over the lens.
- Mock Surprise Reaction: Doofenshmirtz pretends to act surprised when Perry shows up.
- Once per Episode: Subverted with Shrinkspheria. Doofenshmirtz was originally going to call it a Shrink-inator, but he felt the "inator" schtick had been done to death.
- Overly Long Gag: Candace playing instruments that start with B, only for Shrinkspheria to shrink them out of existence one by one. It somehow manages to last 5 minutes, despite there not being enough instruments that start with B for it to take that long, but Rule of Funny is in effect here.Candace: I should've manned the omelet station!
- Parental Love Song: Candace wrote a song as a gift for Linda, which the boys recorded and featured on stage.
- Shrink Ray: Dr. Doofenshmirtz's latest invention is Shrinkspheria, a device programmed to shrink things he doesn't like (i.e. blinking detour signs and musical instruments that start with 'B') so that they're too small to see.
- Tears of Joy: Linda sheds these after the performance of the song Candace wrote her, of which she thanks her for.
- Thing-O-Matic: For once, Doof does not end his invention's name with "inator", since he is so over it. Instead, he calls it "Shrinkspheria". However, in later episodes, he has another shrinkinator that he used as a houseplant.
