Phineas and Ferb travel to the future in search of a high-tech device to finish their latest project. But Candace's future self seizes the opportunity to change the past and retroactively bust her brothers, with unfortunate consequences.
Tropes
- Babies Ever After: It's shown that in the future, Candace had children; two are named Xavier and Amanda (the names that she had previously mentioned in other episodes), along with a third child, Fred.
- Back to the Early Installment: Candace travels back in time to the series pilot, "Rollercoaster".
- Bad Future: Future Candace changes the events of "Rollercoaster" so that Linda can bust Phineas and Ferb. Linda sees the boys' rollercoaster, which prompts her to panic and call every public service agency in the area, including a helicopter flying through town. As a result, Perry couldn't attach the grappling hook to the helicopter to escape from the giant ball of tin foil, causing the ball to hit Perry instead of Doofenshmirtz, and giving Doof a chance to finally take over the Tri-State Area. Also, all creativity was banned thanks to an outcry from similarly worried parents, and all children have been placed in storage. The bad future version of Perry, Monogram, and the OWCA are powerless to stop Doofenshmirtz since they all swore a loyalty oath to him.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: The video explaining what happened after Linda successfully busts Phineas and Ferb gleefully mentions "our glorious dystopia", states that "oppressive beauty and happiness were gratefully replaced by the glimmering cesspool" and that the people "cried out to be oppressed"
- Big "NEVER!": Even after going to the future and seeing what becomes of busting her brothers, Past Candace declares she will never give up on busting them, and says "Never, never, NEVER!" several times.Ferb: Well, at least we know she mellows with age.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: After Isabella takes the time machine for a quick trip back in time.Phineas: Isabella, I thought I said to stay on the time machine.
Isabella: I did, it's the time machine that moved. I brought back a woolly mammoth's tusk, a Viking helmet, and smallpox. And the vaccine. - Brick Joke:
- Early in the episode, Phineas is impressed that the gate now opens automatically, saying, "Ooh! Future!" Later, when Candace sees that the door of the antique shop also opens automatically, she has a similar reaction.
- Candace notices that Isabella returned in the time machine with a soda and asks her where she got it. During the credits, it is shown that she got the soda from the Phineas from the beginning of the episode.
- Celebrity Paradox: Jarret Reddick of Bowling for Soup provides his own speaking voice, this despite him already being the voice of Danny from Love Händel.
- Cessation of Existence: Since the bad future was undone, the Bad Future Candace ceases to exist (see Puff of Logic).
- Continuity Nod:
- Phineas mentions the events of "It's About Time!" to Baljeet.Baljeet: You got to hang out with dinosaurs?
Phineas: Yeah, earlier this summer.
Baljeet: Well, thank you for inviting me. - The verse of "Today is Gonna Be a Great Day!" mention some of the things they did over the summer. "Like maybe..."Crossing the tundra, or building a rollercoaster,
Skiing down a mountain of beans,
Devising a system for remembering everything,
Or synchronizing submarines! (Bam, bam, bam, bam!)
Racing chariots, taming tiger sharks,
Constructing a portal to Mars,
Building a time machine, stretching a rubber tree,
Or wailing away on guitars!
- Phineas mentions the events of "It's About Time!" to Baljeet.
- Continuity Snarl: In the end, Past Phineas regrets that this all happened because they needed a part for their structure. However, this Past Phineas was supposed to be the one from "Rollercoaster", not from the beginning of the episode.
- Copycat Mockery: Past!Candace mocks her own future self when she finds out her future self is no longer interested in busting her brothers.Future!Candace: You know, sometimes getting what you want isn't what you need. You'll find out as you mature.
Past!Candace: (mockingly) "You'll find out as you mature." - Cutaway Gag: Linda is enamored with a giant bone in the museum. Phineas thens says, "Imagine the size of the creature that bone came from", and it cuts away to a raptor with an abnormally sized left foot getting crushed by a bigger dino's foot.
- A Day in the Limelight: The second half of the episode becomes this for Future!Candace.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Bowling for Soup appear as themselves to sing the second verse of the extended theme song.
- Dissimile: "Let's make like a banana and burn our molecules to the space time continuum!"
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: Both Future!Candaces comment on how cute they looked as a kid.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite changing the past so that she successfully busts her brothers, the first Future!Candace is horrified at how polluted the future subsequently became as a result. She is even more horrified when she discovers her actions had led to a chain of events that resulted in adults banning imagination and creativity from the world and putting children into child-proof suits to be put away into storage until adulthood. Ultimately, seeing this horrible future is what convinces her to stop her previous self from going into the grocery store and convince GoodFuture!Candace that changing the past will mess up the future.
- Future Shadowing: Isabella overhears one of Candace's kids talks about how past Isabella looks looks like "Aunt Isabella", making the former overjoyed and Isabella concludes that one day she will get to marry Phineas (or Ferb).
- Future Slang: Amanda greets her mother on the phone by saying, "Hi, Mom, what's the fizz?"
- Generation Xerox: Xavier and Fred are almost carbon copies of Phineas and Ferb when it comes to their personalities. Xavier does most of the talking, while Fred hardly speaks at all, and when he does, it is usually about sitting next to or on something or someone.
- The Ghost: The Future Phineas and Ferb are never seen.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: In the original timeline, the future Doofenshmirtz has seemingly given up on taking over the Tri-State Area in favor of playing checkers with Perry the Platypus.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The episode begins with Phineas and Ferb traveling to the future just to obtain a part for their super structure, but the focus switches to Future!Candace and her attempt to finally get her brothers busted and her further attempt to rewrite the past, again.
- Honorary Aunt: Amanda refers to Isabella as "Aunt Isabella", making her assume that she marries Phineas (or Ferb as per Candace), but the thought never crosses her mind that it could be an honorary title as a lifelong friend.
- Hurricane of Puns: Once Phineas and Ferb go to the future, they notice that the museum installed a new "wing" (in this case, a giant bird's wing on the roof), and see some "mobile homes" (houses on a giant spinning mobile).
- Hypocritical Humor: Candace seems to be very calm talking to Stacy about her brothers, saying she has a problem with jumping the gun. But a few seconds later, we see Stacy on the other line going, "Hello? Hello??" and then Candace running.Candace: They're on the move! I'll bust 'em now! I'll bust 'em now!
- Implausible Deniability: When Amanda sees her brothers making their fifth-dimensional bumper cars and demands to know what they're doing, Fred says "Nothing!"; Amanda takes them at face value.Amanda: You never do anything!
- Irony: Unlike her mother Candace, who was always freaking out about Phineas and Ferb's projects, Amanda's complaint is that her brothers don't do anything but loaf around.Xavier: I'm sitting under this holographic tree.Fred: I'm sitting next to him!
- Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: In his Villain Song, Bad Future Doofenshmirtz sings "Everyone else is the proletariat / And baby, I'm the bourgeoise!" Then he adds "Look it up, Joe!"
- Letting the Air out of the Band: If you listen closely, the music playing under Future!Monogram's instructions is the "mission theme" played as if on a very old warped record player.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Future Candace has this reaction after she watches a video about how children, creativity, and imagination were banned from the world because she changed the past so that she successfully busted her brothers.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: Even though Candace meets her future self, the future versions of Phineas and Ferb are only mentioned but never seen.
- Nostalgia Filter: In-universe; Future Candace says that she was great friends with her brothers, apparently forgetting her constant attempts to bust them.
- Not so Dire: In the future, when Phineas asks "Where's Perry?", we cut to the Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. building, where Doofenshmirtz can be heard saying "I've finally got you, Perry the Platypus!" Then it shows Doofenshmirtz and Perry, both well past their prime, playing checkers.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: The working title for the episode was "Time Machine 2: Quantum Boogaloo".
- Oh, Crap!: Past!Candace's reaction to seeing Future!Linda.
- Bad Future Candace when she realizes that she shouldn't exist after the bad future has been erased.
- One-Steve Limit: One of Candace's future kids is named Xavier. Unfortunately, this caused a bit of a crisis, since the inventor of the time machine was Xavier Onassis. This was solved by just referring to him as "Professor Onassis".
- Only One Me Allowed Right Now: The Candace from the Bad Future (wearing a legally binding lab coat) and the Candace from the Good Future decide to get help from Phineas and Ferb. When Phineas points out that Bad Future Candace should no longer exist since the timeline was fixed, she says, "Oh darn." and disappears from existence.
- Overly Long Gag: When Future!Linda sees Past!Candace, Linda screams at how young Candace is, and Candace tries very, very hard not to say the "o" word, elongating it as much as possible. ("Don't say it! You don't have to say that word! I mean it!") Of course, Phineas and Ferb walk into the antique shop and bluntly say it.Phineas: Mom! You're so old!
- Opening Shout-Out: One of the musical numbers in this episode is the continuation to the series' theme song, sung by Bowling for Soup themselves, who apparently is also there in the future with present Phineas and Ferb.
- Other Me Annoys Me: When Past Candace meets her future self, Future Candace mutters to herself, "Was I always this nuts?"
- Out of Focus: Phineas and Ferb don't have much of a part after getting the tool for the superstructure, with the focus heavily going to Future!Candace. The Phineas and Ferb we see for the rest of the episode are from "Rollercoaster", with the present P&F not appearing again until The Stinger.
- People Jars: In the Bad Future, children are placed in child-shaped containers and kept in controlled storage until adulthood.
- Planet of Steves: In the Bad Future, everyone is named Joe, since Emperor Doofenshmirtz doesn't like having to memorize everyone's name. (The only exceptions being everyone at OWCA, since, supposedly, Doof has no trouble remembering Perry the Platypus's name.)
- Puff of Logic:
- Future!Candace falls out of the digital tree when she realizes she shouldn't be able to climb it.
- This exchange with the gang once they realized they've successfully averted the bad future from happening:Past!Phineas: So the bad future no longer exists?
BadFuture and GoodFuture!Candace: Right.
Past!Phineas: Well if it doesn't exist, shouldn't Candace from the bad future cease to exist too?
BadFuture!Candace: Oh darn. (disappears)
- Pyrrhic Victory: Past Candace finally proves to Linda that everything she has tried to bust the boys for is true. Except this version of Linda is from the future, which means she doesn't have the jurisdiction to punish Past!Phineas and Past!Ferb while her Phineas and Ferb are both adults in her thirties and are too old to be punished by their mom.
- Reflective Eyes: When Linda is looking up at the Coolest Coaster Ever as she calls the military, the coaster tracks reflect in her widened eyes.
- Ret-Gone: BadFuture!Candace ceases to exist, since the bad future doesn't exist anymore.
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self: In the future, Phineas is a Nobel Prize winner, and Ferb is working with the President of the United States (Future Linda mentions he's "still at Camp David"), despite not being a Natural Born Citizen as specified by the U.S. Constitution. Parodied with Stacy, who's become President of Uruguay somehow, also in spite of her Natural Born Citizen status.
- Special Guest: iCarly star Noah Munck and Hannah Montana star Moisés Arias as Xavier and Fred respectively, and Wizards of Waverly Place star Jennifer Stone as Amanda.
- Stable Time Loop: Past Isabella creates one where she time travels to the start of the episode and gives the boys the tool they need for the superstructure, thus cancelling out the rest of the events of the episode altogether so that they never happened.
- Status Quo Is God: Candace still wants to bust the boys even after learning that she'll never succeed as a teen because, in her mind, she now knows it's possible to do.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Xavier looks almost like Jeremy, while Amanda is a splitting image of Candace. While Fred doesn't look like either of his parents, he does share Candace's eye color.
- Tantrum Throwing: When Future!Candace complains to her mom that she still never sees what her brothers are doing and how unfair the universe is to her, she does this trope by stomping up and down and repeating "It's not fair!" ad nauseam.
- Time Travel Episode: The second after "It's About Time".
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble:
- "Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today! Or I should say, I know what we're gonna do twenty years from today!"
- Past!Phineas figures that since they are supposed to go to the museum to fix the time machine later in the summer, they will go there now and when they are done go back and unfix it.Future!Candace: Phineas, I'm a fully grown woman and I didn't understand any of that.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: A Running Gag throughout the episode has the old janitor at the museum simply dismissing the time machine's disappearances ("Eh, I hated cleaning that thing anyway." "Sometimes, it's here, sometimes, it's not. What do I care?") This comes to a fun bit where this happens in the past and he is younger and watches the time machine disappear and says, "First day on the job, and I'm already seeing things."
- Villain Song: "Charmed Life", a number sang by Emperor Doofenshmirtz in the bad future when addressing his subjects. The song consists of him gloating about how great his life has been since finally winning and taking over the entire Tri-State Area.
- Vocal Evolution: Some of the scenes from the original "Rollercoaster" episode were dubbed over since Vincent Martella went through puberty during the first season.
