Episode 2: Phineas Wonka and the Chocolate Ferbatory
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Linda heralded as her teenage daughter finally arrived in the kitchen yawning.
"S'fer breakfast?" Was the only response she received in return.
"Oatmeal and grapefruit," Linda said, placing a bowl on the table in front of Candace. "The boys are already almost done with theirs."
"Mmm, good stuff Mom!" Phineas said from across the table as he put down his spoon. "Hey Ferb, you gonna finish that?"
Ferb was seated next to Phineas. He looked down at his food, then at his napkin. Taking the napkin and laying it across his bowl, he tapped it with a finger and pulled back the napkin, revealing a sparkling clean bowl.
"Fantastic!" Phineas applauded. Candace was unamused.
"Mom!" She called out accusingly.
Without looking up from the dish she was rinsing in the sink, Linda asked, "Boys, do I have to tell you not to play with your food before you eat it?"
Ferb held up the napkin to shield his head from view momentarily. When he flipped it back, his mouth was wide agape, displaying a mouthful of oatmeal for all to see. Signifying it was a success, two short trumpet blasts were heard in the background.
"Gross," Candace muttered under her breath.
"But cool!" Phineas said, hiding the trumpet he was holding under the table as Ferb closed his mouth to chew.
Linda couldn't help but smile as she listened to the sounds of her (mostly) happy children. "Now kids, listen up," she said, turning from her work to face them. "I'm heading out to Grandma's; she's finally agreed to pass her world famous secret recipe for hard toffee to me."
"A world famous secret recipe?" Candace inquired. "Isn't that kind of an oxymoron?"
"Yes, yes it is." Linda stated. "That's why her cookbook is titled, The Oxymoron Cookbook. It's an oxymoron itself, because it only has the one recipe, so it's not much of a book."
Candace rolled her eyes. "And let me guess, you're gonna be driving out there to pick it up, so you won't be able to bust Phineas and Ferb."
"Well, not until I get back, at least, so yes; that is correct."
Phineas suddenly spoke up. "Grandma's toffee recipe?! Awesome! Grandma makes the best candy in the world!"
"Yep," Linda agreed. "You boys can help me make some when I get back." With that, she turned and headed out the door, leaving Phineas with his hand on his chin in thought.
"Hey Ferb," Phineas said, "I know what we're gonna do today! Hey, where's Perry?"
Linda pulled the car out of the driveway allowing the garage door to close behind her, and Perry quickly shifted into secret agent mode now that he had some privacy. He extracted his fedora from its most recent hiding place (behind the freezer) and a technologically advanced scanner appeared on the door leading into the house. It scanned his fedora and apparently accepted its code. With a snap, it folded itself into nothingness, and a row of new scanners materialized along the frame of the doorway. First, he leveled his eyeball to the low plane of a retinal scanner, then he placed his front paw on a touch screen for scanning, then he had his tongue scanned, then his webbed hind foot, then a tuft of fur, then his beaver tail. All was in order, and a keyboard appeared for inserting the final password.
Without any break in motion, Agent P quickly typed the password and was ready to walk through the door when a soft, computerized female voice said, "Access denied." Nonplussed, the secret agent tried again. "Access denied," repeated the voice. Perry thought for a moment to be sure he remembered this time and tried once more. "Access denied," said the voice.
"Whoops, just realized I forgot my sunglasses," Linda said aloud as she drove. "I'll just swing back to the house real quick and grab them."
Agent P attempted yet another password, but was met with the same, "Access denied." He pounded his fist on the instrument in frustration. Just then, the computerized voice said something new. "Host family automobile arriving shortly." Agent P looked out the window to see Linda approaching down the street; she would see him in a matter of seconds. He frantically typed another password into the machine. "Access denied." Another. "Access denied." She was almost home! "Access denied!"
On the verge of giving up, Agent P brought down both fists hard on the keyboard and banged his forehead into its center, right between them, in pure desperation.
"Access granted."
Agent P looked up, hardly able to believe that his random pounding worked. A smaller door appeared inside the doorframe, and he hurriedly jumped through it just as the garage door opened and Linda pulled in.
"Good morning, Agent P," Monogram greeted him as he landed in his red chair. "I apologize for the security malfunction back there. Carl went through to change the passwords last week but he slipped when he was inputting the one for that door, so the password to it is pretty much random keys hit in spurts until we can get maintenance on it. Now, to your mission. Find out what Doofenshmirtz is up to, and put a stop to it!"
With a crisp salute, Agent P activated his jet pack and departed.
Phineas and Ferb stood in the backyard, each holding one end of a blueprint that was as tall as they were. "The way I see it," Phineas was explaining, "we'll keep the candy corn next to the sweethearts, because they're the two seasonal treats that nobody really likes."
Just as he finished, the gate opened, and Isabella poked her head through. "Hey Ferb, hey Phineas. What'cha doin'?"
"Oh, hey Isabella, come on in and we'll show ya," Phineas waved her in. "Today, Ferb and I are building our own candy factory. We'll have everything you can think of: chocolates, gum drops, sour chews, sugar cubes, caramel confections—basically, you name it, we make it."
"Did I hear someone say 'candy'?" Buford's voice called out from off-screen as he and Baljeet entered stage left.
"You probably did," Phineas answered. "Once the factory's up and running, our candy production will begin without delay."
"Lucky I'm still wearing my costume from last Halloween!" Buford exclaimed.
"You were wearing your regular clothes for Halloween?" Baljeet asked.
"I was going as a bully, so I could scare little kids and take their bags of candy when they ran off, screaming."
"And you have not changed or washed them in all that time?"
"It preserves the authenticity of the costume for next year."
Baljeet took one big lateral step away from his companion.
Buford ignored the gesture. "Well, I think that's great. Candy, who doesn't love candy? I love candy. Candy's great."
"I would prefer something that is sugar-free," Baljeet interrupted, "it is healthier for you."
"Well then you can go eat some tree bark, for all I care!" Buford coldly stated. "I want it as unhealthy and fattening as I can get! Gimme the candy!"
Phineas held up his hands. "Whoa; we have to build the factory first, then we can work on the candy." That seemed to pacify Buford, and within minutes the group was constructing the framework.
While they worked, Baljeet timidly asked the bully, "you did not by chance scare a boy wearing a chicken costume last year and take his candy, did you?"
"Huh, scaring a kid in a chicken costume? I think I'd remember something like that," Buford said. "What's it to ya?"
"Nothing," Baljeet hastily replied.
Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!
With a mighty kick, the door flew open and Agent P cartwheeled into the room. His motion accidentally activated Doofenshmirtz's latest trap, and the secret agent was slapped onto a wall stuck inside a picture frame, flat between the glass and the wall behind.
"Wow," Doofenshmirtz commented as he approached from the shadows, "my new portrait looks so life-like and realistic; and by realistic of course, I mean—um, listic, I guess? Anywho, I bet you are dying to know, Perry the Platypus, about my latest invention. Behold, the Teleportaterinator!" On cue with its own ominous background music, a wicked looking device which rather resembled a mechanical backpack was shown. "As you might have guessed, it allows its wearer to instantly teleport to any place he desires!
"Now you might be wondering what horrendous backstory might have led me to create such a heinous contraption. It all started this morning, as I was getting out of the shower." Doofenshmirtz rippled back to his steamy bathroom, wrapped in a towel, humming to himself while combing his hair. Glancing absentmindedly at the brush he was using, he gasped as he pulled one hair off and inspected it. "It was my first gray hair!" He said, rippling back to the present. "I was distraught, Perry the Platypus, distraught! My initial reaction was to run in a big cartoonish circle, screaming; then when I was tired I sat on my bed and cried until my eyes were—wait, wait a minute, why am I telling you this?" Doofenshmirtz paused, bringing his hand to his chin in thought. "When I tell it that way, it kind of shows me in a bad light. Oh, you know what, forget that whole, screaming and crying thing. What I meant to say was, um, that I was—meditating! Because, uh, it's a good stress reliever, you know, and all that stress causes graying—okay, I'm just gonna fast-forward to the next part," Doofenshmirtz said, flipping his hands to gesture he was moving on.
"So as I sat there, I got to thinking, Perry the Platypus, about a lot of things. Well, one mainly. In all my years, what have I done with my life? Nothing! I'm still not ruler of the Tri-State Area; I've virtually wasted half my lifetime! I need to step up my game! Hence, the Teleportaterinator."
Agent P gave the evil scientist an unimpressed look.
"What? It's a good plan! Imagine all the evil I can create with the power to teleport anywhere I choose! I mean, granted, it won't return to me any of my wasted years not ruling the Tri-State Area; nor will it teleport me into the past where I can correct my mistakes and become ruler; it won't even make me younger, granting me youthful vigor and zeal I can use to accomplish my plans. But that isn't important, Perry the Platypus. You know, not everything has to have a perfectly logical connection to be a good plan! In a way, it actually kind of makes sense, if you don't think about it too much. Just don't think about it, Perry the Platypus, not even a little, then everything will make sense. That's the wisdom I offer you now that I'm, you know, old and graying; since apparently old people are wiser for whatever reason."
"I'm gettin' hungry, Dinnerbell; when's it gonna be ready?"
"Almost there," Phineas informed Buford. "Ferb's just putting the finishing touches on the flashy entrance. Oh, there you are, Ferb, I guess that means the factory should be ready."
In sync with Phineas' mention of his name, Ferb appeared and gave everybody the thumbs up. Once he had the group's attention, he produced a small remote button from his pocket and hit the button. A glass elevator emerged beside Ferb and opened its door with a ding!
"Awesome," Phineas said, "a glass elevator! Great idea, Ferb! Alright, everybody in, it'll take us to the candy factory."
With a cheer the kids clambered in and the elevator lifted off the ground and soared through the air. The kids watched through the glass floor as the lawn faded away, making it seem like they were being supported by nothing. "Wait a minute," Baljeet interjected, "this seems oddly familiar, flying in a glass elevator to a candy factory."
"Well, Ferb is British," Phineas explained, "so if it's okay with him, it's okay with me."
Momentarily they arrived on the rooftop of the factory and were swallowed by the main elevator shaft leading to the factory floor. With another ding! the doors to the elevator opened, presenting a wide vista of colors. "Here we are," Phineas proudly announced as they exited, "our homage to classic, old-school chocolate factories."
The group was met by lush and beautiful scenery, but what at first glance appeared to be trees and flowers was in reality a surprising variety of candies.
"As you can see," the red-head continued, "we have all kinds of goodies here, from candy canes to candy apples, to candy berries and candy leaves, all the way to candy wristwatches and candy toothbrushes. And yes, we even incorporated Buford's idea and made candy tree bark," Phineas said, glancing at Baljeet.
"Actually, I was kidding about the tree bark thing," Buford said.
"Moving on," Phineas said, ignoring the interruption. "Over there is the mandatory chocolate river. And of course, everything you see is edible."
"Wow, it's so beautiful," Isabella commented, but she was quickly pushed out of the way as Buford bull-rushed past towards a nearby shrubbery made of licorice and began shoving the candy into his mouth. Those watching were slightly disgusted by his appetite (except Baljeet, who was familiar with it), but they quickly followed suit to find their own sweets-spots.
Meanwhile, Candace was lazily channel-surfing in the living room while listening to her MP3 while chatting with Stacy on her cell phone while slurping a soda while filing her nails. "Yeah, so I was like, oh no you di'n't, and she was all, yu-huh I di-id, and then I was like—hold on Stace, my busting senses are tingling; I think the boys are doing something bustable! I'll tell you what happened later, kay? Bye."
Candace quickly hung up and ran to the back yard, finding the boy's large factory towering over the tree. With eyes enlarging to the size of grapefruits, she gasped aloud. "Phineas and Ferb built a big factory with smokestacks in the backyard? Oh, they are so busted this time!" With that, she started dialing buttons on her cell.
"Hello?" Phineas answered.
"Phineas," Candace growled into her phone, "I'm just calling to let you know that I'm telling Mom you guys built a factory in the backyard as a fair warning."
"Okay, cool," Phineas replied. Candace hung up and began dialing another number, but suddenly stopped herself half-way.
"Wait a second," she thought vocally, "I just realized, the boy's invention always disappears before Mom gets home, but after I call her! Maybe, if I don't call her, it won't go away, therefore allowing Mom to see it, therefore they'll be busted!" She hit the redial button and as soon as Phineas answered, she said, "Nevermind," and hung up once more, chuckling crazily to herself.
"Now we wait," Candace said, watching the backyard through the slits in the blinds, "until the trap is ready to be sprung."
"And that's why I was originally going to call it the Teleportinator," Doofenshmirtz rambled, "but I figured that with it being powered by potato spuds and all, Teleportaterinator was much cleverer. You know, cause it has tater in it, which just means potato; and not 'po-tah-to,' I might add, speaking of that whole 'potayto-potahto' thing, cause nobody goes around calling them 'totters,' they're called taters! I mean, c'mon, if people really went around calling them totters, you'd think they were talking about, I don't know, small children, or something."
Agent P seized the moment to figure out a plan of escape. He squeezed to one side of the portrait frame, causing it to tilt because of his weight.
"What are you doing, Perry the Platypus? You're way off, it's not even close to being level. Here, lean a little more to the left. No, not my left, your left; you're gonna make it fall! Oh, here, let me help." Doofenshmirtz reached out to even it up and Agent P leaned with him, upsetting the balance of the picture frame and tilting it so badly it fell to the ground with a crash. Agent P broke free of the glass as it shattered all over the floor.
"You think you're so clever, escaping from your trap like that," Doofenshmirtz said, backing away, "but you forgot about this: my Teleportaterinator!" In one swift movement, the evil scientist shouldered his invention and strapped it across his waist. "Now you have no way of stopping me as I travel from point A to point B in the blink of an eye!"
Doofenshmirtz sneered at his nemesis in sheer satisfaction, knowing he had the upper hand. Agent P looked to his side and saw another Teleportaterinator sitting on a table literally three feet away. Instantly he snatched it and put it on like a jet pack.
"Whoops, guess I, uh, forgot I had built a second Teleportaterinator, a-and left it out on the desk over there—by mistake," Doofenshmirtz said in a bathetic tone. "But I did remember to hide the GPS tracker that displays the locations of my Teleportaterinators so that once I teleport away you won't be able to find me!"
With a roll of his eyes, Agent P teleported away for a moment, then instantly reappeared in the same spot holding the very tracker to which Doofenshmirtz was referring.
"Perry the Platypus, how did you know where my secret hiding spot was?" Agent P pointed across the room to where a large billboard sign displayed the words, 'GPS locator found here' and a big red arrow indicating its spot on the coffee table next to the TV remote. (Incidentally, there was another large sign immediately next to it which read, 'TV remote found here.')
"Oh," Doofenshmirtz replied. "Well, so much for that. I-I'm gonna jet before this becomes any more embarrassing for me." With that, Doofenshmirtz vanished into thin air. Agent P checked his locator to find that Doofenshmirtz had jumped all the way to the pyramids of Egypt, and so he activated his own Teleportaterinator to follow.
With every passing tick of the grandfather clock, Candace drew more anxious. She had barely been able to keep up her resolve to stick to her busting strategy of not calling her mother, but it was starting to get late and there was still no sign of her arriving home. Candace kept spinning her phone in her hands over and over again while watching the backyard, but the temptation to call Mom was growing ever stronger.
"I am not calling her!" Candace shouted at the empty room. She looked at her phone, it looked so eager to dial the numbers for her right there. "Forget it!" She said, flinging the phone across the room. It bounced off the sofa cushion and landed on the countertop, right in the center, where the sunlight peeked through the window to shine its light upon it in a compelling fashion. Candace tore her eyes away, but couldn't keep them for long. Inevitably she glanced back at the phone. The way the sunlight shone on it seemed to be calling her. "That's it, no more temptation!" She said, producing a hammer and approaching the phone. As she lifted her hand to strike, the phone range, causing Candace to jump slightly before tentatively answering it.
"Hello?" She said cautiously. If it was her mother, she was prepared to snap the phone shut at a moment's notice.
"Hey Candace, it's Jerem—." Candace reacted too quickly, hanging up on her boyfriend.
"Wait no, I didn't mean to!" She quickly tried calling him back, but the line was busy.
"Grrr! Mom, you better get home quick, or I'm gonna lose it!"
Meanwhile, back at the candy factory, the kids were having a blast eating candy, which gave them a sugar rush, which energized them to run around all hyper and invigorated, which made them hungrier, which caused them to eat more candy, and so on. In their elevated state, they couldn't help but release their happiness in song form, allowing their joy to take flight with a catchy tune.
There is nothing we love more than
Ca-ya-ya-ya-ya-andy!
The way it melts inside your mouth is
Oh, so fine and dandy!
Those veges, grains, and other stuffs
Can sometimes be quite bland-y,
But for a treat, you'll find it's sweet
to eat your favorite candy.
So go ahead and try it,
Before you grow too old;
Because when you're just a kid,
Candy's worth more to you than gold.
Once the song ended, Isabella waited for the others to disperse while hoping for a chance to catch Phineas alone. Surprisingly, it came right away when Ferb chased a few of the lingering notes from the chorus and ate them. Isabella wasted no time in taking her chance.
"Hey Phineas," she said, hiding something behind her back.
"Oh, hi Isabella! So, how's the candy?"
"It's all really good. Speaking of candy, do you want to share this candy heart with me?" At that, she revealed what she was holding; a candy heart the size of a dinner plate.
"Sure."
Isabella beamed and broke it down the middle when suddenly Baljeet cried out from somewhere.
"Help!" Came the voice, which was exceptionally high-pitched due to stress. "Help, Buford fell into the chocolate river!"
Phineas turned to see Buford splashing about violently as he sank deeper into the sugary slosh. "I'm coming!" Phineas said as he hurried in their direction, leaving Isabella holding the broken heart.
"Okay, I guess I'll go help too," she sighed, dropping the candy and rushing over to join the others.
"Just hang on!" Phineas called from the bank, "Ferb's grabbing the gumdrop life preserver!"
"You guys have a gumdrop life preserver?" Baljeet asked.
"Safety first," Phineas pointed out. As he said it, Ferb cast out the ring-shaped float and Buford was able to grab on, but not without taking a big bully-sized bite out of it.
"Yep, it's made out of gummy, alright," he commented as Ferb and the rest of them pulled him ashore.
Crisis averted, Phineas had a thought and shared it with the others. "You know," he began, "candy sure is great and everything, but it can be dangerous to have too much. What do you guys think?"
"Maybe you're right," Isabella agreed.
"Hey," Buford said, "it would have been death by chocolate; it's not such a bad way to go."
"Either way, I am starting to get sick from too much sugar," Baljeet motioned with a hand on his stomach.
"Me too," Buford agreed.
"Yeah, let's consider this day seized, and go find someplace to lie down" Phineas said clutching his stomach as well, and he along with the others trudged toward the exit as they all started to feel the sluggish effects of candy sickness setting in.
While battle with his nemesis ensued, Agent P had followed Doofenshmirtz to all kinds of exotic, mostly famous, places such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Great Wall of China, Hoover Dam, and a quick stop at Larry's Burgers and Fries Diner for lunch. Their combat went pretty much like this: they'd teleport somewhere, throw a few punches at the other, and teleport somewhere else. And so it went for a whole montage of silly, cartoonistic violence.
Finally, they ended up in the countryside somewhere when Doofenshmirtz held up his hands in a gesture of truce. "Perry the Platypus, I am so tired; why don't we take a breather. C'mon, whaddaya say?"
Agent P agreed despite not being all that tired; he was a secret agent, after all.
Doofenshmirtz took a seat and inspected his Teleportaterinator. "And not too soon, Perry the Platypus. My Teleportaterinator is almost out of juice, it wouldn't be good if we used it all and then ended up being stuck who knows where. Speaking of which, where are we, anyways?"
Agent P held up the GPS unit to show Doofenshmirtz they were in rural Idaho. "Idaho, where the heck is Idaho? Is that even in America? Because I don't remember Idaho being one of the states in America, Perry the Platypus. We need to find somewhere that has potatoes, since that's what my Teleportaterinator is powered by, and I don't think we're going to find any in a place called Id-a-ho." He waggled his head with each syllable to emphasize his doubt.
Agent P couldn't help but roll his eyes as he pointed back over his shoulder at a heap of fresh potatoes piled up to the size of a school bus.
"Oh!" Doofenshmirtz said in surprise. "Would you look at that, a whole pile of potatoes! How did I miss that? I mean, it was right behind you, like literally! Right behind you! And I was looking straight at you!" Agent P rolled his eyes again as the evil scientist climbed to the top of the pile with a gleeful look on his face.
"Guess what, Perry the Platypus? With this pile alone I could power my Teleportaterinator for like a whole year! We should use the Teleportaterinator to take them all back to my lab, Perry the Platypus. How does that s—oof!" Doofenshmirtz was cut off by a punch to the face. Rubbing his chin, he said, "I forgot, you are a good guy and good guys don't steal, do they."
Candace was still watching the backyard dutifully. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair was standing up in places, but the boy's creation was still there when finally her ears perceived the sound of her salvation: the garage door cranking open. Mom was home!
"It worked! It worked!" Candace breathed, wringing her hands before rushing off to grab her mother.
"Wow, Candace," Linda said upon opening the door to the house and finding her teenage daughter waiting. "I'm very proud of you, not a single call all day about the boys—"
"Yeah, yeah, that's great Mom, but you gotta come see what the boys have done in the backyard! They've built this huge factory with smokestacks and everything!"
"Oh," Linda sighed. "And here I almost thought we would finally go a whole day without all this nonsense."
"Even so, Perry the Platypus," Doofenshmirtz taunted, "you will never be able to stop me from using all these potatoes for my own nefarious purposes! Ahahahaha!" With that, Doofenshmirtz adjusted the settings on his machine to bring along anything he was touching, and with a pop! he vanished, taking the pile with him.
Agent P teleported himself back to Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. and just as he predicted, found that that was where the evil scientist had chosen to bring the pile with the last of his Inator's power. Agent P sprang into action, punching Doofenshmirtz and ripping the Inator from his back simultaneously. Agent P tossed the machine over the side of the building allowing gravity to destroy the machine for him, then vanished once more, mission completed.
"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" Doofenshmirtz called out after he had gone.
Perry didn't want his owners to see the Inator he was wearing, so he placed it beside the boy's latest creation and turned it on, assuming it would teleport away and leave no evidence behind.
"Oh, there you are, Perry," Phineas said as the kids all laid back to rest in the shade of the tree. A moment later, the whole factory disappeared in the blink of an eye.
A potato farmer and his daughter stood wondering what had happened to their pile of potatoes.
"You gotta believe me," the daughter said, "there was a pharmacist and a beaver fighting on the potato pile, and then just like that, they all vanished into thin air!"
"Amanda, you need to stop making up these farfetched stories! You aren't a kid anymore!"
"But Dad, I'm telling the truth!"
"Butts are for chairs, which is where you'll be sitting when we get home—in time out!"
"But Mom, I'm telling the truth!" Candace said as she and her mother looked at the empty back yard. "It was right there a second ago!"
"Butts are for chairs, Candace," Linda sarcastically replied. She opened the door and called out to the kids who were still laying in the shade. "Hey you guys, do you want to come help me make that candy now?"
"No thanks, Mom," Phineas called back. "I think we've had enough candy for today."
"Okay, kids. Have fun with Perry."
"You know what?" The potato farmer's daughter said. "I hated all those stupid potatoes anyways! When I'm eighteen, I am sooo moving out of this state!"
"But then who's going take care of the farm after I retire?" Her father asked. Just then, a huge factory materialized in front of the two arguers, right where the pile used to sit.
Although a look of pure shock registered on the daughter's face, she managed to utter, "Okay, I'll stay and tend the farm."
"How was your day, Perry?" Phineas asked.
"Grdrdrdrdrdrdrdrd," the platypus chattered happily.
"Well, I'm glad. Sorry we forgot to save you some candy, boy. Hey, how come you smell like potatoes?"
After a pause, Ferb said, "You know, while Idaho is often referred to as the potato state, its official nickname is actually the Gem State."
"Huh," Phineas sounded, "learn something new everyday."