Out to Launch (Phineas and Ferb)

"Hey, Ferb! Now that we own a star, we should go check it out."

- Phineas Flynn

Lawrence is preoccupied with buying and naming stars online. He buys one for Phineas and Ferb, and also one for Candace. Candace and Isabella are preoccupied with a turn-around dance where the girls ask the boys out. Candace thinks Jeremy will refuse; and Isabella keeps getting interrupted when she asks. Phineas and Ferb build a rocket to visit their star. Doofenshmirtz is also in space, seeking revenge on an adolescent nemesis.

Summary
Phineas and Ferb are resting against the tree in the backyard listening to the radio with their pet, Perry between them. The radio announcer is advertising the Night of the Falling Stars girls’ choice dance which is happening that night. It seems Danville is in for a meteor shower and everyone in town has gone “star crazy.” Lawrence Fletcher is especially star crazy as he’s found out that he can purchase the naming rights to stars online and give them away as gifts. He brings out a certificate he printed online to show the boys that they are now the proud owners of their very own star.

Phineas asks if Candace got one too, and being a good father, Lawrence bought her one as well despite the fact that she doesn’t seem very interested in those sorts of things. He is enamored by how easy and inexpensive it is to buy stars online, comparing it to the Oklahoma land rush of 1889. Sneaking up on them, Linda tells the boys that it was the corny history references that made her fall for him in the first place. She then explains that she and her friend Vivian are going to their mahjong tournament. As Lawrence rushes back inside to buy more stars, Phineas suggests to Ferb that they go visit their star. He goes on to wax poetic about space travel: “the G-forces, eating dinner out of a tube, and going to the bathroom without going to the bathroom.”

Meanwhile, at the Googolplex Mall, Candace visits Jeremy and his friends in the food court to try and ask him out. He turns around and they start laughing at her. Then the earth would be destroyed. At least this is the scenario that Candace is using to explain to Stacy why she can’t ask Jeremy to the dance. Stacy, unimpressed, tells Candace that hers is kind of a worst-case scenario and that she can’t let fear rule her life. She pushes Candace to call Jeremy as soon as she hangs up the phone. Candace agrees, hangs up, and proceeds to call Stacy right back to tell her she is too afraid to do it.

In the backyard, the boys are working on their rocket. First, they are going through tests of stamina to make sure they are suited for space travel. Ferb is exercising on a giant hamster wheel and Phineas has Buford spin him around really fast on a merry-go-round. Then, they get to work on the actual rocket. The Fireside Girls help assemble the fuselage, while Phineas and Ferb are trying to work out a formula, specifically the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, or ideal rocket equation. They try several times, but are having difficulties coming on the correct one, with each rocket exploding in a clip of rocket failures. Ferb notices their flaw: the square root of “bomb.” Once Phineas changes it to the square root of “smiley face,” everything works out. They are finally ready to launch and Phineas gives Isabella and the Fireside Girls a tour of Mission Control. Even though it looks like a tiny shed in the middle of their backyard, it is huge inside since Ferb “really knows how to maximize space.” The rest of the girls go inside, but Isabella stays to try and ask Phineas to the dance. Unfortunately, Katie interrupts her by asking Phineas inside to sign some liability waivers. Phineas and Ferb walk out their backdoor wearing their spacesuits. Perry, also wearing a spacesuit, is tucked under Phineas’ arm. They are walking slowly and in a mist for dramatic effect until Isabella stops them. The three astronauts board the rocket as Isabella and the Fireside Girls act as Mission Control. Gretchen counts them down, but the rocket stalls out when Isabella pushes the ignition button. Phineas deduces they just need a jump-start.

Candace finally looks out of the window and sees the rocket and Mission Control and heads down to the backyard. Phineas and Ferb are in the driveway with the hood of the family car open, jumper cables in hand. Candace climbs up inside the rocket and heads up the ladder into the cockpit. The boys have connect the jumper cables to the battery and Ferb hits the remote starter to start the car. It immediately launches the rocket into the sky, pulling the car along with it. They head over to Mission Control where Isabella shows them who took off in the rocket.

Candace is pressed against a hatch inside and her cheeks are covering her ears because of the G-forces. Phineas tries to communicate with her, but she can’t hear him. Phineas realizes they need to go after her in the second rocket they built for Candace to see her star. He doesn’t know why she took his and Ferb’s. The second rocket is highlighted in pink and has flowers on it. Candace escapes the atmosphere and the car comes loose from the jumper cables. It tumbles and lands on the runway into a space station to the chagrin of a pair of NASA shuttle astronauts.

Somehow, the second rocket takes off perfectly and Phineas opens communications with Candace, reassuring her that as long as she doesn’t start hitting buttons randomly, the rocket is pre-programmed to take her to their star. It’s too late though, as she’s already hitting random buttons. Phineas then asks about Perry.

Perry is sneaking down the rocket, putting on his fedora and answering his communications device. Major Monogram is on the other end informing him that Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz has built a space station, but The Agency can’t afford to launch him into space due to budget cuts. Major Monogram gets cut off because Agent P shows Major Monogram that he is already in space. Agent P’s mission is to find the Doofenshmirtz space station and stop the evil doctor. Perry opens an airlock and lets go of the communication device sending it out into the blackness of space and disorienting Major Monogram.

Candace has been studying her instruments wondering what all the red flashing things are. Phineas calmly tells her they’re asteroids. Candace’s rocket soon gets hit by two asteroids knocking out her engines. The boys change course to rescue her.

Perry arrives at Doofenshmirtz’s space station. It’s shaped like a giant robot with huge hands and nothing below the waist. He gets sucked inside the robot and frozen in an ice cube tray by Doofenshmirtz. Using a crane on a track, Doofenshmirtz shows Perry the Platypus his station while telling him a story from his teen years. It seems Doofenshmirtz was very adept at hand shadows, or shadow puppets. He found it great fun for entertaining people and meeting girls (Fräuleins). Unfortunately Heinz’s fun was ruined when a new boy arrived by the name of Huge Hands Hans. His puppetry wasn’t very good, but that didn’t stop him from taking away the girl that Heinz was trying to win over. He never did a shadow puppet again. Until tonight. His plan is to use a pair of gloves to control the hands of the robotic space station and make hand shadows on the moon.

Candace’s situation is getting worse. She’s in a decaying orbit and can’t escape the gravity of one of the asteroids. According to Phineas, her only option is to put on the space suit and take a space walk to their rocket before crashing. She is afraid, but Phineas is trying to talk her out of being afraid, “You can’t let fear rule your life.” In the meantime, Ferb has already reached her. He takes her hand and together they head back to the pink rocket where Phineas contacts Isabella at Mission Control. After determining everyone is alright, Isabella starts to ask Phineas to the dance again but an alarm sounds inside the rocket. They are running out of fuel. Surprised, Phineas and the gang desperately try to find a fuel source, then find out that they were getting closer to something bright.

Meanwhile at the space station, Linda’s car stays outside, still blocking the Space Shuttle which was scheduled to land.

Phineas finds out that the bright thing was a star, Shooting Star Milk Shake Bar. The boys head inside, after pleading Candace to come, but she refuses. The Milkshake Bar is a run down place. Phineas introduces himself and Ferb, and the bartender welcomes them, stating them as the new owners. Phineas does not understand this, but Ferb shows them the star certificate their father gave them, and it turns out they have the same matching coordinates. The bartender asks them how they think of the joint. They decide to fix up the place.

We see the Earth again falling to destruction. Isabella tells Candace that that is a worst case scenario. Candace remembers her brothers and goes off to find them. Inside, Candace is told to review a shake, and an alien boy nervously asks her if it’s silly to be nervous to ask the girl of your dreams out, like Candace and Jeremy. She gives him advice and he asks her (Silvia, the girl of his dreams) out. Silvia, who is growing out of the back of the alien boy’s head gladly accepts, saying “I mean, even if you asked somebody else out I’d still have to go with you.” Phineas gets some fuel and they leave. Unfortunately, the battery dies. Turns out that Candace used the video phone without the engine running.

Meanwhile, Dr. Doofenshmirtz is plotting his evil plan, but Agent P’s ice tray begins to melt.

Back with the kids, they find mom’s car for another jump start. Since they left the starter remote at home, Candace has her learner’s permit and has to do the jump starting. Dr. Doofenshmirtz thinks this is Huge Hands Hans and grabs her. Candace escapes though, and the chase begins. Isabella and the Fireside girls find out that huge robots do not corner well. They take a detour through the asteroid belt, and Doofenshmirtz gets hit. He puts on his space suit to avoid suffocating. Just after, a much larger meteor comes by and crashes into his station.

On Earth, Mr. Fletcher gives a pizza man a tip, his very own star, but the pizza guy is not happy with this (“Uptown, they give Quasars!”) The kids go back to earth and Isabella then asks Phineas to the dance and he says yes, but Ferb is coming too. So she’s left with a 1.5 date with Phineas and Ferb.

Linda arrives home and Candace greets her. She announces that she won although the Grand Prize was a star, to which Lawrence replies happily. Candace calls Linda to the yard, while she notices that the car is not parked. She proceeds to park it and since it was still connected to the rocket and it launched up to space again. It ends up crashing into Doofenshmirtz’s space station, annihilating it.

Phineas walks over and thanks Candace for saving them with her bravery. When she says “You think I’m...brave?” Phineas replies “Are you kidding? Ferb was going on and on about it!” Candace, using her new found courage, hurries away to ask Jeremy to the dance. He says yes, but sees her in her spacesuit, to which Candace says she’ll be wearing and asks if Jeremy likes it.

Cast

 * Vincent Martella as Phineas
 * Ashley Tisdale as Candace
 * Thomas Sangster as Ferb
 * Caroline Rhea as Mom
 * Richard O’Brien as Dad
 * Dan Povenmire as Dr. Doofenshmirtz
 * Jeff “Swampy” Marsh as Major Monogram, additional voices
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Perry, Bartender, additional voices
 * Alyson Stoner as Isabella, additional voices
 * Mitchel Musso as Jeremy
 * Kelly Hu as Stacy
 * Ariel Winter as Gretchen
 * Isabella Acres as Katie
 * Keith Ferguson as Ronaldo, Gretchen’s countdown voice, additional voices
 * Brian George as Bouncer, additional voices
 * Lara Jill Miller as Sylvia, additional voices