Rollercoaster (Phineas and Ferb)

Our lives should be a rollercoaster! And I mean a good rollercoaster, not like that one we rode at the state fair. “Rollercoaster” is the first half of the 1st episode of the first season of Disney Channel original animated television series Phineas and Ferb, originally broadcast on Disney Channel on August 17, 2007 as a preview of the series, Toon Disney on September 1, 2008, and Disney XD on February 13, 2009. The episode follows series protagonists Phineas and Ferb building an extremely large roller coaster panning from their backyard to throughout the city.

“Rollercoaster” was written by co-creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh. Povenmire also directed the episode. The two used the episode to pitch the series to Disney. They recorded a set of storyboard reels, which Povenmire voiced over and sent them overseas. The preview of the episode totaled a combined 10.8 million viewers. Since airing, the episode has received mixed reviews from critics.

Phineas and Ferb construct a roller coaster from their backyard out to the whole city for themselves and the neighborhood kids. Meanwhile, Perry the Platypus attempts to thwart Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s evil plan to reverse the rotation of the Earth.

Plot summary
Phineas (Vincent Martella) and Ferb (Thomas Sangster) are sitting under a tree, bored, wondering what to do. Phineas realizes that they will be back in school shortly and they will have to say what they did over their summer vacation. He feels that their time off should be exciting, like a rollercoaster. Remembering the lame coaster they rode at the State Fair, Phineas realizes that’s what they should do today: build a rollercoaster.

As their mom, Linda (Caroline Rhea), heads off to do some shopping, Candace (Ashley Tisdale) runs to her car to confirm that she’s been put in charge. Mom doesn’t think it’s necessary that anyone be in charge, but Candace does. “What if a satellite falls out of orbit and crashes into the house?” It’s not likely to happen, so her mom gives her approval and Candace rushes over to tell the boys, “Mom says I’m in charge... conditionally!”

That doesn’t bother Phineas. He and Ferb have set up drafting tables and have started working on their “homework.” Candace doesn’t understand why they would be doing homework during their summer vacation. She heads into the house after admonishing them that they are being watched, and reminds the boys that she’s in charge, conditionally.

Candace only gets to take one look out the window before the phone rings. It’s Stacy (Kelly Hu), wanting to go to the mall with her. But she says she can’t go because she has to watch her brothers. Candace makes sure that Stacy will see if Jeremy (Mitchel Musso) is there.

While Candace was talking on the phone, the boys and Perry have been transporting various building materials into the back yard: lumber, steel I-beams, a jackhammer and plumbing supplies. The lion’s roar breaks her concentration and she yells at the boys, “Will you hold it down? I am trying to use the phone!”. Going back to talk to Stacy, she gets her first hint that something is wrong. Stacy tells Candace that she can see something being built in the backyard from her house.

Candace runs out to the backyard, then stops in her tracks, horrified at what she saw. She looks up and sees a patchwork of pipes and track. Candace shockingly asks Phineas what it is, and Phineas asks if she likes it. Whatever it is, she doesn’t like it. She angrily storms off to tell Linda, proclaiming that the boys are going down. She repeats it several times and spells it out for emphasis. “We’re going to need a blowtorch and some more peanut butter” is Phineas’ assessment.

As Candace rides off on her bike, Isabella (Alyson Stoner) walks up to her asking if Phineas is home, but Candace takes no notice of her and continues riding to the supermarket. Isabella, however, walks into the yard with hearts in her eyes. “What’cha doin’?” she asks. Phineas tells Isabella that they are building a roller coaster. Isabella then says hi to Ferb, but Ferb only waves his sledgehammer in response. As a man of action, he’s busy laying track. He strikes a rivet with the sledgehammer, causing it to bounce and hit him on the nose. Ferb just blinks, apparently unhurt. Isabella had stopped by to invite Phineas to go swimming with her, but he wants to work on the coaster, so she heads off. Phineas then notices that Perry (Dee Bradley Baker) is missing.

Perry is walking nearby alongside the house. He stops and checks to make sure no one can see him. Jumping up onto his hind legs, Perry’s demeanor changes. He is no longer a platypus that “doesn’t do much.” He puts on a brown and black fedora, becoming “Agent P.” A remote control opens a hidden door in the side of the house and Agent P steps in and rides the tube elevator down to his lair.

Major Monogram (Jeff “Swampy” Marsh) informs him that Dr. Doofenshmirtz (Dan Povenmire) has bought “80% of the country’s tin foil.” Agent P must find out why and stop him. Before Agent P leaves, Major Monogram reminds him to maintain his cover as a “mindless domestic pet.” Giving the Major a quick salute, he flies off in his platypus-shaped hover-jet. He exits to the surface through a tunnel. Shortly thereafter, he flies by the boys and pulls his hat down over his face to avoid being recognized.

The boys are taking a break from construction to discuss the next part of the coaster. There will be solid-fuel booster rockets and snakes being released during a corkscrew around the Interstate highway. Phineas heads off to get the snakes while Ferb resumes welding.

Meanwhile, Candace has been trying to get Linda to come home from the grocery store and see what Phineas and Ferb are doing. Linda mentions that she recalls Candace doing the same thing previously, claiming that the boys were training “monkeys to juggle bicycles,” but when she came home, “there was a stunning lack of monkeys.” Candace persists, telling her about the roller coaster. Linda thinks Phineas is a little young to be a roller coaster engineer.

At that moment, a foreman at a car factory is asking Phineas the same question. After Phineas confirms it, the foreman approves their building permit despite it being filled out in crayon. He offers to give them whatever help they need, so Phineas takes him up on the offer and borrows one of the robotic assembly arms. In short order, the robot arm is mounted to the coaster cars and is laying out track for them.

Nearby, Agent P swings in through a window at Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated. Dr. Doofenshmirtz greets him with: “Ah, Perry the Platypus! What an unexpected surprise. And by unexpected, I mean completely expected!” After trapping Agent P, he informs Agent P of his plan to move the Eastern Seaboard (now covered in tin foil) to the West by using a “Magnetism Magnifier,” which will reverse the rotation of the Earth. While Doofenshmirtz is talking, Agent P tries getting free of the robot arms holding him, but then notices a screw on the ground at his feet. Looking around him, he formulates a plan...

Back at the Super Food Stuff Mart, Candace continues her attempts to convince Linda to come home. She sees the poster that Ferb has just put up, but when she gets Linda over to there, two boys took the poster to see if they can get in for a discount. Candace screams when she sees that the poster is gone. Linda informs her she’ll be over in the dairy section if Candace wants to “come yell at some cheese or anything.”

Phineas and Ferb unveil the Coolest Coaster Ever to the neighborhood kids. The first lift hill climbs up through the clouds, high enough that a bird flies into the track and falls to the ground.

As they start to go up, Phineas is showing everybody how the seat belts work, but he drops it. The coaster comes to a stop at the top of the lift hill, revealing part of downtown Danville far below them. He asks everybody, “You all signed the waivers, right?” They then shoot down and begin the wild ride. There are loops, hairpin turns, and the promised corkscrew. A load of rubber snakes falls on them just before they plunge into a mud bucket. Fortunately, the next section includes a trip through a car wash and they all emerge squeaky clean. Next is an “A-A-A-A” portion and a few loops around Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated.

Inside, Dr. Doofenshmirtz is still rambling on about how much this scheme cost him. Agent P uses his tail to fling the screw at Doofenshmirtz, “missing” him, making it bounce off the control panel and hit him in the foot. Hopping around, he accidentally releases Agent P from his robotic arms. Agent P then starts to battle him with wrenches and strikes the same foot of Dr. Doofenshmirtz that the screw hit.

During the fight, Dr. Doofenshmirtz runs over to the Magnetism Magnifier and turns it on, telling Agent P he is too late and it cannot be stopped now. But the Eastern seaboard did not move to the west, just the tin foil, causing a two-ton ball of tin foil going, at two hundred miles an hour to head straight for them. They both frantically try to turn it off.

At the store, Candace and Linda are at the checkout when Candace hears the coaster going by. She sees the coaster track out in the parking lot and goes back to get her mom so she can see as well.

Agent P is now helping Doofenshmirtz in trying to move the Magnetism Magnifier, but it will not budge, so he hooks the magnet to a helicopter, causing the magnet to go with it. Dr. Doofenshmirtz is happy about being saved, but is then moved (along with the rest of the tallest part of the building) by the tin foil ball that crashes into it. The magnet attracts the Magnetism Magnifier, which sends a magnetic ray at the track under it, picking up the entire roller coaster.

Candace gets Linda out of the store, but the roller coaster track has already been moved. Since Linda has finished checking out, the two leave, and Candace is now excited because she believes that when they get home, the boys will not be under the tree, therefore proving to Linda that she is right.

Agent P has been riding on top of the magnet and notices that the helicopter has been trailing a plume of smoke from the strain of lifting that much weight. He cuts the cable, making the roller coaster drop to the ground. The kids are still riding this very fast coaster. Agent P jumps onto the coaster with the kids as it passed beneath him. Phineas looks behind him and utters the famous catch phrase, “Oh, there you are, Perry.” Instead of seeing Agent P, Phineas sees Perry again, since Agent P put his hat on Isabella a moment before, so he wouldn’t be recognized.

The kids reach the broken end of the coaster and ride out into the street, through a construction site and up onto the tail of a passing jumbo jet after a crane swings them up into the air. Candace, in the car below, sees the boys on the airplane flying in the other direction and laughs gleefully. Linda says she worries about her sometimes.

The coaster cars finally come loose from the tail of the jet and they fall onto the Statue of Liberty. It bends and then flings them over to Mount Rushmore, where they do some loops inside Theodore Roosevelt’s glasses. They then shoot out on a tree over a Mr. Slushy Burger, then get flung to Paris where they land on a very bendable Eiffel Tower over a croissant stand, finally getting flung all the way into outer space. A satellite passes by the coaster, and Phineas points out that if it falls to Earth, Candace is in charge. At that moment, the coaster plummets to the Earth, picking up speed and catching the nose of the first coaster car on fire from the friction of re-entry. As they get closer to Danville, Phineas says, “We should’ve charged more.”

Candace and Linda now pull into the driveway and Candace runs out of the car, laughing crazily. She looks into the backyard, and does not see Phineas and Ferb and shouts “Yes!” She tells Linda she told her, closing her eyes and extending her hand out to point at the yard, as we hear a rustle of leaves. Linda says “Hi” to the boys, who are here, sitting under the tree. She tells Candace to help her with the groceries and walks away, leaving Candace to gasp “But” over and over again until Linda pulls her into the house.

The kids now fall out of the tree, all saying how much they liked the ride. Isabella also falls out of the tree, telling them how great it was and asking them what they’re going to do tomorrow. Phineas says he doesn’t know, and Isabella suggests teaching Perry some tricks. Phineas says that platypuses don’t do much, followed by Ferb saying his first spoken words in the show: “They’re the only mammals to lay eggs.” Phineas says maybe he’ll lay an egg, and Isabella leaves, saying it really was the best coaster ever and the two make a great team. Phineas replies, saying that he couldn’t have asked for a better brother than Ferb, who then burps. Phineas comments that he can smell the peanut butter.

Phineas then asks what they should do tomorrow, and suggests making a list. Just then the top of the tree explodes, causing Candace to shout, “Mom!”, who responds with, “Give it a rest, Candace!”.