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| - And what a seriously awesome way to come back, too! Enter, "She's the Mayor". In this episode, Candace "becomes" the new mayor of the day while Roger Doofenshmirtz goes out for a day of golf with his brother. Now is where we may stop and discuss some gold: the episode features a truly surprising thematic drive to it. Throughout the episode, we are treated to a backbone of heavy, unapologetic irony—this is a usual staple for Phineas and Ferb, yes, but was makes this episode so notable is the fact that irony is used literally as the entire setup. But that's not where it ends, either. Because then we're introduced to this admittedly weird pseudo political/moral satire that mashes up with an also admittedly weird parody of how people over analyze stuff that has literally no deep meaning. How d
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| abstract
| - And what a seriously awesome way to come back, too! Enter, "She's the Mayor". In this episode, Candace "becomes" the new mayor of the day while Roger Doofenshmirtz goes out for a day of golf with his brother. Now is where we may stop and discuss some gold: the episode features a truly surprising thematic drive to it. Throughout the episode, we are treated to a backbone of heavy, unapologetic irony—this is a usual staple for Phineas and Ferb, yes, but was makes this episode so notable is the fact that irony is used literally as the entire setup. But that's not where it ends, either. Because then we're introduced to this admittedly weird pseudo political/moral satire that mashes up with an also admittedly weird parody of how people over analyze stuff that has literally no deep meaning. How do they do this? Through Roger admitting that the entire "Mayor for the Day" shtick is bogus, and the hilarious scenes of the crowd taking everything said to them as a metaphor for some random thing about society or morals. It's kind of out of nowhere, but the show does a really good job working with it and using it to add some consistent depth of sorts to the episode. Now enough of that—how was the episode as a whole? Simply put: fantastic. The humor was gleefully consistent; the jokes weren't forced for the most part, it tended to be off the wall, irreverent, and sophisticated. I truly loved this episode, and found myself laughing all the time. Candace's story has some really solid jokes and cracks at politics and consumerism, Phineas and Ferb's plot features some simple but nice humor, and Doofenshmirtz's subplot was dry and realistic, like always. I am actually an avid golfer and I can tell you that everything Doof mentions about the sport is 100% accurate. It's seriously that boring, but in all honesty is entertaining purely because it helps take out aggression and gets you competitive—even though you end up being sticky, sweaty, and dying to just go home. The Cooky Old Coot was great, and his ramblings made for several belly laughs. I've heard some complaining about the ending, but I actually loved it—it was silly and made for some great visual gags, including a parody of Obama's Hope painting, but with Candace instead of Mr. President. There wasn't really a song in this episode—technically there was, a light-hearted romp called "Never Gonna be an Ordinary Day", but it was almost entirely inaudible sans the guitar music—but there was a twist on the Quirky Worky Song. Needless to say, this was the best twist yet: what made it work was the unsuredness of the singer's voice, and the blank, awkward stares the boys were giving while doing the awkwardly long task of cutting the log. Genius. The animation is awesome, too—Zac Moncrief does a typical great job directing, and this new Synergy Animation studio in Shangai is proving to be the best source of Flash animation the show's had. In the end, this was a lurid, cliched plot that the show somehow turned into an irreverent, hysterical political/moral satire with inspired jokes and gags. Oh, and Carl and Monogram in a Sauna? I almost died laughing. Overall: A+ Next up: "The Lemonade Stand." This is also a partly cliched plot that the show did a nice job turning into a creative work fleshed out to call it its own, and ended up becoming a very atypical episode with traditional Phineas and Ferb goofiness. The boys set up a lemonade stand that proves so popular that they launch it into a string of lemonade restaurants—all in the matter of the morning, of course. I know the show is all about this bright, implausible in-a-morning success, but I felt it was more prominent in this episode then others, sending the show a little bit back to its roots, which is good. There were some nice jokes sprinkled around—what particular gem comes from Perry as a plumber and Doof's hysterical reaction to him showing platypus hind a la every plumber known to men—but I found some of them lagging and that there were too few of them to count. But that's not to say it wasn't altogether hilarious—just not delivered as well as they could have (the "Voyage to the Bottom of Buford" callback, for example, could have been really great if they had made it dryer, more deadpan, and break the fourth wall more). But in the end, it was a solid episode with some nice jokes that could've been better. Overall, B+
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