In the 2008 “Phineas and Ferb” episode “Comet Kermillian,” the title characters’ older sister Candace is enjoying a day at the park when through a series of unfortunate events, a pair of squirrels wind up in her pants. As she starts convulsing hysterically, a nearby group of street musicians think she’s dancing — and they conjure up, on the spot, the catchy rap tune “S.I.M.P,/Squirrels in My Pants.”
Fifteen years later, “Squirrels in My Pants” experienced new life — on TikTok, of course. Suddenly everyone from Lizzo to MrBeast were doing their own version of “Squirrels in My Pants.” Others were creating their own takes on additional “Phineas and Ferb” classic bits like “Busted” or “There’s a Platypus Controlling Me.”
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It was during the pandemic that “Phineas and Ferb” became the go-to comfort food for a Gen Z crowd that loved the show as kids and were rewatching it as teens or young adults on Disney+. And they stayed with it, often turning the show into memes.
“I realized that, oh, this is where all the ‘Phineas and Ferb’ fans have gone,” says co-creator Dan Povenmire, who has become a TikTok superstar (6.8 million followers and counting) thanks to his role as the voice of the show’s not-so-competent evil villain Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.
Povenmire and co-creator Jeff “Swampy” Marsh (who voices Major Monogram) produced 126 episodes of “Phineas and Ferb” during its original run on Disney Channel and Disney XD, as well as multiple series and movies — not to mention a live touring show, junior novels, apparel, toys, video games and more. Their follow-up, “Milo Murphy’s Law,” wound up being set in the same universe (and even Doofenshmirtz ultimately showed up).
After “Milo,” Povenmire and Marsh had started to move on to their own projects. But Disney brass had other ideas. That lingering “Phineas and Ferb” social footprint — as well as its continued success in the consumer product space — led to talk of a revival.
“They were like, ‘What was the last big seller we had?’” Povenmire says. “And it was ‘Phineas and Ferb.’ And they were like, why did we stop doing that?” Adds Marsh: “Nobody could answer that question effectively.”
Povenmire jokes that if Disney doesn’t do it, then bootlegs sell. “Look all over social media, there’s all sorts of people in this platypus onesie that’s obviously Perry the Platypus,” he says. “They may just be leaving money on the table by not doing more of the show.”
Ayo Davis, the president of Disney Branded Television, led the charge to get the band back together. “Phineas and Ferb is truly one of a kind — smart, musical, and completely original,” she says. “It’s the kind of show that sticks with you, whether you’re a kid watching for the first time or a parent singing along.”
Davis also had some hard data to back up her desire to bring “Phineas and Ferb” back. According to Disney internal streaming data, the show has been streamed 650 million hours on Disney+ globally to date. Plus, a new “streams” channel on Disney+, which plays nothing but back-to-back episodes of “Phineas” on a loop, launched this month and is already showing major growth.
And even though there hasn’t been a new episode in a decade, in the first quarter of 2025 “Phineas & Ferb” is among the top ten most-watched animated kids series on streaming platforms among total viewers, according to Nielsen data. Nielsen also crunched a number for Disney looking at the franchise from its first sneak peek in 2007, and came up with a total 12.6 billion hours watched across linear and streaming over the franchise’s lifetime.
For Povenmire and Marsh, the most important thing was making sure Disney wanted the exact same “Phineas and Ferb.” “The great joy for me was when they came back and said, ‘we’re not looking for you to reinvent this, or evolve it, just whatever you were doing, do more of those,’” Marsh says. “That was really appealing.”
Disney gave the revival a 40-episode order; the first two episodes air June 5 on Disney Channel and Disney XD, while the first full batch of 10 episodes will premiere on Disney+ starting June 6. Not much has changed — many of the writers are the same, and the show’s voice actors have all returned.
“We put together a writer’s room that was a good blend of people who’d done the job before, who knew all the characters, with some young folks who are huge fans of the show,” says Marsh — and that even includes one of their voice actors, Olivia Olson, who plays Vanessa. “In fact, we have one of the new writers who actually knows more about what was on which show when. We used to go to the wiki fan site. Now it’s just easier to ask him.”
On the voice front, among those returning: Vincent Martella (who plays Phineas Flynn) and David Errigo Jr. (who took over as Ferb Fletcher in 2020 from original star Thomas Brodie-Sangster), the two namesakes of the series. Also back are Ashley Tisdale as Candace Flynn, Caroline Rhea as Linda Flynn-Fletcher, Dee Bradley Baker as Perry the Platypus and Alyson Stoner as Isabella Garcia-Shapiro.
There are a few minor slight changes superfans might notice, starting with a twist on the theme song. “Phineas and Ferb” normally opens with the band Bowling for Soup singing, “there’s 104 days of summer vacation!” — but for the first few episodes of the revival, it’s been tweaked to say, “there’s another 104 days of summer vacation.” (Povenmire and Marsh say that’s only for the first few episodes, before they revert to the original lyric.)
One more update: Since it’s a summer later, the kids have grown a bit. “We just added a stripe to Phineas’ shirt, so he’d look a little taller, but we haven’t actually made him any taller,” Povenmire says.
With the new episodes, Povenmire and Marsh say they were excited to explore more of the show’s secondary characters, including Baljeet and Buford. There’s still plenty of room for silliness too, like an episode where a large, inanimate object has what they promise is a “very meaningful storyline,” including a song by Michael Bublé. There’s also more on how Stacy is the only character to know Perry the Platypus’ true identity, while Carl gets more backstory. And yes, Meap (as voiced by John Stamos) will return in the long-awaited “Meap Me in St. Louis.”
Besides Bublé and Stamos, guest stars lined up include “Ted Lasso” stars Brendan Hunt (playing “Dr. Shamai”) and Cristo Fernández (playing himself), as well as Kelly Dempsey as “Receptionist,” Alan Cumming as “The Haberdasher,” Jonathan Banks as “Driving Instructor,” Lake Bell as “Villevielle,” Leslie Jones as “Alliance Commander,” Anna Faris as “Samantha Sweetwater,” Megan Rapinoe as herself, Meghan Trainor as “Vending Machine Prime,” Rhys Darby as “Lomond” and Ruth Negga as “Lieutenant Zarna.”
And yes, more merch is also on the horizon: Povenmire is happy to report that “Phineas and Ferb” Funko Pops are coming.
“We’re trying to hit everything that we wanted to hit,” Povenmire says. “I think that’s what most people want, they just want it to feel like the show that they grew up on and get that kind of a nostalgia charge from it. We’ve been trying to do that.”
Go here for an exclusive sneak peek at the return of “Phineas and Ferb”:
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