I got to speak with the creators in their studio years ago when P&F was still being created and they said at dinner one night they challenged themselves to design a character with a triangle shaped head. Right there on the paper tablecloth (the kind restaurants provide with crayons for kids to draw on), they drew the very first Phineas, then realized he needed acompanion, and thus with a rectangle, they drew the first Ferb.
Dan & Swampy are incredibly kind men who wanted to create a show that was easy for kids to recognize and participate in, while having fun antics for anyone of all ages.
It’s not even that ugly, it’s got funny shapes sure, but the colors and character designs are bright and fantastically fun, and the show’s writing was completely clever.
I detailed in a long post once how they left most of the dialogue up to the animators: they had a basic outline of how each episode would go, and as the animators would draw it out (they didn’t use puppets folks, they used cintiq tablets and drew everything, I saw it first-hand) and as they were drawing they’d think “what would this character be saying while making this gesture?” and that’s how the dialogue was created. The animators also worked in pairs, so they always had a companion to talk to, work with, and help with dialogue as they went. This is how most of the jokes were created, and as they had multiple animator teams, they were able to keep jokes and dialogue very fresh so the show never stagnated from using only the same couple of writers like most shows do.
For the songs Dan & Swampy themselves would pull a guitar off wall, go into the meeting room and gather anyone around, and just come up with songs on the spot right there. They would sit for a couple of hours messing around gathering input from anyone and everyone. This kept the songs fun and fresh and also kept them from stagnating or becoming boring.
Phineas and Ferb was made in a very rewarding, fun environment. Everyone who worked in the studio seemed very happy, and they loved having visitors and getting to show off and explain every aspect of the show. Everyone was kind and fun and just loved their job. I genuinely can’t accept seeing anyone saying negative things about a show that was intrinsically meant to be gratifying, fun, and wonderful for kids and adults of all ages, and stuck to that mindset throughout its entire creation process.
Edit: I forgot to add one of my favorite parts! The creators knew their animators so well that they could tell who designed which episode! To each person watching, it’s difficult to tell differences in style since it’s meant to all look the same, but the creators looked at some clips in front of us and guessed which animator pair did the clips and then they double-checked it and were correct, pointing out extremely minute details that were recognizable trademarks for each team. Clearly they had a very kind and caring and friendly environment!
