JM: Sinatra lounge songs --

DM: -- punk and psychedelia, reggae, ska... We write the song on Friday with one of the scripters who's also songwriter, then play it into our composer Danny Jacob's answering machine, just guitars and us singing badly. On Monday we'd have a finished song from Danny.

After Rocko and before Phineas and Ferb, the pair went their separate ways. Dan moved to SpongeBob SquarePants as a writer and storyboard director, then began directing Family Guy episodes. Jeff spent the next six years in England (where he first earned his soggy nickname back in his post-college days) working on an assortment of films and series, including Postman Pat and Bounty Hamster.

JM: London was absolutely fantastic. They do a much smaller number of shows; it's much more a boutique business. I hadn't worked that way in a long time; I'd always worked on big shows for big companies. I just had a great time being there.

Then Dan called. "Do you want to work on Phineas and Ferb?" The next sound he heard was me packing. "Are you happy to be leaving London?" That had nothing to do with it. I just wanted to make Phineas and Ferb, but I got to come back and take up surfing.

The series borrows from Tex Avery and the graphic style of his later cartoons. Phineas and Ferb features geometric shapes in the characters and the background design that give the show a visual/thematic through line.

DP: My work on Family Guy didn't scare Disney. In fact, it had a huge impact on them, wanting to see whatever I did, because Adam Bonnet [Disney Channel's senior VP of original series] is a big fan. He called me for a meeting when I was working on a different pilot for them just to tell me how much he liked Family Guy. When I came back to pitch my own show, I think he was more open to it.

What we tried to do with Phineas and Ferb was put some of that primetime animation timing and sensibility without any of the raunch. We do a lot of stuff where we try to get a gag with a pause or a blank stare -- something really big happens and the other person just stares at him. That's something Swampy and I brought in from our primetime experience and put it in a show that also has big wacky cartoon animation in it.

People think Family Guy is a success because of how raunchy the gags are. I don't think it would have been a success at all if the timing wasn't absolutely crystal pitch perfect -- if there wasn't just the right amount of pause before or after the line. Comedy is all about timing and I think that's what people are responding to. Of course the fact that people are gasping and saying "I can't believe they said that" helps as well.

Animation on season one of Phineas and Ferb is nearing completion overseas at Rough Draft Studios and Wong Film. But 16 years earlier...

DP: I was at the Wild Thyme restaurant in South Pasadena. They have butcher paper over the tables and crayons for you to draw with, and I drew a triangle-headed kid. I tore that piece off and told my wife, "This is the show I'm going to sell." I called Swampy that night and said, "Okay, I've got Phineas." That drawing is framed in my office, complete with coffee stains.

JM: All the other characters grew out of that.

DP: This guy's a triangle, this one's a rectangle, this girl's half a circle. Then we worked geometric shapes into the background design to tie it all together -- give it a visual/thematic through line. There's a little bit of Tex Avery in there -- he had that very graphic style [in his later cartoons]. A lot of what I see now is borrowed from Tex.

The show's opening theme notes that "There's 104 days of summer vacation," exactly half of which are covered in Phineas and Ferb's season one segments. And the other half? According to Dan Povenmire, boards are already being drawn up for a second season; then there's always Christmas recess, not to mention the summer after...

Joe Strike is a regular contributor to AWN. His animation articles also appear in the NY Daily News and the New York Press.