If you’re a regular reader of GeekDad, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a huge fan of Phineas and Ferb. What you probably didn’t know, since it’s never come up before in a way relevant to this blog, is that I’m a big fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. These two facts may seem to have nothing to do with one-another, unless you happen to know who provides the voice for Lawrence Fletcher, the dad on Phineas and Ferb: one Richard O’Brien, better known to Rocky Horror fans as the show’s writer and the actor who played Riff Raff.
As if it weren’t geekily awesome enough to have a Rocky Horror star do a voice on a Disney cartoon show, an upcoming episode of the show features the voice of Frank N. Furter himself, the one and only Tim Curry. Curry will voice an antique dealer rival of Lawrence’s, so Curry and O’Brien will have scenes together. The episode, titled “Tri-State Treasure: Boot of Secrets” will air as the second half of the half-hour show next Friday, June 22, at 9:00pm ET/PT on Disney Channel.
From Phineas and Ferb: "Tri-State Treasure: Boot of Secrets." Image: Disney
The show’s creators, Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, were nice enough to chat with me about the episode and about what Father’s Day means to them (as both are geek dads themselves):
GeekDad: So, about the upcoming episode with Tim Curry – that’s a really cool idea.
Swampy Marsh: We had an episode where Dad ostensibly runs into his antiquing nemesis, Worthington DuBois, and we thought “Who better to play Dad’s nemesis than Tim Curry?”
Dan Povenmire: As far as we know, and we haven’t actually checked this out but we’re going to throw it out there as though it’s fact, we think this is the first time they’ve been in a scene together since The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
GD: It probably is.
Dan: We can’t find anything else on IMDb.
Swampy: We can find nothing to refute that.
Dan: So we believe it to be true, whether it is or not. [laughs]
Swampy: The only sad thing was that we couldn’t get the two of them together in the same room to do the recordings, with Richard being over in the UK or in New Zealand, and Tim working here. But they crossed over at the end of a recordingg session I was doing with Tim, where Tim was leaving when we were hooking up with Richard, and we got to put them on the line together, and it was such a wonderfully sweet moment. There is such a great affection between these guys, and I was very grateful — and a little misty – just getting to hear that brief interaction. It was very sweet.
Dan: Richard was in town about two months ago, and he came into the studio with his family, and got a tour of the studio, and everyone treated him like royalty. But my favorite thing is that he was in my office, picked up my guitar, and played “The Time Warp” on it! And Swampy videotaped it. But I wasn’t in my office at the time! I was in the editing room, so I missed it.
GD: So, do you have anything else in the works that you can tell me about?
Dan: We’ve got an episode coming up where Doofenshmirtz and Perry get lost in the desert — they both get zapped to the middle of the desert, and the entire episode is them getting back to Danville. We only see a little bit of Phineas and Ferb at the very beginning and the very end.
Swampy: It’s a great buddy road trip movie, with Doof and Perry.
Dan: And of course Doofenshmirtz has to carry the majority of the conversation, which is bothersome to him and to Perry at certain points. It’s like our version of a buddy movie, and that’s one of my favorites that we’ve done. I mean, aside from having to work with that voice actor, who’s just a pain! [Note: Dan is the voice actor for Dr. Doofenshmirtz.]
GD: Anything you can tell me about the progress on the movie?
Dan: We’re finding out a bit more about it tomorrow. We’re getting a new draft — we have one of our writers off doing a new draft. We did an entirely new story, basically.
Swampy: We got some great input from some really talented people that we work with.
Dan: Yeah, because we were trying to push it in one direction, and the studio was sort of pushing back, and then we came up with something that we both love. So now it feels like we’re all making the same movie. It’s going to be very good. We’ll know more about it tomorrow.
GD: When is the release?
Dan: As far as we know it’s still 2013, but we’ll know more when we get this new draft.
Swampy: It’ll be easier to confirm everything once that’s final.
[…]
Dan: You know what I do for Father’s Day? I wake up in the morning, and they come in and give me a tie or something, and I’m like “Oh, it’s Father’s Day?!” [laughs] That’s about the most planning I end up doing for Father’s Day. I’m never sure when it’s coming. I’m lucky to remember Mother’s Day – that’s the way I feel. To me, Father’s Day is… Mother’s Day is about the moms, and Father’s day is about the kids. So get out there and do something fun with the kids – take them somewhere or build something, make something with them. That to me is the fun part about Father’s Day.
Swampy: You were saying that on Father’s Day, the kids spend time with the fathers. On Mother’s Day…
Dan & Swampy: …the kids spend time with the fathers, to give mom a break! [laughter]
Dan: Mother’s Day comes and I take the kids somewhere to give mom a spa day or something like that.
Swampy: My wife always asks me what I want for Father’s Day, and the only thing I say is that I just want to go surfing with my son. Like, if I can do that without any trouble or worry about anything else for the day, I’m happy.
We also discussed a few other things that fans of the show would be interested in hearing about: In conjunction with an episode of the show later this summer, there will be a special version of the popular Where’s My Water? game app called Where’s Perry?, which will according to Dan and Swampy be more than just a re-skin of the original. They also told me about the recently-announced attraction at Epcot at Walt Disney World called “Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure,” which sounds like one heck of a lot of fun, even for adults.
