#Don't trust this it's a cartoon and it's dwampy

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Thoughts on Milo

I’m still freaking out over the B plot of the Christmas special, but I just want to talk about the Murphy family for a minute. One of the things that caught my attention was the dialogue between Nate and the grandparents, when Nate once more denied his having Murphy’s Law. It’s hard to quote what they actually said, but one thing that stuck out was that I heard “It’s a good thing!” 

And I’m just...all of the Murphy’s are so optimistic and happy with how they live. It’s not just a ‘make the best of it’ situation, it’s a way of life that they love. I was thinking that Martin was optimistic but took the job of safety inspector because that would put the condition to good use, but at this point I’m thinking that he actually likes the job in addition to the convenience. The optimism is so contagious, too. The aunt and uncle we downright thrilled when their boat started sinking. The aunt probably had spend upwards of twenty years with a Murphy as a husband, and she’s firmly adopted the mindset. However, I don’t believe Milo’s nearly as naturally optimistic. He’s the only Murphy we’ve seen to be actively prepared for everything, with his backpack. In “Worked Day”, he pulled out the inflatable snowman, in “Smooth Operator” he decided the best way to prevent ruining the play was to stay backstage the whole time, he’s the one to improvise a way to steer the boat in “Time Out”, he runs to fix decorations and check the fuse box in “School Dance”. He immediately jumps into action when the boat started sinking in yesterday’s episode. The Murphy’s seem to have great faith in everything working out just fine, and it usually does, but Milo seems to feel like it won’t, and that’s so interesting with the context of the Christmas special. Shelter from a storm is such a classic winter story, and that moment when they all jump off the sleigh and into the snow to try to head to the mall, when Milo turns around to his family and friends with a big smile on his face, proclaiming that everything would be fine, and then turns and starts to walk off and mutters “I hope.” under his breath breaks my heart. I don’t think he’s nearly as optimistic about life when he’s alone- he seems to put on a brave face while others are struggling, playing the optimistic leader.

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Could the AC unit falling on Cavendish be a sign of the universe repressing his homosexuality?

(Bear with me.)

So Cavendish wants to cross the street for a corn dog. This can be seen as a euphemism (don’t know about you, but it was like the first thing to pop into my head), as a similar concept has been somewhat used with Heinz and Perry’s hotdog v.s. bratwurst fight in “Backyard Aquarium”. Aside from the obvious, it could also be a euphemism for gay sex itself. While trying to get to the corn dogs, he is crushed by the AC unit. “Flaming” was a term used to describe a person who seemed obviously gay. ACs are, obviously, used to cool places down. The AC killing Cavendish while he was on his way to getting a corndog can be seen as the universe (which seems to hate him and is trying to have him killed) wanting to prevent Cavendish from being gay. The AC can also be seen as a sign from the universe, or a sign from Disney, representing it's hesitance to put openly LGBTQ+ characters into it’s shows. Cavendish is killed by having his apparent ‘flaming’ personality ‘cooled’ down and being physically crushed before he can be openly gay, as a metaphor for the channel not letting LGBTQ+ characters be out on screen.

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What We Know About Murphy’s Law

I’m not going to even bother with an opening or ending, i’m going to fix this up later. I just need it all out of my drafts before the special.

Let’s get right to this!

Murphy’s Law is conscious

Let’s imagine Murphy’s Law as a sort of deity, shall we? It’s easiest to imagine when it it personified.

Murphy’s Law is a proud force. When its existence is disputed by Zack’s father in “Time Out” it turns its attention away from its primary targets, Milo and Martin. As Mr. Underwood disputes the Law’s existence time and time again, it just drags him through hell until he admits it. First his hat is tossed in the water by Milo, and torn to shreds by birds, and it is dismissed as “inexperienced casting”. Murphy’s Law then decides to kick it up a notch with the swordfish. Finally, it does  the whole pelican-eating-the-fish-bumping-into-the-side-of-the-boat-and-getting-a-box-of-bait-to-the-head-and-falling-into-the-water trick. That’s what convinces Mr. Underwood that Murphy’s Law is real.

And what should happen in the very next scene? Martin tries to start the motor and it breaks off of the boat. After getting its revenge on Mr. Underwood, Murphy’s Law is happy to go back to terrorizing Milo and Martin. After Mr. Underwood’s muttered acceptance of the Law being real, it immediately goes back to its original job. Murphy’s Law’s got a bit of attitude, doesn’t it? Reminds me of of a scene in Phineas and Ferb, actually. In the episode “Just Our Luck”, you’ll remember that Candace is hit by one of Heinz’s -inators and becomes lucky, while her brothers become unlucky. She taunts the boys as they get down from their project of the day, saying “Just take your time, it's not like the earth is gonna open up and swallow it!” moments later, the ray is destroyed and reversed, and Candace’s bad luck and the boys’ good luck returns. Perhaps the Mysterious Force was kept at bay by the stinklekrampen-inator, maybe it was the reason the -inator broke, but as soon as Candace was unlucky again, the earth split open and swallowed their structure. The Mysterious Force has a similar personality to Murphy’s Law. “You dare taunt me? Here you fucking go.” Both forces have an attitude and sense of irony. They have some sort of conscious and awareness of the situation at hand.

However, this can be entirely disproven by “Rooting for the Enemy”. If Murphy’s Law knew what was going on, why did it comply, and allow Milo’s plan to physically root for the Tigers when he wanted the Geckos to win? Did it just let this one thing slide? Or is it not as conscious as we think it may be?

Murphy’s Law hates whomever it inflicts having friends. There is a great meta about this by @allieinarden, analyzing Milo and Zack’s first meeting and what Murphy’s Law had to say about it. The same principle applies here. Just as Murphy’s Law gave Zack hell the first day he and Milo met, just like that girl got her arm broken by sitting next to Milo, just like Mort fell into a dumpster after attempting friendly conversation, just like Dakota’s pistachio cart was destroyed after he simply introduced himself, Murphy’s Law does its best in this episode to convince Mr. Underwood that it is real and to drive him away from Martin, just as Zack was made to be driven away from Milo. Perhaps it didn’t even notice that it was insulted.

Murphy’s Law can make mistakes

This is a very simple point. Murphy’s Law may have the unlimited power to wreak havoc in the Murphy Family’s life, but the fact remains that nobody, not even a semi-conscious force capable of laying waste to Swamp City, is perfect. Murphy’s Law makes mistakes.

The first that comes to mind is the pistachio stand in “The Doctor Zone Files”. The only noticeable Murphy’s Law incident that occurred on this day was the pistachio stand blowing up, just preventing the group from getting snacks. This goes back to Murphy’s Law being conscious- it’s battle strategy for that day was to do nothing, simply to fray on Sarah’s nerves. It must have decided to just trouble Milo a little by not letting him get the nuts to scare Sarah even more. It did not, however, notice/care/prevent the pistachio cart falling from the sky. Surprisingly enough, Murphy’s Law was fine with that.

That takes me to “The Note”. For one, when Melissa was stuck on the conveyor belt, Milo’s first attempt to save his friend went awry when the rope he was using to swing to her snapped. While trying to reach her, he accidentally knocks over a metal pole when he falls from a rising wooden board, and it jamms the shredder, allowing Melissa to escape. Murphy’s Law is weird in this scene, keeping Milo from rescuing Melissa, and at the same time helping her to escape.

The last thing I want to talk about here is “Athledecamathalon”, and Murphy’s Law in predicting the future.

In the end of the episode, Milo is the only contender for his team left in play. He gets to the final question- President Garfield’s blood type. We see the flashback- several times, he has been close to learning the answer, but he never got to actually hear it. Not being able to hear a teacher during a lecture, a power outage, and a nearby jump roping game going awry isn’t unusual for Milo. But the fact that he was interrupted just as he was about to learn the information is rather unnerving. Can Murphy’s Law predict the future? Did it want to make sure that he didn’t get the answer right by preventing the knowledge from reaching him for at least weeks, if not months ahead of time? Of course, Murphy’s Law made a mistake by allowing Melissa to mention the information. Murphy’s Law can make mistakes, yes, the the fact that it may be able to predict the future is much more unnerving.

Murphy’s Law will never kill Milo.

This time ‘round, let’s imagine it as a sort of parasite, shall we? A genetic, sentient parasite that exists to give bad luck to whomever is unlucky enough to have it passed on to them

This parasite wants to keep infecting. It wants to keep getting more victims to torture. But it won’t ever kill Milo.

It reminds me of how the River Phelgethon was potrayed in “House of Hades” from the Heros of Olympus series. It is stated that the River is not meant to heal. It keeps the dead intact so that they may endure more torture. It keeps you alive so that you may suffer more.

If Milo were to die, what would it be to him? He would be dead. It’s those around him who would suffer. “Your death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own….” (BBC Sherlock, The Lying Detective.)

Milo has to live, not only so he can continue being harassed by Murphy’s Law, but so he can have children who are also cursed. The parasite lives on.

The worst thing to happen to the Murphy men would be having to live though their loved ones’ deaths. So-Sara, Bridgette, Melissa, Amanda, Zack...I theorise that everyone Milo or Martin love will die before them, perhaps as a result of Murphy’s Law. I’ll remind you, that Zack would have been crushed by the concrete pipe had Milo not told him to move closer, that he was the one who had peanut butter stuck to his back when being chased by wolves, that the wolf and bees later nearly jumped on him, all in “Going the Extra Milo”. Not to mention that Murphy’s Law thoroughly enjoyed freaking Sarah out during “The Doctor Zone Files”, or that Melissa was trapped on the conveyor belt heading towards the paper shredder in “The Note”. Murphy’s Law doesn’t want to kill Milo- it just wants to torture him.

On that happy note, I’m going to wrap this baby up. I typed this all up in the past hour, and it’s getting pretty late. I’m going to do minimal editing now; I can always fix it up, fine tune, later. I needed to get this meta out of my system, and I want to put it out before anything can contradict it in the special. I’m on a short hiatus, until I find a place to watch Missing Milo, so...bye!

[i-am-perryshmirtzed]

Perryshmirtz VS. Pandashrine

I find the reversal of what Perry and Heinz want from each other and what Peter and Mystery want from each other quite amusing. I’ve got this headcanon that Perry never stopped to listen to Heinz’s rants and backstories and that that summer was when he actually decided to see what that absolute lunatic O.W.C.A. was making him waste his talents on had to say. And then, we all know what happened. He started to understand what made Heinz tick, what made him do the things he did, and he started to empathize with him. Peter desperately wants something from his nemesis- he’s getting bored of the mystery, so to speak, the enigma the man shrouds himself with. He wants to get closer, but Mystery is scared to let anyone see who he really is. That’s what drove Peter to Heinz- with him he had someone who was fun to fight and someone he could understand. Peter liked listening to Heinz’s schemes and monologues, and while he didn’t like his singing, he kept seeing Heinz, he was so desperate for good company. Perry wanted to keep his walls firmly up; Peter didn’t want his nemesis to do so.

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Busting “Phineas and Ferb Get Busted”

“Phineas and Ferb get Busted” isn’t a considered a canon episode, as the entire thing takes place inside of Perry’s dream, with only one real scene at the very end. But the events in that episode give us valuable insight into Perry’s psyche and his relationship with his family. The latter has always been difficult to see, as Perry spends most of the average episode with his nemesis. By analyzing this episode, however, we can see what Perry’s fears are, what he thinks of his family, and the things from his life that have bleed into his subconscious.

What can we infer about Perry’s psyche? First of all- the obvious. We see some of his fears. I have a headcanon that this episode took place the night after “Cheers for Fears”, and that Perry was thinking of what his fears really were (he was quite scared when the -inator was firing up, probably wondering if something would happen to his family) and that this all got reflected into his dream. Perry is scared of his boys’ spirit and imaginations being crushed, and them becoming dull and average (as we again see in “Phineas and Ferb Interrupted”) because he loves their imaginations and ingenuity (“Across the Second Dimension”). We also see that he cares very much about Candace, and about her relationship with her brothers. More on that later. And last, but certainly not least, the O.W.C.A. team breaking into the Flynn-Fletcher residence to wipe the family’s memories and relocate Perry. We see his fear of losing his family several times in the show’s run- most notably in “Oh, There You Are Perry” and “Across the Second Dimension”. What’s most interesting is that that segment of the dream is what causes him to wake up, and Phineas realizes he was having a bad dream at this point- he could probably feel Perry moving around. So, it is safe to say that we can confirm Perry’s worst fear to be losing his loved ones.

Another thing we learn is that Perry undoubtedly knows about the talking zebra calling Candace Kevin ("The Ballad of Badbeard"). How else could he have dreamed it up? My favorite headcanon from the world of the (amazing) ‘Ask Perry Fletcher’ blog is that Candace is transgender and her birth name is Kevin. This I attach to the theory of the talking zebra being Candace’s old imaginary friend, and voila, we get Perry remembering Candace’s childhood insecurities and troubles in his dream. Another headcanon of mine is that Perry’s a source of comfort to all three Flynn-Fletcher kids, and that they talk or rant to him when they're​ having a tough time. I believe Dream-Candace’s confession that she is proud to be Phineas and Ferb’s older sister is something she actually feels in real life, and this does support her concern for her brothers and how much closer she gets to them in later episodes. The Flynn-Fletcher children assume Perry doesn’t understand anything, so he���s safe to rant to. We know this isn’t true, and all these anxieties, on top of his nemesis’s horrible backstories, end up bleeding into his dreams.

Perry seems to know his family very well.The first time I watched this episode, I seriously wondered if Heinz would have an ‘amnesia-inator’ to erase what happened that day. The characters were in character, and it seemed quite real. Even Stacy’s odd behavior at the end of ‘Little Brothers’ can be explained by subconscious symbolism. Stacy is always Candace’s voice of reason. She helps her stay grounded and focused, such as in “Robot Rodeo”. The logical side of Candace’s mind wants her to enjoy the freedom of not having to deal with her brothers every day. However, after Stacy walks away, Candace is helped by Jeremy, who is her crush and therefore the representation of her more emotional side. He even says that he’s “always liked her brothers”- Candace really does love her brothers, deep down, and what Perry knows of her emotional side is acknowledged in this scene.

Perry seems to think Linda will initially be angry at Phineas and Ferb should she see their inventions. Instead, in the bad future of “Quantum Boogaloo”, and before she got zapped by the ‘forget-about-it-inator’ in “A Real Boy”, she panics in her worry for her sons. We see this side of her again in “What Do it Do” when she acts similar to Candace when faced with something unknown that may be threatening her family.

Perry also seems to be a realistic dreamer, as the only continuity errors I could find were small- such as the dancing trophy appearing in the living room when it was previously in Candace’s room and Candace driving the flying car when Jeremy is older than her and had his licence by ‘My Sweet Ride’.

Something I noticed in my most recent rewatch of the episode is that the first few scenes of ‘Little Brothers’ are still frames, as if they were photos. We know Perry was not adopted until some time after Linda and Lawrence’s marriage (“Across the Second Dimension”), so it is entirely plausible Perry is recalling photos from albums and not his memories. In the first moving sequence in the song (the scene where Phineas and Ferb have been shown to rebuild Candace’s dollhouse) the children seem to be around the same age as they were when Perry was adopted. So, this could possibly be a real memory that Perry had from his youth.

This next point somewhat supports my headcanon that the episodes are not aired in the order they occur in the show’s universe. The haircuts the boys are given upon arrival resemble those they had in the alternate dimension in “Across the Second Dimension”. They also act somewhat similar to their dystopian counterparts, but while Phineas-2 and Ferb-2 grew up under creatively oppressing laws and were taught against imagination, Dream Phineas and Ferb seemed more robotic and brainwashed. I could go on and on about this, perhaps write a whole new meta on the second dimension, but I digress. The point is, both pairs of brothers believed creativity and fun to be wrong, though in different ways. Perhaps there’s no difference to Perry.  

When the boys are being taught to not reach for tools, they are sprayed with water. You’ve probably seen this in other cartoons- an animal is sprayed with water as negative reinforcement for bad behavior. To me, at least, this seemed odd. Considering how hard the boys fight against the Smile Away Reformatory’s imagination-crushing treatment, it seems to be highly unlikely that water is the breaking point. Of course, I am not well versed in torture techniques, and being sprayed with water is safe to show on children’s television, and repeated negative reinforcement was what probably led the boys to give up. Still, it is an unusual choice. So, why the water? Perry works with a variety of other animals, and many, especially new agents, may have bad habits due to not being properly trained by their owners or the O.W.C.A. The agency probably uses spray bottles to break bad habits in agents, and though they probably don’t go to the extent of what we saw the Drill Sergeant do, and though the purpose was certainly not the same, it must have been something that Perry’s mind inserted into his dream.

Perry has a wonderful character arc throughout the series. He goes from having little more than disdain for his nemesis and affection for his family to becoming a vital part of Heinz’s life and becoming a sort of ‘guardian angel’ figure to his host family. We see many different sides of Perry as the show progresses, and this episode helps tremendously with his characterization-something difficult to see with the secret agent’s inability to speak. Analyzing this episode has shown us what Perry’s subconscious is like, what his fears are, what he thinks of his family, and what little things stick in his brain. It’s always helpful to get inside your character's heads, and ‘Phineas and Ferb Get Busted’ helped me understand Perry more. This, I hope, can help me should I write about him. Perry is so dynamic and so intriguing, so shrouded in mystery due to his silence, and, while probably a joke or unintentional, in this episode the authors have given us a peek at what goes on inside the platypus’s mind.