Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz

Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz
Dr. Doofenshmirtz
First appearance	"Rollercoaster"
Created by	Dan Povenmire Jeff "Swampy" Marsh
Voiced by	Dan Povenmire
Family	Roger Doofenshmirtz (brother), unnamed parents
Spouse(s)	Charlene Doofenshmirtz (divorced)
Children	Vanessa Doofenshmirtz

Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz is the main antagonist of the show Phineas and Ferb. Doofenshmirtz is voiced by Dan Povenmire and created by Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh.^[1] Doofenshmirtz first appeared in the pilot episode of the series and since then has appeared in every episode to date except "Isabella and the Temple of Sap". A routinely bumbling, incompetent and forgetful mad scientist, Doofenshmirtz is the primary villain of the series and the mastermind behind the B-Plot. In the movie of the show, a more evil and successful version of him appears as the main villain. He and Perry The Platypus are considered to be the show's breakout characters.

Doofenshmirtz's goal in life is to "take over the entire tri-state area" and attempts to do so with obscure contraptions and inventions that tend to have "-inator" as the suffix (as a child, he invented a machine simply called the "Inator"). Doofenshmirtz's voice is of German or Austrian descent (as he was noted by Lawrence Fletcher as having a German accent).

In nearly every episode of the series, Doofenshmirtz has an evil scheme or invention that he often explains about through the means of a "back story" from his youth. Throughout the series, the back stories explore his mentally abusive and shunned childhood growing up in the fictional village Gimmelshtump, Druselstein. This is usually related to being neglected by his mother and father and the way they obviously liked his brother, Roger, better.^[2] Doofenshmirtz usually monologues^[2] and displays acts of "cartoonish" physical violence^[3] towards his frenemy Perry, a skilled anthropomorphic platypus secret agent who disguises himself as the mindless pet of the series's main characters. Doofenshmirtz appears in several merchandise pieces based on the series, particularly the book series^[4][5][6][7] and the video game.^[8]

Role in Phineas and Ferb

Doofenshmirtz's most frequent "back story" shows him forced to be a lawn gnome in lieu of an actual one.

Doofenshmirtz is portrayed as a bumbling and somewhat incompetent evil genius who hates nearly everything (except Christmas, much to his chagrin).^[9] He is bent on taking over the "entire tri-state area"^[10] and uses peculiar contraptions to do so. Their names tend to end with the suffix "-inator" (except for Shrinkspheria, an invention he stated "I was going to call it a Shrinkinator but I've done the -inator thing before",) ^[11] and are made up of "strange items [he] purchases off the internet"^[3] with his large alimony check.^[12] Ever since the day they first met, his arch-nemesis has been the secret agent Perry the Platypus. During every intro, a song is played, with the lyrics "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated", with the song lyrics changed if he is in a different location. Once, however, the sound booth was shown with the band in it.^[3] Habitually, Doofenshmirtz's daily encounters with Perry follow a basic chain of events, beginning with Perry being captured, Doofenshmirtz explaining his evil scheme to Perry, Perry escaping from whatever Doofenshmirtz used to trap him, the two waging in combat with each other, with Perry walking away victorious with the inator being destroyed with a self destruct button, leading to Doofenshmirtz yelling his catch phrase in anger "Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" A running gag of the show is Dr. Doofenshimirtz only recognizes Perry with his hat on, which Perry uses as an advantage against him. Doofenshmirtz is also often called a "pharmacist".

Backstories told by Doofenshmirtz often explain the reason for his evil schemes.^[13][14] As explained by his backstories, during his birth in his hometown of Gimmelshtump, Druselstein,^[15], both of his parents neglected to show up, a recurring theme in other events in his life that left him to throw himself his own surprise parties.^[16] He was disowned by his parents and forced to live with ocelots, smelling so horrible due to the raw meat they ate, he had no friends and was forced to work in a carnival as the ball thrown at a dunking booth.^[13] When he was finally taken back by his parents, they were stricken with poverty and had their lawn gnomes, used to ward off black magic in his village, repossessed. His father, in desperation, forced him to become the new one, not allowing him to move.^[15] Doofenshmirtz's leitmotifs are various "evil jingles" for his company operation, Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, performed by a quartet,^[17] sometimes changing as a running gag based on his current location or situation (such as "Doofenshmirtz Quality Bratwurst" when he is shown selling bratwurst, or "Doofenshmirtz Evil is Carpeted" when his building is shown covered with rugs).

"Got Game?" shows that even when his father won a pure breed "spitzen hound" that he named "Only Son" as a displacement of his apparent hatred towards him, a pet that became an award-winning show dog, he still forced Doofenshmirtz to dress as a lawn gnome.^[12] One of his only real friends was a balloon he had drawn a face on and named "Balloony."^[13] A few episodes display his issues with his mother and younger brother, Roger. Thinking that her newborn son was to be a girl, Doofenshmirtz's mom knitted several dresses, though when he turned out a boy she forced Doofenshmirtz to wear them instead for lack of material for a year, effectively emasculating him.^[18] His brother was as Doofenshmirtz describes a "goody-two shoes" whom his mother favored.^[9] In "Thaddeus and Thor," Doofenshmirtz explains that this was as well due to Roger's skill in kickball, a sport Doofenshmirtz was terrible at.^[19]

Throughout his school career, he tried different hobbies, including trying to be a magician,^[20] making science fair inventions such as "The Inator" and "The Even-Bigger-Inator" (both of which lost to baking soda volcanoes),^[21] poetry (where he curiously also lost a competition to a baking soda volcano),^[21] and shadow puppetry — a successful act which got him a girlfriend for a short period, until he was upstaged by a poor puppeteer with large hands.^[22] He also tried being a bratwurst vender until the hot dog industry put him out of business.^[23] On a date with Linda Flynn before she became famous, a feat Doofenshmirtz sarcastically suggested was not going to work out by saying he was going to rule the world, she suggested that he start small with the Tri-State Area.^[24]

As a result of this and his misfortunes as a child, Doofenshmirtz turned to evil and used his skills at inventing to do so. His daughter, Vanessa, notes that he is not actually a doctor and simply purchased a $15 doctorate with his ex-wife's money.^[21] He went to "Evil 101" where his teacher, Dr. Gevaarlijk (which means "dangerous", in dutch), openly displayed her hatred of him and failed him.^[25]

Creation and design

Doofenshmirtz is voiced by Phineas and Ferb co-creator Dan Povenmire.^[2]

When Jeff "Swampy" Marsh and Dan Povenmire were working on the Nickelodeon animated series Rocko's Modern Life, they always had two things in episodes they worked on: a song or a musical number and an action/chase scene. When they created Phineas and Ferb, they wanted to incorporate this trait into that series too.^[26] They used a platypus secret agent to do so,^[27] due to the animal's interesting appearance,^[28] and wanted to have a continuous nemesis for him that the viewers could get to know.^[29] They chose one named "Dr. Meddleshmirtz;" Meddleshmirtz was a prototype for Doofenshmirtz and carried a majority of his traits. His name eventually was changed to "Doofenshmirtz."^[30]

Every main character of the series was designed to incorporate geometric shapes in reminiscence of Tex Avery's graphic style for his Looney Tunes cartoons; Doofenshmirtz himself appearing to use that of an oval.^[26] They were as well meant to be drawn very simple, so that the child viewers could draw them easily themselves. Each one was designed to be recognizable from a distance or, as Povenmire notes as a reference to Matt Groening and The Simpsons, by silhouette.^[31]

Voice

Co-creator and executive producer Dan Povenmire voices Doofenshmirtz. He describes the voice he uses as "vaguely Eastern European" and is one he used at fifteen years old when having pillow fights and such with his five year old sister. To this day, his sister recognizes the voice and asks him to do it frequently. During recording sessions, Povenmire is easily able to ad-lib and improvise; the writers are known to change his lines around and add new ones without throwing him off.^[2] Povenmire sometimes adds his own lines to mix with the script, as well as being asked to alternate his voice to enunciate his lines.^[32] Povenmire is usually asked to perform the voice in interviews ^[2] and performs the voice for his daughter's friends.^[28]

Personality

Doofenshmirtz is portrayed as an evil mad scientist^[33] who despises almost everything around him, including pelicans, ear hair and obscure things such as musical instruments starting with the letter "B."^[11] Throughout the series, this is explained more and more, and is attributed to his broken upbringing with overprotective yet unloving mother and his verbally abusive father. Doofenshmirtz treats his nemesis Perry the Platypus as his best friend,^[13] and is often concerned for Perry when he does not arrive at the scene of his next scheme, hesitating to execute his plans and fearing for where Perry has gone - though he notes that he "hopes something terrible has happened to him."^[34] It was also shown in one episode that all his traps were platypus-sized indicating that they have always been arch rivals. Doofenshmirtz's relationship with Perry has also been used to his advantage, as he once replaced Perry as his nemesis with a secret agent panda bear to cause depression in Perry, causing a distraction from his actual plot to freeze agents to use as a giant chess set.^[3] When Perry is re-assigned by the Agency to a higher-leveled threat, The Regurgitator, leaving Doofenshmirtz classified as a low-level threat who would be dealt with by a secret agent snail, Doofenshmirtz himself took up an internship with the new villain to assist him in ultimately defeating the new threat and keeping Perry as his nemesis.^[35] It is either shown that he is better than all other evil scientists or Perry goes easy on him, as in the episode Oh There You Are Perry, Perry imprisoned an evil scientist in less than a day's time. He is shown to be devoted to his daughter, Vanessa, often trying to impress her every time they meet but always ends up failing. There are times though that she shows she likes her father although she was not aware that whatever it is that makes her like him is with the help of Perry the Platypus. In the episode "Hail, Doofania!" Vanessa acted like Candace trying to bust her father to her mom that he is really pure evil. He also has a robot named Norm whose appearance is based on that of his brother Roger, showing that he may have some love for his brother.

Reception

In a generally negative review of the series during 2008 for Toon Zone, Maxie Zeus notes that a large bright side of the series is Povenmire's performance as Doofenshmirtz. Zeus states that "Dan Povenmire voices him with such energy, and with such perfect timing, that you'll laugh out loud even at the stuff that isn't even supposed to be funny." Zeus as well says that the Doofenshmirtz subplot would have made a "fine bit of sketch writing" if trimmed down.^[36]

In 2009, Josh Jackson, editor-in-chief for Paste Magazine, wrote in a blog that Phineas and Ferb was "the best kids show on TV" and gave Doofenshmirtz a large amount of praise. He calls his inventions "awesomely designated devices of pure evil" and his complex relationship with his nemesis Perry the Platypus as "pitch-perfect."^[37]

Footnotes

1. ^ "Phineas and Ferb (2007)". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt852863/. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} ""The Geek Dads" Podcast interview with Povenmire & Marsh". http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/thegeekdads/thegeekdadsspecialphineasandferb.mp3?_kip_ipx=1895089171-1238013329. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d} "It's About Time!". Writer and Director: Dan Povenmire. Phineas and Ferb. No. 9, season 1.
4. ^ Jones, Jasmine (2009). Speed Demons. Disney Press. ISBN 1423116283. 
5. ^ Bergen, Lara Rice (2009). Runaway Hit. Disney Press. ISBN 1423117972. 
6. ^ "Wild Surprise.". Google Shopping. http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=Phineas+and+Ferb+books&oe=utf-8&cid=14715976473066931833&sa=title#ps-sellers. 
7. ^ "Thrill-o-rama.". Google Shopping. http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=Phineas+and+Ferb+books&oe=utf-8&cid=14829553982344007318&sa=title#ps-sellers. 
8. ^ "Phineas and Ferb :: DS Game Review". Kidzworld. http://www.kidzworld.com/article/16586-phineas-and-ferb-ds-game-review. Retrieved 2009-05-02. 
9. ^ ^{a b} "Tree to Get Ready". Writers: Swampy Marsh, Martin Olson, Dan Povenmire; Director: Dan Povenmire. Phineas and Ferb. No. 6 (P.2), season 1.
10. ^ "Flop Starz". Writers: Sherm Cohen, Antoine Guilbaud; Director: Dan Povenmire. Phineas and Ferb. No. 4 (P.2), season 1.
11. ^ ^{a b} "Mom's Birthday". Director: Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 11, season 1.
12. ^ ^{a b} "Got Game?". Writer: Antoine Guilbaud, Chong Lee; Director: Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 25, season 1.
13. ^ ^{a b c d} "The Chronicles of Meap". Phineas and Ferb. No. 59, season 2.
14. ^ "De Plane! De Plane!". Phineas and Ferb.
15. ^ ^{a b} "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror". Writers: Chris Headrick, Jon Barry; Directed: Dan Povenmire. Phineas and Ferb. No. 2 (P.2), season 1.
16. ^ "Raging Bully". Writers: Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, Dan Povenmire; Directors: Dan Povenmire, Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 5, season 1.
17. ^ "Attack of the 50 Foot Sister". Writer: Jon Colton Barry, Piero Piluso; Director: Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb.
18. ^ "Gaming the System". Phineas and Ferb.
19. ^ "Thaddeus and Thor". Writers: Antoine Guilbaud, Kim Roberson; Director: Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb.
20. ^ "Leave the Busting to Us!". Director: Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 26, season 1.
21. ^ ^{a b c} "Unfair Science Fair Redux (Another Story)". Writers: John Colton Barry, Piero Piluso; Directors: Dan Povenmire, Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 13 (P.2), season 2.
22. ^ "Out to Launch". Director: Dan Povenmire. Phineas and Ferb. No. 44, season 1.
23. ^ "Backyard Aquarium?". Director: Robert F. Hughes, Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 52, season 2.
24. ^ "What Do it Do?". Director: Robert F. Hughes, Jay Lender. Phineas and Ferb.
25. ^ "Oil on Candace". Antoine Guilbaud, Aliki Theofilopoulis; Director: Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 22 (P.2).
26. ^ ^{a b} Strike, Joe.. "From Swampy & Dan Emerges Phineas and Ferb", Page 2.". Animation World Magazine. http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&category2=&article_no=3534&page=2. 
27. ^ Robinson, Sherry (2009-04-18). "Quick wit, funny characters drive Phineas and Ferb". St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, Florida. http://www.tampabay.com/features/parenting/article993119.ece. Retrieved 2009-08-16. 
28. ^ ^{a b} Bond, Paul. (7 June 2009). "Q&A: Dan Povenmire". http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i0bc78baf8235f8b4159fd786ff9f8736. 
29. ^ “Phineas and Ferb” creators Dan Povenmire and Swampy Marsh (Audio interview). Audioholywood.net. http://www.audiohollywood.net/Audio/phineas_ferb.mp3. Retrieved 2009-08-01. 
30. ^ Povenmire, Dan. Original Pitch featurette for Volume I (DVD). Disney DVD. 
31. ^ Galas, Marjorie. "Phineas and Ferb: Music, Mischief, And The Endless Summer Vacation". 411 News. http://www.resource411.com/411Update/Issue/Articles/Story.cfm?StoryID=1020. 
32. ^ "A Day With 'Phineas and Ferb'". MSN TV.. Retrieved January 2009. http://entertainment.msn.com/phineas-and-ferb/?gt1=28137&silentchk=1&. 
33. ^ "The Ballad of Badbeard". Director: Dan Povenmire. Phineas and Ferb. No. 13 (P.2), season 1.
34. ^ "Hail Doofana!". Writers: Antoine Guilbaud, Aliki Theofilopoulos; Director: Zac Moncrief. Phineas and Ferb. No. 26 (P.2), season 1.
35. ^ "Oh, There You Are, Perry.". Writers: Aliki Theofilopoulos Grafft, Antoine Guilbaud; Director: Robert F. Hughes. Phineas and Ferb. Disney XD. No. 10, season 2.
36. ^ Zeus, Maxie (February 1, 2008). ""Phineas and Ferb": Spawn of Frankenstein". Toon Zone. http://news.toonzone.net/articles/21300/phineas-and-ferb-spawn-of-frankenstein. 
37. ^ Jackson, John. (March 31, 2009). "Five Reasons Why Phineas and Ferb is the Best Kids Show on TV". Paste Magazine. http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2009/03/7-reasons-why-phineas-and-ferb-is-the-best-kids-sh.html. 

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