"Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!", broadcast outside the United States and Canada as "At Last", is the 45th broadcast episode of the animated television seriesPhineas and Ferb. The episode aired in the United States on February 16, 2009 on Disney XD. The episode follows Phineas and Ferb finally being caught by Phineas' mother and sent to reform school, where a harsh and cruel sergeant attempts to destroy their imagination by sitting them down to a commercial about good boys that mind-controlled them. Candace goes to save them after she sees a news report about their horrible condition. The episode's story was written by the writing team Martin Olson and Bobby Gaylor and constructed into storyboard by Jon Colton Barry and Piero Piluso. Dan Povenmire, co-creator of Phineas and Ferb, directed it. The episode is titled "At Last!" in several countries, such as the United Kingdom. Talk show personality Geraldo Rivera and veteran actor Clancy Brown guest starred as television reporter Morty Williams and the school sergeant, respectively.
Plot
and Ferb rebuild Phineas' mother Linda's station wagon into a flying car and build a giant tower. Linda is furious, and Phineas confesses that they've been doing similar things all summer. Their father Lawrence suggests forgiving Phineas and Ferb as they thought they had permission, but the tower collapses, destroying part of the house. The parents send the boys to the "Smile Away Reform School", unaware that it is a prison where kids are brainwashed to remove their creativity. Candace, meanwhile, enjoys life without her brothers to bother her, hanging out with her friends and doing different fun activities with them. A few days later Candace is bored and tired after doing so much, she watches TV with her best friend Stacy. Candace gets haunted by sad consequences of her busting Phineas and Ferb and realizes that she has truly loved her brothers for their genius skills and did not realize it. She and her friends, Stacy and Jeremy, take the flying car to go and save her brothers disguised as reporter Morty Williams and his camera man. Candace secretly asks Phineas and Ferb to escape with her and Jeremy. They reach the flying car and they see Linda and Lawrence, but the sergeant from the school arrives with a scheme to put Candace and Jeremy in the reform school with Phineas and Ferb. Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus interrupt with their seemingly never-ending fight, knocking the sergeant off the cliff to his death. Perry and Doofenshmritz disappear and a series of strange events occur. The parents turn into marionettes controlled by a giant Baljeet, then Baljeet turns into one as well being controlled by a talking zebra, and Jeremy proposes to Candace. It turns out that all of this was Candace's dream. Candace tells the dream to her family at breakfast, even revealing Perry's secret identity making the family guess that when Perry goes away, he goes to defeat Dr. Doofenshmirtz. With Perry's cover blown, an army of OWCA agents and Major Monogram burst into the house and arrest the Fletchers and Flynns to be mind-erased and relocate Perry to a new home. Just then, a whimpering Perry wakes up in Phineas's bed. The events of the entire episode were all just a bad dream. Phineas says "Ah, hey, Perry. What's wrong boy? You sounded like you were having a bad dream. It's okay now. Go back to sleep." Phineas goes back to sleep. Perry smiles and also goes back to sleep.
Production
"Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" was written by Bobby Gaylor and Martin Olson as a story, but the storyboards were adapted and constructed by Jon Colton Barry and Piero Piluso. Robert F. Hughes and Zac Moncrief as well are credited for additionally writing for the episode. Dan Povenmire, the show's co-creator and executive producer, directed the episode. The episode is titled "At Last" in several different countries, such as the United Kingdom. Latin America as well labels the episode name in its end credits for the episode, despite entitling it "Al Fin;" however, "Al Fin" literally translates to "At Last." Geraldo Rivera guest starred as the voice of investigative talk show host Morty Williams. Clancy Brown, known for his work in The Shawshank Redemption, provided the voice of the drill sergeant. "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" was originally broadcast in America as the premiere of season two on Presidents' Day, February 16, 2009 on Disney XD, at 4:30 PM Eastern/Pacific Time. It was rated TV-G and followed by first season reruns aired in a marathon.
Cultural references
The scene where Phineas and Ferb are strapped to seats and have their eyes forced open to watch films that attempt to destroy their imagination is a direct parody of the film A Clockwork Orange; in the latter, a young man is held down in the same fashion, being forced to watch acts of violence to rid himself of his own violent tendencies.
While Candace and Jeremy are driving the "Flying Car of the Future, Today," a riff from the Back to the Future theme plays in the background.
The Smile Away Reformatory School is based on Alcatraz from the 1979 film, Escape from Alcatraz.
The scene where Candace wakes up and discovers that busting Phineas and Ferb and rescuing them was all just a dream is a reference to Pam Ewing waking up and discovering that her husband, Bobby is killed was all just a dream from the television series, Dallas. Even Perry had the same reference.
Reception
When the episode broadcast on Disney Channel on March 13, 2009, it garnered a total of 3.7 million viewers, 1.4 million of them ages 9–14. It was the series second most watched telecast, behind only "Flop Starz," and was the top-rated in Kids 6-11 in almost 6 months, ranking in Phineas and Ferb's top four most watched in the category. Moreover, it was the day's most watched in Tweens 9-14 and Kids 6-11 and the most watched for cable television in total viewers. Matt Blum of Wired wrote about the episode, "if it’s any indication, the second season will be even more brilliant than the first season was." Blum as well praised the appearance of Clancy Brown as a guest actor. One of the songs in the episode, "Little Brothers" was voted #4 on Phineas and Ferb's Musical Cliptastic Countdown.
