We've finally changed out feature article after a while. This time, we're focusing on "Isabella and the Temple of Sap", where Gretchen knows the word "sesquipedalian" (an adjective meaning multiple syllabic words according to Webster's) to earn the Saying a Word Nobody Else in the Room Knows patch. RRabbit42 has more on a new procedure on selecting Featured Articles - as well as new nominations for administrationship - in his article below.
In the last couple of issues, I have been talking about getting ready to select a new administrator to help out on the wiki. The nominations are now open and we actually have two vacancies to fill. One of our admins, Ard11230, decided to step down since he now has other interests to keep him busy.
So, if you know of someone who would make a good admin, nominate them. If you need a reminder of what an admin does and what the qualifications are, check the Administrators page.
New featured articles
There is some more work to be done, but I have started on the process to make it easier to vote for a featured article. All previous nominations have been moved into archives and each article that won has been tagged with the Former Featured Article icon shown to the right. That will help when picking a new article. If you see that the one you want had been featured in the past, pick a different article so that we aren't just featuring the same ones over and over again.
What makes an article worth featuring is going to stay about the same. There's just going to be an extra step that when someone nominates it, we need to check the page to make sure it qualifies before it can be added to the voting poll. If it doesn't meet the qualifications, it either needs to removed from the nominations or the page updated to fix what might be holding it back.
If we do this right, we can have several articles to choose from each time. Anyone that is willing to help with checking the nominations will be appreciated.
Phineas and Ferb invade Subway
Last month, Jeff "Swampy" Marsh posted a picture showing the new kids' meal bags at Subway, featuring Phineas, Ferb, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Perry and Agent P. You can read the press release describing it and some of the upcoming episode and games on Mobo85's "Hot Off the Presses: National Platypus Day is March 2" blog.
Varietyalso reports on the Subway connection, the games and episodes, and that Dan and Swampy will be on Radio Disney on Sunday, February 24th and Friday, March 1st. It will probably take about a week or two before Radio Disney starts advertising those events on their website.
The Subway Kids website changed on Ferb-ruary 1st from featuring Wreck-It Ralph to Phineas and Ferb. There's a section for kids and a section for adults, but don't skip the Grown-Ups section if you're a kid. It has details about the card that comes with each Fresh Fit For Kids meal, which has a code to get a free P&F download, such as Where's My Perry, music, episode downloads and more.
The Subway promotion runs through April 14th, but I wouldn't take a chance that they'll have any of the kids meal bags and code cards left by then. And if you go there, why not let them know how you found out about it? I'm sure they'd appreciate it to know their advertising is working, and if this wiki is the first place you've heard about it, that's good for them to know, too.
One last note. Dan and Swampy were guests on The Brian & Jill Show last week on January 27th. The show is titled as "Subway Goes to 11", but unfortunately they forgot to cover that promotion. However, they did cover the 24 Hours of Lemons race, which Dan, Swampy, Brian, Jill and one other will be participating in at the end of June. They will be putting out the call later for help with finding and decorating the car.
Would you like to help design our background image for Platypus Day? Check Mouseinphilly's blog for a few more details.
Tweets from our Twitter account have been cleaned up. It's one of the drawbacks of having it automatically send out messages as new pages are created. Occasionally, we have to go in and delete some that relate to vandalism. That's now taken care of and we can check it more frequently.
Don't forget to Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter.
As you will read below The Best LIVE Tour Ever! is just about to finish up for this tour. They visted my state last month and I was able to go to one of the four shows in my area. The show has not changed from last year, so the fun in going this time was knowing what was coming up and being able to see how other people in the audience were enjoying it.
Some of what went on included:
I'm pretty sure I heard a woman somewhere behind me that sounded a bit like Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro, but I only heard her talk one time.
Many adults and kids were singing along with each song.
One of the people in the front row was getting some great clips with his tablet computer. Another incentive for me to finally get one, so I can use the download codes I'm about to get when I go to Subway.
When the second half started and it was time for the "volunteers" to test the Audience Control-inator, the dancers had selected four kids. One of the girls may have had some developmental disabilities and was a bit frightened or nervous because of how loud the soundtrack was (and possibly of Dr. Doofenshmirtz) and sometimes hid behind another girl, who may have been her sister. But there were times while everyone on stage was dancing and she was just enjoying herself with abandon. You felt bad when she tried to hide, but you also couldn't help smiling when seeing how happy she was when dancing.
The backstage crew did a great job in helping one of the Fireside Girls recover when she wasn't able to get the tambourine off the rack in time. She had to go through the motions until one was tossed to her and she caught it perfectly to keep in sync with the dance routine.
At the end of the show, I saw a lot of kids trying to catch the confetti strips as they fell. I don't know why, but saving them seems to be really popular. I also learned that if you're in the front-center section, you're going to get inundated with a lot more confetti, and you have a greater chance of being able to bat around the inflatable golf balls.
A collage of Heinz Doofenshmirtz's childhood backstories.
Last issue, RRabbit42 mentioned how our friends Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh talked about the contest (as it were) between the writers and storyboarders at Phineas and Ferb to see who could come up with the most bizarre backstory of Heinz Doofenshmirtz's youth during last year's Comic-Con International panel in San Diego in his retro review of "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror."
This leads into a half-hour clip show (the last production of Season 3 for the record) telling pretty much all of the doctor's bizarre and not-so-bizarre moments called "This Is Your Backstory." I know what you're thinking: "Wait a sec, another clip show? Didn't they do one already?" Yes. Yes they did, it was called "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama!" to be exact. That's another review we have here in the archives...but, I digress. Our story starts with the boys playing table tennis (or as Ferb will tell you "Ping-Pong for the laymen") as Candace discovers the game while she talks to Stacy about why sponges are never needed at the bottom of the sea (a shot at a certain chipper sea sponge at another network with an orange color?) And after Candace asks the required missing platypus inquiry, we see Agent P flying toward Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. and the fun begins.
Fans of two game shows will get this homage.
We learn of the parental abscence at his birth, the get introduced to Dr. Mortimer Shluesle, the doctor who brought him to life...and slaps him so see if he's breathing. Mom then comes out, and slaps him again. From there, we learn about the backstories (The Lawn Gnome, high diving - with a visit from his dad,his brother Roger appears as Heinz talks about wearing dresses after his birth, the claw machine district, kickball, Big Black Boots Boris the Bully, and Balloony) by keeping track on a Gnome-O-Meter handled by spokesmodel Vanna. (For all the game show fans out there, the Gnome-O-Meter resembles the Cliffhangers game on The Price is Right, while Vanna is a reference to Vanna White of Wheel of Fortune...or was it Ferb in a dress on Let's Take a Quiz?) Perry thinks that there's something rotten in Danville, and after the gut wrenching story of how he lost in science fairs (and a poetry slam) to baking soda volcanoes, Agent P discovers the truth: the whole scheme is all for a new inator about backstories, and is promptly trapped. Mama Ocelot (who raised Heinz after his parental unit dropped him like a bomb) also makes an appearance and is still more nurturing than his real mom ever was.
The endless ping-pong game continues.
Back at the Flynn-Fletcher backyard, the game of table tennis plays on and on, leading to a credit gag with a vortex which sucks everything up, except Candace, who walked away seconds earlier and returns to ask "Mom?" Returning to the D.E.Inc. building, just one more bad memory will activate his Backstory-Inator, when Vanessa arrives, and the good memories erase everything. She asks to borrow the car, and dad tosses her the keys. Well, time to reboot the machine. The story on how he came to America was a laugh riot as he mistook a painting of a schtor for a real one, and was on his way here, only to deboard just as a huge freight was dropped from above. And while in high school, created his "I Am a Superstar" viral video, and Doof seemed to remember deleting it from everyone's minds, but had not seen the auto-tuned like Justin Beiber remix, which has over ten billion hits (with only seven billion people on this planet, and five times more views than Gangnam Style mind you.)
Second Dimension Game Show much?
Which is a segue to a date with Linda, the future pop star one-hit-wonder and mom of Phineas and Candace. Leading to bratwurst sales, love interests (including a visit from Charlene with the alimony check) and all sorts of inators blowing up real good, but they need just one last over-the-top moment, provided by Perry, and then Perry shows his moments which implodes the backstory inator—and infuriates Vanna as she says that her lawyer will call him and also happens to be her boyfriend to pay for the shoes, and we have a mess of backstory everywhere.
Our moral? Never let the facts get in the way of a good backstory.
With the Best LIVE Tour Ever! featuring so prominently in this issue, it is only natural to include some of the items that they had for sale at the concession stands. Most of these are new for this year.
These are the hats that you can buy with a bag of cotton candy. Last year, the tour didn't have any of the Phineas or Ferb hats when they got to my area. The fedora is sold separately. I still have the one for Perry that I bought last time that had the scuff that made it look like Agent P had been in a fight.
These shirts were also available last year, but I hadn't bought them that time. Isabella's shirt has glitter on it. "Beware the Stare" is the only one availabe in adult sizes.
Isabella is also featured on a nice pillow. It's 14" across with a satin-like front and a soft polyester back. Next to that is a clip-on platypus tail that's just under a foot long. The third item is a small Perry handbag. It's soft and plush, but it doesn't hold much since it's just about 7" from his face to his rear.
This tambourine has a switch that selects three different lighting patterns. The Secret Agent Kit contains a magnifying glass, sunglasses and special markers for writing in secret. The item on the right is the cover to the photo album, which is included when you buy a picture of yourself in front of a backdrop with Phineas and Ferb. I decided to buy mine without the photo.
These last two items are a penant with Agent P showing his Spy badge and a set of spyglasses (binoculars) that he might use to keep an eye on what Dr. Doofenshmirtz is doing.
The rest of the items were things available last year like the program guide, trumpet, the penant featuring Isabella, the sucker you're supposed to divide into 9 pieces in order to match the serving size, and things relating to other LIVE tours that Disney has. I don't remember off-hand if any had been discontinued since last time. And just like last time, because these are available only during the tour, they're more expensive than if you could buy them at a store or Amazon.com, but that's pretty standard for any tour-exclusive souvenirs. Sorry, I don't have what their individual prices are, but they average about $20 apiece.
Best LIVE Tour Ever Boarding the Sunbeater 3000...
Asia awaits those squirrels and goggle eyed characters.
Live in Chattanooga, Tennessee? You're going to be the last city this season to see Disney's Phineas and Ferb: The Best LIVE Tour Ever! on February 17th at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga McKenzie Arena, because after that, it's time to put the trays in an upright and locked position as the show boards the Sunbeater 3000 on their way to Japan (maybe visiting Stacy and Ginger's cousins), and then to Taiwan to finish the year.
But don't fret, according to the official website, plans are set for a 2013-14 run, as we saw two new cities - Evansville, Indiana and Rochester, Minnesota -listed with late 2013 dates. Stay tuned, we'll let you in when we get more information about it.
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