Phineas and Ferb (TV Series) Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation! (2009) User Reviews

Phineas and Ferb and Christmas Too

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 9 July 2021]

Christmas and animation mix absolutely beautifully together and there are many Christmas animated classics, like most of the Disney Christmas cartoons, the Rankin/Bass specials, 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas', 'The Snowman' and 'The Tailor of Gloucester'. Had no doubt that 'Phineas and Ferb' would do a great job with this particular holiday, the concept is not an innovative one but it was interesting to see how 'Phineas and Ferb' would work at Christmas time.

It gives me great pleasure to say that "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation" is an expertly executed Christmas special and its basic formula fits around the holiday wonderfully. Sure, the story concept-wise is not much new when it comes to comparing it to most specials and films centered around Christmas (but it was different for the show), but this is a case of that not mattering with the execution of everything being as great as it was. Not one of my favourite 'Phineas and Ferb' (one of Disney's best shows of the 2000s-2010s) episodes by all means, but everything that makes me love the show is here.

"Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation" is wonderful in every way. It is very well animated once again. Vibrantly coloured and the backgrounds has lovely attention to detail. The music is dynamic with the action and the theme song is insanely catchy with very clever and quotable lyrics that anybody still in school fishing for how to spend their vacation will relate to. There are also some great songs here, especially "I Really Don't Hate Christmas" and "Where Did We Go Wrong".

The writing is still a winner here, it is very intelligent and mature while also having more than enough for younger audiences. Scenes that were very affectionate and entertainingly and sweetly done. It contains some hilarious dialogue for particularly Doofenschmirtz, while the more dramatic elements never get too sweet or sentimental.

Story is lively in pace and also very charming and heart-warming, the entertainment value is constant. The spirit of Christmas is nostalgically done. The character writing, especially Doofenschmirtz, and interaction, especially Perry and Doofenschmirtz, are spot on. Actually had no problem with Candace having different motivations here. The voice acting is without issues.

Overall, wonderful. 10/10.

Entertaining

[richard.fuller1 · 10/10 · 19 December 2009]

It was only a matter of time before the backlash on the backlash of making fun of Charlie Brown, Wonderful Life, the Grinch, Miracle on 34th and Rankin-Bass shows kicked in and we started getting foolish mothers and daughters (in this case, sister Candace provided excellent comedy relief) and villains who weren't clearly defined in their villainy.

With a couple of daffy-ended songs, the squeaky cleanness of Phineas didn't get too aggravating. What only mired up this show was, once again, an Hispanic token (the assumption seems to be that there has to be at least one person 'of color; African, Hispanic, Asian, it won't matter) and then the dismissive Jewish girl as well.

The pet platypus, Perry, being much more was entertaining (sort of a takeoff of Snoopy's anthropomorphic nature) Apparently this is a regularly run show on the Disney channel or somewhere therein, afraid I'm not familiar with it.

Having seen the Christmas program shown out of context on ABC Family, it was entertaining enough on its own, even with "S'winter" tagged on, whether it was a separate episode or not, it kind of fit in with the first part.

This is one of the biggest holiday disgraces I have ever seen!

[pfthompson94 · 1/10 · 3 March 2012]

I like "Phineas and Ferb", but this Christmas special sucks! I mean, one of the reasons is because of it's more dark and dramatic approach especially in this musical number called "Where did we go wrong?". And you know what else? It did not follow the formula of the show. It also had some atrocious dialog as well! There are two that I find just downright pathetic! One is when Baljeet encounters this girl named Wendy Stinglehopper and she kisses him when they're under mistletoe, and then he kisses her back and then says "Later!". Later?! Later?!! That was just so weak! Some better lines could've been "Happy Holidays Toots!" or "Merry Christmas Baby!" and another very good line could've been, "Now that's a Christmas present!". The other bad line is when after Phineas says "Santa thinks everyone in Danville's been naughty?" Buford says "Now that's just nonsense!". Two better lines could've been "Bah Humbug!" or "Oh, We're Scrooged!". The other thing about this special that sucks is the plot! How many times have you seen a Christmas special where the plot is saving Christmas?! During the time of Christmas, don't waste your time watching this disgrace of a Christmas special. I also didn't like that fact that Candace didn't suffer any comic misfortunes like she usually does! That kind of defeats the whole purpose right?! When years pass and if other Christmas specials will be released, I would say something like "The first Christmas special is garbage! Now you might be saying this is the first Christmas special of "Phineas and Ferb" so, be easy on it. But no! It sucks! It sucks from a straw!