Dan Povenmire & Swampy Marsh’s New Hope is that they get to make more “Phineas & Ferb Star Wars” specials for the Disney Channel

So just how quickly after the Disney – Lucasfilm acquisition
was officially announced was tonight’s “Phineas & Ferb Star Wars”
special put into production? Well, to hear Dan Povenmire & Jeff
“Swampy” Marsh tell the story, this affectionate-yet-hilarious
show  (which airs tonight at 9 p.m., 8
p.m. Central on the Disney Channel) was greenlit mere moments  after this $4.06 million deal was revealed to
the public back on October 30, 2012.

“We were sitting in an audio session with our
post-production supervisor,” Marsh recalled during a recent phone
interview. “And this woman is looking at the news feed on her phone when
she gasps. She then turns to us and says ‘Hey, Disney just Lucasfilm for
umpteen billion dollars.’ “

“So the very next thing that I do is that I draw Doofenshmirtz as Darth
Vader. And I take a picture of that drawing and then text it to the head of the
studio with a subject line that reads ‘I smell crossover!.’ ” Povenmire
laughed.

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But what Dan & Swampy didn’t know is that — at that
exact same moment — the head of the studio was meeting with Bob Iger, the
Chairman & CEO of The Walt Disney Company.

“I mean, he’s in Iger’s office meeting with him on an
entirely different matter. But as soon as that picture comes in, he slides his
phone across Bob’s desk and says ‘Dan Povenmire just sent me this,’ “
Povenmire continues. “And Iger supposedly takes one look at this picture on
his phone and then says ‘Oh, we gotta get right on that.’ “

But even with this TV special’s instantaneous greenlight from Bob Iger, there
was still the matter of getting Lucasfilm’s official permission to do a Phineas
& Ferb / Star Wars crossover. Which — given Dan & Swampy’s obvious
love & respect for this show’s source material — they wanted to do right.
I mean, as you can see by the video below, “Star Wars: A New Hope”
played a key role in helping to launch Povenmire’s career as a filmmaker &
a storyteller.

Getting back now to Dan & Swampy’s initial pitch to
Lucasfilm … They really wanted to do something special with this
“Phineas & Ferb” special. Or — at the very least — do something
different from the previous animated “Star Wars” spoofs that had
recently aired on television.

“It was Scott Peterson — our story editor — who said
‘We could do this one of two ways, We could do what Family Guy & Robot
Chicken did and just do our characters as the characters from Star Wars. Or we
could go the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead route and come up with some
sort of parallel story. One where the Phineas & Ferb characters have always
been part of the Star Wars saga. Only just off-camera,” Marsh stated.

“And I remember saying ‘Well, that version sounds like it would be much
more difficult to do. But on the other hand, it also sounds like that Phineas
& Ferb Star Wars special could be a whole lot more fun if we do it right.
So let’s give that idea a shot,’ ” Povenmire stated.

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So work then began in secrecy on this Phineas & Ferb /
Star Wars crossover. With Dan & Swampy setting up a secret war room that
only the writers & storyboard artists who were actually working on this
Disney Channel special could gain access to. And to then make sure that this
show was as authentic as possible … Well, Phineas & Ferb staffers began
filling this room with their old Star Wars toys and old issues of Starlog
magazine. Whatever would help them authentically recreate the look, feel &
sound of the Star Wars universe.

“And in the end, our first storyboard pitch for
‘Phineas & Ferb: Star Wars’ revealed that we had come up with a story that
interlocked really well with ‘A New Hope.’ But the downside was that we had
completely lost Phineas & Ferb within this story structure. Our characters
were now just two guys who happened to look like Phineas & Ferb. They
didn’t have any of these characters’ typical inventiveness,” Swampy said.

“So once we realized that, we went back into the show
and did this whole start-from-the-beginning pass on the script. Where we then
asked ourselves ‘If Phineas & Ferb were living on Tatooine, what would
those characters actually do?,’ ” Povenmire continued. “And that’s when
we came up with the ideas of having them building habitrails for womp rats. Or
having Phineas & Ferb train a bunch of dewbacks to do tricks. Because — in
the end — we didn’t just want to do this affectionate tribute to ‘A New Hope.’
We also wanted this Star Wars crossover to be a really good Phineas & Ferb
episode.”

And as you can see by the video clip below, Dan & Swampy did finally find a
way to bring balance to the Force. Create a fun Phineas & Ferb episode that
just happened to be set in the Star Wars universe.