page_title: Phineas Flynn
section_title: Personality and traits
hierarchical_section_title: Phineas Flynn / Character / Personality and traits
caption_attribution_description: English: Vincent Martella at the world premiere for Cars 2 in Hollywood Heights, Los Angeles, CA in June
context_page_description: Phineas Flynn is one of the characters of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. Voiced by Vincent Martella and created and designed by Dan Povenmire, Phineas first appeared along with the rest of the series' main characters in the pilot episode "Rollercoaster". Phineas, along with his stepbrother Ferb Fletcher, stars in each A-Plot of every episode.
  The series concerns Phineas's attempts to avoid boredom by finding something new to do for each day of his summer vacation. His sister's name is Candace Flynn, who tries to reveal their outrageous creations, but to no avail. He does this with his less-talkative stepbrother Ferb, and often with many other neighborhood children. The activities they devise usually involve outlandish contraptions, including roller coasters, haunted houses, roller rinks, and a backyard beach etc. which Phineas designs and Ferb builds.
  Phineas comes from a blended family. The creators chose this arrangement because they considered it underused in children's programming as well as from creator Jeff "Swampy" Marsh's past experiences in one.
context_section_description: His [Phineas'] confidence makes people think, "He must be a prodigy."  People rarely ask him if he's too young. He'd never lie to an adult or try to get away with anything. He's just motivated by fun. If he thought mom would actually dislike the things they're doing, he would probably stop, but since he's never gotten in trouble for it, he doesn't think of it as getting into trouble.
  — Dan Povenmire in an interview with Animation Magazine.
  Phineas is portrayed as being a highly intelligent, imaginative, optimistic, and adventurous boy. The Disney Channel promos for Phineas and Ferb describe him as someone who "thinks big", refusing to let any day be ordinary. Povenmire also characterizes him as assertive, someone so secure in his abilities that others assume he is a prodigy. Povenmire and Marsh wanted the series to reflect their own childhood memories of going out during the summer and have fun, digging trenches and building tunnels, forts, and tree houses.
  The creators wanted Phineas, like Ferb, to be a character who would never "[do] anything with any animosity," or to agitate his sister or outsmart his mother purposely. Instead, the character was supposed to be motivated only by enjoyment and free from mean spiritedness. He is very friendly, caring, well-mannered, and several of his plots involve helping someone out. He tries to please his sister Candace, carving her face into Mount Rushmore for her birthday in one episode and helping her retrieve a tape detailing his summer adventures even though she intended on using the footage as evidence to "bust" him and Ferb. Another episode has him throwing an extravaganza for his mother's birthday, and yet another has him (along with Ferb and Candace) recreating their parent's most romantic moment for their wedding anniversary. He has also been shown helping his grandparents, reenacting his grandfather Reginald's daredevil stunt from his youth and setting up a roller derby for a rematch race with his grandmother Betty Jo's old rival. In the episodes "One Good Scare Ought to Do It!" and "Hail Doofania!", Phineas goes to great lengths to help his friend Isabella. Other episodes, like "Unfair Science Fair," "Oil on Candace," "The Bully Code," and "Voyage To The Bottom of Buford," further explore Phineas's generosity toward all of his friends. He even has plans at the beginning of "The Bully Code" for a jellybean currency system for emerging nations.
  Occasionally, Phineas's ideas, plots, and schemes have upset others, intentionally or otherwise. Most notably Candace is constantly frustrated in her efforts to "bust" her brothers throughout the series, and in rare cases, Phineas has unwittingly caused misfortune to others. For example, in the episode "Get That Bigfoot Outta My Face," Phineas gives all the kids at camp a fright when he tricks them into thinking Bigfoot is attacking, though this is mostly getting into the spirit of spooky story telling.
  Nonetheless, Povenmire and Marsh intended for Phineas and Ferb to be motivated only by fun. In one episode, "Thaddeus and Thor", Phineas says that fun is his only goal in his daily schemes – though Ferb adds that they also do it "for the ladies." Phineas also says that he wants his adventures to give him something interesting to say when he gets back to school, a setting the creators have confirmed they will never put him in.
  Phineas is also very modest. He tends to put Ferb's name on inventions. This may be because Ferb does most of the building. However, he never seems angry or resentful of giving his brother the credit.
  Phineas appears to be addicted to inventing. In "Bully Bromance Break Up" he goes into withdrawal when the other kids insist on climbing a mountain without using any crazy gadgets.
  On a few episodes, Phineas shows an angrier side of himself, first seen in the Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension movie, where Phineas gets angry at Perry after finding out his secret identity because Perry "never trusted him" by telling him the truth, but later realizes that Perry kept his identity hidden because if Phi
caption: Vincent Martella, voices Phineas Flynn.
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