Phineas and Ferb takes place over the course of a single summer vacation as the half-brothers create outrageous diversions for themselves, their friends and their pet platypus. All images © Disney Channel.

You'll have to excuse Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh if they seem a bit jet-lagged at the moment. They've just returned from hopscotching across Europe to promote their new Disney Channel series Phineas and Ferb. Literally minutes after reaching their respective homes from the airport, they're on a conference call with this writer to talk about their new series yet again...

Dan Povenmire: We sat across from each other at The Simpsons [where the pair worked as layout artists in the mid-'90s]. We were always laughing at the same jokes, and then we ended up as a writing team on Rocko's Modern Life.

Jeff Marsh: That was a really good show for us to be on. It allowed us the freedom to learn how to do this.

DP: We created Phineas and Ferb while we were there as a means of letting us work together more as writers. This was like 16 years ago.

JM: God, we're old.

Lesser mortals might have given up, but as their careers progressed, the pair kept pitching their concept...

Executive Producer Dan Povenmire (l) and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, co-executive producer, created Phineas and Ferb because they wanted to see a show that dealt freshly with what kids do on a typical summer day.

DP: It wasn't like we pitched it to every network more than once. We pitched it to four different places. We'd get real close, they'd say no, so we'd put it back on the shelf for a couple of years, then -- "I've got a pitch over at Cartoon Network -- I'll dust it back off and pitch it to them; if they say no, I'll dust it off and pitch it to Nickelodeon."

JM: Two reasons we kept at it: one, we are stubborn, and two, it's always been the show we wanted to make more than the others. With all the stuff we've seen coming on the air, this one is really the best. There's no reason to throw it away and move on. Every time you read it, you think this is a good show.

DP: It was really the show we wanted to see: if this was on the air, I'd watch it, and I don't always feel that about every show I work on.

The entire series takes place over the course of a single summer vacation, as half-brothers Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher create a variety of outrageous diversions for themselves and their friends with supernatural ease. One of the show's running gags is a disbelieving adult asking Phineas, "Aren't you a little young to be [fill in the blank]," to which he replies, "Yes, yes I am."

DP: His confidence makes people think, "He must be a prodigy." Nobody ever asks 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.

JM: The whole thing came about because we didn't want to deal with school. We've seen it over and over again in too many shows -- there's nothing fresh to it. We remember growing up being kids. Every summer day we'd go out and do something: dig a trench, or build a tunnel, fort, or a tree house.