One of my favourite tropes (or maybe it's a genre at this point) in media is the Groundhog Day time loop. Most people know this well—the classic 1993 film starring Bill Murray where he finds himself waking up to the exact same day— Okay, jokes aside, I did actually find myself thinking more about the topics of yesterday's essay, and continued pulling on the thread. I really couldn't help myself. Ferb, I Know What We're Going to Do Today Let me start with one of the best animated television shows ever. Phineas and Ferb's plot pattern is extremely structured and formulaic, a narrative system where each episode is always split into two interconnected stories. It revolves around the boys' wildly ambitious invention, Candace's attempts to "bust" them, and Perry the Platypus fighting Dr. Doofenshmirtz, culminating in the automatic destruction of all evidence. The formula is a contract. Every episode makes the same promises. It's because the audience knows the formula so well that the…
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