Hollywood Q&A

Q: How old are Phineas and Ferb?

A: There are a couple of different answers to this question, and there are multiple timelines and time travel trips involved, so don’t expect too much precision here. That said, they’re somewhere between 8 and 10 years old.

The Season 4 episode “Act Your Age” features an introduction from the creators, Dan Povenmire and Jeff Marsh, who state that the episode takes place 10 years in the future. The story is about Phineas and Ferb getting ready to go to college. That means that it’s most likely that they’re 18 or 19 years old at the time, assuming they received a (relatively) normal American education. So, that would make them 8 or 9 years old in the show’s regular timeline. That being said, the Season 2 episode “Phineas and Ferb’s Quantum Boogaloo” sees them travel forward in time 20 years and upon arrival in this timeline they’re said to be 30 years old. That makes them 10 years old in the regular timeline.

This discrepancy could easily be explained if they didn’t take the standard educational route. If they’re 10 years old, then in “Act Your Age’s” future scenario they’re going to college at 20, which isn’t all that abnormal — it’s pretty easy to picture Phineas and Ferb taking a gap year.

Q: Why is Jonathan Harris always billed as a special guest star on “Lost in Space”? He was in every episode, wasn’t he?

A: There are actually two competing explanations for this, though it’s possible they’re both true.

Jonathan Harris (“The Third Man”), the somewhat overacting actor who played the villainous (at first) Dr. Smith, did appear in every episode of “Lost in Space,” but he reportedly wasn’t meant to. As a result, he was listed as a guest, and they just never changed the credits. However, he was also the last person to be cast and so, for contractual reasons, he had to be billed last. This apparently seemed like an insult, so he demanded the “special” credit to make himself stand out. (He has admitted this himself in interviews.)

Demanding a special credit to satisfy your own self-opinion is a pretty diva-ish move, but that’s very much in keeping with the Dr. Smith character. According to the first explanation, that character was supposed to be killed off inside the first season, after he fulfilled his instigating role in the story. That role, of course, was to doublecross the Robinson family and sabotage their ship.

That might seem like too much dastardliness for a character to come back from, but Harris managed it. His campy, over-thetop performance reportedly impressed the producers so much that they decided to keep him around full time.

Q: I was just rewatching “Community,” and I thought I recognized the actor who played Prof. Whitman. Who is he?

A: He is a respected character actor, a workhorse voice actor and a guy who can play the founder of a modern witch coven for laughs and make it work. The man in question is John Michael Higgins.

It’s tough to guess why you know him — his eclectic screen resume has nearly 150 items on it — but the best bet is to say it’s from one, or some, of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries. Higgins is part of the little troupe that director/writer/actor Guest has put together for his series of faux-doc comedies. This includes 2000’s “Best in Show” (in which Higgins plays half of a mismatched gay couple who are proud owners of a Shih Tzu named Miss Agnes) and 2003’s “A Mighty Wind” (in which Higgins plays the co-founder of a coven of modern-day witches that worships the power of color). But he doesn’t just sit by the phone waiting for Guest to call; he has a lot of people calling — pretty much anyone casting an oddball character who needs to be believable but still funny.