WE'RE GONNA DO IT AGAIN!! Here is the stuff that I had to cut out of this one! Let's discuss how the Phineas and Ferb effect crossover completely breaks several episodes of that original series, including its greatest episode, Summer Belongs to You! ua-cam.com/video/w1o-oQhTeUk/v-deo.html
15:09 - 15:15 Why is no one talking about how Phineas indirectly confirmed that Newton was forced to invent gravity at gunpoint by the airline industry to monopolize the ability of flight.
I watched Milo Murphy's law when I had Cable and watched until S2 but I didn't stop watching on purpose it's just cable prices went up from 100 to 300 dollars and so my family instead invested on Netflix and Wi-Fi which was cheaper
Its actually funny to think doof one day just scouring through his past memories to give a reason for him to build an inator to achieve a goal, like what triggers him to remember such memories from the past?
I feel what really ruined Milo Murphy's Law was the fact that eventually they began to rely on the shared universe of Phineas and Ferb too much. Before it was a standalone series but along the way it seemed too desperate to draw in the P&F fans that they forgot how to be their own thing.
Yeah! I liked milo Murphys law after I saw it on Disney+ but then after phineas and ferb were introduced it got boring. Idk if it’s their fault or if I just got bored of the show but it really sucked. It was like they were trying to compensate for a lack of an audience by having them there. And they were, it was so disappointing and obvious.
the crossover was fine (we kinda need it at least in one way) but the recurring appearances of doof, and many more characters later on in the series contradicts the event from the PnF saga itself, and also Doof kinda “carried” the show instead of the mains. the main plot is just flopped and even doof’s role is kinda annoying in the series.
Another thing about the P&F intro is that it established immediately exactly what kind of show it would be; a fun, goofy, semi-fourth wall breaky show about the fairly implausible being made possible in a cool and interesting way. Plus, it established the relationship between Candice and her brothers, a rather integral part of the plot, all within the first minute or so.
I feel those people who watch Milo without having seen Phineas & Ferb before would be confused as hell. As much as I love Phineas & Ferb, I think Milo shouldn't have relied too much on Phineas & Ferb characters and references and just focused on being it's own thing.
i watched it knowing near nothing about PnF, like, i cant stand that show, the wild character designs drive me bonkers. The show stands on its own just fine and was better before they shoehorned doof in. I hate doof so much because of it, he took up precious episodes that were supposed to have develoment for Cavendish and Dakota.
When they saw that the show wasn't forming an actual audience, they tried to make people watch it because there were Phineas and Ferb characters in it. It worked a little, as those few episodes have a bit higher ratings, but the series itself still flopped
@@pwpqwq7648 they just NEVER promoted it on its own merit to begin with, they hyped it up as being like...a continuation of pnf and it wasnt ever intended to be that, it is 100% a different show, so then season 2 they tried to draw in pnf fans by doing what they thought pnf fans wanted- adding the crossover and letting doof hang around. It was a terrible idea and season 2 suffers greatly for it.
I actually have no interest in watching mml -because- of the inclusion of p&f characters like doof and perry. I really enjoyed the pair in p&f but I feel like they wouldn't have a place in mml and I didn't want to resent them for that or have their characters be ruined by their needless inclusion.
A funny thing they could have done was at the end of every episode would be that after surviving a disaster Milo comes across a small annoyance like his shoe being untied or something that causes some kinda distress to milo
Wander Over Yonder actually did a really good job with the endless optimist protagonist. Because they would either show how that opistim can inspire/cause conflict for others, or would become a flaw for wander himself. With his need to help becoming an obsessive compulsion and a detriment to himself and others
This comment made me feel sad, as if millions of fans' voices suddenly cried out in pain and were silenced by Disney's ambitions... I appreciate you mentioning WoY and may 3rd season be with us... someday... eventually...
I think Phineas and Ferb being mostly happy and consistent characters the whole time worked because Candace was like the hidden protagonist of the show, she was doing all the development, and in a way the character we’re drawn to. Also the subplot with Perry and Doof. Milo Murphy doesn’t really have those, not as strongly, at least
I think you're right. I'd imagine Spongebob wouldn't be as successful if slightly more serious characters like Mr. Krabs, Squidward and Mrs. Puff were just as happy-go-lucky as Spongebob and Patrick. Their contrast with how happy Spongebob and Patrick always seem makes the show have more depth than just endless "yeah! everyone's just happy and can never get upset woohoo!"
Phineas and Ferb went through the "Arc of Awesome". We didn't need to see them change because their story was all about how their actions caused the world to change around them. Whereas in Milo Murphy's Law, the story is supposed to be about Milo reacting to external forces caused by his curse, so the fact that these things don't particularly seem to impact him at all makes the whole story feel inconsequential and pointless.
I was just thinking that this show is a bit like futurama, fry is also very passive and rarely makes things happen himself. Usually things happen to him. However there are many episodes which make you fall in love with fry and feel sorry for him. This milo guy seems plastic
After thinking about it, I remembered one moment of Milo’s character that I liked. It was at a party (a prom, I think), and everything was going wrong and Milo’s friend was actually kind of in danger. And Milo, as far as I remember, got upset and frustrated for a second and coldly fixed the problems, instead of happily, and also carried his friend out of danger. I feel like I also remember him getting kind of upset with someone there who was being mean, maybe some party staff who wouldn’t let him help?
I never knew Disney XD was supposed to be the "boys" version of Disney. For me it was 1) Disney's cooler older cousin where the actual cartoons i liked aired and 2) I can't believe they killed Jetix
This! I just watched Jetix all the time until they replaced it with Disney XD so naturally I continued to watch it instead. I never had Disney Channel, but back then it was mostly all about Hannah Montana and I wasn't into that kind of stuff. The so called "masculine" shows, that was the majority of my favorite stuff to watch. Come to think of it, it kinda still is :D
I didn't know it was made for boys either. I also had no idea that it was a seperate channel to begin with, since the Disney shows that were dubbed into German were all shown together on German cable TV.
I was so pissed off that they replaced Jetix with Disney XD (it's that autistic anger when things change from the way you used to like lol) that I avoided watching it on purpose. Only exceptions were Pucca, Kid VS Kat and Fairly OddParents
Hot Take: Phineas and Ferb's inventions disappearing because of Doof and Perry's interference might be the greatest running gag in history and I don't think people bring enough attention to it Like think about how there are 189 episodes and nearly all of them use this complicated gag, and it's not like a simpsons couch gag where you just come up with anything. It's a powder keg effect that builds up throughout the episode.
if i could change one thing about milo murphy, i would make milo guilty about the chaos he causes. in the show, he's so lighthearted and happy-go-lucky that he lacks empathy. if he just felt bad for circumstances out of his control, he would immediately be so much more relatable.
Exactly, many of the trope about happy go lucky characters with bad luck at least have said characters aware of and felt bad about the chaos if it happens. Here it just seems like he is detached
And also actually give milo a goal, like say; he wants to get into his dream collage and is super fixated on that. The chaos around him constantly sets him back a lot from his studying and his friends getting the boot of Murphy’s law makes him angry, so much that he never really feels happy with himself. And with that, he starts distancing himself more in later seasons due to studies and his friends getting hurt a lot. My brain can’t think of any more creative ideas for this prompt. And for a second prompt, the characters could switch from being defensive (Constantly trying to stop something from happening) to offensive (constantly trying to do somethin), while only having a single character be on defensive could be interesting too. Imagine this, milo and (insert his friends here) are kind of insensitive to the that’s constantly trying to stop bad stuff from happening, and the guy gets so fed up, he confronts them and breaks up with everyone. They all deal with the baggage of learning they are kinda a but crack and stuff happens
Lol you just gave me a thought. What if the reason why he's so lighthearted and happy because he secretly enjoys the destruction he's causing. He lacks empathy because deep down he's a psychopath. Then the show just delves into his psyche and his friends try to either change him or send him to a insane asylum. I know Disney would never show something that dark in a kids show I just thought it would help explain Milo's attitude.
I never really watched Milo Murphy's law, but personally I think the show suffered from a lack of identity. I watched the pilot episode and was immediately hit a overly strong Phineas and Ferb feel. It felt like a show made by two guys who really wanted to continue their previous work but had to move on against their will. Maybe I'm wrong though, but that's my guess, and the introduction of Perry and Doofenshmirtz also confirm that.
Literally the same thing u said. You cant compare a long ass good show with a pilot ... the pilot will always fail especially when the good show resembles the pilot and now ur just straight up comparing the two and once that happened I didn't watched it anymore
That and also when the “Candice vs. The Universe” movie got green lit, they literally put Milo Murphy on hold just to send a good portion of the Milo Murphy team over to work on the movie. They didn’t even hesitate to drop Milo Murphy just to go back to Phineas and Ferb
To be fair, it was at the time MML started airing that UA-cam commentary finally took its stride and found audience power far higher than anything cable TV could have ever hoped for.
The other thing about Phineas and Ferb is that even though the world was static, their antics and inventions still impacted the world around them in some way that is slightly touched upon in a later episode.
It's also unfortunate that Ducktales 2017, TOH, and Amphibia all came out during that time because it feels a bit obvious the execs were picking and choosing which shows to invest their time in
As a person who has literally never set an eyeball on Disney channel I can scientifically prove that although XD didn't get good ratings, it has way better shows. C'mon. Ducktales and Gravity Falls win alone.
You’re so right. Although I only really watched it because the Disney Channel didn’t play a lot of cartoons and I exclusively watched XD just because cartoons were playing constantly
well, there's a secret reason WHY Disney XD got lower ratings, when I think they should have gotten higher ratings, and it would make more sense for them to. I don't normally go throwing that secret around all the time, but I think people should know it, especially if they're passionate about cartoons or tv production.
my girlfriend tried to get me into this show, and honestly, hearing about his dad sounds like that would make for a much better show. a story about a dude and a town trying to come to terms with this curse, and finding a way to use it productively as a goal is way more interesting than just "a day in the life of a dude responsible for millions of dollars in property damage but no one cares"
I have always wondered why Family Murphycan survive having 2 memebers damaging everything around them just because they exist. But I wondered thisabout Phin+Ferb too: ""How can two boys order all that stuff without their parents noticing." I mean somebody as to for it
Murphy's Law would have been far, far better if Murphy had reasonable amount of anxiety about the constant random occurrences around him (ie- he is a traumatized nervous wreck). That would be a basic investment- "I have to make sure that nothing goes wrong and messes up whatever mundane thing I am trying to do today". Thus, he has to go on an epic pistachio nuts defeating quest just to make sure he returns a book to the library on time before it is overdue because he doesn't have enough allowance to cover the late fees. Then, you can add in the fearless and optimistic character as the sidekick that pushes Murphy further along the winding path.
@@KeyanCarlile Instead, we get "I have to travel through the sewers and a boat to get to school, but that seems cooler than riding a bus, so I am fine with this".
@@KeyanCarlile And this anxiety could be a source of character growth. He could later perform those mundane tasks without any issue, and he doesn't worry because THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN ALREADY DID HAPPEN. So would could be worse than what happened last time? This would also allow the writers to avoid retreading past plot points (ie- "wasn't he afraid of doing that before?" when they have to go through a task to continue a future plot).
@@lemeres2478 omg yess! i liked the show but every episode i was hoping for a scene where milo breaks down crying saying he’s only pretending to be happy and in reality he’s really scared or something. i was kinda disappointed when that didn’t happen.
you know where Murphy's Law was handled well? both comedically and story-wise? in Ruby Gloom. the character Misery attracts misfortune everywhere she goes and she's pretty depressed about it, but all her friends still love her in spite of it. especially because in one episode we learn that the sky is always cloudy because of her, so when she leaves, the sun comes out. the very hot, very deadly sun.... so Misery's presence is keeping them all safe actually.
I wonder if the show would have been better if the main characters were Cavendish and Dakota instead of Milo and his crew. Out of the main cast, C&D are the only ones who look goofy enough to not be mistaken for background characters. They are also the only ones who go through character arcs and have conflicts between each other. You could shift Murphy's Law onto Cavendish, and now the show is about two time travelers trying to complete their assigned missions (that don't always involve pistachios), but one of them is extremely unlucky and always causes them to fail. This premise solves the issue of Milo not having any goals, as the duo will be given a different task each episode, and their over-arching goal is to gain the respect of their boss and get promoted. If you're wondering why I chose Cavendish to be the cursed one of the duo: there is an episode in which it's revealed that Cavendish frequently suffers deadly accidents, and Dakota uses time travel to save his life everytime. I always thought that this plot point would lead to the reveal that Cavendish is a Murphy from the future, but the writers never expanded on that idea. It just felt like a waste to me.
OOH, and imagine Dakota's main ark of season 1 being the fact that he should accept Cavendish for who he is because he can't help the misfortune and is trying his best, and Cavendish is suffering from guilt for ruining everything! Now there's stakes, there's development, there's conflict, there's ACTUAL CONTENT WTH
I was JUST about to comment how I always cared more about Cavendish and Dakota and felt their story was more compelling. Your comment speaks to me on an emotional level 😭
I think Milo being USED to Murphy's Law was interesting, but he often just...didn't care about it. Like if he was actively pulling whatever he needed out of his backpack and NEVER ran out of things to use, teaching someone new like Zack how to be prepared for everything that COULD go wrong, and seeing how he outsmarts Murphy's Law after being so used to it to still have a good time - THAT's the story I was expecting and wanted to enjoy. It's still a kid's show, and if it wanted to parallel Phineas and Ferb, it could've had Milo and his friends determined to still have a great day despite everything going wrong around them.
I mean, they ARE trying to just have a great day regardless of the disasters thrown their way a lot of the time. A good example was the game episode where they were playing a board game. Even though Milo never finished a game and Murphy’s Law kept breaking things, the entire family and Neil from the comic shop kept playing the game with their own rules because they were determined to let Milo finish a game and have fun for once. Another example is during the race. Murphy’s Law never let Milo finish the race, but he kept trying anyway because he wanted to have fun. This happens multiple times throughout the show. Milo couldn’t attend the football games because of Murphy’s Law, but one time he goes to have fun because he couldn’t ruin the game and used Murphy’s Law there. He stopped having birthday parties because of Murphy’s Law, but his family decided to surprise him with one anyway. Those usually turned out to be the best episodes. But a gripe I had was that a lot of the time the characters didn’t really feel like characters. They didn’t have much going for them aside from their interactions with Milo. And even then their interactions are fairly brief because there’s always a lot of action and how Milo gets through the problem, so the side characters are not really given too much attention. So they hardly do anything unless Milo is there. For instance, in the episodes where Zack and Melissa are waiting for Milo to get out of the house (or the elevator), they don’t do anything. They just sit there and maybe once in a while pop up to remind us that they’re waiting still, but they don’t crack any jokes or do an activity while they’re waiting. They just wait in silence. And when we explored what characters did when Milo wasn’t there, it was usually Doof in the second season and the other characters fell into that same trap where we only see how Doof interacts with them, if he does anything except chaos. I get this is Milo Murphy’s show about how his life is different because of Murphy’s Law, but having a breath of fresh air with the other characters does some good sometimes. The episodes where Dakota and Cavendish have their own screen time were pretty fun. But I think it’s mostly the humor. That’s typically the reason why people don’t like the same shows I do. They just don’t like the jokes I laugh to. Also they don’t like the pacing I like. So what can you do?
I have to admit, the passiveness of the characters never really got to me until Doof came into the story. For a while it was funny to see his interactions and such, but eventually it just started bugging me that he kind of just became this character that was just well there, he was completely demoted to the role of a gimmick designed to attract an audience
the worst thing you can say about a piece of entertainment is that its "bland". entertainment is to evoke emotions. happy, sad, hate, etc. but if they are bland, they are not even evoke enough emotion to make the viewer hate it. that is worst than it being bad. because being bad enough to make people talk trash about it is still better than being forgotten the moment they look away.
*to make the viewer either love it, like it, disgusted by it, hate it or find it weird; also entertainment ain’t supposed to be hated unless if you’re Tom Green, as that is a side effect of either the incompetence of the creator, or simply selfish motives like money
My biggest problem with the second season of Milo Murphy’s Law are the countless fourth wall breaks. They’re good in moderation but after a while they get dull. There was one episode where they used the same one twice. I still love this show, it definitely deserves a third season.
I would argue that Doof isn't as static as you made him out to be, given his growth as a father figure to Vanessa over the course of the show, giving her the childhood he never had.
When I had found Milo Murphy's Law I honestly thought that the show was brand new but no it had been out for 4 YEARS already. I really enjoyed the show and I still do, it was just *really* unfortunate to see how absolutely no one knew of this show.
I knew of the show when it came out. I watched the first few episodes and lost interest. Looking back, I just wasn't interested in a show where random things fall over and the character who causes it suffers no consequences.
As a major fan of this show, I see these a very valid criticisms, as well as a good dive into why the show failed to attract the massive audience Phineas did. I personally would rate the show higher, probably like a 7.5/10 for my personal taste. I thought Milo, though static, was still entertaining, Cavendish and Dakota had a great bromance going, and Diogee deserves all the love in the world. And though the humor and song departments didn't slap as much as Phineas, there were still all-time hilarious gags and catchy tunes (Chop Away at My Heart is one of the greatest songs in any cartoon and I'm not sorry). This show deserved far more love and respect, but it was clear that it was just trapped in it's shell, never quite blossoming to the phenomenon I know it could've been. I stand by the fact that most of this is Disney higher ups' fault, as a lot of their decisions lately have been downright terrible, which makes Milo's fate suck even more Good video, dude. First time watching but I like what you've done.
Oh you have a point there, but I think audience and channel it airs on has something to do with it. Did Milo Murphy's law air on Disney XD, Disney Channel, or both? (i stopped watching Disney networks around 2014 so...). Although Phineas & Ferb was clearly aimed towards everyone, kids probably of all ages (or at least older than 6) with the songs and more colorful vibes to it. It also had that ridiculous humor (like the squirrels in my pants song) that attracts more kids and younger, immature audiences (I mean you don't have to be a kid to have that kind of humor). I mean that it was mostly stupid funny, not funny funny like. Like, the memorable moments like the squirrels in pants song and stuff, it gave the kids something to laugh at you know? Off topic, but I thought the summer belongs to you thing where they parodied Caramelldansen was kinda funny but idk if the majority of kids watching would get that joke. My main point is that I think there was a certain audience for both of the shows and they attracted a different amount of people. Get what I'm trying to say? (btw I dont remember the chop away my heart song LOL 0_0 that sounds kinda heavy) Even tho I never watched Milo Murphy's Law I feel like it had a little bit more dramatic undertones to it and probably was darker and more mature than Phineas and Ferb. Phineas and Ferb was just chaotic and fun! I feel like when they made the darker cartoons like Gravity Falls, they were smart to put them on Disney XD because the audience for Gravity Falls wouldn't be caught dead watching Disney channel. Like, Gravity Falls is kind of for teens and adults more and has a little bit of a darker side to it (I mean the episodes are a little deeper than Phineas and ferb episodes). Like, a cartoon about to kids finding the mysteries of the secret woods or something doesn't sit to well on the same network with a dumb sitcom where the girl's like "I'm the popular girl cuz i'm a cheerleader" or some crap like that. (Bare with me, I never really watched Gravity Falls either but I seen clips and that show looked like it had some real potential). I'm guessing Milo Murphy's Law and Gravity Falls fit the same audience more, and that's why they belong on Disney XD! If Disney Channel put it on Disney XD it would probably have more of an audience. It seems like more people just like Disney XD anyway, because it appeals to everyone, mostly cartoon fanatics. Disney channel does and always will appeal to 10 year old girls who can't decide between pink or blue lipgoss. Sorry for my long a** reply but I have too much time on my hands and I'm kind of passionate about the kind of thing with tv channels and target audience (I want to go into tv production in the future, my goals are to make my own kids tv channel)
Chop Away At My Heart? Oh gosh. Oh no. Not again, not again, PLEASE, not again- *song starts playing in head* "I know you're pining~~" This song is gonna be stuck in my head for months again, isn't it?
I had an idea while watching this of how the story could be rewritten to be a little more interesting, following the "active character" thing. Namely, making it so instead of people in his family being *born* with the condition, it doesn't surface until they reach age 13, and it disappears when they're 44. Milo, for his part, was born when his dad was 44, meaning he never got to see any of the effects, and thinks it's all just an old folktale made to scare him into "preparing for the worst". Episode 1 takes place on his 13th birthday, and coincidentally the first day of school. Milo brings nothing because he thinks the Murphy's Law condition is a fake, and proceeds to get beaten over the head with his absurd wrongness over the course of the episode. Not wanting to deal with such calamity, he spends the rest of the series trying various plots to get rid of his condition, picking up friends over time (eventually filling out to the full cast). Naturally, he never actually cures it (except maybe in the big finale, that one really comes down to what sort of message the show wants), but in every episode he'd pull out a significant win despite the circumstances. Maybe this isn't enough to fix the show, but I thought it was a cool concept. Example episode pitch: Milo goes to a psychic to see if they can fix his condition. Unfortunately, circumstances lead him to a *physician* instead, one Dr. Saikich, pronounced like the pun that allows the most misunderstandings. And indeed, the episode is largely a series of misunderstandings as medical equipment malfunctions, things are misheard, and a series of lab animals go loose in the building. Milo manages to barely contain the calamity, and befriends the doctor afterwards. Sure, his condition isn't fixed, but he has a new friend and the checkup was taken off his bill, so things worked out somewhat well.
honestly, this is a GREAT concept. of course, there need to be more to put it into a show but i think it's a really strong foundation and allows to implement a lot of funny running gags and smartly written jokes
The issue with this is that this completely destroys the main plots of this show, where milo just lives with it to the confusion of the people around him.
@@thevegginonymouspotato4754 well, considering the central thesis of the video, which I generally agree with, is that the main plot of the original show is inherently flawed: yeah, it does
I just remember as a kid the trailers for it only said "wow it's new, from the creators of Phineas and Ferb" and didn't really explain anything about the show or what in the hell Murphy's law was.
This is exactly what I was thinking, he FEELS like the "You never believed in me, Mother" guy from Phineas and Ferb. If he was in every episode the joke would get old.
Good video! And it made me realize why I liked Cavendish and Dakota so much and I didn't feel that same connection with Milo and his friends. Cavendish and Dakota had goals and tried to achieve them while Milo and his friends just, reacted to their surroundings. And something that does bother me is how even though everything can go wrong, will go wrong, everything always turns out fine all the time. One thing that really annoyed me is that in the episode Snow Way Out it almost seemed like they did something new. Milo didn't get to school on time, Melissa lost her bet, things actually went wrong. Until magic time travel saved the day and they magically got to school on time. It kinda makes no sense that Mr. Block let them keep their time vehicle even though they are banned from time travel. And we don't see that vehicle again in Season 2 so they only had it in that one episode for plot convenience. But whatever, I guess that's one of the reasons why I want another season. Because this show feels like it has a lot of potential if they let their characters develop with the story.
its the formula, its how it works, just like how Pnf's inventions always disappear, doofs plans always fail, and ferb pretty much always only says a few words per episode. Also they didnt even use the vehicle in Snow Way Out (the kids cant drive anyway!), they used their transporter thing, which, knowing Dakota, was probably stolen.
Milo's permanent optimism really makes him boring and makes it hard to relate to him. A normal person has ups and downs. Even Phineas and Ferb characters had this to some extent but in MML it's totally lacking.
I mean, the thing is...Like, Phineas and Ferb were also perpetual optimists, at heart. They got angry or depressed in specials, but most of the time, take your happiest moment, that's their BASELINE. But it works because, well, they aren't the main characters. Not really. Despite their name being in the title, P&F aren't really the main characters. Most episodes center on the antagonists, namely Candace and Doof. P&F's a-plot doesn't tend to be "about" whatever invention the boys build, it's about Candace trying and failing to bust them. It's like a Looney Tunes gag, Candance the unlucky Coyote to the boy's perpetually-oblivious Roadrunner. Milo is a Roadrunner, but he has no Coyote. His antagonist, for the most part, is just a universe that wants him to suffer. There's no other character to bounce his eternal optimism off of lots of the time.
@@billyweed835 I heavily agree with this too! On top of this, the cast of P&F was much bigger, which allowed for more freshly styled episodes, based around those characters. While we have a somewhat large cast of MML, it's no where as fleshed out, and interesting as P&F
@@billyweed835 I'd say Candace is the protagonist and Phineas n' Ferb are side characters despite their names being in the title - Milo is what happens if you took Phineas, jutted Ferb and launched him into the title role.
I honestly loved the show. From the theme to how positive Milo was. Anyone who went through everything he did would be mad or hateful but he was a sweetheart.
Man, this video is like... all the issues I've had with MML over time actually put into coherent words. I love it. (No, but really, as much as I love MML, those stake and conflict and character issues really became frustrating over time, so it's fascinating to hear someone else talk about this kinda stuff) Also glad about someone else pointing out the part about Doof getting so much more of an arc than the MML characters. Honestly it never bothered me (in general) that he was so present later on, more so that all the plotlines he got really just highlighted how bland everyone else is in comparison :') Though less Doof probably wouldn't have resulted in better arcs for everyone else, given the other episodes. Oh well. Some additional things that have been bothering me about MML personally: - Songs: Other than all the stuff you already said, P&F also had a lot of, like, songs sung by the actual characters, and at least to me those are usually already more memorable than those by some nondescript offscreen entity (with some exceptions ofc). MML mostly had the latter, and for me those just kinda blended into one another over time. Other than the band stuff (and Elliot, shoutouts to him) MML hardly let the actual characters sing, which really is kind of a shame. - Character-wise, I think the first couple episodes started off really well, but like you said, they never really did much with some of the characters afterwards. The first couple episodes give off the impression that people like Bradley or Mort are actually going to be pretty relevant characters, especially with kinda setting up Bradley as a foil for Milo and whatnot (same with the Doctor Zone fans like Kris and Wally who were only background cameos after episode 10 or so). Honestly feels like they wanted to get the supporting cast introductions out of the way so they could start focusing on the overarching plot stuff asap :') - Similarly, the episodes also never really... mixed up the cast for the most part? Most episodes are really just Milo and Zack and Melissa doing something (A Plot wise), but other than Amanda and Elliot, nobody else really becomes the focus of an episode. That one season two episode (that I really can't recall the name of) was great because Mort and Chad actually had a little subplot for themselves, but that's definitely an exception. And yet at the same time they recycled the "Elliot is forced to spend some time with Milo and lowkey warms up to him" plot for multiple episodes while Bradley never got anything like that. Oh well. - Bradley in general (still my favorite character, love him) was super underused, and even when he got that permanent plant arm, that didn't really matter to anything other than a couple unfunny jokes. Suppose that ties into the part about the characters never really changing or having actual conflict between one another... but man. I was really hoping the plant arm would finally start off some proper arc or development for Bradley (and his relationship with Milo), and all I got was a season of lowkey ableist treatment for this kid that keeps making some later episodes really hard to watch for me because it hits so close to home. - And a quick little note on character design: Still can't believe they have several instances of characters looking almost the same (Mort and Chad, and Bradley and Kris as well) and yet they aren't even related. Just making them siblings would've made this so much less of an issue, but nah. Let's just have them look alike for no reason whatsoever :') And yeah, that's all that comes to mind, you pretty much said all the major stuff already. It's true though, as frustrating as some of this is, MML is still a pretty fun show that I'll definitely keep watching if it ever gets continued. If anyone's still reading this, uh... yeah, Diogee ftw. Good dog.
One thing they should have done with Milo Murphy's Law is do what they did in episode one. Make Zac the protagonist. First episode started off with Zac as the new kid, he is confused because everyone avoids Milo and gets roped into his shenanigan's. That was fine, it was fun even. But he got over it too fast and the majority of the episodes focused on Milo himself and not how Zac had to deal with being Milo's friend. He still had his moments, just not enough. Heck we've seen more instances of Milos room, than we have of Zac's whole house.
you already wrote a better show then seasoned paid for writers could come up. Like they go and make this show about basically nothing with no stakes. You always knew that if they did get busted, the 2 boys would have gotten into trouble. Yet in this show the main actor literally just shrugs and doesn't care
@@Goremize Ether the characters need to change more or the show should have less stakes. You can't have the world change but the characters stay the same, that makes no sense.
Yeah that would be a great idea. Since we'd be like Zack. All these bizarre things happen around him and the panics. Maybe have him actually avoid Milo in the beginning due to his cautiousness. Meanwhile Milo just makes wants more friends and the stakes get high because he doesn't want his luck to hurt them. Zack growing to be friends with Milo and eventually and changing to the cool headed character throughout the series. Zack Goal would be to keep people from being hurt and things going terribly wrong with new and creative ways.
They should’ve made Milo the defensive character, Murphy’s law states that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” so he should’ve been constantly making it so that nothing can go wrong and failing at it or being anxious he was gonna inconvenience people with things going wrong
I think Milo being USED to Murphy's Law was interesting, but he often just...didn't care about it. Like if he was actively pulling whatever he needed out of his backpack and NEVER ran out of things to use, teaching someone new like Zack how to be prepared for everything that COULD go wrong, and seeing how he outsmarts Murphy's Law after being so used to it to still have a good time - THAT's the story I was expecting and wanted to enjoy. It's still a kid's show and meant to have an uplifting tone and message, and if it wanted to parallel Phineas and Ferb, it could've had Milo and his friends determined to still have a great day despite everything going wrong around them.
12:47 I totally agree. It's like an extended epilogue, or a season two. They're already confident around Milo's bad luck aura, and we missed the first season where they had to get comfortable with it, or the prologue where Milo himself had to learn to deal with it. Too much conflict, stirred with too little real reason, resolved far too quickly and without any fuss. Without fuss you don't get a good show, unfortunately. I'm still gonna have to binge-watch the whole thing all the way through though.
Absoultey agree with you 13:17 In Milo Murphy characters are passive, have no clear goals and only react to the plot (unlucky things randomly happening) In Phineas and Ferb the *story is driven BY the characters*: The kids make a new invention> Candace tries to tell their mom> Perry goes to stop Doofenshmirtz innators> Inventions and innators dissapear> Conclusion which is result of the actions of EVERY CHARACTER.
@@KeyanCarlile The best song in Phineas and Ferb is Ain't Got Rhythm, fight me. I've never even watched that particular episode in my life (I generally stopped watching cartoons around 6th to 9th grade cuz I was an edgy fart thought that they were for babies, but once Rick and Morty came out, I went straight back into watching nearly the same type of cartoons that I liked growing up (I only watch adult animations like Rick and Morty, Final Space, and Inside Job; and kid's shows with darker themes like Amphibia, DuckTales (need to finish that), and SvtFOE (also need to finish that)), and I still prefer them over other media to this day). P.S: With the exception of the first episode and season finale, the first season of Star Vs. doesn't count as part of the series, due to it's ugly ass flash animation and near nonexistence of lore.
I genuinely think the premise of the show AND milo being a passive protagonist would’ve worked if they committed more to the idea, making milo more of a force that the antagonist of an episode can play off of, and maybe imply something about milo that tells us more about him, just throw little stuff here n there ya know?
They still have a Disney XD? That's good LOL I thought they got rid of it (i forgot what number it was tho, I actually thought about rewatching some Phineas and Ferb episodes from when I was younger)
also LOL There's a secret but when I was a kid, Disney XD was like the place for the "scrapped" Disney shows. You know, shows they spent too much money on but knew wouldn't succeed (like "Lab Rats" and "I'm in the band") and also tried to pas it off as the boys/gender neutral version of Disney channel, and in some cases later on, a more mature version of Disney channel. The Disney Channel when I was a kid was filled with mostly shows where there's characters that are like "I'm the popular girl and you're a loser cuz you're not a cheerleader like me" and they often tend to be very girly. Not all the sitcoms were like that, but the majority of them were. Disney wanted to break out and make some shows like Gravity Falls and Milo Murphy's law (which I feel like were a little more mature, and not at all girly) so they put them on Disney XD.
Just found out about and started watching Murphy's Law and I love it because I am a fan of when the actual Murphy's Law actually happens. The chaos of not knowing exactly how an episode will go until it happens- because I choose not to read too deep into kids cartoons usually- is just one reason I love it. Plus, I really enjoy Weird Als' voice acting, too. I can't say that he's the main reason I enjoy the show but it does help
I watched Milo Murphey's Law when it premiered and the words that came out of my mouth was "This is just like Phineas and Ferb but without Phineas and Ferb." The artstyle, the cinematography, the script, all of them were too similar to P&F. If I wanted to watch P&F, I would just watch P&F. By the second episode, I was done with it for this reason. The funny thing is, the fanbase assured me that it wasn't fair to give this critique and that MML was nothing like P&F. Fast forward a few years, and it's revealed MML takes place in the same universe as P&F, what a shocker! I will admit, that overarching plot is pretty unique though.
You nailed it with all those points! I also want to add that a big part of why I dropped the show was because of how unlikable Milo's situation was. Phineas and Ferb were just 2 kids having fun and building crazy things and I wanted to be like them. Same with Gravity falls, Owl House, and Amphibia. All these shows were like an escape from reality for me, but for Milo Murphy's law it just sucked to have that power or be in his situation. So, my engagement with him was passable which slowly whittled away.
I think Milo Murphy's Law should have just been it's own separate thing. I think another aspect that killed it was a lack of unique identity. The show already felt familiar to start with, but it eventually became a Phineas and Ferb reboot, more or less. I do have to wonder if executive meddling had to do with it.
I find it very ironic how the intro of this show has the lyric ‘It’s my world, and we’re all living in it’ when really, Milo & his cast of characters are in the Phineas & Ferb world because they could never escape them.
When you say the art, jokes, and music are bland, I think a better description is "safe." The designs are people, not characters, not even caricatures. The jokes appeal to no one to offend no one. The music exists to fill in the void so no one is challenged. It's all safe, so it's boring.
In a show about Murphy's Law, they aimed everything to make sure they offended nobody, but what could go wrong did, so everything seems bland and is uninteresting
I loved this show so much when it was coming out but the moment P&F references were so much and eventually took over really grind me gears. I wanted Milo to stand on its own and grow to be better but they just made it “P&F featuring Milo Murphy .” It was the nail in the coffin for me
I'm personally of the opinion that MML is, to an extent, what P&F would have devolved into were it allowed to keep doing for another few years. To me, the formulaic plotlines really grew old in the latter half of the show's lifecycle, the songs were bland and forced, Doofenschmirtz's constant blabbering started getting on my nerves and the fanservice'y focus on Phinabella turned what was once a cute pre-teen crush into a full-blown psychotic obsession. I believe the show started going downhill around Across the 2nd Dimension, the series finale was forgettable and last year's Candace movie seemed like John Lennon rising from his grave yelling "I'm still relevant, dammit!". Aside from the botched premise, I think the writers simply ran out of steam. Maybe if they tried their hands at something less quirky and more story-oriented instead, but MML sort of forced them to repeat their P&F schticks ad nauseaum.
The only problem I had with this show is that my naggy adult brain couldn't quite relax into the premise because... it's an objectively bad thing to constantly be destroying yours and everyone else's environment and it was super weird to me how the show kept going out of its way to villainize anyone who acknowledged this??? Like, in Phineas and Ferb, we see the mess neatly and immediately being taken care of and it's clear that the actions of the protagonists don't negatively effect anyone. That's why we aren't on Candace's side; the boys' actions seem harmless. Whereas Milo seems to just make huge messes and bounce and we do see people kinda go "aw fuck now i need to deal with the fallout of this". Which made me be kinda annoyed when Milo is just like "Why would I try to stop it? I'M having fun". Maybe that's why people resonated more with like the security guard character because... he has a point. Even if there's no real danger, who wants to live somewhere that's constantly falling apart? And like am I really supposed to be against the people who avoid Milo? I feel like if I were in this universe, I would also not be ok with the situation. Phineas's friends get to come to his house and participate in whatever he's doing. No one around Milo exactly gets to consent to being dragged into chaos on a daily basis. Like no matter how fun and exciting the adventure is, if you had to endure that every day with no choice to abstain, it would be exhausting. Everyone's eventual "this is fine and actually preferable" attitude about it actually boggles my mind. Anyway, like I said, adult brain. I still really really enjoyed the show, but this aspect never stopped bothering me.
yeah. it also annoyed me how Milo literally never showed remorse for the chaos he caused. especially in the first episode when he was like, “you want to go on the boring bus instead of being stressed out and scared on your first day of school??? lmao lame. this chaotic situation is so much cooler.” like, not everyone is like you, milo 🤷♀️
@@tuopsy Silent people can still be stressed out of their minds and pretend to be cool about it, maybe too stressed to think about others, I've been in this state and it causes chaos and disarray in my life too much stress makes it hard to avoid stress. the show's Murphy's Law could be taken as an allegory to this cycle, chaos leads to stress, stress leads to disorganization, and disorganization leads to stress. Milo's attitude reminds me of myself back in middle, try and stay calm to stay cool to stay afloat, a deeply flawed mantra.
You put it perfectly. That's quite literally everything I think/want to say. Just the property damage alone irked me and I'm not even an adult yet. I got used to it but still.
Phineas and Ferb's weird designs are the reason why I kept coming back to watch the show back in 2012, it's so weird you just can't help but look at it and what makes it even better is that the show is weird af, and I love it.
I remember seeing a trailer for this show once, I immediately got that „there’s a big hole“ feeling to it. Something felt missing, very big. And even when I was younger there I knew it would have ended this way
I feel Milo's should have been the inverse of Phineas and Ferb. Where the boys want to make the most of summer, Milo wants to have a normal school year. To make Milo less passive, he should have been in constant fear of Murphy's Law acting up so when somethinh crazy does happen Milo will have the goal of getting everything back to normal rather than just letting the crazy stuff happen.
@@KronosOGAccount I wasn't mentioning saiki k from a "man v nature" perspective, I was mentioning saiki k from a "all this crazy shit is happening around me and i just want to live a normal life for once" perspective, in response to the original commenter's idea.
that actually sounds interesting. having a neurotic character as the main protagonist of a disney series instead of the butt monkey or comedy relief (cough cough CANDICE) would definitely set a different tone for a series
You know I think I watched this show so much because it's my comfort show. What's more comforting than a show where nothing ever TRULY goes wrong and everyone is kind to each other??
So... this video inspired me to do a concept. I haven't watched MML all the way through but hear me out: What if they made the law itself more of the main antagonist. So. What if the gang (through a way I don't know yet) discovered that Milo's life is so crazy because of a curse put on one of his ancestors (Maybe the original Milo Murphy himself idk). And so throughout the years this little curse went from being small inconveniences to what it is now. Except suddenly there stops being that "and everything went back to normal" ending. Like the curse starts to become more and more dangerous until it actually causes one of Murphy's friend to get injured (maybe put in a cast or something) Riddled with guilt, Murphy decides that he doesn't want this life anymore if it would put his friend in danger so the team goes on a hunt for a cure going deep into the curse of the law to try and find it's TRUE cause. And maybe the pupper turns out to be another secret agent of a WAAAY more high tech agency (maybe they are involved in time travel too idk) and was task to insure Milo's safety which explains why no matter where they are the pupper always finds them. Why didn't he reveal himself it Perry? Because they are the better agent of course sworn not to reveal themselves to anyone outside of their own agency. Of course the curse is trying every way to stop them kind of like how the "invisible force" stopped Candice from busting Phineas and Ferb. And its like them vs the forces of nature type deal.
Your Minecraft Skin Character Design Theory joke is actually grounded in reality, there's a character design test where you reduce characters down to nothing but a rectangle with colored lines and see if it's still recognizable
My takeaway from this video, at roughly the 20 minute mark, is that this show would be better if it had starred Cavendish and Dakota, while Milo and his antics were in the background interfering. I just want their convoluted time travel story to defeat the evil pistachios so Mark Hamill can stop yelling at them.
24:33 I feel like the summer belongs to you special of PaF did really well, with the joke towards the end with phinese being all happy and cherry about the bikes, but when candice refuses to ride a trike, phinese screams, "GET IN THE TRIKE!" That works really well for such the calm character.
As someone who has never watched either of these shows, but keeps getting sucked into videos like this because of my Ducktales 2017 obsession, I feel like the biggest thing holding this show back at the conceptual level is the fact that Milo has already mastered his curse. How can he grow as a character when the single biggest source of conflict in his life has already been conquered? If we could turn back time and remake this show from the ground up, I would have Milo get his bad luck in the first episode and have to learn to live with it and work around it. And tie it into Cavandish and Dakota's time-travel shenanigans too. Maybe their time machine runs on something like the Improbability Drive, and Milo gets hit by a face-full of improbability exhaust. Maybe he tries to act like nothing's wrong and gets someone he cares deeply about (like his older sister) badly injured, motivating him to face it head on. Maybe he was a very adventurous kid beforehand and has to learn how to turn his backpack full of gear meant for hiking and rock climbing and white-water rafting into a means of protecting himself. Milo could still be the same optimistic, cheerful character he always was, and most of the "everyone gets along" character dynamics could stay the same. But now, they have a goal, something to work towards, and something to inject conflict and to drive the story forward. Each episode could center around something specific going wrong and the main cast's attempts to find ways to add failsafes or find something in Milo's bag of tricks to keep him and everyone around him safe. I could go on, but I think I've made my point. A show's basic is flawed because we meet Milo *after* he's gone through character development and conquered his biggest challenge.
I think Dave povinmire said it himself Phineas and Ferb arnt the main character's Candace is,she is the one who struggles and goes though kind of an ark through the show
I'm so glad you mention conflict. A lot of cartoons lately have this issue. A set of main characters who have no conflict and no disagreements are one of the most boring things you can have. It's unrealistic, it's too safe. And if they do, the bad characters are painted in broad strokes. (The bully archetypes used in Amphibia, Ghost and Molly Mcgee etc) More to the point, I just can't stand characters who always agree because the writers then have to rely on the events of an episode to carry both the stakes AND the emotional weight. A burden built for sturdier shoulders...
Owl House doesn't fall into this I'd say because Amity is a main character that develops over time. Amphibia seemed like it was doing something with Marcy lying about what she was gonna use the music box for. But yeah a lot of Disney cartoons have this issue.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I do like Amity. But her initial personality and her eventual arc seemed so predictable to me. But that's not really a valid criticism on my part. Something can be predictable yet still completely engaging, some of my favorite shows are filled with cliches
I love both series of dan and jeff, Milo has his own essence, I love the well-defined personalities of milo, melissa and zack, I love the chemistry between dakota and cavendish, but I saw the incorporation of doof unnecessary at least it could be a cameo regular but not a recurring character. The series had the potential to be as important as Phineas and Ferb, I don't understand why Disney didn't give the same importance to his predecessor. The second season improves many things and feels even more epic and incredible. I remain hopeful that it will have a third season, the series deserves
I have to argue one point - but not about Milo Murphy's law! As a composer and musician myself, in my opinion, you're actually in a great position to critique music. When you're making music for the masses, the goal is almost never to impress everyone with the immense technical complexity of it. It's to make something that sounds good and that people will want to listen to over and over again. Take Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk" for example. The entire song is pretty much 2 chords - very, very simple to play. Yet it blew up! Sure, at a deeper levels there's more explanations as to why it's a banger, but those explanations didn't matter to the vast majority - everyone could feel how catchy it was. The easiest tell for a song truly being great is when everyone enjoys it, regardless of their musical background. And when someone with no musical background tells a musician that their sound is amazing, it's one of the greatest compliments we can receive - it's feedback about the feeling and vibes our creations evoke. In a sense, how "good" they truly are. So please, always air your opinions on when a song slaps!
I hate pop music because of how simple the beats are and overly repeated lyrics, it's really the hooks that sell those songs. If you listen to them instrumentally, they are so boring. They are some musicians in pop that can write more complex instrumentals but that's far from the many.
It not even pop music, ongs can be amazing, if not the most complicated , but really fun and catchy, with 3 cords. I dont disagree most pop music isnt that, but 3 cords can have incredibly good music,. emphasis on can, an what youadd to it otherwise. I love die ärzte and they are adding a lot clever text and fun . I dont like most pop music either but 3 cords can give a really good background for a song.
I like songs (such as Uptown Funk) that are simple enough to easily get the hang of it, learn it, and be able to quickly start singing along and jamming out to it. BUT, don't make it just a broken record (Like that stupid 'Santa Baby' song, that thing drives me insane)
Milo Murphy’s law is very sentimental to me, it started airing around when I was middle school and I grew with the show. I showed up for every episode, even if it wasn’t the best, I sang rooting for the enemy all the time, I was invested in the story and patiently waited for the next episode, I even laughed at what you considered bad jokes, because, sometimes I find weird things funny.Milo Murphy’s law is one of if not my favorite show, and I wouldn’t be the same without it. You may look at the character writing and call them static unchanging nobodies, but they’re my nobodies, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
For me, while I enjoyed MML at first, I couldn't really... connect with it the way I did with Phineas and Ferb. After watching your breakdown, I think it comes down to a combination of all the factors you mentioned, but most predominantly "There Are No Stakes" and "Milo Is a Passive Protagonist." Especially the latter. As I kept watching the first season back when it was airing, I kept yearning for more of an emotional range from Milo besides "unflappable calm optimism and acceptance." And I mean, don't get me wrong, that kind of personality is fun, and I love the character for his sweet and optimistic personality even in the face of all the crap that happens, but he's still only human. No one should have to deal with what he does on a daily basis. Milo is literally a walking jinx. The poor kid can never have nice things because they get destroyed. No one wants to hang out with him for fear of getting horribly maimed. He's in the hospital so much that he has to have special dispensation from his doctor to not be held back since he misses so much school. Heck, has anyone ever died from the accidents that happen when Milo's around? It wouldn't surprise me if there's been fatalities. Even the most optimistic and laid-back person must have their bad days when faced with a life like that. Hell, even Phineas had his limits in P+F. What are Milo's? What would it take for him to get genuinely upset? Sad? Scared? Frustrated? Angry? We never find out, and as a result, Milo feels like a static, two-dimensional protagonist with all the emotional depth and complexity of a teaspoon, and the other characters, as far as I can tell, aren't really that much better. Yes, Sara is a wonderful big sister, and I love her for that, but I don't feel like I *know* her the way I know all the different facets of Candace's personality, like her crush on Jeremy, her friendship with Stacy, her love of Ducky Momo, her skill with music and instruments, etc. Say what you will about how cartoonish P+F's 5 main protagonists acted most of the time, they at least felt like they had layers to their personalities, and displayed a range of complex and diverse emotions and interests occasionally. The show certainly isn't *deep* or particularly thought-provoking, but the characters feel fun and believable and real in their own way. So for me, I think that is why I ultimately lost interest in MML. P+F was about two brothers and their friends going out, changing the world for the better, and living their lives to the fullest, while MML is about the universe constantly trying to screw over this one poor kid in particular who never reacts believably to the horrible things that happen to and around him. One feels fun and empowering, while the other is just... really kind of sad, if you really think about it for too long. I still respect MML for what it tried to be and tried to do, but I just think the execution was... lacking.
I agree with most of the stuff you've said here, but I just wanna point out about the dying part that a running gag throughout season 1 was Cavendish dying to things and Dakota going back in time to stop it from canonically happening, and one of these deaths was implied to be a toboggan that Milo accidentally sent charging across the street attached to a rocket. So yeah, it seems that Murphy's Law has definitely caused some fatalities, and I for one am surprised about how unfazed he is about this.
Youre right. When phoineas got upset (especially ayt candace) it was genuinely shocking at raised the stakes of the situation for me. Phineas is generally mild mannered and optimistic seeing a character like that be genuinely upset or lose all hope really changed the scope of the situation of the episode and made it more impactful
What this show needed more was Bradley. A character who has a complains about and fears Milo's destruction while trying to date Milo's best friend has a good dynamic.
As someone who's only maybe two years older than you, that you have not seen Kim Possible is hard to believe. It kicked off the career of Dave Filoni, who is now in charge of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and is one of my fondest childhood memories.
Even though I haven’t been in that fanbase in years, they are still like the nicest fanbase I’ve ever experienced. They just really love the show and want to share it with others
The main thing- THE MAIN THING- that would’ve made this show more appealing to me is if Milo as well as the antagonistic characters were dynamic and changed with the environment. Everyone else could remain static (on the surface), but not him. He grows tired of his state as a walking lightning rod and seeks to fix it, he delves to the point of near-insanity in the process. With every episode, you see him smile less and less. You might even have him close to snapping until his friends pull him out of it, agree to stick with him and they can face this all together.
Imo, this wouldnt have worked because afaik Milo has lived with this bad luck his entire life, so unless a certain event acts as a catalyst for it , like someone getting hurt, there would be no reason for Milo to get depressed about it at this point
@@EvanChu0815 Everything is relative, so Milo would definitely be the least affected by Murphy's Law because he's been adapting to it all his life. It didn't just appear one day or gradually make things worse and worse, it's just *there.* That's where the catalyst or a gradual buildup of actually bad things happening would be great and make the show more interesting.
I got into Milo straight into high school, and I was OBSESSED. I can definitely recognize the flaws you mentioned, though, and I think being so deep into the fandom...all 7 people in it...kind of blinded me to its greater flaws for a long time, because I kind of saw what "could" be instead of what there was. I always thought of Murphy's Law as being textual coding for a disability of sorts, beyond Milo's perception as a neurodivergent character (runs in the family, heavily stigmatized by those who aren't used to it and even those who are aren't always the most sensitive about it, Diogee could even interpreted as a therapy animal given how he follows Milo around and solves problems for him) and I kind of hoped it was intentional in some nuanced way, but even in that haze of fascination, I always thought Bradley would be more....relevant? This was kind of a pointless rant about feelings I've had since 2016, and I'm glad I have a place to actually talk about them, but I also sincerely enjoyed your video and your exploration of the topic! I hope you can talk about it more some time!
That might be reading a little too much into the show and it's themes, but it's not a bad fan theory and if it helped you in some way to see the show that way, more power to you.
Most of the problems you have pointed out in this vid was caused by the writers rushing in to MML right after phineas and ferb, making it so that they didn't have time to get used to the new story style.
Honestly just the concept of a show that’s like: “two friends are absolutely horrified and messed with because this guy has insane bad luck” or something, even that by itself sounds interresting.
Oh yeah, Milo existed. I remember maybe watching two episodes and just... forgetting about it. And the big difference that stood out to me was lack of actual premise for the show. I mean, fine, dude is unlucky and bad stuff happens to him. But what does he do? What pushes the episodes forward? P&F is about two kids who build unimaginable things every day. B story is their sister trying to catch them because she believes what they do is dangerous and stuff. And there's even a c story about a platypus fighting a pharmacist. And whenever I heard the intro song, I knew what I was about to see. But Milo? He's unlucky and that's it. There is no starting point and no goal in that premise. And then despite everything supposedly going wrong, nothing actually goes wrong. Just unexpected. So there goes the premise.
I only ever saw a couple episodes too and I just found it boring. The characters didn’t have much personality, there didn’t seem to be really a goal of the series and Milo was just an unlikable character.
Once you get deeper into the show they start building an actual plot from episode to episode with one overall conflict. I found the show to be fairly enjoyable but definitely a letdown from PnF, which is not surprising considering the standard. A lot of the characters aren't memorable outside of Dakota and Cavendish and every episode does feel like the plot is kinda random. Like stuff just happens on the screen and then the episode is over. Idk, overall I liked the show a lot, but it was definitely not on the level of PnF.
I kinda feel the opposite, Phineas and Ferb had no driving force because you could watch the episodes in any order and it wouldn't change a thing, while MML had a story arc
26:18, I don't know why, but this shot of our main trio in ball outfits, having this wide-eyed "Just a bit negatively surprised" face expressions, in front of a giant sign that says "The music is bland" is pretty funny to me. 😂
the funniest part is your designs are actually way more interesting and eye catching than what they had. I didn't care about Dakota until he put on the dodecahedron.
I remember blatantly not being interested in MML when it first came out. I did really have access to the show but I wasn't going out of my way to see what it was. I discovered this show back in 2020 when I was in college. I put it on out of curiosity and pretty much fell in love. For the most part it was background filler but I would go back and watch episodes and I liked the overall pitch of the show. My favorite part of the show is the dry humor. Yes it comes from everywhere but I love random zingers. I also love the storyline element of the show. Is it the best show ever, no, but its fun and worth at least a wrap up special or season.
They should've introduced milo as a character on phineas and ferb and then made him a part of the cast in later seasons so that it would feel like passing the torch kinda thing
i enjoyed milo murphy’s law, and i’ll be honest i usually get defensive when i see critiques of shows i like.. But this is super thoughtful and i have to agree with all of your points!
This video is freaking my bean cuz like, I LOVE MML. I frequently rewatch the whole show every few months and never get tired of it. And I can see your arguments are mostly valid, and I'm usually very picky about my entertainment, but something about this one just works in a way I'd need to put into words better. I really hope they get renewed, there's a magic to this show that I just can't get enough of. That said, amazing work with the editing and writing on this! Diogee is the best and you should say it
I guess it would have been more compelling if Milo were anxious and depressed because he keeps drawing trouble on himself and those around him, and through the show he could gradually grow to adjust to and take advantage of his 'powers'.
wait a minute, weird al, a professional comedy musician guy for like decades at this point worked on this show but wasn't involved in making the majority of songs?
So for a remake: Characters need a goal they try to fulfill through the entire show. Characters need to develop. Make each episode look abnormal (not like they could be background characters), and colorful so if you turned it black and white, the characters wouldn't blend in with the background. Make the humor so based on context that it doesnt make sense outside it and serves as a great inside joke between fans. Make unique music people will remember later. It should be a team effort.
WE'RE GONNA DO IT AGAIN!!
Here is the stuff that I had to cut out of this one! Let's discuss how the Phineas and Ferb effect crossover completely breaks several episodes of that original series, including its greatest episode, Summer Belongs to You!
ua-cam.com/video/w1o-oQhTeUk/v-deo.html
“Nobody’s gonna watch this video”
75k people: “I’m gonna do what’s called a Pro Gamer Move”
15:09 - 15:15 Why is no one talking about how Phineas indirectly confirmed that Newton was forced to invent gravity at gunpoint by the airline industry to monopolize the ability of flight.
Yo! You like Phineas and Ferb AND Club Penguin!! You are a chad
Who here noticed how "Number one" and all the other ones sound very similar to the ten duel commandments from Hamilton
I watched Milo Murphy's law when I had Cable and watched until S2 but I didn't stop watching on purpose it's just cable prices went up from 100 to 300 dollars and so my family instead invested on Netflix and Wi-Fi which was cheaper
I like how one of doof’s backstories is literally just his mother saying “no”
"no."
It was so stupid that even perry went: Wait seriously? That's the only reason?
Doof was my 3rd best male character in any fictional content (2nd being speedwagon or josuke and 1st recently glamrock freddy
Its actually funny to think doof one day just scouring through his past memories to give a reason for him to build an inator to achieve a goal, like what triggers him to remember such memories from the past?
@@haveidonethisbefore What triggers YOU to remember every trauma and failure you've ever had?
He probably stayed up late at night.
“Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” What a perfect summary of how this show turned out.
omg. guys. i think thats the joke! i cracked the code! the whole show is about how a follow up series can never succeed its predecessor!
LMFAOOOOO
@@alamrasyidi4097
Oh my god. It all makes sense now.
Why is everyone being so mean
holy heck
"Y'know, Murphy's Law used to be alot more nuanced and complex. Now stuff just explodes.'
At least they're self-aware...
when zach (maybe milo) said that I remembered that this show was made by dan povenmire
Ah yes, Great Dakota References
@@MarioKartSuperCircuit zach actually.
I mean... I guess Murphy's law did apply
It was really smart starting out. I miss that.
I feel what really ruined Milo Murphy's Law was the fact that eventually they began to rely on the shared universe of Phineas and Ferb too much. Before it was a standalone series but along the way it seemed too desperate to draw in the P&F fans that they forgot how to be their own thing.
Yeah! I liked milo Murphys law after I saw it on Disney+ but then after phineas and ferb were introduced it got boring. Idk if it’s their fault or if I just got bored of the show but it really sucked. It was like they were trying to compensate for a lack of an audience by having them there. And they were, it was so disappointing and obvious.
I did prefer the parts without Phineas and Ferb
the crossover was fine (we kinda need it at least in one way) but the recurring appearances of doof, and many more characters later on in the series contradicts the event from the PnF saga itself, and also Doof kinda “carried” the show instead of the mains. the main plot is just flopped and even doof’s role is kinda annoying in the series.
this exactly!! they couldn't even give the show a chance to stand on it's own.
They were forced into that by the company.
Another thing about the P&F intro is that it established immediately exactly what kind of show it would be; a fun, goofy, semi-fourth wall breaky show about the fairly implausible being made possible in a cool and interesting way. Plus, it established the relationship between Candice and her brothers, a rather integral part of the plot, all within the first minute or so.
It also made me think American kids had 104 days off for the summer holidays.
2000s pop rock for ya
@@rachelcookie321 oh yeah fuck- that's over THREE months??? I barely had 2 in 5th grade!
It basically did everything right
and it’s catchy as fuck. I haven’t watched that show in 10+ years and I still know the theme song.
I feel those people who watch Milo without having seen Phineas & Ferb before would be confused as hell. As much as I love Phineas & Ferb, I think Milo shouldn't have relied too much on Phineas & Ferb characters and references and just focused on being it's own thing.
i watched it knowing near nothing about PnF, like, i cant stand that show, the wild character designs drive me bonkers. The show stands on its own just fine and was better before they shoehorned doof in. I hate doof so much because of it, he took up precious episodes that were supposed to have develoment for Cavendish and Dakota.
When they saw that the show wasn't forming an actual audience, they tried to make people watch it because there were Phineas and Ferb characters in it. It worked a little, as those few episodes have a bit higher ratings, but the series itself still flopped
@@Masatisan Nah milllo is trash compared to P&F
@@pwpqwq7648 they just NEVER promoted it on its own merit to begin with, they hyped it up as being like...a continuation of pnf and it wasnt ever intended to be that, it is 100% a different show, so then season 2 they tried to draw in pnf fans by doing what they thought pnf fans wanted- adding the crossover and letting doof hang around. It was a terrible idea and season 2 suffers greatly for it.
I actually have no interest in watching mml -because- of the inclusion of p&f characters like doof and perry. I really enjoyed the pair in p&f but I feel like they wouldn't have a place in mml and I didn't want to resent them for that or have their characters be ruined by their needless inclusion.
A funny thing they could have done was at the end of every episode would be that after surviving a disaster Milo comes across a small annoyance like his shoe being untied or something that causes some kinda distress to milo
genius
That would be a very funny gag
lmaoo I would have loved that
"Walks away from explosion" aw man my shoe came untied
@@andistansbury4366 *escapes a forest fire* Aw dang, there’s a hole in this vest
Wander Over Yonder actually did a really good job with the endless optimist protagonist. Because they would either show how that opistim can inspire/cause conflict for others, or would become a flaw for wander himself. With his need to help becoming an obsessive compulsion and a detriment to himself and others
i agree i love wander
You're overview of the show without ruining anything in it or spoilers of any kind has convinced me to watch it. Thank you
@@jadis6669 its AMAZING . Probably one of the best shows disney made
This comment made me feel sad, as if millions of fans' voices suddenly cried out in pain and were silenced by Disney's ambitions...
I appreciate you mentioning WoY and may 3rd season be with us... someday... eventually...
:( someday......... someday.@@noatmealcookie02
Wow, Milo accidentally caused so much destruction, he accidently destroyed his own show
Unironically
What can happen will happen
Plot twist: that was the intention the entire time
LMAOOOO
oh
I think Phineas and Ferb being mostly happy and consistent characters the whole time worked because Candace was like the hidden protagonist of the show, she was doing all the development, and in a way the character we’re drawn to. Also the subplot with Perry and Doof. Milo Murphy doesn’t really have those, not as strongly, at least
I think you're right. I'd imagine Spongebob wouldn't be as successful if slightly more serious characters like Mr. Krabs, Squidward and Mrs. Puff were just as happy-go-lucky as Spongebob and Patrick. Their contrast with how happy Spongebob and Patrick always seem makes the show have more depth than just endless "yeah! everyone's just happy and can never get upset woohoo!"
Without any backround character, the protagonist wouldn't have been that way
Actually, the two time-machine guys are basically the sub-plot like Perry the Platypus. Just sayin’.
Phineas and Ferb went through the "Arc of Awesome". We didn't need to see them change because their story was all about how their actions caused the world to change around them. Whereas in Milo Murphy's Law, the story is supposed to be about Milo reacting to external forces caused by his curse, so the fact that these things don't particularly seem to impact him at all makes the whole story feel inconsequential and pointless.
@@DLBBALL Uh SpongeBob gets pissed many times
I guess the ultimate issue for the show was that it was so much more focused on the concept rather than making memorable characters you grow to love.
I was just thinking that this show is a bit like futurama, fry is also very passive and rarely makes things happen himself. Usually things happen to him. However there are many episodes which make you fall in love with fry and feel sorry for him. This milo guy seems plastic
@@DendyJungle Milo was likable, but lacked lovable traits. He was a bit flat. I like your word “plastic” to describe it.
After thinking about it, I remembered one moment of Milo’s character that I liked. It was at a party (a prom, I think), and everything was going wrong and Milo’s friend was actually kind of in danger. And Milo, as far as I remember, got upset and frustrated for a second and coldly fixed the problems, instead of happily, and also carried his friend out of danger. I feel like I also remember him getting kind of upset with someone there who was being mean, maybe some party staff who wouldn’t let him help?
Make a character and you lose the plot.
Dude I love Dakota and Cavendish
I never knew Disney XD was supposed to be the "boys" version of Disney. For me it was 1) Disney's cooler older cousin where the actual cartoons i liked aired and 2) I can't believe they killed Jetix
For me it was, the one that my local cable company had. We somehow didn't had Disney Channel, but Fox Kids/ Jetix/ Disney XD was always there 🤭
This! I just watched Jetix all the time until they replaced it with Disney XD so naturally I continued to watch it instead. I never had Disney Channel, but back then it was mostly all about Hannah Montana and I wasn't into that kind of stuff. The so called "masculine" shows, that was the majority of my favorite stuff to watch. Come to think of it, it kinda still is :D
I didn't know it was made for boys either. I also had no idea that it was a seperate channel to begin with, since the Disney shows that were dubbed into German were all shown together on German cable TV.
I was so pissed off that they replaced Jetix with Disney XD (it's that autistic anger when things change from the way you used to like lol) that I avoided watching it on purpose. Only exceptions were Pucca, Kid VS Kat and Fairly OddParents
I always assumed it was a Teenager version of Disney. For example, You know how Nickelodeon had TeenNick.
Hot Take: Phineas and Ferb's inventions disappearing because of Doof and Perry's interference might be the greatest running gag in history and I don't think people bring enough attention to it
Like think about how there are 189 episodes and nearly all of them use this complicated gag, and it's not like a simpsons couch gag where you just come up with anything. It's a powder keg effect that builds up throughout the episode.
Fr the writing quality for the invention disappearances was uncannily high and consistent
Every destruction was a Rube Goldberg machine that wrapped everyone's story up in a nice bow
thats not a hot take at all
TRUE. It's incredible.
That's not a hot take is facts
if i could change one thing about milo murphy, i would make milo guilty about the chaos he causes. in the show, he's so lighthearted and happy-go-lucky that he lacks empathy.
if he just felt bad for circumstances out of his control, he would immediately be so much more relatable.
Exactly, many of the trope about happy go lucky characters with bad luck at least have said characters aware of and felt bad about the chaos if it happens. Here it just seems like he is detached
At least they could have given him development like Judai.
True
And also actually give milo a goal, like say; he wants to get into his dream collage and is super fixated on that.
The chaos around him constantly sets him back a lot from his studying and his friends getting the boot of Murphy’s law makes him angry, so much that he never really feels happy with himself.
And with that, he starts distancing himself more in later seasons due to studies and his friends getting hurt a lot. My brain can’t think of any more creative ideas for this prompt.
And for a second prompt, the characters could switch from being defensive (Constantly trying to stop something from happening) to offensive (constantly trying to do somethin), while only having a single character be on defensive could be interesting too.
Imagine this, milo and (insert his friends here) are kind of insensitive to the that’s constantly trying to stop bad stuff from happening, and the guy gets so fed up, he confronts them and breaks up with everyone. They all deal with the baggage of learning they are kinda a but crack and stuff happens
Lol you just gave me a thought. What if the reason why he's so lighthearted and happy because he secretly enjoys the destruction he's causing. He lacks empathy because deep down he's a psychopath. Then the show just delves into his psyche and his friends try to either change him or send him to a insane asylum. I know Disney would never show something that dark in a kids show I just thought it would help explain Milo's attitude.
I never really watched Milo Murphy's law, but personally I think the show suffered from a lack of identity. I watched the pilot episode and was immediately hit a overly strong Phineas and Ferb feel. It felt like a show made by two guys who really wanted to continue their previous work but had to move on against their will. Maybe I'm wrong though, but that's my guess, and the introduction of Perry and Doofenshmirtz also confirm that.
I think you right.
Literally the same thing u said. You cant compare a long ass good show with a pilot ... the pilot will always fail especially when the good show resembles the pilot and now ur just straight up comparing the two and once that happened I didn't watched it anymore
That and also when the “Candice vs. The Universe” movie got green lit, they literally put Milo Murphy on hold just to send a good portion of the Milo Murphy team over to work on the movie. They didn’t even hesitate to drop Milo Murphy just to go back to Phineas and Ferb
I watched it a couple times back then and it wasn't all that bad! I just moved on
@@ertosoomg4658 true but we can't lie that's what happened.
I still think it's hilarious this video has over 4 times the viewers than this show's most watched episode.
as someone who hasn't watched a single episode of MML ye twatched this video --
agreed.
To be fair, it was at the time MML started airing that UA-cam commentary finally took its stride and found audience power far higher than anything cable TV could have ever hoped for.
The other thing about Phineas and Ferb is that even though the world was static, their antics and inventions still impacted the world around them in some way that is slightly touched upon in a later episode.
It's also unfortunate that Ducktales 2017, TOH, and Amphibia all came out during that time because it feels a bit obvious the execs were picking and choosing which shows to invest their time in
And then all these shows besides Amphibia gets axed
@@nehizenayoungedo9856 should we give it a look?
@@nehizenayoungedo9856 amphibia is gone soon, Like theyre litearly on earth! Only thing left is 2 Pick up other girls and kick the Nights butt
@@marijamarcelic3149 Yeah but I think that it at least ran its natural course and was the three part story that Matt intended it to be.
Wait whaaaaa?? I thought Ducktales 2017 came a bit later.
As a person who has literally never set an eyeball on Disney channel I can scientifically prove that although XD didn't get good ratings, it has way better shows. C'mon. Ducktales and Gravity Falls win alone.
You’re so right. Although I only really watched it because the Disney Channel didn’t play a lot of cartoons and I exclusively watched XD just because cartoons were playing constantly
Gravity falls ori%inally debuted on Disney Channel before going to Disney XD
well, there's a secret reason WHY Disney XD got lower ratings, when I think they should have gotten higher ratings, and it would make more sense for them to. I don't normally go throwing that secret around all the time, but I think people should know it, especially if they're passionate about cartoons or tv production.
Sorry but gravity falls is DISNEYS not XD where do you think it originated 😂
yeah ducktales kinda sucked after season 2
my girlfriend tried to get me into this show, and honestly, hearing about his dad sounds like that would make for a much better show.
a story about a dude and a town trying to come to terms with this curse, and finding a way to use it productively as a goal is way more interesting than just "a day in the life of a dude responsible for millions of dollars in property damage but no one cares"
Nicely put.
This reminds me of that one Nickelodeon love-action movie, Jinxed
I have always wondered why Family Murphycan survive having 2 memebers damaging everything around them just because they exist.
But I wondered thisabout Phin+Ferb too: ""How can two boys order all that stuff without their parents noticing." I mean somebody as to for it
@nicolek5914 parent might me a better term, his dad sometimes knows but doesn't seem to mind
As someone who watched both shows it's simply because Milo, despite its good quality, was never as funny or engaging as Phineas & Ferb
Yes Exactly!
Yeah, the jokes were pretty lame, and most of the songs were just parodies
basically Milo Murphys Law was overshadowed by Phineas and Ferb
Facts
Absolutely agree.
Don't sell your character designs for 7 dollars, they're worth so much more than that
8 dollars.
@@KeyanCarlile now we're talking, that's big money 😌
@@DC_let_the_Waynes_be_happy Now, you've done it.
@@DC_let_the_Waynes_be_happy ...
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.
2 KROMER
Murphy's Law would have been far, far better if Murphy had reasonable amount of anxiety about the constant random occurrences around him (ie- he is a traumatized nervous wreck). That would be a basic investment- "I have to make sure that nothing goes wrong and messes up whatever mundane thing I am trying to do today". Thus, he has to go on an epic pistachio nuts defeating quest just to make sure he returns a book to the library on time before it is overdue because he doesn't have enough allowance to cover the late fees.
Then, you can add in the fearless and optimistic character as the sidekick that pushes Murphy further along the winding path.
Oh, yes! Absolutely fantastic idea, man! That would solve just about every problem I have with Milo.
@@KeyanCarlile Instead, we get "I have to travel through the sewers and a boat to get to school, but that seems cooler than riding a bus, so I am fine with this".
@@KeyanCarlile And this anxiety could be a source of character growth. He could later perform those mundane tasks without any issue, and he doesn't worry because THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN ALREADY DID HAPPEN. So would could be worse than what happened last time?
This would also allow the writers to avoid retreading past plot points (ie- "wasn't he afraid of doing that before?" when they have to go through a task to continue a future plot).
That's a really good idea!
@@lemeres2478 omg yess! i liked the show but every episode i was hoping for a scene where milo breaks down crying saying he’s only pretending to be happy and in reality he’s really scared or something. i was kinda disappointed when that didn’t happen.
you know where Murphy's Law was handled well? both comedically and story-wise? in Ruby Gloom. the character Misery attracts misfortune everywhere she goes and she's pretty depressed about it, but all her friends still love her in spite of it. especially because in one episode we learn that the sky is always cloudy because of her, so when she leaves, the sun comes out. the very hot, very deadly sun.... so Misery's presence is keeping them all safe actually.
i like ruby gloom
The sun is a deadly laser (in ruby gloom, apparently)
I guess Murphy’s Law was so strong it managed to affect reality itself
holy crap
I wonder if the show would have been better if the main characters were Cavendish and Dakota instead of Milo and his crew. Out of the main cast, C&D are the only ones who look goofy enough to not be mistaken for background characters. They are also the only ones who go through character arcs and have conflicts between each other. You could shift Murphy's Law onto Cavendish, and now the show is about two time travelers trying to complete their assigned missions (that don't always involve pistachios), but one of them is extremely unlucky and always causes them to fail. This premise solves the issue of Milo not having any goals, as the duo will be given a different task each episode, and their over-arching goal is to gain the respect of their boss and get promoted.
If you're wondering why I chose Cavendish to be the cursed one of the duo: there is an episode in which it's revealed that Cavendish frequently suffers deadly accidents, and Dakota uses time travel to save his life everytime. I always thought that this plot point would lead to the reveal that Cavendish is a Murphy from the future, but the writers never expanded on that idea. It just felt like a waste to me.
OOH, and imagine Dakota's main ark of season 1 being the fact that he should accept Cavendish for who he is because he can't help the misfortune and is trying his best, and Cavendish is suffering from guilt for ruining everything! Now there's stakes, there's development, there's conflict, there's ACTUAL CONTENT WTH
I was JUST about to comment how I always cared more about Cavendish and Dakota and felt their story was more compelling. Your comment speaks to me on an emotional level 😭
Interesting!
I love this AU they both carried the show IMO
@@chada4806 fr because i was so happy when they were in a episode, and i cared so much more about their time travel pistachio battle, etc lol
I think this show would have been more interesting If milo actually been trying to end the cycle of Murphy’s law instead of just being resigned to it
I think Milo being USED to Murphy's Law was interesting, but he often just...didn't care about it. Like if he was actively pulling whatever he needed out of his backpack and NEVER ran out of things to use, teaching someone new like Zack how to be prepared for everything that COULD go wrong, and seeing how he outsmarts Murphy's Law after being so used to it to still have a good time - THAT's the story I was expecting and wanted to enjoy. It's still a kid's show, and if it wanted to parallel Phineas and Ferb, it could've had Milo and his friends determined to still have a great day despite everything going wrong around them.
I mean, they ARE trying to just have a great day regardless of the disasters thrown their way a lot of the time. A good example was the game episode where they were playing a board game. Even though Milo never finished a game and Murphy’s Law kept breaking things, the entire family and Neil from the comic shop kept playing the game with their own rules because they were determined to let Milo finish a game and have fun for once. Another example is during the race. Murphy’s Law never let Milo finish the race, but he kept trying anyway because he wanted to have fun. This happens multiple times throughout the show. Milo couldn’t attend the football games because of Murphy’s Law, but one time he goes to have fun because he couldn’t ruin the game and used Murphy’s Law there. He stopped having birthday parties because of Murphy’s Law, but his family decided to surprise him with one anyway.
Those usually turned out to be the best episodes. But a gripe I had was that a lot of the time the characters didn’t really feel like characters. They didn’t have much going for them aside from their interactions with Milo. And even then their interactions are fairly brief because there’s always a lot of action and how Milo gets through the problem, so the side characters are not really given too much attention. So they hardly do anything unless Milo is there. For instance, in the episodes where Zack and Melissa are waiting for Milo to get out of the house (or the elevator), they don’t do anything. They just sit there and maybe once in a while pop up to remind us that they’re waiting still, but they don’t crack any jokes or do an activity while they’re waiting. They just wait in silence. And when we explored what characters did when Milo wasn’t there, it was usually Doof in the second season and the other characters fell into that same trap where we only see how Doof interacts with them, if he does anything except chaos. I get this is Milo Murphy’s show about how his life is different because of Murphy’s Law, but having a breath of fresh air with the other characters does some good sometimes. The episodes where Dakota and Cavendish have their own screen time were pretty fun.
But I think it’s mostly the humor. That’s typically the reason why people don’t like the same shows I do. They just don’t like the jokes I laugh to. Also they don’t like the pacing I like. So what can you do?
I love this show.
“Go Milo, Go Milo, Go!”
“Thanks everybody that’s so motional!”
*motivational
I have to admit, the passiveness of the characters never really got to me until Doof came into the story. For a while it was funny to see his interactions and such, but eventually it just started bugging me that he kind of just became this character that was just well there, he was completely demoted to the role of a gimmick designed to attract an audience
One word: Cavenpuss
the worst thing you can say about a piece of entertainment is that its "bland". entertainment is to evoke emotions. happy, sad, hate, etc. but if they are bland, they are not even evoke enough emotion to make the viewer hate it. that is worst than it being bad. because being bad enough to make people talk trash about it is still better than being forgotten the moment they look away.
*to make the viewer either love it, like it, disgusted by it, hate it or find it weird; also entertainment ain’t supposed to be hated unless if you’re Tom Green, as that is a side effect of either the incompetence of the creator, or simply selfish motives like money
My biggest problem with the second season of Milo Murphy’s Law are the countless fourth wall breaks. They’re good in moderation but after a while they get dull. There was one episode where they used the same one twice.
I still love this show, it definitely deserves a third season.
TBF at rhe end of P&F they were doing a lot of 4th wall jokes, so much that it felt like a fan convention reading not a genuine joke
I would argue that Doof isn't as static as you made him out to be, given his growth as a father figure to Vanessa over the course of the show, giving her the childhood he never had.
When I had found Milo Murphy's Law I honestly thought that the show was brand new but no it had been out for 4 YEARS already. I really enjoyed the show and I still do, it was just *really* unfortunate to see how absolutely no one knew of this show.
Same
I knew of the show when it came out. I watched the first few episodes and lost interest. Looking back, I just wasn't interested in a show where random things fall over and the character who causes it suffers no consequences.
You too? I thought it was just me
vreh, this is the first time I knew about this. xD
Same! I loved it man
As a major fan of this show, I see these a very valid criticisms, as well as a good dive into why the show failed to attract the massive audience Phineas did. I personally would rate the show higher, probably like a 7.5/10 for my personal taste. I thought Milo, though static, was still entertaining, Cavendish and Dakota had a great bromance going, and Diogee deserves all the love in the world. And though the humor and song departments didn't slap as much as Phineas, there were still all-time hilarious gags and catchy tunes (Chop Away at My Heart is one of the greatest songs in any cartoon and I'm not sorry). This show deserved far more love and respect, but it was clear that it was just trapped in it's shell, never quite blossoming to the phenomenon I know it could've been.
I stand by the fact that most of this is Disney higher ups' fault, as a lot of their decisions lately have been downright terrible, which makes Milo's fate suck even more
Good video, dude. First time watching but I like what you've done.
Phineas AND ferb
Oh you have a point there, but I think audience and channel it airs on has something to do with it. Did Milo Murphy's law air on Disney XD, Disney Channel, or both? (i stopped watching Disney networks around 2014 so...). Although Phineas & Ferb was clearly aimed towards everyone, kids probably of all ages (or at least older than 6) with the songs and more colorful vibes to it. It also had that ridiculous humor (like the squirrels in my pants song) that attracts more kids and younger, immature audiences (I mean you don't have to be a kid to have that kind of humor). I mean that it was mostly stupid funny, not funny funny like. Like, the memorable moments like the squirrels in pants song and stuff, it gave the kids something to laugh at you know? Off topic, but I thought the summer belongs to you thing where they parodied Caramelldansen was kinda funny but idk if the majority of kids watching would get that joke. My main point is that I think there was a certain audience for both of the shows and they attracted a different amount of people. Get what I'm trying to say? (btw I dont remember the chop away my heart song LOL 0_0 that sounds kinda heavy)
Even tho I never watched Milo Murphy's Law I feel like it had a little bit more dramatic undertones to it and probably was darker and more mature than Phineas and Ferb. Phineas and Ferb was just chaotic and fun! I feel like when they made the darker cartoons like Gravity Falls, they were smart to put them on Disney XD because the audience for Gravity Falls wouldn't be caught dead watching Disney channel. Like, Gravity Falls is kind of for teens and adults more and has a little bit of a darker side to it (I mean the episodes are a little deeper than Phineas and ferb episodes). Like, a cartoon about to kids finding the mysteries of the secret woods or something doesn't sit to well on the same network with a dumb sitcom where the girl's like "I'm the popular girl cuz i'm a cheerleader" or some crap like that. (Bare with me, I never really watched Gravity Falls either but I seen clips and that show looked like it had some real potential). I'm guessing Milo Murphy's Law and Gravity Falls fit the same audience more, and that's why they belong on Disney XD! If Disney Channel put it on Disney XD it would probably have more of an audience. It seems like more people just like Disney XD anyway, because it appeals to everyone, mostly cartoon fanatics. Disney channel does and always will appeal to 10 year old girls who can't decide between pink or blue lipgoss.
Sorry for my long a** reply but I have too much time on my hands and I'm kind of passionate about the kind of thing with tv channels and target audience (I want to go into tv production in the future, my goals are to make my own kids tv channel)
Chop away at my heart is probably number one on my spotify wrapped this year lol
Chop Away At My Heart? Oh gosh. Oh no. Not again, not again, PLEASE, not again-
*song starts playing in head* "I know you're pining~~"
This song is gonna be stuck in my head for months again, isn't it?
I just dance Chop Away at My heart at my brother’s birthday party🤣
I had an idea while watching this of how the story could be rewritten to be a little more interesting, following the "active character" thing. Namely, making it so instead of people in his family being *born* with the condition, it doesn't surface until they reach age 13, and it disappears when they're 44. Milo, for his part, was born when his dad was 44, meaning he never got to see any of the effects, and thinks it's all just an old folktale made to scare him into "preparing for the worst". Episode 1 takes place on his 13th birthday, and coincidentally the first day of school. Milo brings nothing because he thinks the Murphy's Law condition is a fake, and proceeds to get beaten over the head with his absurd wrongness over the course of the episode. Not wanting to deal with such calamity, he spends the rest of the series trying various plots to get rid of his condition, picking up friends over time (eventually filling out to the full cast). Naturally, he never actually cures it (except maybe in the big finale, that one really comes down to what sort of message the show wants), but in every episode he'd pull out a significant win despite the circumstances. Maybe this isn't enough to fix the show, but I thought it was a cool concept.
Example episode pitch:
Milo goes to a psychic to see if they can fix his condition. Unfortunately, circumstances lead him to a *physician* instead, one Dr. Saikich, pronounced like the pun that allows the most misunderstandings. And indeed, the episode is largely a series of misunderstandings as medical equipment malfunctions, things are misheard, and a series of lab animals go loose in the building. Milo manages to barely contain the calamity, and befriends the doctor afterwards. Sure, his condition isn't fixed, but he has a new friend and the checkup was taken off his bill, so things worked out somewhat well.
This is actually pretty good !
Good idea honestly
honestly, this is a GREAT concept. of course, there need to be more to put it into a show but i think it's a really strong foundation and allows to implement a lot of funny running gags and smartly written jokes
The issue with this is that this completely destroys the main plots of this show, where milo just lives with it to the confusion of the people around him.
@@thevegginonymouspotato4754 well, considering the central thesis of the video, which I generally agree with, is that the main plot of the original show is inherently flawed: yeah, it does
I just remember as a kid the trailers for it only said "wow it's new, from the creators of Phineas and Ferb" and didn't really explain anything about the show or what in the hell Murphy's law was.
Milo is the example of writing the MC as a side character.
This is exactly what I was thinking, he FEELS like the "You never believed in me, Mother" guy from Phineas and Ferb. If he was in every episode the joke would get old.
Even the freaking visual design of the main characters is that of any random generic character in P&F
Good video! And it made me realize why I liked Cavendish and Dakota so much and I didn't feel that same connection with Milo and his friends. Cavendish and Dakota had goals and tried to achieve them while Milo and his friends just, reacted to their surroundings. And something that does bother me is how even though everything can go wrong, will go wrong, everything always turns out fine all the time. One thing that really annoyed me is that in the episode Snow Way Out it almost seemed like they did something new. Milo didn't get to school on time, Melissa lost her bet, things actually went wrong. Until magic time travel saved the day and they magically got to school on time. It kinda makes no sense that Mr. Block let them keep their time vehicle even though they are banned from time travel. And we don't see that vehicle again in Season 2 so they only had it in that one episode for plot convenience.
But whatever, I guess that's one of the reasons why I want another season. Because this show feels like it has a lot of potential if they let their characters develop with the story.
its the formula, its how it works, just like how Pnf's inventions always disappear, doofs plans always fail, and ferb pretty much always only says a few words per episode. Also they didnt even use the vehicle in Snow Way Out (the kids cant drive anyway!), they used their transporter thing, which, knowing Dakota, was probably stolen.
Funnily enough, I prefer milo over the two. I just hear too much Doofenshmirtz in Dakota (literally), and Cavendish is sort of boring for me
Milo's permanent optimism really makes him boring and makes it hard to relate to him. A normal person has ups and downs. Even Phineas and Ferb characters had this to some extent but in MML it's totally lacking.
Right, like Phineas was pretty happy, 24/7 so whenever he got mad, or sad, it was NOTICEABLE
I mean, the thing is...Like, Phineas and Ferb were also perpetual optimists, at heart. They got angry or depressed in specials, but most of the time, take your happiest moment, that's their BASELINE. But it works because, well, they aren't the main characters. Not really. Despite their name being in the title, P&F aren't really the main characters. Most episodes center on the antagonists, namely Candace and Doof. P&F's a-plot doesn't tend to be "about" whatever invention the boys build, it's about Candace trying and failing to bust them. It's like a Looney Tunes gag, Candance the unlucky Coyote to the boy's perpetually-oblivious Roadrunner. Milo is a Roadrunner, but he has no Coyote. His antagonist, for the most part, is just a universe that wants him to suffer. There's no other character to bounce his eternal optimism off of lots of the time.
@@billyweed835 I heavily agree with this too! On top of this, the cast of P&F was much bigger, which allowed for more freshly styled episodes, based around those characters. While we have a somewhat large cast of MML, it's no where as fleshed out, and interesting as P&F
@@billyweed835 Wow, really well said.
@@billyweed835 I'd say Candace is the protagonist and Phineas n' Ferb are side characters despite their names being in the title - Milo is what happens if you took Phineas, jutted Ferb and launched him into the title role.
I honestly loved the show. From the theme to how positive Milo was. Anyone who went through everything he did would be mad or hateful but he was a sweetheart.
Me too! I especially loved Dakota, his many songs of going places and the llama song were stuck in my head for weeks
Hi
@@catsworth633 Hi?
@@kohakufi9glad I’m not the only one who had that song stuck in my head
I really enjoyed how chill everyone was with Milo, like no one got angry at him.
Man, this video is like... all the issues I've had with MML over time actually put into coherent words. I love it.
(No, but really, as much as I love MML, those stake and conflict and character issues really became frustrating over time, so it's fascinating to hear someone else talk about this kinda stuff)
Also glad about someone else pointing out the part about Doof getting so much more of an arc than the MML characters. Honestly it never bothered me (in general) that he was so present later on, more so that all the plotlines he got really just highlighted how bland everyone else is in comparison :') Though less Doof probably wouldn't have resulted in better arcs for everyone else, given the other episodes. Oh well.
Some additional things that have been bothering me about MML personally:
- Songs: Other than all the stuff you already said, P&F also had a lot of, like, songs sung by the actual characters, and at least to me those are usually already more memorable than those by some nondescript offscreen entity (with some exceptions ofc). MML mostly had the latter, and for me those just kinda blended into one another over time. Other than the band stuff (and Elliot, shoutouts to him) MML hardly let the actual characters sing, which really is kind of a shame.
- Character-wise, I think the first couple episodes started off really well, but like you said, they never really did much with some of the characters afterwards. The first couple episodes give off the impression that people like Bradley or Mort are actually going to be pretty relevant characters, especially with kinda setting up Bradley as a foil for Milo and whatnot (same with the Doctor Zone fans like Kris and Wally who were only background cameos after episode 10 or so). Honestly feels like they wanted to get the supporting cast introductions out of the way so they could start focusing on the overarching plot stuff asap :')
- Similarly, the episodes also never really... mixed up the cast for the most part? Most episodes are really just Milo and Zack and Melissa doing something (A Plot wise), but other than Amanda and Elliot, nobody else really becomes the focus of an episode. That one season two episode (that I really can't recall the name of) was great because Mort and Chad actually had a little subplot for themselves, but that's definitely an exception. And yet at the same time they recycled the "Elliot is forced to spend some time with Milo and lowkey warms up to him" plot for multiple episodes while Bradley never got anything like that. Oh well.
- Bradley in general (still my favorite character, love him) was super underused, and even when he got that permanent plant arm, that didn't really matter to anything other than a couple unfunny jokes. Suppose that ties into the part about the characters never really changing or having actual conflict between one another... but man. I was really hoping the plant arm would finally start off some proper arc or development for Bradley (and his relationship with Milo), and all I got was a season of lowkey ableist treatment for this kid that keeps making some later episodes really hard to watch for me because it hits so close to home.
- And a quick little note on character design: Still can't believe they have several instances of characters looking almost the same (Mort and Chad, and Bradley and Kris as well) and yet they aren't even related. Just making them siblings would've made this so much less of an issue, but nah. Let's just have them look alike for no reason whatsoever :')
And yeah, that's all that comes to mind, you pretty much said all the major stuff already. It's true though, as frustrating as some of this is, MML is still a pretty fun show that I'll definitely keep watching if it ever gets continued.
If anyone's still reading this, uh... yeah, Diogee ftw. Good dog.
One thing they should have done with Milo Murphy's Law is do what they did in episode one.
Make Zac the protagonist.
First episode started off with Zac as the new kid, he is confused because everyone avoids Milo and gets roped into his shenanigan's. That was fine, it was fun even. But he got over it too fast and the majority of the episodes focused on Milo himself and not how Zac had to deal with being Milo's friend. He still had his moments, just not enough. Heck we've seen more instances of Milos room, than we have of Zac's whole house.
Wow. You are so right.
@@jinorism It's not a good sign when a weird al Yankavic Character is really bland.
you already wrote a better show then seasoned paid for writers could come up. Like they go and make this show about basically nothing with no stakes. You always knew that if they did get busted, the 2 boys would have gotten into trouble. Yet in this show the main actor literally just shrugs and doesn't care
@@Goremize Ether the characters need to change more or the show should have less stakes. You can't have the world change but the characters stay the same, that makes no sense.
Yeah that would be a great idea. Since we'd be like Zack. All these bizarre things happen around him and the panics. Maybe have him actually avoid Milo in the beginning due to his cautiousness. Meanwhile Milo just makes wants more friends and the stakes get high because he doesn't want his luck to hurt them. Zack growing to be friends with Milo and eventually and changing to the cool headed character throughout the series. Zack Goal would be to keep people from being hurt and things going terribly wrong with new and creative ways.
"i dont remember a lick of that show" "yoo same" proceeds to make a almost 50 minute video about it
They should’ve made Milo the defensive character, Murphy’s law states that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” so he should’ve been constantly making it so that nothing can go wrong and failing at it or being anxious he was gonna inconvenience people with things going wrong
I think Milo being USED to Murphy's Law was interesting, but he often just...didn't care about it. Like if he was actively pulling whatever he needed out of his backpack and NEVER ran out of things to use, teaching someone new like Zack how to be prepared for everything that COULD go wrong, and seeing how he outsmarts Murphy's Law after being so used to it to still have a good time - THAT's the story I was expecting and wanted to enjoy. It's still a kid's show and meant to have an uplifting tone and message, and if it wanted to parallel Phineas and Ferb, it could've had Milo and his friends determined to still have a great day despite everything going wrong around them.
12:47 I totally agree. It's like an extended epilogue, or a season two. They're already confident around Milo's bad luck aura, and we missed the first season where they had to get comfortable with it, or the prologue where Milo himself had to learn to deal with it. Too much conflict, stirred with too little real reason, resolved far too quickly and without any fuss. Without fuss you don't get a good show, unfortunately. I'm still gonna have to binge-watch the whole thing all the way through though.
You could even have him teach others life lessons and go back to ho he learned to deal with that.
Absoultey agree with you 13:17
In Milo Murphy characters are passive, have no clear goals and only react to the plot (unlucky things randomly happening)
In Phineas and Ferb the *story is driven BY the characters*: The kids make a new invention> Candace tries to tell their mom> Perry goes to stop Doofenshmirtz innators> Inventions and innators dissapear> Conclusion which is result of the actions of EVERY CHARACTER.
HOW did the main theme not get stuck in your head it's SO DAMN GOOD!
I forgot about the main theme!! The main theme song is absolutely fantastic.
@@KeyanCarlile The best song in Phineas and Ferb is Ain't Got Rhythm, fight me.
I've never even watched that particular episode in my life (I generally stopped watching cartoons around 6th to 9th grade cuz I was an edgy fart thought that they were for babies, but once Rick and Morty came out, I went straight back into watching nearly the same type of cartoons that I liked growing up (I only watch adult animations like Rick and Morty, Final Space, and Inside Job; and kid's shows with darker themes like Amphibia, DuckTales (need to finish that), and SvtFOE (also need to finish that)), and I still prefer them over other media to this day).
P.S:
With the exception of the first episode and season finale, the first season of Star Vs. doesn't count as part of the series, due to it's ugly ass flash animation and near nonexistence of lore.
@@MDLuffy1234YT wait amphibia has a darker theme?
@@kwz9930 yeah I mean for a Disney show it's relatively dark in season two and the episodes we've gotten in season three
@@MDLuffy1234YT do yourself a favor and…. Don’t finish Star….
Thank you for putting "Waggle Dance" at the bottom of that chart. I was literally thinking today about how rough of a song that was
“The fandom is like seven people.”
Me and my older brother are two of them. ☺️
I genuinely think the premise of the show AND milo being a passive protagonist would’ve worked if they committed more to the idea, making milo more of a force that the antagonist of an episode can play off of, and maybe imply something about milo that tells us more about him, just throw little stuff here n there ya know?
Disney XD is the channel you turn on when you are bored and want to watch Phineas and Ferb reruns.
This is just to accurate lmao
They still have a Disney XD? That's good LOL I thought they got rid of it (i forgot what number it was tho, I actually thought about rewatching some Phineas and Ferb episodes from when I was younger)
also LOL There's a secret but when I was a kid, Disney XD was like the place for the "scrapped" Disney shows. You know, shows they spent too much money on but knew wouldn't succeed (like "Lab Rats" and "I'm in the band") and also tried to pas it off as the boys/gender neutral version of Disney channel, and in some cases later on, a more mature version of Disney channel. The Disney Channel when I was a kid was filled with mostly shows where there's characters that are like "I'm the popular girl and you're a loser cuz you're not a cheerleader like me" and they often tend to be very girly. Not all the sitcoms were like that, but the majority of them were. Disney wanted to break out and make some shows like Gravity Falls and Milo Murphy's law (which I feel like were a little more mature, and not at all girly) so they put them on Disney XD.
Isnt the whole point of the channels is to alleviate boredom?
@@vangler6492 I meant when nothing else is on.
Just found out about and started watching Murphy's Law and I love it because I am a fan of when the actual Murphy's Law actually happens. The chaos of not knowing exactly how an episode will go until it happens- because I choose not to read too deep into kids cartoons usually- is just one reason I love it. Plus, I really enjoy Weird Als' voice acting, too. I can't say that he's the main reason I enjoy the show but it does help
I watched Milo Murphey's Law when it premiered and the words that came out of my mouth was "This is just like Phineas and Ferb but without Phineas and Ferb." The artstyle, the cinematography, the script, all of them were too similar to P&F. If I wanted to watch P&F, I would just watch P&F. By the second episode, I was done with it for this reason. The funny thing is, the fanbase assured me that it wasn't fair to give this critique and that MML was nothing like P&F. Fast forward a few years, and it's revealed MML takes place in the same universe as P&F, what a shocker! I will admit, that overarching plot is pretty unique though.
You nailed it with all those points! I also want to add that a big part of why I dropped the show was because of how unlikable Milo's situation was. Phineas and Ferb were just 2 kids having fun and building crazy things and I wanted to be like them. Same with Gravity falls, Owl House, and Amphibia. All these shows were like an escape from reality for me, but for Milo Murphy's law it just sucked to have that power or be in his situation. So, my engagement with him was passable which slowly whittled away.
I think Milo Murphy's Law should have just been it's own separate thing. I think another aspect that killed it was a lack of unique identity. The show already felt familiar to start with, but it eventually became a Phineas and Ferb reboot, more or less. I do have to wonder if executive meddling had to do with it.
I find it very ironic how the intro of this show has the lyric ‘It’s my world, and we’re all living in it’ when really, Milo & his cast of characters are in the Phineas & Ferb world because they could never escape them.
When you say the art, jokes, and music are bland, I think a better description is "safe." The designs are people, not characters, not even caricatures. The jokes appeal to no one to offend no one. The music exists to fill in the void so no one is challenged. It's all safe, so it's boring.
That’s a really good way to put it.
In a show about Murphy's Law, they aimed everything to make sure they offended nobody, but what could go wrong did, so everything seems bland and is uninteresting
I loved this show so much when it was coming out but the moment P&F references were so much and eventually took over really grind me gears. I wanted Milo to stand on its own and grow to be better but they just made it “P&F featuring Milo Murphy .” It was the nail in the coffin for me
I definitely see what you mean. Milo should have stood on its own feet
@@TheAutisticflynnmurphy Yeah the show could have been way better!
I'm personally of the opinion that MML is, to an extent, what P&F would have devolved into were it allowed to keep doing for another few years. To me, the formulaic plotlines really grew old in the latter half of the show's lifecycle, the songs were bland and forced, Doofenschmirtz's constant blabbering started getting on my nerves and the fanservice'y focus on Phinabella turned what was once a cute pre-teen crush into a full-blown psychotic obsession. I believe the show started going downhill around Across the 2nd Dimension, the series finale was forgettable and last year's Candace movie seemed like John Lennon rising from his grave yelling "I'm still relevant, dammit!". Aside from the botched premise, I think the writers simply ran out of steam. Maybe if they tried their hands at something less quirky and more story-oriented instead, but MML sort of forced them to repeat their P&F schticks ad nauseaum.
The only problem I had with this show is that my naggy adult brain couldn't quite relax into the premise because... it's an objectively bad thing to constantly be destroying yours and everyone else's environment and it was super weird to me how the show kept going out of its way to villainize anyone who acknowledged this??? Like, in Phineas and Ferb, we see the mess neatly and immediately being taken care of and it's clear that the actions of the protagonists don't negatively effect anyone. That's why we aren't on Candace's side; the boys' actions seem harmless.
Whereas Milo seems to just make huge messes and bounce and we do see people kinda go "aw fuck now i need to deal with the fallout of this". Which made me be kinda annoyed when Milo is just like "Why would I try to stop it? I'M having fun". Maybe that's why people resonated more with like the security guard character because... he has a point. Even if there's no real danger, who wants to live somewhere that's constantly falling apart?
And like am I really supposed to be against the people who avoid Milo? I feel like if I were in this universe, I would also not be ok with the situation. Phineas's friends get to come to his house and participate in whatever he's doing. No one around Milo exactly gets to consent to being dragged into chaos on a daily basis. Like no matter how fun and exciting the adventure is, if you had to endure that every day with no choice to abstain, it would be exhausting. Everyone's eventual "this is fine and actually preferable" attitude about it actually boggles my mind.
Anyway, like I said, adult brain. I still really really enjoyed the show, but this aspect never stopped bothering me.
yeah. it also annoyed me how Milo literally never showed remorse for the chaos he caused. especially in the first episode when he was like, “you want to go on the boring bus instead of being stressed out and scared on your first day of school??? lmao lame. this chaotic situation is so much cooler.” like, not everyone is like you, milo 🤷♀️
@@tuopsy Wow, Milo is like that? I hate it when people try to force others to enjoy their “fun” even if it’s something that can’t be controlled.
@@tuopsy Silent people can still be stressed out of their minds and pretend to be cool about it, maybe too stressed to think about others, I've been in this state and it causes chaos and disarray in my life too much stress makes it hard to avoid stress. the show's Murphy's Law could be taken as an allegory to this cycle, chaos leads to stress, stress leads to disorganization, and disorganization leads to stress. Milo's attitude reminds me of myself back in middle, try and stay calm to stay cool to stay afloat, a deeply flawed mantra.
@@tuopsy I think the lyrics to the opening kinda sum up why milo is like that. “It’s MY world and we’re all living in it.”
You put it perfectly. That's quite literally everything I think/want to say. Just the property damage alone irked me and I'm not even an adult yet. I got used to it but still.
Phineas and Ferb's weird designs are the reason why I kept coming back to watch the show back in 2012, it's so weird you just can't help but look at it and what makes it even better is that the show is weird af, and I love it.
I remember seeing a trailer for this show once, I immediately got that „there’s a big hole“ feeling to it. Something felt missing, very big.
And even when I was younger there I knew it would have ended this way
Me too, like it was pieces of P&F and some other show idea cobbled together.
Felt the same way. In fact I figured that it was a aimless/simplified version of Phineus and Ferb and forgot about it til recently
Milo Murphy's law feels like if family guy tried making a Phineas and Ferb punchline by making a parody of it, but as an entire show
I feel Milo's should have been the inverse of Phineas and Ferb. Where the boys want to make the most of summer, Milo wants to have a normal school year.
To make Milo less passive, he should have been in constant fear of Murphy's Law acting up so when somethinh crazy does happen Milo will have the goal of getting everything back to normal rather than just letting the crazy stuff happen.
Completely agree. Man vs. Nature only works when the forces of nature are actually inconvenient.
That premise reminds me of the show Saiki K
@@KronosOGAccount I wasn't mentioning saiki k from a "man v nature" perspective, I was mentioning saiki k from a "all this crazy shit is happening around me and i just want to live a normal life for once" perspective, in response to the original commenter's idea.
@@KronosOGAccount ill count it as a team effort :P
that actually sounds interesting. having a neurotic character as the main protagonist of a disney series instead of the butt monkey or comedy relief (cough cough CANDICE) would definitely set a different tone for a series
You know I think I watched this show so much because it's my comfort show. What's more comforting than a show where nothing ever TRULY goes wrong and everyone is kind to each other??
So... this video inspired me to do a concept. I haven't watched MML all the way through but hear me out:
What if they made the law itself more of the main antagonist.
So. What if the gang (through a way I don't know yet) discovered that Milo's life is so crazy because of a curse put on one of his ancestors (Maybe the original Milo Murphy himself idk). And so throughout the years this little curse went from being small inconveniences to what it is now. Except suddenly there stops being that "and everything went back to normal" ending. Like the curse starts to become more and more dangerous until it actually causes one of Murphy's friend to get injured (maybe put in a cast or something) Riddled with guilt, Murphy decides that he doesn't want this life anymore if it would put his friend in danger so the team goes on a hunt for a cure going deep into the curse of the law to try and find it's TRUE cause. And maybe the pupper turns out to be another secret agent of a WAAAY more high tech agency (maybe they are involved in time travel too idk) and was task to insure Milo's safety which explains why no matter where they are the pupper always finds them. Why didn't he reveal himself it Perry? Because they are the better agent of course sworn not to reveal themselves to anyone outside of their own agency.
Of course the curse is trying every way to stop them kind of like how the "invisible force" stopped Candice from busting Phineas and Ferb. And its like them vs the forces of nature type deal.
Yes! That would be so much better than what it wound up being.
Everyone in the comments is making much better plots in like 10 minutes than these professionals who spent hours on it.
@@rachelcookie321 so true lol
yall got me out here wanting to re-write the entire show LMAO
That's the movie jinxed
Your Minecraft Skin Character Design Theory joke is actually grounded in reality, there's a character design test where you reduce characters down to nothing but a rectangle with colored lines and see if it's still recognizable
I’m shocked that this show has Weird Al and he didn’t write songs for the show. I feel like that could’ve really helped the musicality in some way
Well, that's true, but you can't say that the songs didn't slap already!
@@mikethegoo yea but they would be even more cool with werid al so writing them
My takeaway from this video, at roughly the 20 minute mark, is that this show would be better if it had starred Cavendish and Dakota, while Milo and his antics were in the background interfering.
I just want their convoluted time travel story to defeat the evil pistachios so Mark Hamill can stop yelling at them.
TBH my favorite part of the show was Dakota and Cavendish
24:33 I feel like the summer belongs to you special of PaF did really well, with the joke towards the end with phinese being all happy and cherry about the bikes, but when candice refuses to ride a trike, phinese screams, "GET IN THE TRIKE!" That works really well for such the calm character.
I definitely agree, it was also kinda funny 😂
As someone who has never watched either of these shows, but keeps getting sucked into videos like this because of my Ducktales 2017 obsession, I feel like the biggest thing holding this show back at the conceptual level is the fact that Milo has already mastered his curse. How can he grow as a character when the single biggest source of conflict in his life has already been conquered?
If we could turn back time and remake this show from the ground up, I would have Milo get his bad luck in the first episode and have to learn to live with it and work around it. And tie it into Cavandish and Dakota's time-travel shenanigans too. Maybe their time machine runs on something like the Improbability Drive, and Milo gets hit by a face-full of improbability exhaust. Maybe he tries to act like nothing's wrong and gets someone he cares deeply about (like his older sister) badly injured, motivating him to face it head on. Maybe he was a very adventurous kid beforehand and has to learn how to turn his backpack full of gear meant for hiking and rock climbing and white-water rafting into a means of protecting himself.
Milo could still be the same optimistic, cheerful character he always was, and most of the "everyone gets along" character dynamics could stay the same. But now, they have a goal, something to work towards, and something to inject conflict and to drive the story forward. Each episode could center around something specific going wrong and the main cast's attempts to find ways to add failsafes or find something in Milo's bag of tricks to keep him and everyone around him safe.
I could go on, but I think I've made my point. A show's basic is flawed because we meet Milo *after* he's gone through character development and conquered his biggest challenge.
This is a freaking *fantastic* idea, OMG. If the show was rewritten like this, it would have been 10x better.
Isn’t it kinda like one punch man in that case though
I think Dave povinmire said it himself Phineas and Ferb arnt the main character's Candace is,she is the one who struggles and goes though kind of an ark through the show
You just perfectly rewrote the show!
The failsafes could be pretty educational too. Like every episode could be about learning/enhancing a skill or how and when to use various tools.
I'm so glad you mention conflict. A lot of cartoons lately have this issue. A set of main characters who have no conflict and no disagreements are one of the most boring things you can have. It's unrealistic, it's too safe. And if they do, the bad characters are painted in broad strokes. (The bully archetypes used in Amphibia, Ghost and Molly Mcgee etc) More to the point, I just can't stand characters who always agree because the writers then have to rely on the events of an episode to carry both the stakes AND the emotional weight. A burden built for sturdier shoulders...
Completely agree.
Owl House doesn't fall into this I'd say because Amity is a main character that develops over time. Amphibia seemed like it was doing something with Marcy lying about what she was gonna use the music box for. But yeah a lot of Disney cartoons have this issue.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I do like Amity. But her initial personality and her eventual arc seemed so predictable to me. But that's not really a valid criticism on my part. Something can be predictable yet still completely engaging, some of my favorite shows are filled with cliches
I think you should watch the show Final Space if you haven’t already! It’s got great characters and character building!
Trying so hard to watch Yasiahmie but all of the charcaters have zero motivation and no conflict and are all boring just like this
I literally still have Phineas and Ferb songs stuck in my head the fact that mml ones don't stand out is such a shame
I love both series of dan and jeff, Milo has his own essence, I love the well-defined personalities of milo, melissa and zack, I love the chemistry between dakota and cavendish, but I saw the incorporation of doof unnecessary at least it could be a cameo regular but not a recurring character.
The series had the potential to be as important as Phineas and Ferb, I don't understand why Disney didn't give the same importance to his predecessor. The second season improves many things and feels even more epic and incredible.
I remain hopeful that it will have a third season, the series deserves
This was a great and humorous analysis, and I loved the line about how "music is fake, like NFT's"
I have to argue one point - but not about Milo Murphy's law! As a composer and musician myself, in my opinion, you're actually in a great position to critique music.
When you're making music for the masses, the goal is almost never to impress everyone with the immense technical complexity of it. It's to make something that sounds good and that people will want to listen to over and over again. Take Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk" for example. The entire song is pretty much 2 chords - very, very simple to play. Yet it blew up! Sure, at a deeper levels there's more explanations as to why it's a banger, but those explanations didn't matter to the vast majority - everyone could feel how catchy it was.
The easiest tell for a song truly being great is when everyone enjoys it, regardless of their musical background. And when someone with no musical background tells a musician that their sound is amazing, it's one of the greatest compliments we can receive - it's feedback about the feeling and vibes our creations evoke. In a sense, how "good" they truly are. So please, always air your opinions on when a song slaps!
I hate pop music because of how simple the beats are and overly repeated lyrics, it's really the hooks that sell those songs. If you listen to them instrumentally, they are so boring. They are some musicians in pop that can write more complex instrumentals but that's far from the many.
It not even pop music, ongs can be amazing, if not the most complicated , but really fun and catchy, with 3 cords.
I dont disagree most pop music isnt that, but 3 cords can have incredibly good music,. emphasis on can, an what youadd to it otherwise. I love die ärzte and they are adding a lot clever text and fun .
I dont like most pop music either but 3 cords can give a really good background for a song.
As an unprofessional musician myself, I definitely agree that it’s not just about the complexity.
I like songs (such as Uptown Funk) that are simple enough to easily get the hang of it, learn it, and be able to quickly start singing along and jamming out to it. BUT, don't make it just a broken record (Like that stupid 'Santa Baby' song, that thing drives me insane)
It's like how Oreo makes such good cookies, you don't need to be a baker to enjoy them.
Milo Murphy’s law is very sentimental to me, it started airing around when I was middle school and I grew with the show. I showed up for every episode, even if it wasn’t the best, I sang rooting for the enemy all the time, I was invested in the story and patiently waited for the next episode, I even laughed at what you considered bad jokes, because, sometimes I find weird things funny.Milo Murphy’s law is one of if not my favorite show, and I wouldn’t be the same without it. You may look at the character writing and call them static unchanging nobodies, but they’re my nobodies, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
For me, while I enjoyed MML at first, I couldn't really... connect with it the way I did with Phineas and Ferb. After watching your breakdown, I think it comes down to a combination of all the factors you mentioned, but most predominantly "There Are No Stakes" and "Milo Is a Passive Protagonist." Especially the latter. As I kept watching the first season back when it was airing, I kept yearning for more of an emotional range from Milo besides "unflappable calm optimism and acceptance." And I mean, don't get me wrong, that kind of personality is fun, and I love the character for his sweet and optimistic personality even in the face of all the crap that happens, but he's still only human. No one should have to deal with what he does on a daily basis. Milo is literally a walking jinx. The poor kid can never have nice things because they get destroyed. No one wants to hang out with him for fear of getting horribly maimed. He's in the hospital so much that he has to have special dispensation from his doctor to not be held back since he misses so much school. Heck, has anyone ever died from the accidents that happen when Milo's around? It wouldn't surprise me if there's been fatalities.
Even the most optimistic and laid-back person must have their bad days when faced with a life like that. Hell, even Phineas had his limits in P+F. What are Milo's? What would it take for him to get genuinely upset? Sad? Scared? Frustrated? Angry? We never find out, and as a result, Milo feels like a static, two-dimensional protagonist with all the emotional depth and complexity of a teaspoon, and the other characters, as far as I can tell, aren't really that much better. Yes, Sara is a wonderful big sister, and I love her for that, but I don't feel like I *know* her the way I know all the different facets of Candace's personality, like her crush on Jeremy, her friendship with Stacy, her love of Ducky Momo, her skill with music and instruments, etc. Say what you will about how cartoonish P+F's 5 main protagonists acted most of the time, they at least felt like they had layers to their personalities, and displayed a range of complex and diverse emotions and interests occasionally. The show certainly isn't *deep* or particularly thought-provoking, but the characters feel fun and believable and real in their own way.
So for me, I think that is why I ultimately lost interest in MML. P+F was about two brothers and their friends going out, changing the world for the better, and living their lives to the fullest, while MML is about the universe constantly trying to screw over this one poor kid in particular who never reacts believably to the horrible things that happen to and around him. One feels fun and empowering, while the other is just... really kind of sad, if you really think about it for too long. I still respect MML for what it tried to be and tried to do, but I just think the execution was... lacking.
I agree with most of the stuff you've said here, but I just wanna point out about the dying part that a running gag throughout season 1 was Cavendish dying to things and Dakota going back in time to stop it from canonically happening, and one of these deaths was implied to be a toboggan that Milo accidentally sent charging across the street attached to a rocket. So yeah, it seems that Murphy's Law has definitely caused some fatalities, and I for one am surprised about how unfazed he is about this.
uiu
Im too damn lazy to read all of that, but i agree
Youre right. When phoineas got upset (especially ayt candace) it was genuinely shocking at raised the stakes of the situation for me. Phineas is generally mild mannered and optimistic seeing a character like that be genuinely upset or lose all hope really changed the scope of the situation of the episode and made it more impactful
SO HERE FOR THIS!!!! Time to get that MML content fix
Didn't expect to see you here, though in hindsight it should've been kind of obvious, love your videos though
The man himself
What this show needed more was Bradley. A character who has a complains about and fears Milo's destruction while trying to date Milo's best friend has a good dynamic.
As someone who's only maybe two years older than you, that you have not seen Kim Possible is hard to believe. It kicked off the career of Dave Filoni, who is now in charge of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and is one of my fondest childhood memories.
Even though I haven’t been in that fanbase in years, they are still like the nicest fanbase I’ve ever experienced. They just really love the show and want to share it with others
The main thing- THE MAIN THING- that would’ve made this show more appealing to me is if Milo as well as the antagonistic characters were dynamic and changed with the environment. Everyone else could remain static (on the surface), but not him. He grows tired of his state as a walking lightning rod and seeks to fix it, he delves to the point of near-insanity in the process. With every episode, you see him smile less and less. You might even have him close to snapping until his friends pull him out of it, agree to stick with him and they can face this all together.
Jesus christ its supposed to be a kids show not a fucking creepypasta
That shit sounds depressing asf. I mean it does sound interesting but I don't think it's right for children
Imo, this wouldnt have worked because afaik Milo has lived with this bad luck his entire life, so unless a certain event acts as a catalyst for it , like someone getting hurt, there would be no reason for Milo to get depressed about it at this point
@@EvanChu0815 Everything is relative, so Milo would definitely be the least affected by Murphy's Law because he's been adapting to it all his life. It didn't just appear one day or gradually make things worse and worse, it's just *there.* That's where the catalyst or a gradual buildup of actually bad things happening would be great and make the show more interesting.
Kids show???
I got into Milo straight into high school, and I was OBSESSED. I can definitely recognize the flaws you mentioned, though, and I think being so deep into the fandom...all 7 people in it...kind of blinded me to its greater flaws for a long time, because I kind of saw what "could" be instead of what there was. I always thought of Murphy's Law as being textual coding for a disability of sorts, beyond Milo's perception as a neurodivergent character (runs in the family, heavily stigmatized by those who aren't used to it and even those who are aren't always the most sensitive about it, Diogee could even interpreted as a therapy animal given how he follows Milo around and solves problems for him) and I kind of hoped it was intentional in some nuanced way, but even in that haze of fascination, I always thought Bradley would be more....relevant?
This was kind of a pointless rant about feelings I've had since 2016, and I'm glad I have a place to actually talk about them, but I also sincerely enjoyed your video and your exploration of the topic! I hope you can talk about it more some time!
This person's opinion is correct purely because of their Mob Psycho 100 profile
That might be reading a little too much into the show and it's themes, but it's not a bad fan theory and if it helped you in some way to see the show that way, more power to you.
fellow neurodivergent 2016 milo murphy's law obsessed person in the comments..... god i wish diogee was canonically his guide dog
Most of the problems you have pointed out in this vid was caused by the writers rushing in to MML right after phineas and ferb, making it so that they didn't have time to get used to the new story style.
Honestly just the concept of a show that’s like: “two friends are absolutely horrified and messed with because this guy has insane bad luck” or something, even that by itself sounds interresting.
Honestly, this series would have worked as a series of shorts. 5 minute episodes to see how much shit can go wrong in a short time frame
Oh yeah, Milo existed. I remember maybe watching two episodes and just... forgetting about it. And the big difference that stood out to me was lack of actual premise for the show. I mean, fine, dude is unlucky and bad stuff happens to him. But what does he do? What pushes the episodes forward? P&F is about two kids who build unimaginable things every day. B story is their sister trying to catch them because she believes what they do is dangerous and stuff. And there's even a c story about a platypus fighting a pharmacist. And whenever I heard the intro song, I knew what I was about to see. But Milo? He's unlucky and that's it. There is no starting point and no goal in that premise. And then despite everything supposedly going wrong, nothing actually goes wrong. Just unexpected. So there goes the premise.
I only ever saw a couple episodes too and I just found it boring. The characters didn’t have much personality, there didn’t seem to be really a goal of the series and Milo was just an unlikable character.
Once you get deeper into the show they start building an actual plot from episode to episode with one overall conflict. I found the show to be fairly enjoyable but definitely a letdown from PnF, which is not surprising considering the standard. A lot of the characters aren't memorable outside of Dakota and Cavendish and every episode does feel like the plot is kinda random. Like stuff just happens on the screen and then the episode is over. Idk, overall I liked the show a lot, but it was definitely not on the level of PnF.
I kinda feel the opposite, Phineas and Ferb had no driving force because you could watch the episodes in any order and it wouldn't change a thing, while MML had a story arc
26:18, I don't know why, but this shot of our main trio in ball outfits, having this wide-eyed "Just a bit negatively surprised" face expressions, in front of a giant sign that says "The music is bland" is pretty funny to me. 😂
the funniest part is your designs are actually way more interesting and eye catching than what they had.
I didn't care about Dakota until he put on the dodecahedron.
I remember blatantly not being interested in MML when it first came out. I did really have access to the show but I wasn't going out of my way to see what it was. I discovered this show back in 2020 when I was in college. I put it on out of curiosity and pretty much fell in love. For the most part it was background filler but I would go back and watch episodes and I liked the overall pitch of the show. My favorite part of the show is the dry humor. Yes it comes from everywhere but I love random zingers. I also love the storyline element of the show. Is it the best show ever, no, but its fun and worth at least a wrap up special or season.
yess~
They should've introduced milo as a character on phineas and ferb and then made him a part of the cast in later seasons so that it would feel like passing the torch kinda thing
Wow, even the show cant escape Murphey's law
i enjoyed milo murphy’s law, and i’ll be honest i usually get defensive when i see critiques of shows i like.. But this is super thoughtful and i have to agree with all of your points!
SAME
No!
shdufsf hey Grace
and same here!
This video is freaking my bean cuz like, I LOVE MML. I frequently rewatch the whole show every few months and never get tired of it. And I can see your arguments are mostly valid, and I'm usually very picky about my entertainment, but something about this one just works in a way I'd need to put into words better. I really hope they get renewed, there's a magic to this show that I just can't get enough of. That said, amazing work with the editing and writing on this! Diogee is the best and you should say it
I guess it would have been more compelling if Milo were anxious and depressed because he keeps drawing trouble on himself and those around him, and through the show he could gradually grow to adjust to and take advantage of his 'powers'.
THIS! And it would have been more relatable to the audience.
this! or maybe he distance!s himself and every episode tries to avoid things but they just happen!
"No one's gonna watch this video in the first place" 2.4M views 2 years later, that is wildly impressive great video!
wait a minute, weird al, a professional comedy musician guy for like
decades at this point
worked on this show
but wasn't involved in making the majority of songs?
The fact that it wasn't revealed at the end that Dioje was secret agent is by far the greatest injustice in this show
So for a remake:
Characters need a goal they try to fulfill through the entire show.
Characters need to develop.
Make each episode look abnormal (not like they could be background characters), and colorful so if you turned it black and white, the characters wouldn't blend in with the background.
Make the humor so based on context that it doesnt make sense outside it and serves as a great inside joke between fans.
Make unique music people will remember later. It should be a team effort.