Background and career
Dan Povenmire ( POV-ən-mire; born September 18, 1963) is an American animator, voice actor, writer, director, songwriter and producer. With Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, Povenmire co-created the Disney animated series Phineas and Ferb, where he voices Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. He also created Milo Murphy's Law and Hamster & Gretel. Povenmire has worked on several animated television series including Hey Arnold!, The Simpsons, Rocko's Modern Life, and SpongeBob SquarePants. He was a director on the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy, where he was nominated for an Annie Award in 2005. He left the series to co-create Phineas and Ferb, for which he has received several award nominations. Following the initial conclusion of Phineas and Ferb, he and Marsh created and produced a second show for Disney titled Milo Murphy's Law, which premiered in 2016. In 2020, the duo made a second Phineas and Ferb film, Candace Against the Universe. The same year, he announced a new series for Disney titled Hamster & Gretel, which premiered in 2022.
Povenmire was born on September 18, 1963, in Santa Ana, California, and grew up in Mobile, Alabama. He had an interest in cartoons as a little kid. A child prodigy, he began drawing at age two; by the time he was ten, his work was displayed in local art shows. His first efforts in animation included a series of flip books that he produced in his school text books. As a child, Povenmire considered animator Chuck Jones and Tex Avery his heroes; in a 2009 interview, he stated that "every drawing he did was beautiful to look at and had so much life in it". The works of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki were also an early influence on Povenmire's style. UPA's style influences his geometric designs. Povenmire received his secondary education at Shaw High School in Mobile, which is now a middle school called Clark-Shaw Magnet School of Math, Science, and Technology. Initially, he attended the University of South Alabama, where he created his first popular comic strip, Life Is a Fish, devoted to the life of Herman the goldfish and the college students he lives with. Povenmire also supported himself as a waiter and performer at a dinner theater. In 1985, he transferred to the University of Southern California (USC), planning to pursue a career in film. Soon after arriving at USC, he pitched Life Is a Fish to Mark Ordesky, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Trojan, the university newspaper. Ordesky first "basically brushed [him] off", but, after viewing Povenmire's portfolio, accepted the strip. Fish ran daily in the paper. Though the rapid pace left Povenmire afraid he was "running out of ideas", he never missed a deadline and made $14,000 a year through Fish merchandise, which included T-shirts, books, and calendars sold at the campus craft fair. The discipline of regular production also helped teach Povenmire to "represent something in the least amount of lines".
Povenmire left USC without finishing the degree requirements, and used the money from Fish merchandise to fund a short-lived career as a street artist. His first professional animation commission came on the Tommy Chong project Far Out Man, for which Povenmire produced two minutes of animation. By age 24, Povenmire was freelancing on several animated television series, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-Men: The Animated Series. In 1989, he appeared in a small role as a band member in Adam Sandler's first film, Going Overboard.
In the 1990s, Povenmire secured a job as a character layout animator on the hit animated series The Simpsons. His desk placed him opposite Jeffrey Marsh, another up-and-coming animator. They shared similar tastes in humor and music, and later became colleagues on other projects. Povenmire's experience, from both previous industry work and from his own projects, earned him respect at The Simpsons. He worked on layout animation and collaborated on storyboard production for the series, recalling later that staff were handed pages of production notes and instructed to "Do the [creative consultant] Brad Bird notes and any others that make sense." He maintained a side interest in film, writing scripts and the screenplay for a low-budget horror movie, Psycho Cop 2. The movie's producers offered Povenmire the opportunity to direct the film, but its terms required that he quit The Simpsons. Povenmire chose to stay with The Simpsons, which he enjoyed and considered a better fit with his future ambitions. Rif Coogan ended up directing the picture instead.
Work on The Simpsons involved an irregular schedule. The producers laid off the animation staff for two-to-three-month periods, and rehired the staff later in the production cycle. During one of these layoffs, Povenmire found a temporary job on the series Rocko's Modern Life, Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. The show's creator, television newcomer Joe Murray, hired Povenmire solely on the strength of his Life is a Fish comic strips, which proved he could both write and draw. Though Povenmire started on Rocko simply to occupy his downtime from The Simpsons, he found the greater creative freedom he enjoyed on his temporary job compelling, and quit The Simpsons to work on Rocko full-time. There, he reunited with Jeff Marsh, this time as a writing partner; Marsh claimed the crew hoped Povenmire's neatness would offset his own sloppy storyboarding. The pair developed a distinctive style characterized by characteristic musical numbers and chase scenes. Povenmire and Marsh won an Environmental Achievement Award for a 1996 Rocko episode they had written. In addition in their time on Rocko, the duo would work for a few Ren & Stimpy episodes, such as "Stupid Sidekick Union" and "Big Flakes", as additional storyboard artist, working alongside future Madagascar creator Tom McGrath, who had done main storyboards for the episode. Once production for Rocko had ended, Povenmire would work as storyboard for Hey Arnold! and writer for The Angry Beavers, as well as both storyboard and writer for CatDog for a brief while.
Povenmire would eventually rejoin the Fox Network to briefly work on King of the Hill (of which his friend Jeff Marsh had also worked on). During that same time, he would be promoted as storyboard artist, designer, and director for a show called Family Guy, starting with the season two episode "Road to Rhode Island". Creator Seth MacFarlane granted Povenmire substantial creative freedom. Povenmire recalled that MacFarlane would tell him "We've got two minutes to fill. Give me some visual gags. Do whatever you want. I trust you." Povenmire praised MacFarlane's management style for letting him "have [...] fun." Povenmire brought realism and material from his own experiences to the visual direction of Family Guy. For "One If by Clam, Two If by Sea" (August 1, 2001), several characters demonstrate Fosse-like moves in prison. To correctly depict the moves, Povenmire asked color artist Cynthia MacIntosh, who had been a professional dancer, to strike poses so he could properly illustrate the sequence. In the episode "To Love and Die in Dixie" (November 15, 2001), Povenmire drew on his childhood in the Deep South to create and sequence a background scene in which the redneck character nonchalantly kicks a corpse into the nearby river. "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows" (January 17, 2002), a Family Guy episode which Povenmire directed, won the Emmy Award for Best Song. Creator MacFarlane, the recipient of the award, noted that Povenmire deserved to have received the award for the contribution the visuals made to the episode's win. Povenmire responded in jest, "That's a nice sentiment and all, but did he offer to give me his? No! And it's not like he doesn't already have two of his own just sitting in his house!" Povenmire was nominated for an Annie Award for Directing in an Animated Television Production for the episode "PTV" (November 6, 2005) but lost out to a fellow Family Guy director, Peter Shin, who had directed the episode "North by North Quahog". Povenmire and several others were also nominated for their work on "PTV" in the Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category at the Primetime Emmy Awards. Povenmire also received the same nomination for "Road to Rhode Island." During Family Guy's brief cancellation, Povenmire was offered a job as storyboard director of the series SpongeBob SquarePants. He would also work on both shows Futurama and American Dad!, as well as returning to The Simpsons, during that timeframe. He also became a writer for the show, writing the season 2 episodes "Graveyard Shift", "The Fry Cook Games" and "Sandy, SpongeBob and the Worm", all of which premiered on Nickelodeon between 2001 and 2002. He also wrote "The Campfire Song Song" for the Season 3 episode "The Camping Episode", for which he was also a storyboard director on alongside Jay Lender (April 3, 2004).
