Phineas and Ferb Wiki:Newsletter submissions/The Numbers Game Looks Back: Volume Zero

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Hello everyone and welcome! As we all know, there were two new episodes that aired on Emoticon last week. Unfortunately, due to a combination of airing on a lower-rated network and doing so over a holiday weekend, The Numbers Game does not in fact have some numbers from either "Tales from the Resistance: Back to the 2nd Dimension" or "Doof 101" to talk about this issue. So we have to move on to Plan B.

And fortunately, that Plan B is a doozy. Welcome to the newsletter column (and blog before that) that has been your home for U.S. Phineas and Ferb ratings news, breaking down the numbers of our favorite show for over five years. This issue, join The Numbers Game in celebrating this momentous occasion as we look back past even the earliest volumes to an episode that spawned the since-deleted Show News blog that started it all.

The "Phineas and Ferb Musical Cliptastic Countdown" hit the Disney Channel airwaves as part of Season 2 on Friday, October 16, 2009. 4.449 million viewers did what it said, setting a new high-water mark for Phineas and Ferb by 9 percent. And even since then, that figure has only ever been topped by Across the 2nd Dimension and its 7.642 million viewers (live + same day), "Christmas Vacation!" at 5.213 million, and "My Fair Goalie" at 4.650 million. For the week, it finished 4th among Disney Channel programming behind Hannah Montana, The Suite Life on Deck and Wizards of Waverly Place, 6th among scripted cable programming, and my best guess would put it somewhere in the 10-15 range in the then-Cable Top 20.

As one might expect, the episode gained considerable success among its target age groups. The Countdown fared best among Kids 6-11, where an 8.5 rating propelled it to the No. 2 spot for the week, falling about 5 percent short of Hannah Montana for the top spot. Among Tweens 9-14, it scored a 6.4 age group rating, falling behind The Suite Life as well for a likely No. 4 finish on the week.

With the holidays approaching, Phineas and Ferb has a light schedule for the next few weeks. But if you haven't seen it recently, we cannot recommend "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation!" highly enough - check your local listings and give it another watch. And the second Christmas episode is no slouch either - The Numbers Game will take a look back at "A Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas" next issue. Until then, leave your comments down below, and remember that then, now, and hopefully for many more issues to come...the numbers never lie.

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