User blog:Ryan Stoppable/The Numbers Game - Two Wondrous Weekends (Part 1)

*** The Numbers Game *** By Ryan Stoppable From deep beneath what will be oodles of snow by tonight, welcome to Volume 2 of The Numbers Game, your home for U.S. Phineas and Ferb ratings news.

We begin this week with Sunday night's Disney XD premiere of "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation!" It was seen by 2.623 million total viewers, becoming the most-watched program in the 11 year history of the channel formerly known as Toon Disney, and ranking #3 amongst all cable in its time slot. Considering they really didn't promote the XD premiere that much outside of XD, and that the channel is available in about 20% fewer homes than its bigger sibling, that's quite impressive. Furthermore, it's gotten as high as #11 on the best-selling TV episodes on iTunes!

Meanwhile, Friday's new episode on, "Picture This / Nerdy Dancin'", was unable to crack the top 25 cable shows for the week. Between that and Disney Channel's silence, which speaks volumes about their utter ratings humilitation at 's hands, I don't have an exact number. What we do know is that it got less than 4.1 million viewers (the cutoff for the Top 25), meaning it was down from "The Bully Code / Finding Mary McGuffin", and wasn't the top animated cable show this week (a SpongeBob airing at #23 got that honor).

Looking ahead to next weekend, it's all about "Christmas Vacation!" on Disney Channel, with the Doof's Dastardly Schemes Marathon leading in to the big premiere at 8:00PM Eastern (an hour earlier than P & F's usual time), which goes up against a repeat of last weekend's iCarly special on Nick. With only True Jackson and The Troop being new this weekend, No. 1 amongst all kids shows is not out of the realm of possibility. Incidentally, The Numbers Game cannot recommend "Christmas Vacation!" highly enough - it's really a great special.

Next week, I'll have the final numbers for "Christmas Vacation!", but until them, remember that when I can find them, the numbers never lie.