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Dan Povenmire ( ; born September 18, 1963) is an American animator, voice actor, writer, director, and producer. With Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, Povenmire is the co-creator, co-star, and co-leader of the Disney Channel animated series Phineas and Ferb and Milo Murphy's Law, in both of which he voices Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.
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, . The same year, he announced a new series for Disney titled Hamster & Gretel, which premiered in 2022.
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 US dollar14,000 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'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 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.
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.
Povenmire brought realism and material from his own experiences to the visual direction of Family Guy.Callaghan (2005), p. 174Callaghan (2005), p. 142 For "One If by Clam, Two If by Sea" (August 1, 2001),Callaghan (2005), p. 140 several characters demonstrate Bob Fosse 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),Callaghan (2005), p. 171 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,Callaghan (2005), p. 192 won the Emmy Award for Best Song. Creator Seth 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!"Callaghan (2005), p. 194 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 Guys brief cancellation, Povenmire was offered a job as storyboard director of the series SpongeBob SquarePants. 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).
Instead of a conventional script, the pair pitched the pilot by recording reels of its storyboard, which Povenmire then mixed and dubbed to produce action and vocals. Povenmire subsequently left Family Guy to create the series. Influenced by the style of animator Tex Avery, Povenmire employed geometric shapes to build both the characters and the background. Povenmire's first sketch of Phineas Flynn was drawn while eating dinner with his family in a restaurant in South Pasadena, California. Doodled on the butcher paper covering the table, he saved it and used it as a stylistic blueprint for the show.
Povenmire and Marsh wanted to incorporate the kind of humor they had developed in their work on Rocko's Modern Life. They include action sequences and, with Disney's encouragement, featured musical numbers in every episode subsequent to "Flop Starz". The pair have earned several Emmy nominations for Phineas and Ferb. In 2010, Povenmire was nominated alongside several other Phineas and Ferb crew members for the Daytime Emmy Award for both "Outstanding Writing in Animation" and "Outstanding Original Song – Children's and Animation" for their work on the show, winning for "Outstanding Writing in Animation". In 2021, Povenmire won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Writing Team for a Daytime Animated Program" for Candace Against the Universe.
Povenmire has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
| 1988 | Never on Tuesday | Storyboard artist | |
| 1989 | Going Overboard | Yellow Teeth | |
| 1990 | Far Out Man | Animator | |
| 1991 | The Dark Backward | Storyboard artist | |
| 1993 | Psycho Cop 2 | Writer | |
| 2003 | Museum Scream | Writer and director | |
| 2011 | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (1st and 2nd Dimension) | Writer Director Producer | |
| 2020 | Scoob! | Executive producer | |
| Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, Himself | Supervising director Executive producer Writer |
| 1991 | James Bond Jr. | Storyboard conforming Storyboard artist | |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | Storyboard conforming | ||
| 1992–1996, 2002 | The Simpsons | Storyboard artist Character layout artist | |
| 1993–1996 | Rocko's Modern Life | Writer Director Storyboard artist Songwriter | |
| 1994 | The Critic | Character layout artist | |
| 1995 | Earthworm Jim | Storyboard artist | |
| The Ren & Stimpy Show | Additional storyboard artist | ||
| 1996–1999 | Hey Arnold! | Storyboard artist Director | |
| 1998–1999, 2001 | CatDog | Storyboard director Writer | |
| 2000–2002, 2005–2007 | Family Guy | Storyboard artist Director | |
| 2001–2004 | SpongeBob SquarePants | Writer Storyboard artist Storyboard Director Assistant storyboard artist | |
| 2007–2015, 2025–present | Phineas and Ferb | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz various characters | Co-creator Executive producer Voice artist Story Writer Director Songwriter Storyboard artist (Rollercoaster and Doof 101) |
| 2010–2011 | Take Two with Phineas and Ferb | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz | Co-creator Executive producer Voice artist Storyboard artist |
| 2013 | Shark Tank | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz | Guest; Episode: 426 |
| 2016–2019 | Milo Murphy's Law | Vinnie Dakota Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz various characters | Co-creator Executive producer Voice artist Writer: Story & Teleplay Storyboard artist Director Songwriter |
| 2022–present | Chibiverse | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz | |
| 2022–2025 | Hamster & Gretel | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz various characters | Creator Executive producer Director |
| 2024 | Big City Greens | Old Man | Episode: "Guiding Gregly" Wrote song "I Found My People" |
| 2011 | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (1st and 2nd Dimension) | ||
| 2013 | Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz |
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