Dr. Doofenshmirtz

Heinz Doofenshmirtz
Born	1 September 1940 Gimmelshtump, Drusselstein, Nazi Germany
Died	21 August 1984 Danville, Nobody Knows
Nationality	German
Other names	Doof, Father Time
Occupation	Self-proclaimed evil genius, full-time failure, part-time lawn gnome
Years active	1962-1984
Known for	World domination attempts
Notable work	The "Inefficiencyinator"

Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (1 September 1940 - 21 August 1984) was a German-born scientist, failed inventor, self-proclaimed "evil genius" and aspiring "Supreme Dictator of the Fourth Reich", most well regarded for his persistent yet consistently unsuccessful attempts at world domination, particularly targeting the Tri-State Area from across the Atlantic. A former East German expatriate born during a time full to the brim with squalor and poverty, he spent much of his life engaged in personal projects that, despite their ambition, failed to achieve lasting impact.

Doofenshmirtz's career was marked by frequent setbacks, unusual rivalries, and a series of ultimately unfulfilled aspirations. His later years were defined by increasing isolation and a string of ill-fated experiments, all culminating in an unfortunate incident involving one of his own inventions. He passed away on 21 August 1984 under unclear circumstances, leaving behind a legacy that remains largely overlooked by mainstream historical accounts.

Early life

Heinz Doofenshmirtz's early years were marked by hardship, as his small village was caught in the whirlwind of war and political upheaval. Born in the small village of Gimmelshtump, Drusselstein, Nazi Germany on 1 September 1940, during the events of World War II, neither of Doofenshmirtz's parents were present for his birth. His mother served as a clerk in the Wehrmacht, whereas his father - of great pre-eminence for his distinguishably triangular head and tapered nose which were the result of a faulty plastic surgery procedure - had already been conscripted into the Jagdgeschwader 2 and was tragically killed in action by a British pilot during the Battle of Britain, a mere two days prior to his birth.

Although it remains ambiguous as to whether Doofenshmirtz was a card-carrying member of the Hitler Youth (most likely because his head was too oddly shaped to fit in their standard hats), it was during the chaotic final hours of the Battle of Berlin that he, a meagre four-year-old, would narrowly escape army conscription, which - in a last-ditch effort to replenish the ranks - applied to the even the most able-bodied youth of under seventeen years of age for only one day in Germany, until Major Felix Steiner immediately regretted this decision the nanosecond he could comprehend the magnitude of such a statement, attempting everything to undo his blunder, having realised that child soldiers don't make for the best fighter pilots, an underlying truth that later British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could have learned from.

Spark of uprising

Upon Germany's surrender, Doofenshmirtz found himself in a post-war Europe that was shattered, both physically and emotionally. As a young man who had narrowly avoided deeper involvement in the conflict due to a combination of bad luck, timing, and his triangular head and pointed nose, he was left to pick up the pieces of a life defined by failure, isolation and confusion. His only bosom buddy, a balloon he purloined from a Love Händel concert in 1946, aptly christened "Balloony", met his untimely demise when a rogue piece of shrapnel from a nearby explosion punctured him. It was this specific tragedy alone that motivated Doofenshmirtz to rebuild his dignity, which proved to be more difficult than assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions, let alone the right pieces.

By 1947, Doofenshmirtz's mother had already remarried and found herself as mother to a new son, Roger, whom she favoured over her first, most likely because Roger was a more normal-shaped child whose head bore lesser reminiscence to an abstract geometric shape. Without the guidance or support of a close, loving family nor a traditional education system, Doofenshmirtz drifted through life, trying his hand at several odd jobs; one of his most ignominious involved spending endless days immobile in people's gardens dressed as a lawn gnome. For hours. In the cold. Without even so much as a "thank you" from the house owners.

The seeds of revolt in Heinz Doofenshmirtz were sown early, perhaps even before he fully understood what was brewing inside him. From the moment the epiphany came that life had decided to be unusually cruel to him in particular, Doofenshmirtz's resentment toward the world started to take root. However, it wasn't until one fateful day in February 1948 that the first spark of rebellion really caught fire, when he stumbled across a dusty book in the bookshelf of a library in Schwarzenberg titled To Build a Better Mousetrap. The print was no ground-breaking revelation, though it planted an idea in his head: maybe, just maybe, if he could invent things, he could finally make the world bend to his will. Or at the very least, get it to apologise for being so relentlessly brutal to him. And science - his science - seemed the perfect tool to make that happen.

Scientific breakthroughs

By the time Drusselstein became East German territory kudos to the Soviets' aid, a tweenaged Doofenshmirtz started experimenting in small, seemingly harmless experiments. With a rubber-band powered car here, an egg that was supposed to be boiled but instead rocketed across the room there, here a milk-powered air conditioner, there a clock regulator constructed from bails of hay, everywhere a rifle intended to squirt ooze at the East German politburo but instead shot a stream of glittery confetti. Old McDoofenshmirtz had a plan, E-I-E-I-O. None of Heinz's failures defeated him, more so they motivated him. He realized that his inventions had two potential outcomes: either they would fail spectacularly, proving the universe was against him, or they would succeed and bestow upon him the opportunity to finally show fortune and fate what for.

"All hail Doofania!"

Doofenshmirtz's first proper invention was assembled in tribute to his childhood days as a lawn gnome. The aim of the "Lawn-Gnome-Inator" was to transform all gnomes in East Germany into his personal, well... personnel, with which he could rule as "Supreme Dictator of the Fourth Reich", ushering in a new era of ceramic-fisted tyranny. Naturally, this experiment backfired when the would-be doctor deduced that gnomes, being inanimate ceramic statues, were entirely incapable of following orders, wielding weapons, or engaging in any form of meaningful combat outside of motionlessly performing triple-X gestures for all the world to see. In a desperate bid to make them appear more menacing, Doofenshmirtz painted angry eyebrows on each gnome in the vicinity, which only made them look slightly pissed off at best.

The "Inefficiencyinator"

Arguably Doofenshmirtz's most famous invention came into fruition in 1956, which, much to his chagrin, ultimately benefited the East German public despite its original intent to unleash a crippling wave of bureaucratic inefficiency that would collapse the entire socialist regime - only for it to accidentally streamline the government's paper-pushing operations and increase worker productivity instead. This gadget, nicknamed the "Inefficiencyinator", was designed to sabotage the bureaucratic process by creating an infinite loop of paperwork that would leave officials drowning in never-ending forms. However, the unintended consequence was that the machine forced officials to invent a new, more organised filing system, thereby making the government more efficient and accidentally strengthening the regime, which led to its economy prospering unlike no other in the Eastern Bloc.

Only as of recent years has the creator of the Inefficiencyinator disclosed as Doofenshmirtz. Newspaper archives from the late 1950s show the apparatus to have appeared on the front cover of seventy-six consecutive press releases of the Neue Werbung trade magazine, which hailed the device as a symbol of innovation, but attributed it to the name "Dick Tingeler" instead. Interviewers have since disclosed this as the pseudonym Doofenshmirtz used whenever interrogated about the invention, likely due to his infuriation with how the country saw him as its revolutionary Messiah.

Immigration to the Tri-State Area

We owe it all to the fake eyeglasses and moustache combo alone that no soul in the States ever recognised Doof.

In June 1960, a year prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall, a nineteen-year-old Doofenshmirtz fled from the thriving economic nirvana that was Drusselstein and immigrated to the technologically advanced municipality of Danville, located in an ambiguous metropolitan region encompassing three U.S. states that happened to be a short driving distance between the ocean and Mount Rushmore. Doofenshmirtz would reside here for some time, with grandiose plans of overthrowing the tri-state area and claiming it as his very own, convinced that this slightly inconvenient, middle-of-nowhere location was the perfect launching pad for his quest for world domination.

First romantic affair

It was during Doofenshmirtz's early years in Danville - when his villainous lair consisted of but a one-bedroom apartment, a faulty toaster, and a grand total of six dollars, alongside a bus token that he met Charlene, the women who would one day become his wife (and later, his ex-wife - a fate arguably worse than being his arch-nemesis).

The fateful meeting took place in 1965 at a high-end café, where Doof had been testing his latest invention, the "Love-Attractor-Inator", a device scientifically designed to override human free will and make any unsuspecting target fall in love with him. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one's stance on ethical dating practices), the device short-circuited and instead set several tablecloths on fire, leading to what historians have since dubbed "The Great Breadstick-Fueled Inferno of '65". Amidst the screams of patrons and the not-so-distant wail of approaching fire engines, Charlene Doofenshmirtz (neé Rodriguez) - perchance drawn to the sheer absurdity of the moment - found herself intrigued by the scrawny, triangle-headed man flailing his arms about like a pterodactyl and shouting about "unforeseen combustion rates". Whether it was curiosity, mild pity or a deeply repressed desire for turmoil, she agreed to date him.

Their relationship blossomed in a way that only Doofenshmirtz's could, that is, with unnecessarily convoluted romantic gestures, entirely too many themed monologues, and the necessity on the doctor's behalf to conceal all evidence of his burgeoning career as a "mad scientist". This transpired in a litany of elaborate deceptions, including but not limited to explaining away the sudden appearances of doomsday devices as "modern art installations destined to make da Vinci wet himself", convincing Charlene that the ominous red button on his desk simply controlled the ceiling fan, and hastily rebranding a failed Death Ray as a "really ambitious floor lamp". Despite these questionable cover-ups, their relationship persisted, possibly due to Charlene's impressive ability to heed no attention to the more glaring red flags - or perhaps because no other man had ever promised her dinner and a redundantly complex revenge machination in the same evening.

Downfall

Disclosure of Nazi affiliations

For years, Charlene tolerated Doofenshmirtz's increasingly bizarre behaviour, from his monologues to his evil schemes and the fact that their utility bill was regularly inflated due to the frequent energy-consuming malfunctions of yet another failed "-inator". However, what finally shattered their marriage wasn't his villainous career, his inability to remember anniversaries, or even the time he accidentally turned the living room into a fully operational laser defence grid. No, it was something far worse: she disclosed his "mild" Nazi affiliations.

The discovery came about in 1968, when Charlene was scouring the attic in search of her old roller skates and stumbled upon a dusty, moth-eaten box labeled "Definitely Not Wartime Paraphernalia". Inside, she unearthed a collection of deeply concerning relics from Doofenshmirtz's past, including a highly incriminating, historically questionable uniform belonging to his father, an unexplained collection of antique propaganda posters, and perhaps worst of all an official document from the Third Reich government listing him as "Least Valuable Conscription of 1944". Horrified, Charlene confronted her husband, who - after an agonisingly long attempt to deny the accusations - panicked and built the "It's-Not-What-It-Looks-Like-Inator" within one minute in an act he described as "going to the toilet". Unsurprisingly, the machine malfunctioned and instead projected highly detailed visual recreations of several wartime moments he experienced. The resulting display included such highlights as:

• A three-year-old Doofenshmirtz tripping over his own shoelaces on the outskirts of a military parade.
• Doofenshmirtz getting lost and accidentally defecting to the wrong side for two weeks
• A Sieg Heil salute being carried out by Doofenshmirtz to a coat rack for an entire afternoon, who was under the impression that it was a high-ranking officer.

Due to the hasty, spur-of-the-moment construction of the "It's-Not-What-It-Looks-Like-Inator" resulting in the lack of a self-destruct button, Doofenshmirtz disingenuously insisted that his involvement in the Second World War was "mostly accidental" and that he had spent most of it being "yelled at in German and hiding beneath the bushes". But Charlene had heard enough. In record-breaking time, she filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences, potential war crimes, and excessive use of self-destruct buttons on his gizmo gadgets".

Legal battle and divorce

Swift, humiliating and overwhelmingly one-sided were the divorce proceedings that followed the blowing of Doof's cover. Charlene, equipped with a competent lawyer, rational thinking skills, and zero past affiliations with a fascist regime, easily secured full custody of the house, the car, and most devastatingly, Doofenshmirtz's beloved toaster. To add insult to injury, the judge explicitly forbade Doofenshmirtz from ever attempting to "win back" Charlene using any devices ending in "-inator", citing a previous incident in which he attempted to assemble a "Rekindle-the-Romance-Inator", which instead triggered a city-wide blackout and a minor electrical fire. In the aftermath, Doofenshmirtz moved into a barely functional, cartoonishly villain-themed skyscraper, where he continued his quest for domination, all while nursing a deep resentment toward both Charlene and the legal system that had wronged him. As he sat alone in his villainous lair - surrounded by half-built machines and a suspiciously large stack of unpaid alimony notices - he sighed and muttered the following to himself:

"Wow, if I had a nickel for every time my life was ruined because someone found out about my accidental Nazi affiliations, I'd have two nickels... which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?"

To this day, legal scholars and historians alike are baffled by the implication that this wasn't even the first instance Doof's past had come back to haunt him in the form of a catastrophic personal loss. Abandoned with only his newly welcomed daughter, Vanessa to confide in, Doofenshmirtz set about renovating the skyscraper he had rented out to create his grand new mansion - determined to finally make it a place worthy of world domination.

A sentinel in silence

History books tend to gloss over the following details. Following the exposure of Doofenshmirtz's "mild" Nazi affiliations, several intelligence agencies worldwide took an interest in the newly divorced ex-scientist, fearing that he might attempt to defect to a hostile power, rekindle past allegiances, or more realistically somehow cause an international incident by sheer accident. The CIA, MI6 and KGB all had files on Doofenshmirtz, however of particular concern was no other than the Israeli Mossad, largely because of his former Drusselstinian citizenship and his last-ditch attempt to brand himself dictator during his lawn gnome-induced fiasco. Though it was later revealed that Doofenshmirtz back then had only averred himself "Supreme Dictator of the Fourth Reich" due to how "Supreme Emperor of the Tri-State Area" was too long to fit on his business cards, Mossad was not in the mood to take chances.

Thus, in early 1972, Mossad assigned one of its most elite undercover agents to closely monitor Doofenshmirtz's activities: a highly-trained, impossibly skilled semi-aquatic egg-laying operative known as Perry the Platypus, or "Agent P" to his most notorious of his adversaries. Though disguised as an ordinary household pet to Danville residents Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, Perry was tasked with a critical mission:

• Ensure that Doofenshmirtz never posed a legitimate geopolitical threat.
  • This included sabotaging any invention that had even the slightest chance of actually prevailing.

• Prevent Doofenshmirtz from defecting to the Soviet Union or China.
  • There was a very real concern that Doofenshmirtz, still bitter over his divorce and legal humiliation, might sell his failed inventions to a throng of communists out of petty revenge. However, Doof's single disastrous attempt to contact that KGB - in which he accidentally sent a love letter instead of blueprints - ensured that neither side ever wanted anything to do with him again.

• Neutralise any potential doomsday devices.
  • Doofenshmirtz had a particular inclination to invent devices that, if prosperous, could have accidentally triggered an international crisis. Perry was tasked with the expedition of ensuring that Doofenshmirtz never registered how dangerous some of his contraptions could have been.

Psychological impact

Ultimately, Perry never merely foiled Doofenshmirtz's schemes physically - he also dismantled him mentally, piece by piece. Mossad was known for its miraculously unfailing psychological operations, and Perry the Platypus was no exception. Perry's perpetual silence to speak was a weapon in itself, one that slowly eroded Doofenshmirtz's grip on reality, making him question whether he was actually watched by a secret agent per se, or if he had finally flew off the handle. His strategic inference guaranteed that any time Doofenshmirtz ever came close to achieving even a fraction of success, a mild inconvenience would take place. A fuse would blow at the exact moment his machine was slated to activate. A stray kick to the shins would shatter his confidence just as victory was within grasp. The police could swiftly apprehend Doof the minute his insobriety numbed only to discover he was unlawfully jaywalking. Even his own daughter, Vanessa, could effortlessly dismantle his creations - flipping the switch on his instruments of homicide, thereby shutting down weeks of ceaseless exertion with the same level of effort it takes for one soul to blink.

The truth never crossed the enterprising autocrat's mind. Namely, that he was never meant to win. The world would not allow it. And Perry was just there to make sure that veracity was engrained into his subconscious.

Death

Fast forward over a decade later. By 1984, Doofenshmirtz was a broken man. His dreams of a global totalitarianism with him at the top of the hierarchy had crumbled into unpaid debts, his ex-wife had remarried a man with a head of orthodox proportion, and his own daughter only visited out of obligation. His once-proud lair had become a dilapidated, barely functional skyscraper, held together by duct tape, spite and the sheer force of his delusions. By this point, the mere sight of a brown fedora was enough to put the man on edge. But in his final, desperate act, Doofenshmirtz concocted his "greatest invention yet" - the "Ultimate-Triumph-Inator", a device erected to finally bring him the recognition he so desperately craved.

The plan was simple: activate the machine, become the supreme ruler of the Tri-State Area and force everyone - Charlene, Roger, Vanessa, Perry and the entire world - to finally pay his dues. There was only one problem. It didn't work.

In a cruel twist of fate so on-brand it could have been scripted, the Ultimate-Triumph-Inator suffered from a lethal design flaw: Doofenshmirtz had forgotten to plug the device in. In his frantic attempts to salvage the situation, he tripped over an exposed wire, slammed face-first into the control panel, and accidentally activated the machine in reverse - causing it to fire directly at himself. For a brief moment, Doofenshmirtz felt a strange sensation. Not pain, nor fear, but hope. Perhaps his chance had come. Perhaps, just perhaps, in death, he would finally be remembered. Perhaps history would speak his name with the reverence it had denied him in life. And then, in an instant, he was reduced to nothing more than a puff of smoke, a pile of smouldering laboratory coat fragments, and the lingering smell of burnt rubber.

Aftermath

Authorities arrived to the Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. residence following three days of his passing away remaining unnoticed. Upon arrival, they assumed the charred remains of his invention were just another failed experiment, and thus filed in under "not worth investigating". Furthermore, Doof's obituary was misspelled in the local Danville gazette as "Heinz Ketchupp Doofinshmert", despite no record of a middle name being on the premises. This obituary was followed by a brief two-line summary:

"Local man perishes in apparent science accident. No known accomplishments. Survived by ex-wife, estranged daughter, and one (1) platypus."

As for Perry the Platypus, he was nowhere to be discovered. Some say he was lurking from within the shadows, ensuring that Doofenshmirtz's demise played out exactly according to plan. Others believe he simply moved on to his next assignment, heaving behind nothing but a faint, indifferent chattering noise and the satisfaction of a job well done. In the end, Doofenshmirtz died as he lived - misunderstood, underwhelming and virtually irrelevant to the course of history.

Footnotes

Freaky German Stuff

Varying geography	Germany - Austria - Switzerland (sort of) - That tiny country that may as well be Luxembourg - Berlin - Vienna - Netherlands - Luxembourg - Alsace - Belgium - West Berlin
A Frightening people	Germans - Prussians - Bavarians - The Swiss - Luxembourgian - Angry German Kid - Liechtensteinian - Knut - Dr. Ruth - Claudia Schiffer
Frightening leaders	Adolf Hitler - Otto Von Bismarck - Darth Hitler - Heinrich Himmler - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, or "Gerta" - Albert Einstein - Bertolt Brecht - Benedict XVI - Elizabeth II - Kurt Vonnegut - Nietzsche - Leo Strauss - Karl Marx - Uwe Boll - Herman the German - Heinz Doofenshmirtz
Confusing language	German - Grammar Nazis - Umlaut - Hegel - Yiddish - Kant
Unnerving Musik	Einstürzende Neubauten - Kraftwerk - Johann Sebastian Bach - Ludwig van Beethoven - Wolfman On-the-dais Moatsart - Gus Mauler - Paul Hindemith - Oomph! - 19-hour-long operas about gods wearing bear skins and helmets - Kreator - Blind Lemon Kraftwerk - Rammstein - Sodom
Shameful history	House of Hangover - World War II - Nazism - Swastikas - Holocaust - Lolicaust - German Duplication - Berlin Wall - Death camps - 2002 Germany airplane sexual intercourse

The Doctor Is In

Dr. Arschebaum + Dr. Demento + Dr. Doofenshmirtz + Dr. Doom + Dr. Dre + Dr. Duke + Dr. Eggman + Dr. Eminent + Dr. Feelgood + Dr. Fox + Dr. Frankestein + Dr. Holliday + Dr. House + Dr. Kellogg + Dr. Koop + Dr. Lecter + Dr. Leopold + Dr. Loo + Dr. Malcom + Dr. Manplayer + Dr. McCoy + Dr. No + Dr. Oz + Dr. Pepper + Dr. Phil + Dr. Rabbit + Dr. Ruth + Dr. Salk + Dr. Salvador + Dr. Sbaitso + Dr. Seuss + Dr. Stone + Dr. Strange + Dr. Strangelove + Dr. Shatterjaw + Dr. Who + Dr. Whoopass + Dr. Wily + Dr. Wussow + Dr. Worthington + Dr. X + Dr. Xing + Dr. Yamak + Dr. Zhivago + Dr. Zoidberg + One Out of Ten Drs. + The Dr.