Nostalgia Monday: "Ed, Edd n' Eddy". Plus, Some Football Thoughts

Yes, yes, I know it's preseason and I should talk some football today; the only problem is, though, is that it's preseason. I don't watch all that much football until the regular season starts for a variety of reasons, the main one being that most preseason games are only locally televised. Because of this, I primarily watch the Packers, and I don't have much to say about them. They looked good against the Rams on Saturday; Eddie Lacy (Packers RB) looked very good for the offense, and the only surprise was on defense with Johnny Jolly (DT), who has returned to the NFL after a three-year absence, who made a few plays, including an interception. Those were the major pieces I picked up on. But, enough about that, let's talk about the Ed's.

For those who do not already know, "Ed, Edd n' Eddy" is a cartoon that premiered on Cartoon Network in 1999 and officially ended in 2009, with a couple of breaks in-between. While the show was a basic slapstick kids cartoon, it did have a more nostalgic feel to it than other cartoons back in the day. I don't know if it was the animation, which was wildly different than other cartoons at the time, with the squigly lines for the first few seasons along with cel-animation for the first four seasons; these alone already give it that nice nostalgic smell. But that's not all, the episodes of this series at least somewhat resemble those stories your parents and grandparents told you about their childhoods, albeit highly exaggerated; thus giving it the feel of the lives of children from those days, mainly the 1950's (as confirmed in an interview with series creator, Danny Antonucci). 

The show itself was episodic in nature, something very common in TV media, but there were some tie-ins with previous episodes, which does form a sort of continuity. Hell, this show also has (some) character development (actually, only one character, Edd, actually develops as a character over time), which is something you will almost never see with other cartoons of the time. The characters themselves, for the most part, though, fit a specific type and never really deviates. For example, Ed is almost (99% of the time) always the idiot of the group; Edd is the smart one, but very shy early on in the series, which does change over the course of the series; and Eddy, the greedy one, is always thinking up new ways to scam money from the other neighborhood kids. The other characters are also stuck in a specific character trope; you have the jock (Kevin, Eddy's next door neighbor and rival); the mean little sister (Sarah, Ed's sister) who is overprotective of her best friend, the so-called weakling (Jimmy, who has another aspect to his personality which was cultivated by Eddy); the girl next door (Nazz); the immigrant who is struggling to adapt to the local culture (Rolf); and the psycho not-really-girlfriends (the Kanker sisters- Lee, May, and Marie).

As I mentioned earlier, the plots are episodic, and usually follows one of two formulas- the first one being Ed and Edd minding their own business, Eddy comes along for an idea to make some money to buy jawbreakers, usually in the form of scamming the kids with some sort of weird contraption; a game; or service work. The scams almost always end in failure with the Eds (or at least Eddy) getting their comeuppance by either getting beaten up or captured by the Kankers. The second formula is the same as the first, the difference being that the kids themselves are minding their own business and then the Eds come along with a scam, which ends badly for them, something else comes along, Eddy comes up with some (usually terrible) ideas to obtain that something else (or in some cases, just finding different ways to scam), they also end badly and comeuppance occurs again. It's a rather basic formula, but is still (at least somewhat) funny in its own way.

One thing i did not notice as a kid that I did notice in rewatching "Ed, Edd n' Eddy" was subtlety; a child probably would not understand right away, but an adult would likely catch the joke rather quickly. One very subtle example is shown in the second episode (Nagged to Ed), where Eddy is messing around with the protective gear and appears to be flipping the bird. There is also a very obvious joke in the last episode of the TV series, "Look Before You Ed", in which Eddy tells Edd toward the end of the episode, "What's winter without a snow job, eh, Sockhead?" Take the "s" out of "snow" and replace it with another letter and that's the joke, and Edd's reaction is the punchline. There are other examples, but too many to list.

If I had to pick a favorite episode, it would be Season 2's "One+One=Ed". This one starts out as a general knowledge quest, but turns into breaking every physical law in not only real life (they're broken anyway, but that's beside the point) but the show's own parameters involving physics. The episode does end in traditional fashion, this time Ed carries a sewer pipe that Edd and Eddy fell into while being pursued by Sarah. It's the one episode in this entire series where I (and probably others) have asked, "How the hell can this get any weirder than it already is?" Then it becomes even weirder. This is also the one episode where I had to think about what was going to happen next and that fact is why this one is a favorite.

There is one last thing to talk about. Each episode title of "Ed, Edd n' Eddy" incorporates the word "Ed" into it, be it a phrase (e.g. "Gimme Gimme Never Ed" changed from 'gimme gimme never gets'), movies ("O-Ed Eleven" from Oceans Eleven), and even math problems (the aforementioned "One+One=Ed"). The way it was done for every episode was very interesting to me back when I first saw the show and even now.

With all that being said, "Ed, Edd n' Eddy" is/was one of Cartoon Networks finest programs. It is something that you can sit back, turn your brain off and enjoy the show and the nostalgia that comes along with it. Plus, if you can see the subtlety, that makes watching the Eds that much funnier.

Until next time, God bless.