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Button Yer
Ed
Creative
concepts don’t just come in the form of things that can literally only happen
in cartoons. They can be the result of
unlikely events happening and being mined for all entertaining potential. This setup is what makes up the bulk of this
cartoon’s conflict.
When roughhousing
creates a huge rip in Double D’s screen door, a bug flies in, and its presence greatly
mirrors what trying to spot one is like in real life. It’s never shown and the only way the
audience can now it’s here is by its incessant buzzing sound. The bug ends up lodged in Eddy’s voice box,
making him unable to talk for the majority of the cartoon. Considering his tendencies to be loud-mouthed
and in people’s faces, it’s a fascinating turn of events that Eddy is unable to
communicate with his voice here.
The
best fix his friends have for the condition is having Eddy use a cowbell to
ring for them whenever he needs something.
This erratic setup soon gets the attention of Rolf, and before long, he
makes the entire cartoon his own. Eddy
communicating with a bell is one of the innumerable customs of Rolf’s old
country, so he insists that he can easily tell everything Eddy is trying to
say. Given how off-the-wall Rolf tends
to be, the creative comedy comes from what he feels Eddy wants. At first, they’re fairly innocent such as
saying Eddy wants to eat, though Rolf’s cuisine of uncooked fish and
overstuffed sausages is probably not what he had in mind. Even the after-lunch activity of synchronized
swimming, while random is completely harmless and an interesting thing to
try.
Then the outrageousness of what
Rolf claims Eddy wants builds which truly showcases how much the foreign
customs stand out from the norm. This makes
for several hilarious instances like Eddy being launched on a unicycle by a
rubber band catapult, or his room turning into the Arctic because of a freezer
cooling him off. These moments are
indeed great exercises of the sense of imagination and comedic lengths of
everyday life this show has come to be known for. That said, it’s strange that there are little
to no objections of these being what Eddy wants to do. I get Ed going along with them since he’s not
too bright, but Double D, who’s usually the considerate one, is lacking his
established consideration and logic here.
Still the culmination of Rolf translating Eddy’s bell is a good
choice. When he hears one ring as Eddy
wanting to face his greatest fear, he sets him up to fight a rooster who charges
like a bull. Given how random Rolf’s
translations have been, it’s fitting that his idea of Eddy’s fear would be
random too, though it does show how much he doesn’t know him well. However, Eddy does fear the charging rooster,
so he may have a point. All the same, he
does come close to beating it, though Jonny and Plank end up doing so for him
in an out of nowhere appearance. As to
whether Eddy gets his voice back, he thankfully does so by the cartoon’s end,
but gets stuck in a tree in an attempt to hide from Rolf. Once again though, when he calls for his
friends, they’re still too dense to get what he really needs, including the
smart one.
Even if it’s not perfectly
executed, this cartoon turns out to be another creative scenario brought to
mildly humorous and character-driven life.
A
Avast Ye Eds
As
this show’s cartoons are episodic, the last one for the season is not required
to be big and grand compared to the norm or even give major closure to series
elements. With that said, it’s
impressive that this final cartoon for Season 1 offers a way to go out strong
as it centers on one of the Eds’ most elaborate scams yet.
Just from its craftsmanship you can tell that
it’s going to be something noteworthy.
It forms from the relatable practice in life when you set out to do one
thing, but when things go wrong with the original plan, a new one takes
form. That’s what happens with the scam
here as it starts off as a giant tire swing.
When it gets loose and lands in the creek, Eddy becomes intuitive, and
instead advertises it as a luxury cruise, which gets much more attention than
the swing plan ever did.
With these
plans set into place, the cartoon highlights the actual cruise. Eddy’s the
captain, Double D is his assistant, Ed’s the motor, and Jimmy and Jonny are the
first two lucky passengers. Even the passengers have their own individual perspectives with Jimmy so squeamish of the tube and afraid of intense action, and Jonny always up for adventure and excitement. All
throughout, the effort gone into what amounts to a simple inner tube ride is
pretty impressive. Eddy is very
charismatic as the captain showing a lot of promise if he ever got the chance
to host an actual cruise. Ed is also
very effective as the boat’s motor just by kicking his feet.
Consideration is even given to treating the
guests well with a cooler of refreshments and Double D surprising everyone with
an amazing pedal steel guitar performance.
The remarkable thing is that he hates playing that instrument despite
legitimate talent.
This is just the beginning
of the cruise amounting to just a collection of scenes of everyone taking in
the atmosphere. It then amounts to a
truly noteworthy experience when it passes by the trailer park where the Kanker
sisters live, and they’re once again smitten with the Eds.
So, with a mattress boat with bedsheets for
sails, they pose as pirates and go after the cruise. This isn’t exactly posing as karma, and
shouldn’t since the Eds really haven’t done anything wrong. It’s much more of a challenge for the cruise
to face, and raises the stakes to outrun the Kanker pirates. There’s more of a collection of memorable
moments out of this. The inner tube
cruise takes off faster than ever with the aid of a fun visual gag Ed’s
flapping lips posing as a more powerful motor.
It’s a great adrenaline rush you feel just by watching until the Kankers
finally catch up. It’s then when Jonny
goes from simple passenger to active hero as he uses Plank to rip the Kankers’
sail.
When they respond by sticking a
bobby pin in the inner tube, the Eds finally become deserving of
consequences. Eddy, wanting to be seen as
a hero instead of Jonny as he is self-proclaimed captain, foolishly takes the
pin out, deflating their ship. This scam
failure is given grand-scale staging to reflect how bad the Eds messed up. Jimmy and Jonny are forced into humiliation
as the Kankers make them walk over Plank into the creek. Of course the Eds fare no better as they end
up smooched all over, and return to shore soaked, miserable, and without means
for another cruise. It just stings even
more that this bad experience technically does include their first kiss.
While we do get a huge downer ending for
everyone, this cartoon closes Season 1 strongly with a scam of memorable
moments reflective of its specially crafted atmosphere.
A+
The Ranking
1. A Glass of Warm Ed
2. Laugh Ed Laugh
3. Dawn of the Eds
4. Ed-N-Seek
5. Keeping Up With the Eds
6. Avast Ye Eds
7. Flea Bitten Ed
8. Fool on the Ed
9. The Ed-Touchables
10. Who What Where Ed
11. V
12. Oath to an Ed
13. Button Yer Ed
14. Read All About Ed
15. Quick Shot Ed
16. Look Into My Eds
17. A Boy and His Ed
18. Eds-aggerate
19. A Pinch to Grow an Ed
20. Pop Goes the Ed
21. An Ed Too Many
22. Sir Ed-a-Lot
23. Over Your Ed
24. It’s Way Ed
25. Nagged to Ed
26. Tag Yer Ed
Final Thoughts
Although
this was a major show I grew up with, I have to admit that I haven’t given much
thought to Ed Edd n Eddy in recent
years. Through taking a lot of time to
revisit the series recently, which includes reviewing Season 1, my experience
wasn’t just a great blast from the past.
It ended up reminding me of just how well this show holds up. Through one of the most relatable premises
put to animation as well as standing out incredibly from a design and comedy
aesthetic, it’s an undeniable wonder of entertainment.
From
the first season alone, the show presents with many elements that allow it to
stand out from others, old and new. On
the endearing and insightful side, there’s its premise which fully immerses
itself in just the simple lives of kids living in a neighborhood. Just by watching the kids do their thing,
anyone can identify with them or remember seeing someone like them. This factor becomes especially meaningful if
you know something about the characters’ inceptions from the series creator,
Danny Antonucci. All three Eds from Ed
being in his own world, Double D being overly organized and neurotic, and Eddy
as a loud-mouthed know-it-all are all aspects of himself. Really, I believe you can find aspects of
them in just about anyone. The fact that
they’re outcasts from the rest of the kids makes for solid chemistry allowing
their unique quirks to work off each other as they come together as one in
everything they do.
As for the other
kids, they too come off as meaningful when you realize they’re based on people
Antonucci knew in his life. However they’re memorable enough to act as their
own characters too. In my mind, two
characters stand out the most from the supporting kids. Jonny’s friendship with
a plank named Plank is very odd but also charming, and Rolf’s foreign customs
go further with outrageousness with every appearance. Others may not be as strong, but leave their
own good impressions. Sarah, Ed’s little
sister, often tends to go all out with how explosive she can be with her
tempers and bratty behavior. Her friend,
Jimmy, is often seen as very delicate through constantly getting hurt and
needing protection, which makes for overdramatic monologs about what’s bothering
him. Kevin doesn’t have the biggest
appeal among the characters as a stereotypical cool kid who insults anyone he
disapproves of with the term ‘dork’.
However, he works for more often than not being provoked to enacting
rude behaviors. Still, his flaws can get
overbearing at times, which is also true for those of Sarah and Jimmy and just
so you know, that continues to be the case going into other seasons. The rest of the cast have their interesting
roles, but fall flat compared to everyone else.
Nazz gets all the boys infatuated with her good looks, but that’s about
it. She hardly even gets many lines in
this season. Then you have the Kanker
sisters who give a particularly unsetting vibe whenever they enact a
conflict. Sometimes they force the Eds
into romance or act as thugs who randomly show up to torment others completely
unprovoked. It doesn’t help that neither
Lee, Marie, or May have much ways of standing out from each other apart from
their radical designs, at least not in the first season. Still, even if some characters can get
overbearing, don’t have much to work with, or aren’t very enjoyable,
their distinct traits allow them to feel their purpose. For how they all stand out, you really feel
part of an authentic neighborhood.
It
would be satisfying enough for the childlike tone to just have all the kid
characters be all their own especially when they’re based on the creator’s
personal experience. However, the show
goes the extra mile through not just showing how each kid works, but also
focusing on the extent of what they normally do. Without the presence of any adults, their usual
activities are able to go all out with how kids would normally wish they’d be
able to enjoy themselves. There aren’t
any direct restrictions to how far they’re allowed to go, making not just for
elaborate merrymaking, but elaborate outcomes as well. This is especially true for the stunts that
mainly drive the conflicts, the Eds’ pulling their scams. Their many ideas of getting money from the
neighborhood kids have undeniable variety to them. With clubhouses, floor shows, pet boutiques,
lawn-mowing services, or inner tube cruises, versatility and imagination are
key. Keeping with the childlike tone is
how grand-scale the scams actually are through being constructed from common
everyday junk. Details on how putting them together comes with challenges from
any step of the process, mainly from Ed’s bumbling around are also of
note. While scams are technically wrong,
especially as they come from the show’s main protagonists, more often than not
there’s elaborate effort going into them.
It usually feels like the Eds deserve money for the hard work and time
they put into making things for the other kids.
If
that’s not enough, many cartoons offer subtle deeper meanings to their
actions. When the Eds aren’t off pulling
scams, cartoons tend to focus on them just trying to impress their peers in the
name of attention and respect. They
mingle and try to impress them at a sprinkler party, only to weird everyone out
and get ignored. They join them in
hide-and-seek, but have to put with being it and their opponents shady playing
tactics. They try to befriend one of
their biggest enemies Kevin, but either they prove to be too much for him, or
he just doesn’t give them a chance. They
try to join a scout troop, but keep messing everything up and test the leader,
Rolf’s patience. They try to get ahead
when it comes to fads, but everyone deliberately keeps them from keeping up
right down to trying out their own fad when they get out of it. With all this said, amidst their desires for
money and jawbreakers, there’s plenty of proof that the Eds’ motives are deeper
than they let on. Constantly failing to
get respect does make things mean-spirited, but even with all the downer
endings, strangely enough they work.
Most of the scam failures come from an honest mistake, obsession with
the creative process or power, or total overconfidence making the outcomes feel
deserved. The Eds’ character flaws do
tend to get overbearing and sometimes make them as big of jerks as the other
kids giving clear reasons why they’d be uncomfortable with them. That’s not to say mean-spiritedness sometimes
goes too far particularly when the Eds do nothing to wrong anyone. Sometimes they get money fairly and lose it
unfairly, they’re teased for the lack of strength they can’t help, and it can
feel like they’re being ignored deliberately.
Thankfully for the first season, the mean-spiritedness works more often
than not, allowing everything in the stories to make sense morally and
entertainingly. In doing so, the feel of
a neighborhood populated by kids of different kinds is fully realized to its
best extent.
Now
there is one thing that allows this show to set itself apart from others, especially
when it comes to slice-of-life shows.
Just from looking at the overall design of the show from the first
season running, it’s plain to see that it’s one that knows it’s a cartoon and
celebrates it. Background settings and
props are very simply drawn, but still feel believable in how everything
distinguishes themselves, and how the cast fits right in with them. Not only are the looks of the characters
almost as radical as those of their world, but they’re so full of life, even
when they’re not doing anything. When
observing their outlines, you notice how it seems to bulge and boil around a
lot. This is an animation technique very
unique to this particular show called boiling lines achieved through creatively
inking the characters’ outlines three times.
It does so well to show life and motion in everyone, I’m surprised other
shows don’t try to implement this technique.
Then again, it does make it exclusive to this show which in turn brings
a welcome sense of individuality.
Further attributing to what this show does with animation are the
inventive ways the characters stand out from each other in ways they never
could in any other medium. There’s sheer
distinction in how they perform all their actions, especially walking and
running that appear so flowing and prominent as well as full of character. Individuality is also key in appearances that
are truly exclusive to this show such as the multi-colored tongues of all the
kids. Going back to the creator’s
inspiration for the series, this element also has interesting background. The
idea came from his kids and their friends getting different tongue colors after
eating candy. Given how kids tend to be
more attached to such treats than other people, this is actually another great
way of selling the childhood tone of the series. As you can tell, this show has many inventive
ways of embracing being a cartoon.
Because things like boiling lines, distinctive movements, and multi-colored
tongues are part of the aesthetic, beats of the formula can be exaggerated and
be seen as normal. Inventions like
elevator boots, heat vision goggles, hypnotizing wheels, and inflatable stinkbombs made from random knick-knacks work well until destroyed or taken over. Backfires like falling from the sky and
coming up unscathed, getting caught in a bunny flood, or
slipping on lard are given the utmost staging for events so outrageous. Most of all, the season leaves itself open
for many creative concepts, and not just from the Eds’ many scam ideas. They include Ed becoming incredibly obese when
eating everyone’s food while sleepwalking, mowing lawns at top speed with a
goat, and achieving all power through hypnosis.
Imaginations can also run wild with solid story structure with things
like getting lost in a junk seen as being stranded on a robot planet, or an
inner tube cruise turning into a pirate attack.
Instances like these are some of the best blends of big-scale animated
antics and childhood relatability. The
fact that these all come from the first season is a great indication that for
all the animated potential mined here, the best is yet to come, but that’s for
looks at the other seasons.
I
am beyond glad that I decided to revisit Ed
Edd n Eddy when I did. With my
tastes in animation fully realized, it turned out to be one of the biggest
televised treasures of the medium. Great
care is taken with establishing the tone of what it’s like to embrace
childhood, while also crafting its own take on the famed versatile art
form. For that, the final results are
very memorable, as well as works all their own.
Season 1 is a solid introduction to this unquestionable quality, and I
await the time when I return to it to see how it continues into the seasons
that follow. For now, if you’ve never
seen this show or haven’t seen it in a long time, I recommend tracking down the
DVD of Season 1, or if worse comes to worse, digital download sites like
iTunes. It’s one of the best blends of
slice-of-life and cartoon comedy that deserves a place in animation fans’
hearts and minds.
Highly Recommended
Before you learn what's to come from this blog, stay tuned tomorrow for the review of the big Steven Universe event "Change Your Mind" marked by what's sure to be the biggest review on this blog to date. Until then:
Stay Animated Folks!
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