Read All About Ed / Quick Shot Ed (Ed Edd n Eddy Season 1 Episode 5) - 'Toon Reviews 33

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Read All About Ed

Compared to later seasons, it’s surprising that this first one features the Eds try to get money through much fairer measures than just scams.  Even so, their eccentric personalities still have a tendency to make things go wrong, but as is in line with the nature of this show, it’s still a lot of fun to watch. 

For this cartoon, Double D has signed up for a paper route in the name of getting a new expensive microscope.  When Eddy gets under the impression that one route can grant a large sum of money, he thinks ahead with how much can be made with a ton more.  With that, the conflict soon makes itself known as Double D is faced with a literal mountain of newspapers at his door.  Now the Eds have a difficult task of distributing the entire supply to customers all over Peach Creek, the catch being that the supply is phenomenally bigger than average. 

All the way, the difficulties of actually pulling this off are highlighted by the Eds’ distinct personality.  Ed puts in good effort despite his lack of intelligence causing a mess of things like putting a lot of the same paper in a mailbox which he breaks the back end of.  Double D is much more calculative with how he throws each newspaper, and unlike later seasons where he doesn’t have it in him, actually pulls off each throw.  He’s unable to prevent himself from more difficult obstacles like a dog who doesn’t hesitate to bite his sock.  As for Eddy, his approach to delivering the newspapers is hardly one at all.  He mostly just sits back and lounges around and puts little to know effort the one time he tries his hand in throwing a newspaper to a house.  In addition to fitting his self-proclaimed role as mastermind, this also gives a connection to the beginning of the cartoon as he's constantly being awakened from sleep.  This continues through much of the rest of it through breaking down and sleeping on the sidewalk outside, and his bed ending up on top of the newspaper mountain.  The result is a good use of seemingly unrelated scene at the beginning driving the main plot. 

Overall, the attempts to deliver the newspapers the right way is getting them nowhere, so things get creative to solve everything.  Double D builds a newspaper shooter that successfully does its job with great power, precision, and accuracy.  It’s at this point where making fully functional machines is seen as a very impressive talent.  The only way it backfires is because of a dumb reckless move, though it’s from an expected character.  Ed, who was loading the papers into the shooter, ends up putting in Eddy’s bed.  While further tying the random opening scene into the rest of the plot, this move brings an exciting climax.  The shooter goes out of control with Ed holding on as newspapers cause uncontrollable destruction.  Even through all this, there’s a lot of fun in the fast desperation for the other Eds to catch him, the exciting music, and what happens as a result of the firing newspapers. 

At the end of this fun come the consequences of even more work for the Eds who have to clean up all the newspapers to get paid, and many of them dissolve into ink from on and off rain.  Then they get even more with a horoscope accurately saying that new enterprise fails to meet expectations. I guess you can call this punishment for taking the easy way out, but it would have worked if the bed didn’t fall into the shooter. 

Thanks to the fun and excitement of the general story and everything being in character, it hardly stings and the cartoon can be easily enjoyed as another Ed-escapade.

A

Quick Shot Ed

Often in life, people get carried away with random crazy ideas and don’t even realize the nuisance they’re being around others.  When this happens with the Eds, the results aren’t just entertaining, but also make the consequences they get feel appropriate. 

As for their crazy scheme in this cartoon, it happens when they’re exploring Eddy’s attic, and find a camera lying around.  The thing about this camera though is that it appears to emit a light that’s so bright, anyone it photographs ends up with hypno-eyes.  That’s a fine example of this show’s many comedic exaggerations of things since all the times I’ve been photographed, the light may have been bright, but never to that extent. 

Anyway, the camera gives Eddy an idea to take surprise pictures of the neighborhood kids, and put them together in a calendar to sell to them.  This could be seen as an infringement on privacy, but the Eds hardly hide what they’re doing.  The closest to staying hidden is Double D treating what they’re doing like a silent safari, referring to the kids doing their thing as animals in the wild.  That right here demonstrates the point of how obsessive people tend to get with crazy schemes. 

The Eds get so involved in putting together their calendar that they’re flat-out unaware of how much they’re annoying everyone.  From an audience perspective, it’s fun to watch what happens with certain kids whenever the Eds photograph them.  Kevin gets knocked off his bike from the photo flash and is visually impaired as he goes around trying to find the Eds and beat them up.  Sarah unleashes one of her most dynamic tempers by attacking the Eds with doll parts for intimidating Jimmy with the camera flash.  Rolf falls into a meat processor when photographed resulting in a funny visual of him as a wiener.  Then Kevin shows up again to chase them down on his bike which results in the Eds getting stuck in a tire floating down a sewer and Kevin falling into a dump truck.  These scenes are some of the funniest highlights resulting from the Eds’ shenanigans especially as some go the extra creative mile.  It’s also impressive that the Eds are actually successful with getting most of their pictures even with everyone fighting aggressively against them for their actions. 

Regarding the aggression though, the Eds do come off as dense over how they react to it.  They say that certain characters have gone mad as a result of getting photographed, but never realize they’re reacting out of annoyance for their privacy being infiltrated.  No one, not even Double D, gets the impression they’re going too far and are disturbingly out of touch with reality.  Fortunately, the last act finally does bring them to their senses.  For their last picture, they dare to photograph the most dangerous Peach Creek residents, the Kanker sisters.  The Kankers turn out to get some of their better appearances as them catching the Eds and embarrassingly making them pretty comes off as consequences for obsessions.  They also end up getting photographed by the other kids and supposedly are suffering with them in the calendar since it can be argued their photos are there too. 

When it comes to the Eds’ punishment for their actions, through relatable obsessions, it allows all directions of this cartoon to really work.

A-

The Ranking

1.      Dawn of the Eds

2.      The Ed-Touchables

3.      Vert Ed Go

4.      Read All About Ed

5.      Quick Shot Ed

6.      A Pinch to Grow an Ed

7.      Pop Goes the Ed

8.      Sir Ed-a-Lot

9.      Over Your Ed

10.  Nagged to Ed

 

 

The next Ed Edd n Eddy review has the Eds try to outrun Sarah and her sudden crush on Double D, and they have a well-deserved victory in hide and seek.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Now We're Only Falling Apart" from Steven Universe.

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