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Your Ed Here
It’s true that this show does not have the nicest atmosphere; honestly that’s been apparent right from the start. However, it’s almost always managed to work through being successfully entertaining and having any repercussion feel deserved. In the case of this cartoon, the way the story plays out and the harsh effects on the featured character do not follow these guidelines. The result is a huge contender for one of the most unpleasant experiences of the entire series.
A major example of how unfair this cartoon begins surprisingly with the failure of the Eds’ scam. Usually, it’s not until much later in the cartoon when the whole thing backfires for a good reason. Here though, they have a very creative and well-executed money-making idea of crafting wax figures of the neighborhood kids that’s actually positively received. It goes to show that while they are scams, the things they do have a lot of effort put into them that deserves some credit.
Then things really go downhill once Kevin finds an empty wallet. The issue isn’t that it belongs to Eddy, but inside it is an ID card that features his middle name, Skipper. The moment Eddy hears Kevin mention this, he’s instantly embarrassed and terrified, clearly ashamed of what he was named which is just sad. Really, there’s nothing bad about a middle name like Skipper, yet Eddy still feels tortured by the mere thought of it being known, and the rest of the cartoon supports this mindset. To keep from even more people knowing his middle name, he agrees to do whatever Kevin says so he’ll keep it between them. Among those things is sabotaging the scam that was going so well and spending the money it did earn on what Kevin wants. Again, all this is over something as minor as finding out Eddy’s middle name without the Eds actually doing anything wrong.
Then things only get more relentless as Eddy is faced with paranoia and humiliation. He’s constantly seeing Kevin talk to other kids as if he broke their deal, only to realize that wasn’t the case after making a fool of himself trying to hide it. There are also particularly embarrassing acts Kevin has him take part in, such as actually kissing Double D (take that as you will) and acting as a performing seal. The latter really starts crossing some boundaries with how he’s given a raw fish to eat and has to get shot with a water gun right in the lower area. Eddy may be a regular con artist, but this kind of treatment in this case feels very wrong.
Finally, after all that Eddy willingly agreed to put himself through, in one moment, he suddenly finds everyone making joking remarks with the word ‘skip.’ The more intense these condescending statements get, the more obvious it becomes that Kevin went ahead and told everyone Eddy’s middle name anyway. His flimsy excuse is that he forgot, but that’s very difficult to buy as true, and it’s certainly not worth the internal torment Eddy is now unjustly enduring. It’s just downright cruel and wrong, even for this show.
Only a satisfying conclusion can ease any pain, and for a moment, one seems set up. Double D has been taking note of Eddy’s strange behavior, and like a good friend should, he tries to get to the bottom of it. After learning of Eddy’s resentment for his middle name and the embarrassment of everyone now knowing, Double D reveals his own middle name, Marian. Then for all that kindness, even Eddy instantly loses his sympathy by blurting out this middle name to the others, now making Double D suffer humiliation. Instead of easing the earlier pain, this ending scene just makes it worse and near impossible to sympathize with anyone. Furthermore, it features everyone as shallow for being so relentless over a middle name; for goodness sake, what makes it worth all this ridicule?
As stated before, this show has never had the nicest atmosphere, but there was almost always some procedure in place to make everything work. This isn’t the case here with an unfair story and a careless sense to go too far with all meanness, resulting in a true low point for the series.
F
The Good Ol’ Ed
Creating new ideas for any series cannot be easy, especially when they go on for so long. Often, shows take a simplistic approach to coming up with ideas by composing an episode entirely of older material; this is what’s called a clip show. Understandably, these types of stories are frowned upon for just being reiterations of what audiences already know with next to nothing fresh or new. While this may be the approach this cartoon seems to take at first, it actually puts an interesting twist on the whole experience.
It’s about the Eds making a time capsule of memorabilia of all their past adventures to bury and later dig up again in the future. As they look over things to put in the time capsule, one might expect there to be a cut to a past cartoon, but there’s actual restraint to not go into clip show mode. Whenever they come across things like the Canadian squirt gun, the hypnotizing wheel, or their “Fad Freaky” suits, they simply talk about the fun they had with them. It brings a more believable and engaging way to get behind past events instead of showing an outright clip of them. The thing is that these are all events that have indeed happened in the show and what devoted fans are sure to already remember. There’s no need to show another clip from that time; they can just watch the real thing again.
However, the really clever part of this setup is the past events that are depicted, at least alleged past events. At some points, one of the Eds finds a random object that no one can recall where it was from, except one of them relates them to event that was not seen before. Double D finds a remote control said to go to a time machine; Eddy finds a water pitcher from when Double D had the hiccups; and Ed finds a spatula from when they made a giant pancake. It’s these objects that actually do lead to a past memory being shown, except they’re newly created scenes instead of reused clips from past cartoons. Just getting new clips to represent these supposed memories brings an impression that they’re all ideas for cartoons that fell to the wayside for not being substantial enough.
Truth be told, the memories themselves do seem to vary in quality. The time machine recap is a pretty fun escapade with the Eds having Jimmy and Jonny believe they traveled back to the dinosaur age; the many cardboard figures of the creatures and atmospheric effects continue to impress with the effort gone into what’s said to be scams. Double D having the hiccups is mostly the standard procedure of plots centered on getting rid of them which usually results in being monotonous and uninteresting. The water pitcher isn’t even too huge a factor in this memory. It’s not without some memorable funny bits such as Ed’s attempt at scaring the hiccups.
The giant pancake is probably the most amusing concept in these memories not just with the idea itself, but how it’s executed. The Eds set up cooking oil in the cul-de-sac, the other kids mistake it for a skating rink, and they get some comeuppance for not getting all the facts when the batter is let loose on the oil. This is amusing, but morally, it’s not too fair since all the kids take what happened out on Eddy despite Ed pouring the batter and the whole thing being their own fault anyway.
Going back to the main center of the cartoon, the best thing about them is how these memories are not based on pre-existing material and exist in something set up as a clip show. There’s awareness to how they didn’t actually happen, and things that did happen are merely discussed as potential guesses and through other random things the Eds find. In fact, it’s ironic that the one time the cartoon truly resembles a clip show is at the end when Ed recalls the very beginning of this. Then to close everything off is a good reminder of the constant occurrence of Eddy chasing his friends in anger.
The most notable thing to this cartoon is how it takes the expected clip show elements and makes the experience somewhat interesting. It might not be the best of the series, but for a work meant to highlight memorable moments of the past, this is a very solid way of going about that.
A-
Series Ranking
1.
An Ed is Born
2. One
+ One = Ed
3.
The Day the Ed Stood Still
4. A Glass of Warm
Ed
5.
It Came from Outer Ed
6. Rent-A-Ed
7.
Once Upon an Ed
8. Fa
La La La Ed
9. Urban
Ed
10.
Ed…Pass it On
11. One
of Those Eds
12. Laugh
Ed Laugh
13. Dawn
of the Eds
14. Don’t
Rain on My Ed
15.
Wish You Were Ed
16.
Dueling Eds
17. Mirror,
Mirror On the Ed
18.
Gimme, Gimme Never Ed
19. Ed-N-Seek
20. Keeping
Up With the Eds
21. Who
Let the Ed In
22. Avast
Ye Eds
23. Flea
Bitten Ed
24. Fool
on the Ed
25. Ready
Set Ed
26. The
Ed-Touchables
27. Who
What Where Ed
28. Dear
Ed
29.
Momma’s Little Ed
30.
Brother, Can You Spare an Ed?
31. Hot
Buttered Ed
32.
Ed or Tails
33. Stop
Look and Ed
34.
See No Ed
35. Shoo
Ed
36.
Rock-a-Bye Ed
37. Little
Ed Blue
38. Ed
in a Halfshell
39. Scrambled
Ed
40. Pain
in the Ed
41.
O-Ed Eleven
42. Vert
Ed Go
43. Ed
Overboard
44. Oath
to an Ed
45.
Ed, Ed, and Away
46. Button
Yer Ed
47.
An Ed in the Bush
48. Read
All About Ed
49. Rambling
Ed
50. Home
Cooked Ed
51. Honor
Thy Ed
52. Floss
Your Ed
53. Quick
Shot Ed
54. Look
Into My Eds
55.
The Luck of the Ed
56.
The
Good Ol’ Ed
57.
Is There An Ed in the House?
58. Knock,
Knock Who’s Ed
59. A
Boy and His Ed
60. Eds-Aggerate
61.
Three Squares and an Ed
62. One
Size Fits Ed
63.
Will Work for Ed
64.
Boys Will Be Eds
65. High
Heeled Ed
66. Know-it-All
Ed
67.
For Your Ed Only
68.
Dim Lit Ed
69. Cry
Ed
70. Eeny
Meeny Miney Ed
71. A
Pinch to Grow an Ed
72. Pop
Goes the Ed
73. Hands
Across Ed
74. They
Call Him Mr. Ed
75. An
Ed Too Many
76. Sir
Ed-a-Lot
77. For
the Ed By the Ed
78. Over
Your Ed
79.
From Here to Ed
80. A
Key to My Ed
81. Once
Bitten Twice Ed
82.
X Marks the Ed
83. It’s
Way Ed
84. In
Like Ed
85. A
Twist of Ed
86.
My Fair Ed
87. To
Sir With Ed
88. Nagged
to Ed
89. Tag
Yer Ed
90. If
it Smells Like an Ed
91.
Your
Ed Here
The next review shows off the nuisances that come from Ed's especially stinky jacket, and Eddy is tormented by a cursed telephone.
Next time is more DuckTales reviews with "Bubba's Big Brainstorm" from the original series.
If you would like to check out other Ed Edd n Eddy reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
