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Take This Ed and Shove It
Just as this season began with a full half hour special, it ends with one too, and unlike the premiere, the finale does good justice for the show as a whole. Not only is the overall story executed well, but the theme of the special connects to a major element that makes the series what it is. For four seasons at this point, the audience has seen characters in this one neighborhood getting up to antics based around crazy things people tend to do as children. With childhood though comes thoughts of it ending and eventually entering adulthood, and as this special covers that theme, it has a very good setup for a finale.
The very idea of growing up is shown in the structure as the special begins with one of the Eds’ scams taking on a more childish than average approach. Feeling like a commercial aimed at really little kids, it features Eddy dressed as a panda selling balloon animals aided by his friends also dressed as absurd colorful characters. The neighborhood kids are unimpressed, and as Eddy ponders why, Double D explains it’s because they’re all growing up. Little instances of the kids like Jimmy going from a trike to a bike; Nazz watching sophisticated TV; and Kevin growing facial hair help illustrate this matter. They’re not much and have no direct effect on the story, but they do show that things don’t stay the same and people grow and change. It may be Double D reading too much into the kids doing their thing, but there is still a true to life point to be made here.
In typical Eddy fashion though, instead of taking all these instances at moral value, he instead uses them as an idea for another scam. The idea of growing up means kids getting careers, so he sets up a career counseling program where a fake computer and random stuff in a chest dictate everyone’s futures. The results are a whole array of careers; some natural like Nazz as a dentist, Rolf as a barber, and Jimmy as a lumberjack; and some ridiculous like Jonny as a gopher and Sarah as a traffic light.
Regardless of what the jobs end up being, they still aid in the kids’ growth as people, though Eddy could care less about that. He just looks at the whole thing as a successful way of getting his and his friends’ favorite treat, jawbreakers, all while his future goals are solely to keep scamming kids. Speaking of jawbreakers, much as a special ends up being a whole slapstick routine for the Eds to try and enjoy them, and the kids’ new careers play a role in this. Because of how seriously they take their newly assigned roles, the Eds keep running into them and they pose as challenges to keep them from the jawbreakers. They start with Nazz locking them in a desk as a dentist, and the rest of the careers show up to get the desk away from the Eds and thwart them from reaching it. Eventually, their attempts at reaching the desk result in Eddy falling down a pit and getting hit on the head with a barrage of objects, causing a turning point for the special.
Eddy suddenly wakes up in his room, but discovers he’s wrinkly, covered in liver spots, and a cane suddenly shows up in his hand. In other words, he’s suddenly grown into an old man, and it’s absolutely horrifying for him. However, it’s not nearly as frightening as seeing everyone he knows being old as well, and seeming accepting of it considering how it seems to have just suddenly happened. Double D has basically settled down to the point of just wanting to play cribbage while Ed is happily his usual oafish self, just old. As for the neighborhood kids, they’ve grown old too and seem perfectly fine with this. Whether they're deaf or senile like Jonny and Rolf; settled down to the simpler things like Nazz; traded in childish activities like skip rope for more sensible likes like knitting with Jimmy and Sarah; or doing their usual thing but slower and less energized like Kevin, it’s all very much a different feel despite it still technically being their usual thing. With it feeling different though, it makes sense for Eddy to feel shocked by this.
For his sake, it’s lucky that the freakiest change of all didn’t make the final cut. There’s a deleted scene showing that the Eds married the Kanker sisters and are saddled with innumerable crying babies. Considering how much they harass them on a regular basis, and that they’re shown to be mistreated at their new old ages, this is just hard to sit with. With this being a nightmare though, keeping it in might have added to the shock value it’s clearly going for working on Eddy.
However, just as freaky is how the special makes the hard fact that there’s no going back from growing up. Eddy gets an idea that they’ll all be kids again if they just eat the jawbreakers still locked in preserved in that desk. The plan is ultimately futile as just as they open the desk, the jawbreakers are shown to be reduced to dust. Eddy is sent into a frenzy repeatedly hitting himself on the head telling himself that he’s not old, and things appear to be working out. He wakes up from this dream with him and his friends as kids, and Ed even gets the desk open, leaving them open to enjoy their jawbreakers.
Then comes another twist with a sudden cut to old Eddy waking up from a doze playing cribbage with old Double D and Ed. Apparently, he was actively reminiscing about a past event when they were kids, and poor Eddy is left with the hard fact that the events are in the past and they really are old. As a matter of fact, it puts the entire series into perspective that everything that’s been seen was just old Eddy looking back at the past. In a way though, it kind of adds a layer of intrigue with a very relatable theme. The whole series has been showcasing moments of childhood in its own entertaining and comedic style. Said style has helped these moments stand as something special and one of a kind. With this finale to Season 4, it says a lot about how all those great moments can disappear before you know it, and that time goes quicker than one may think as they get older. It’s as if it’s saying that it’s important to make the best of those moments while you can because getting older is an inevitability, and you have to face it. This is shown through the last scene of Eddy begrudgingly accepting this as he laughs along with his old friends while still wishing he was a kid. Honestly, this could be an interesting place to end the series as a whole with the reveal that it was all an old man’s look back at childhood. However, the show proved popular enough to demand more content, so it kept going. In doing so, it would make for a more satisfying conclusion for the Eds, but that’s a matter for another time.
For now though, this current season in question ends strongly with a work that adds a true to life thought provoking layer that makes the series something to hold onto for life.
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. Take
This Ed and Shove It
12. One
of Those Eds
13. Laugh
Ed Laugh
14. Dawn
of the Eds
15. Don’t
Rain on My Ed
16.
Wish You Were Ed
17.
Dueling Eds
18. Mirror,
Mirror On the Ed
19. Hand
Me Down Ed
20.
Gimme, Gimme Never Ed
21. Ed-N-Seek
22. Keeping
Up With the Eds
23. Who
Let the Ed In
24. Avast
Ye Eds
25. Flea
Bitten Ed
26. Fool
on the Ed
27. Ready
Set Ed
28. The
Ed-Touchables
29. Who
What Where Ed
30. Dear
Ed
31.
Momma’s Little Ed
32. Run
For Your Ed
33.
Brother, Can You Spare an Ed?
34. Hot
Buttered Ed
35.
Ed or Tails
36. Stop
Look and Ed
37.
See No Ed
38. Shoo
Ed
39.
Rock-a-Bye Ed
40. Little
Ed Blue
41. Ed
in a Halfshell
42. Scrambled
Ed
43. Pain
in the Ed
44.
O-Ed Eleven
45. Vert
Ed Go
46. Ed
Overboard
47. Postcards
from the Ed
48. Oath
to an Ed
49.
Ed, Ed, and Away
50. Button
Yer Ed
51.
An Ed in the Bush
52. Read
All About Ed
53. Rambling
Ed
54. Home
Cooked Ed
55. Honor
Thy Ed
56. Stuck
in Ed
57. Floss
Your Ed
58. Robbin’
Ed
59. Quick
Shot Ed
60. Look
Into My Eds
61.
The Luck of the Ed
62. The
Good Ol’ Ed
63.
Is There An Ed in the House?
64. Knock,
Knock Who’s Ed
65. A
Boy and His Ed
66. Eds-Aggerate
67.
Three Squares and an Ed
68. One
Size Fits Ed
69.
Will Work for Ed
70.
Boys Will Be Eds
71. High
Heeled Ed
72. Know-it-All
Ed
73.
For Your Ed Only
74.
Dim Lit Ed
75. Cry
Ed
76. Eeny
Meeny Miney Ed
77. A
Pinch to Grow an Ed
78. Pop
Goes the Ed
79. Hands
Across Ed
80. They
Call Him Mr. Ed
81. An
Ed Too Many
82. Sir
Ed-a-Lot
83. For
the Ed By the Ed
84. Over
Your Ed
85.
From Here to Ed
86. A
Key to My Ed
87. Once
Bitten Twice Ed
88.
X Marks the Ed
89. It’s
Way Ed
90. Here’s
Mud in Your Ed
91. In
Like Ed
92. A
Twist of Ed
93. A
Case of Ed
94.
Thick as an Ed
95.
My Fair Ed
96. To
Sir With Ed
97. Nagged
to Ed
98. Tag
Yer Ed
99.
Stiff Upper Ed
100.
Sorry Wrong Ed
101. If
it Smells Like an Ed
102. Your
Ed Here
Final Thoughts
So, another look at an Ed Edd n Eddy season has come to an end. Ultimately, Season 4 continues to help the show offer a unique comedic animated experience which as usual is commendable. However, it just doesn’t seem to have the same reach as the seasons that came before it.
It’s natural for shows to start off with a winning formula that keeps audiences invested only for the formula to lose steam over time and not always be able to keep the high quality up. As often discussed in the past, Ed Edd n Eddy has certainly had an appealing comedic style and formula. Its emphasis on childhood antics and mishaps along with outcasts trying to fit in made it relatable, and its art style and extreme gags especially made it stand out. For the first three seasons, the style and atmosphere were on full display to help the crew come up with very inventive cartoon ideas. With Season 4, while this doesn’t not hold true, there are some things that feel kind of off in parts, making the inability to remain of high quality apparent. One common drawback in a number of cartoons is a tendency for single setups to feel drawn out which makes the experience less memorable or interesting. Sometimes the setup becomes so formulaic, even the show acknowledges it like the Eds constantly recycling the same scam and attracting kids with walky talkies every time. Other times, concepts are exposed so much that leave little room for anything else like dealing with Ed’s stinky jacket. This gets especially unpleasant when certain drawn-out concepts start to tap into the slightly sadistic side of the show. There was always a sense of meanness to the format of the show, but more often than not in the past, the show made it work with a sense of justice. Every now and then, instances of mean spiritedness felt undeserved, but in Season 4, this tends to happen more often than it should.
It’s through this direction where questions are raised on the appeal of how the Eds work and if they’re worth following. Scams like the thingamajig and Smiley-ville actually feel scummy for straight up tricking kids into thinking they’re something great but are deliberately unappealing. It’s not like the usual setup where there’s effort to make them great where the ways they fall apart are unintentional and unprecedented. These scams feel like actual scams that are not worth getting behind at all. Worse still, it makes it seem like all the Eds care about are jawbreakers with no regard for the respect and admiration that comes from the amounts of money they may make. There’s even a moment where they straight up abandon a scam when they hear about getting free jawbreakers. Further negatively affecting any heart this setup used to have, questions are raised on if the Eds truly care for each other as a unit. True, they’ve always had their differences clash, but it was often kept in check and prevented from getting to the point of going too far. Of all three, Eddy is easily the most problematic, and that’s saying a lot considering there’s always been an edge to him. Despite this edge, he almost always had enough capacity for care for his friends which made him endearing. Throughout Season 4 though, Eddy really starts crossing a line where all his negative traits practically dominate any care he once had. There are times when his friends are in trouble and he either favors his own selfish desires, like in “Don’t Rain on my Ed”, or just does nothing, like in “Ed Overboard.” Other times, he’s doesn’t care who he inconveniences to get what he wants like when he steals Plank’s parents from his friends who are happy to give them a nice simple cul-de-sac tour. No, Eddy can’t accept that and turns a good deed into a ploy to benefit he, himself, and him, and worst of all, when it backfires, his innocent friends go down with him. Things look even worse for Eddy, and even the Eds as a whole, in scenarios where his actions make it look like only Double D is the Ed worth caring about. “A Case of Ed” is definitely the embodiment of this feeling where Eddy manages to have Ed go along with his messing about, and it goes too far when it involves Double D. They make him think he’s sick and worse that he only has a short time to live. Seriously, what kind of friend would even think to do this to someone they’re close to? They both get what they deserve with Double D coming out on top in the end, but the issue is the growing lack of heart in the show’s titular dynamic.
The most notable dip in quality
comes from just how many of these cartoons wind up just plain not very good. Now, the other seasons had weak entries too
with it somewhat easy to point out. However, those weak cartoons were either far
and few between or had enough merit to keep them from being straight up
bad. With Season 4, there are quite a
few cartoons that simply don’t work, happening far more often than before. The very first entry of the season is
notoriously mean and unfair with the Eds getting relentlessly berated and
punished for crimes they didn’t commit.
In spite of a solid mystery element, it’s all ruined by the Eds getting punished,
completely undeserved which again is usually considered to make the downer
endings work. Speaking of undeserved,
there are also some entries where the Eds are made to suffer even though they
did nothing wrong. One entry has them
just want to join a club all the kids turn them away from for no good reason,
and when they do join, it’s nothing but humiliation. Another has Eddy suffering by getting hurt
whenever a phone rings over and over again with several obvious ways to stop
this monotony getting ignored. This in
turn makes the whole experience an honestly boring attempt at physical
comedy. But by far the worst this
season, as well as the series at this point, gets is “Your Ed Here” the cartoon
where all the worst parts of Season 4 come full circle. It has relentless suffering for a reason as
petty as a middle name; Eddy not being deserving of the suffering he gets at
all; incessant humiliation and teasing which can get as monotonous as it gets
cruel; any good moments not being big enough to make up for the bad ones; and
even a lack of heart where Eddy throws all his sympathy away by convincing the
kids to tease Double D for his middle name at the end. The show may have had duds before, but they
never hurt the entertainment factor this badly.
That’s all the reasons for why this season isn’t as good as what came before it. But is it still good as a whole? The answer to that would be yes, as despite its flaws, Season 4 still gives the show enough life to turn out memorable animated escapades. In fact, when this season hits, it’s one of the most memorable experiences of the series, each one coming in different varieties. One cartoon is one big dash to the candy store, and despite some moral issues between the main trio, it’s a lot of fun with many different obstacles and character run-ins. Some cartoons take characters into completely unexpected directions or offers development. There’s a look at Ed stripped away from his usual cheerful self and how hard he goes with destructive tendencies; a whole cartoon is built around Plank’s parents; the Kankers show glimpses of humanity from acting out of care for others as well as devotion to their family like when they destroy the cul-de-sac to find their ship-in-a-bottle (they’re still largely unpleasant though); and Jonny adopts a superhero persona with Captain Melonhead which offers a new avenue to take him for stories. Regarding characters, the most interesting things are done with them in a cartoon with a very out-there concept. A boomerang suddenly appears in the neighborhood, and everyone who touches it acts completely different from their true selves. Sometimes, it’s natural opposites, while other changes are totally random, but it’s all around entertaining, and easily a highly memorable entry for this season and the whole series.
One specific character who stands out this season is Jimmy. It’s very common to see him as nothing more than a weak pansy, but Season 4 offers him a chance to act with a little more bite. Sometimes, he proves active in helping Sarah rat out the Eds, and in a move alien to his sweet soft-spoken nature is capable of major snark in telling the Eds off. Speaking of his usual nature, it’s still present and at times leads to some of his more notable roles. In one cartoon, he’s so overwhelmed by stressful parts of his day like fights among his peers and the Eds’ scams and joins Rolf in finding solace by getting back at the Eds. However, Jimmy’s most notable character shifts come from his own proactiveness in coming up with schemes. In one cartoon, despite its overall unpleasantness and questionable motivation, it’s impressive how he forms such an elaborate stunt to mess with the Eds. A better example would be when he joins the Eds in coming up with his own scam which legitimately feels like something people would want, and it works. It’s practically embarrassing that Eddy turns it down for no good reason.
Speaking of this cartoon, among this season’s
more interesting more cartoons are those that have an interesting underlying
message. This cartoon in question can
arguably be seen as self-aware through Eddy being unable to think of a scam. A setup like this can be easily related to how
hard it can be for long running shows to think of ideas. This is especially for a season where there
are as many ideas that fall flat as there are that work, like in this
season. Another big theme comes at the
very end of the season, which is more relatable. It’s about the Eds and the neighborhood kids
contemplating the idea of growing up and thinking of the future. Eddy scoffs at the idea of growing up,
relishing the idea of being a kid forever only to be given a vision of himself
and all he knows as really old. What’s
more, it all ends with a twist that seems to say that the whole show was old
Eddy looking back at old escapades from childhood. The takeaway here is a message to not take
childhood memories for granted, because if you squander them, you’ll be old,
grey, and worn out before you know it.
Having messages like this make this whole show stand out more than just
funny cartoon antics, and they work so organically too. It shows that even if it’s not exactly in its
prime, Ed Edd n Eddy can still be described as one of a kind when it
comes to animated entertainment.
Looking at the fourth season of Ed
Edd n Eddy as a whole though, it’s a pretty mixed experience. Much of it consists of some impressive
cartoons with amusing setups, character moments, and relatable themes. However, it also features dull entries as
well as several moments where it starts going too far with its meanness to the
point of not focusing on if it’s a reasonable amount. This can be seen as experimental where some
ideas work more than others, but it can also be the show sometimes hitting it,
but also showing notable signs of losing steam.
Considering one of its entry is about being stuck for ideas, this is a
common thing to happen to shows at this point in their run. This feel carries into the next and final
season where a lot of the issues persist even more while also featuring the
show’s most blatant experimentation.
That will let itself be known at another time, so the series shall rest
until then. For now though, thoughts
turn to its fourth season being a step down from its predecessors, and yet
still uniquely Ed Edd n Eddy.
Be sure to look out for more DuckTales reviews on this blog as well as whatever shows bring enough intrigue to cover. Until then:
Stay Animated Folks!
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