"Keys have quite a history of unlocking the mysteries of time."
After messing around with Double D's experiments, the Eds come across a lost key and are determined to figure out what it unlocks.
Key To My Ed provides examples of the following tropes:
- Agony of the Feet: Edd and Eddy are screaming in horror after the Kankers start playing footsies with them.
- Apple of Discord: Not the key, but the ransom letters that Eddy sends turns the amicable Cul-de-sac kids into bitter enemies.
- An Aesop: When you find something discarded like a key, be sure to take it to the authorities.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Kankers get their way with the Eds and force them to play footsies at the end of the episode.
- Barefoot Captives: The boys become this to the Kankers by the end of the episode.
- Big Eater: Eddy feeds the key to Ed to try to hide it from the Kankers. Later when the Kankers are jumping on Ed's back to try to get him to cough it up, he ends up coughing up a sink first. This is lampshaded by Lee, who says in a flabbergasted tone "This boy's got a big appetite," when the sink lands in front of her.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Eddy does this once he gets fed up with Double D's moralistic lecture.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: When Jimmy attacks Nazz upon suspecting she's stolen his shampoo, Sarah shouts out his usual "Holy mackerel!"
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Eddy asks at one point if Jonny will stay asleep through the whole show.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: After capturing the Eds, the Kankers force them to play footsies with them. Eddy and Double D are both disgusted by this and struggle fruitlessly to escape, while Ed has no reaction other than to call May's feet "clammy".
- Cruelty by Feet: What the Kankers do to the Eds at the end of the episode: by playing footsies.
- Didn't Think This Through: Eddy decides to create a ransom for the key. Problem is, he didn't state in the ransom what the item actually is, simply saying it is "something they've lost". So when they get to the lane, where the ransom is at, they don’t care about the key, thinking that a perpetrator had stolen completely different items that had recently gone missing.Kevin: Who cares about the stupid key?
- Downer Ending: The key that the Eds have been obsessed over? It's actually the key to Ed's house the whole time! And by the time they learned this, they're unable to escape and get trapped in Ed's basement, forced to play footsies with the Kankers.
- The Dreaded: As soon as the Kankers show up in the lane, all the other kids quickly break it up and run for the hills.
- Fighting Your Friend: All the Cul-de-sac kids who are friends with each other (most of the time) end up fighting one another when they believe that they've stolen a personal belonging.
- Foreshadowing: The key was found near Ed after he fell into the backyard, with no one else in the area.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Eddy throws Jonny while he is sleeping at the Kankers to stop them from getting the key. Jonny ends up landing on top of Lee, making her drop the key, and the Kankers stare in horror at Jonny while Lee demands Marie move him off her.Eddy: Hey Kankers! Trade ya!
- Kitchen Sink Included: Spoofed. When the Kankers are trying to get Ed to cough up the key after Eddy fed it to him to hide it, he coughs up a kitchen sink first.Lee: This boy's got a big appetite!
- Only Sane Man: Instead of baseless accusing someone of stealing her personal belongings, Nazz is the only one of the kids to question who wrote the ransom note.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The peaceful and docile Jimmy turns instantly violent when he assumes that Nazz stole his shampoo.
- Pet the Dog: Worried that "the vultures" will attack Jonny while he's asleep, Ed decides to bring him along.
- Poor Communication Kills: When all the kids show up in the lane after getting the ransom letters, they all immediately assume one of them is the thief who stole a personal item of theirs. This is best shown with Rolf and Kevin, the first two to arrive, with them both blaming the other for stealing their eggplant cups and headphones respectively, without ever mentioning they received the same ransom letter and thus couldn't be "the thief". Furtherly, things only escalated that far because Eddy didn't mention the key in his ransom letter, leading everyone else to think it is referring to a completely different item.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Cul-de-sac kids hightail it out of the alley when The Kankers show up.
- Shout-Out: One of Eddy's ideas for what the key can open for is an exploited cartoon character theme park.
- Spraying Drink from Nose: Ed drinks Edd's experimental soda, which Edd warns is still unstable. Eddy tickles Ed, causing the soda to churn in his stomach until it sprays out his nose with such force it propels him through the air like a rocket.
- Stock Punishment: The Kankers use a stock to restrain the Eds before they torture them.
- "Take That!" Kiss: Discussed; when Eddy tries to hide the key from the Kankers, Marie tells Lee to give Eddy "the lip-lock". Though the Kankers never actually kiss the Eds this episode (at least not on-screen) and instead decide to play footsies with them after catching them.
- Tickle Torture: Eddy does this to Ed when the latter guzzles down all of Edd's experimental soda.
- Too Kinky to Torture: While the Kankers are torturing Eddy and Double D by forcing them to play footsies, Ed doesn't seem to mind it and actually seems to enjoy it.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Eddy sends ransom notes to everyone in the Cul-de-sac, wanting to exchange the key for a bag of jawbreakers. He believes only the person the key belongs to will show up, but instead, everyone shows up believing someone else stole another item from them, which escalates into a massive fight. This entertains Eddy at first but quickly becomes confused by it, and tries to break it up by telling everyone he called them and ''he had the key, only for Kevin to say nobody cares about the key before they resume fighting.
- Wall of Text: Enforced when the key gets stuck in Edd's gap. He goes off on a rant about how Eddy would prefer whoever the key belongs to, to suffer. He even goes on through a scene transition.Edd: Mortified? Yes. But I won’t let myself fall prey to such shallow emotion. Not now.
- Wham Line: At the climax of the episode, we finally find out who the key belonged to.Edd: Ed, the door! Ed!Ed: No problem, I have a key. [He reaches into his pocket and his hand comes out his pant leg.] I think it fell out of this hole in my pants.[Eddy stares at the key the Eds have been using the whole episode, dumbfounded.]Eddy: Ed! You idiot! This is your key!
- Wingding Eyes: Before the soda pours out his nose, Ed's eyes turn into faucet knobs.
- You Talk Too Much!: Edd talks at length for an excessively long time about the key and who's missing it. Eddy understandably gets annoyed.Eddy: Do you EVER turn off?Edd: It's a curse, I'm afraid.
