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YMMV / Ed, Edd n Eddy

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YMMV Tropes For Ed, Edd n Eddy

YMMVs with their own pages:


Examples from the movie go here.

YMMV for the Franchise

  • Accidental Aesop: While true Aesops are rare in Ed, Edd, n' Eddy, several episodes can act as cautionary tales about acting a certain way.
    • "Honor Thy Ed": Don't cry wolf. The Eds probably would have been able to get out of their situation easily if they hadn't pretended to be in danger at first to mess with the Cul-de-Sac kids.
    • "Stop, Look and Ed": Actions have consequences. It doesn't matter whether you like a rule or not, those who enforce them will take notice if you start breaking them. Even Double D ends up getting hit with this, as the kids were gonna face the repercussions of their actions when their parents got home anyway, but by calling them ahead of time and actively announcing it to the kids, he just ended up painting a massive target on his back.
    • "Brother Can You Spare an Ed?": Has two. If someone is noted for being unreliable or easily swayed by others in the past, it's probably best to not entrust them with an important task. And Don't take advantage of your friends for monetary gain. Even if they don't abandon you for it, you can expect them to pay you back in full.
    • "Wish You Were Ed": Be upfront when you want to provide a service for monetary gain. If Eddy had been upfront about helping Rolf get over his homesickness by constructing a fake village based on his homeland in exchange for a small fee, they may have been able to avoid the pain they end up getting at the end of the episode.
    • "Dim Lit Ed": Twofold. Be upfront about the reward for your task, and have realistic expectations. Double D didn't do much to quash the idea that the reward would be a jawbreaker but at the same time, the kids shouldn't have expected a jawbreaker as a reward considering how the Eds are infamous for rarely ever getting any; let alone giving them away.
    • "They Call Him Mr. Ed": Have an end goal whenever starting something. Eddy legitimately managed to win over a lot of the kids with his office space idea... Too bad even he didn't know how they were gonna profit off it, which causes the kids to lose interest.
    • "Little Ed Blue": If someone's in a bad mood, maybe ask why they're in a bad mood first before trying to cheer them up. Double D and Eddy's attempts to cheer Ed up without knowing why he was mad just ends up making him angrier. If they had simply asked him why he was so upset, they very easily could have saved themselves a lot of pain. And urging someone to "get over it" when they're upset like Eddy tries to do certainly won't help.
    • "Stiff Upper Ed": There are several; pick your battles. Control your temper. Be happy with what you have. Don't be so determined to impress others, especially if you don't like them/they don't like you and neither of you trusts the other one. And your dignity should always come first before fitting in.
  • Accidental Innuendo: Though considering the channel it's on, it might not be accidental:
    • In the very first episode "The Ed-Touchables", lines like "There's a serial toucher on the loose!" have some very unfortunate implications if taken out of context.
    • Double D's name alone can be an innuendo, and is in fact used as one in a commercial featuring a blind date between Ed and Daphne.
      Daphne: His constant talk about "Double D" made me a little uncomfortable. How am I supposed to compete with that?
    • "An Ed In A Bush":
      Sarah: Mom says to come out of the closet, Ed.
    • In the episode "Button Yer Ed" For context
      Rolf: Ed! You are disgracing yourself!
    • From "1+1= Ed":
      Eddy: Well, if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em.
    • "This Won't Hurt an Ed" gives us the following gem:
      Eddy: (eyes a hot dog) Hey, Rolf. That weiner looks dangerously hot. Let's poke it, just to make sure.
    • Can't forget this episode title: "Take This Ed and Shove It".
  • Adorkable:
    • Ed is a silly, lovable oaf with a playful and innocent personality and a number of odd obsessions like sci-fi movies, chickens, and buttered toast.
    • Double D. He's cute, geeky, neurotic, polite, and quite a Shrinking Violet, especially around girls.
    • Jimmy, being a cute, delicate, accident-prone kid who cries easily and has a lot of woobie moments.
    • Jonny's Cloudcuckoolander personality, especially when he's "talking" with Plank, gives him this status.
    • May, a naive Dumb Blonde with freckles, buck teeth, a Simpleton Voice, and goofy personality who's also the sweetest of the Kanker sisters.
  • Alternative Joke Interpretation:
    • In "Rambling Ed", an annoyed Eddy asks Ed if he would jump in a lake with a rock tied to his head and wait for Sarah to develop naked photos of him so she could hand them out to all the kids in the cul-de-sac if she asked him to; Ed simply replies "I had socks on, Eddy", which makes Eddy let out a loud "UGH!" Eddy could either be Screaming at Squick, or just letting out an exasperated groan due to Ed Comically Missing the Point.
    • In another episode, when Ed seemingly does something right for once, Eddy proclaims, "I'd tell ya I love ya, Ed, but I ain't that kind of guy!" Is Eddy trying to assert his masculinity or his straightness?
  • Angel/Devil Shipping: Edd/Marie—the Token Good Teammate and his Stalker with a Crush.
  • Angst Aversion: While it is meant to be Played for Laughs, the sadistic slapstick humor and the needless cruelty from the kids is tough to sit through for real life viewers who experienced bullying and lack of friends.
  • Angst? What Angst?: All three of the Eds are mostly well hinged despite their shortcomings. To specify.
    • Ed is commonly punished along with Edd and Eddy for things he doesn't do (which is occasionally because he sometimes goes along with Eddy's shenanigan while ignoring Edd's warnings against them), is treated horribly by his younger sister, and it's greatly implied that even his own family doesn't like him as much. Despite this, Ed still remains one of the nicest guys in the series. He even acts polite towards Kevin (and the other kids), despite Kevin hating his guts.
    • Edd rarely sees his parents in person and often communicates through sticky notes. His rocky relationship with his friends, Ed and Eddy, especially with the latter during "Your Ed Here" when a humiliated Eddy made fun of Edd's middle name and letting the kids join, and considering of how much he's mistreated and punished by the kids too whenever Ed and Eddy did wrong. It's a miracle that Edd never shows any resentment towards any of the kids, especially Eddy.
    • Eddy has a huge Freudian Excuse, undergoes constant failures and abuse and lives with parents who are implied to be abusive (or at the very least, neglectful), yet he always remains his egotistical, manipulative, smarmy self. Finally averted in The Movie.
  • Awesome Music:
    • Patric Caird's entire energetic, free-form jazz score. It's one of the big things about the show that helps it stand out among other cartoons of its kind, and often incorporates compositions unique to a given episode, as opposed to relying mainly on stock production music cues the way shows like Ren & Stimpy or Spongebob Squarepants usually do.
    • My Best Friend Plank. A nice song which will get you to feel so nostalgic.
    • "I'm Not Coming In Anymore" can really get you in your feels. Fans of the show even wanted it to be played during the end credits of the movie.
  • Badass Decay: In the first few seasons, the Kanker sisters were The Dreaded, whose mere sight was enough to send the other kids screaming away in fear. However, in the school episodes their abusive tendencies are significantly toned down and they are treated with mild annoyance at best by the other characters. This is most obvious in "A Fistful of Ed", where Edd is more than willing to share his meal with Marie, and Eddy's rant is enough to send the three sisters packing. If these actions were performed in any earlier episode, the girls would unquestionably have started bullying the boys in response.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Eddy is either a Not Evil, Just Misunderstood Lovable Rogue whose great cunning and effort in his schemes are meant for people to sympathize with him, or a selfish and annoying Jerkass who abuses two guys (Ed and Edd) that should have ditched him long ago before the latter's schemes earned them the hatred of the cul-de-sac. The fact that he gets a ton of funny moments helps a lot.
    • After years of being the show's fan favorite, Double D is slowly starting to gain a notable backlash to him because of how popular he used to be, due to a combination of him often stealing the spotlight away from the other characters (and most importantly, the other Eds) and having his positive traits Flanderized (while everyone else has their negative traits flanderized in turn) to the point he ends up becoming an insufferable character in almost any fanwork he appears in. The 2013 Kevedd craze certainly didn't help matters, either.
    • Even Ed of all characters is occasionally subject to divisive opinions by fans: While there are more fans who enjoy his ditzy personality and share of one-liners, there are some who find his stupidity to be obnoxious at times to the point where they don't blame Eddy for snapping at him. There are some people who find his Pig Pen tendencies to be more gross than funny as well.
    • Nazz has a broken shipping base with fans pairing her up with various kids and haters claiming she is just (or decayed into) a Dumb Blonde stereotype -despite May also fitting this role — who doesn't deserve to be with anyone.
    • The Kanker sisters, between those who pair them up with the Eds and those who just find them annoying and hate them for being all one-note characters whose only use is a G-Rated rape joke, a Plot Device to make the Eds' life even more miserable and generally end as a Karma Houdini despite everything they do.
      • May, in particular, is either treated just as badly as her siblings or like the White Sheep of her sisters. Her given the most sympathetic moments out of all of them and her sort of seeming to have a genuine crush on Ed did not help.
      • Due to her abundance of fans, Marie also gets this.
    • Kevin. He's one of the least liked characters in the show due to some seeing him as a typical one-dimensional jerk who is lacking in having stand out traits that would make him entertaining or funny like some of the other characters. He's also hated for his unnecessarily cruel treatment of the Eds due to him often having little to no provocation to antagonize them other than simply because he's a jerk, and the fact that it's always Played for Laughs and he always gets away with it turns fans off due to finding it more grating than funny. However, he does have some fans who like him for having funny dialogue and only attacking the Eds if they provoke him at times. They also like how he can tolerate Double D and Ed on occasion and only focus his anger on Eddy as he's the instigator of the scams. There's also the fact that he's civil towards his friends and can be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold towards them at worst.
    • Jonny 2x4. While his antics can be considered endearing or Adorkable, often times he can be quite obnoxious with his carefree attitude and frustrate a lot of the cast, including the Eds, with how oblivious he is to how irritating they find him. The fact he never really apologizes for his actions (such as destroying Kevin's bike, or taking Sarah's and Jimmy's shovel in the sand pit) only emphasizes how destructive he can be without a care in the world.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
    • The ending of "Dear Ed", where Jimmy and the Eds end up having their own personal dance party, complete with a 70s-esque disco song playing in the background. Even funnier when listening to the scene with the French audio track on DVD.
    • The climax of "One + One = Ed" culminates in the boys going on a reality-breaking journey through the Cul-de-Sac, doing things such as removing Jimmy's outline, standing behind and directly interacting with the background, and leaning dangerously against the Fourth Wall—only to suddenly snap back to reality at the end, with no explanation as to whether anything they did during the second third of the episode was real, All Just a Dream, or simply their imaginations getting away from them. Their interactions with Sarah seem to imply the latter two, but even then, there's no confirmation of this, and the buildup to the climax is so gradual that it seems implausible, even within the context of the cartoon, that the Eds simply just lost touch with reality.
    • Also during the holiday special "Ed, Edd n Eddy's Jingle Jingle Jangle", when Eddy goes into Rolf's house, he's roped into a complete oddball of a song. While the oddness of Rolf's yuletide traditions are fairly par-for-the-course for the resident Funny Foreigner, the whole scene is like something from a Disney-themed acid trip, in a cartoon which tends to, for the most part, remain thematically grounded and consistent.
    • Eddy's beehive scam in the beginning of 'Pop Goes the Ed'. It doesn't help with the plot and if it were taken out, the episode will still be the same. The only allusions to it are them getting stung by bees at the end of the episode and a reappearance of the outfit in "To Sir With Ed" (with "Hive" replaced with "Snake"). Although every episode begins with something completely unrelated to the plot of the episode.
    • In "Urban Ed", Jimmy is surrounded by cardboard people after realising he ended up separated from Sarah, hearing the sounds of laughter as he becomes incredibly anxious from feeling surrounded. This is suddenly cut short when he notices a shoe store and skips a way, completely just ignoring what just happened a moment ago. It's an oddly dark scene in an otherwise light-hearted episode.
  • Bizarro Episode:
    • "One + One = Ed" is where the series officially proves that the fourth wall can't stop them from messing with the laws of physics.
    • Though not to the same extent as "One + One = Ed", the season 3 episode "It Came From Outer Ed" is pretty weird, stemming from Ed being given free range to make his own "scam" (read: "curse") based on a comic book. Incredibly random elements occur, presumably from the comic, but lack the context that the comic would likely have. Even Ed doesn't know the point of some things, as he asks Edd what the rock that he gave him is for.
    • "Every Which Way But Ed" threatens to top "One + One = Ed" in weirdness. The story involves Eddy trying to tell Ed and Edd about how he managed to get a jawbreaker, only for his flashback to be hijacked by Jonny telling his own flashback, then Kevin, and so on and on. The Eds try to get back to what Eddy was talking about, but they continue getting hijacked by flashbacks until they wind up going back to when they first met.
    • "Hand Me Down Ed" stands out. The episode revolves around a boomerang that drastically alters the personality of whoever is holding it. For example, Eddy becomes motherly while Ed gains a sudden boost in intellect. No explanation is given, but Edd and the episode's opening imply that the boomerang is an Artifact of Doom that has been traveling around the world on its own.
    • "Run Ed Run". The chase sequence is bizarre even by the show standards, with scenes like Eddy biting his own arm to stretch it and using it like a lasso, but the conclusion takes the cake. The Eds are propelled high into the sky and literally break the fourth wall, leaving a hole in the sky filled with TV static. The episode ends with Double-D researching what happened, Ed literally piecing the sky back together and Eddy being barfed on by Sarah.
  • Broken Base:
    • "If It Smells Like An Ed", full stop. Viewers are split between those who find it too cruel to be funny or a fan-favorite for being the first half-hour episode in the series and having elements of Detective Drama.
    • "A Fistful Of Ed". Some fans think it's one of the most sadistic episodes ever and hate it for being overly mean-spirited towards the totally innocent Edd, the hardcore scenes of violence and Eddy's obnoxiousness. Other fans like or praise it for exploring more seriously Edd's Character Depth, the emotional scenes, and the Bittersweet Ending (with Eddy actually standing up for Edd and saving the day by making The Kankers back off).
    • The final two seasons had the kids attending school. Some fans thought it was a refreshing change of pace, others disliked them for changing the status quo and location the show took place in. Similarly, did the series suffer Seasonal Rot after it was Un-Canceled? Reactions range from believing so to be the case, to others saying that they're either just as good as the pre-cancellation episodes or not quite as good but, overall, still pretty funny and enjoyable in their own right.
  • Cargo Ship:
    • Jonny and Plank, of course.
    • Kevin and his bike, especially in the movie.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • The handful of moments where Sarah gets her comeuppance is unbelievably satisfying. Whether it's being locked in her own cage in "Sir Ed-a-Lot", to especially in "Little Ed Blue" when she's left terrified at Ed yelling at her, and even getting buried alive by her brother in the "Boo Haw Haw" Halloween special.note 
      • Eddy ripping her mouth off her face in the bizarro "One + One = Ed" episode is also satisfying for viewers exasperated by her constant yelling.
    • Eddy and Ed's taunting of Kevin after he gets grounded in "A Case of Ed" is humorous to watch happen, especially after all the times Kevin got away with his actions towards the Eds.
    • After constantly being Karma Houdinis who get no comeuppance for their actions, it can be immensely satisfying to see the Kankers get trounced by Plank in "For the Ed, by the Ed".
  • Crack Pairing:
    • Edd/Kevin (Kevedd) is incredibly popular, despite that there isn't too much talking between them on the show. True, Kevin seems to like Double D a little more than Ed and Eddy (like everyone else, including Sarahnote ), but there are still only three scenes where he's friendly to him in the entire show, and all their other interactions involve Kevin insulting or bullying Edd.
    • Nazz/Marie, which seems to exist to pair two of the prettiest girls in the show. Especially since the two of them have never had a non-hostile interaction on screen, and the Kankers in general regard Nazz as a hussie who's out to steal their boyfriends. It should be noted, that the Nazz/Marie pairing was established in the fandom, even before the 2013 Kevedd craze.
    • In-universe from The Valentine's Day episode we have: Edd/May, Kevin/Lee, Jonny/Nazz, Eddy/Plank, Ed/a sandwich.
  • Crazy Is Cool: Ed and Rolf. The two of them would not only be not half as entertaining without their kookiness, but they'd probably be incapable of functioning without it too.
  • Creepy Awesome: Jonny is one of the creepiest characters of the cast, but it can make him quite funny.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Even for this show, some moments and implications are so cartoonishly violent that they go from tasteless to this. Some examples include the Kanker sisters setting up an elaborate trap to marry the Eds using a toy train and a haunted house in "Honor Thy Ed", Jonny's house collapsing after Ed breaks the support beam (because he's tied to it) in "Rent-A-Ed", and Sarah taking Nazz out with a car (as in she picks up an actual-sized car and throws it at her) in "Truth or Ed".
  • Delusion Conclusion: One prominent theory claims that the cul-de-sac the children live on is actually purgatory, and that every child there died sometime after 1900. It was based mostly on the lack of adults seen (though extremely rare, arms and silhouettes of adults were present). Furthermore, the theory was expanded for the movie and claimed that the theme park where Eddy's brother worked and their journey there was actually a journey into Hell.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • Of the three Kanker sisters, some would like to believe that May is a victim of circumstance who would actually be a really sweet girl if she didn't follow her sisters' example and became a regular Cul-de-Sac kid. This is further helped by her portrayal in "Hanky Panky Hullabaloo", where she's shown to be genuinely loving and sensitive in the beginning.
    • The Eds themselves, they are prone to being con-artist who try to scam the other kids. Plenty fans however treat them as only ever being victims who are unfairly treated with disdain and not deserving anything bad that ever happens to them. See Misaimed Fandom for more.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Marie — she has a much larger fanbase than any other Kanker, and possibly, any other female character in the show, probably because she dresses like a punk rocker and she gets some memorably snarky one-liners towards her sisters' antics.
    • Plank. You'll see most people remember and mention Plank when talking about this show, and he's only just a piece of wood.
    • Rolf is also one, this mainly stems from his Crazy Is Cool tendencies by pushing the Funny Foreigner trope to their limits. Rolf is a hilarious Fountain of Memes on par with Ed, thanks to his dialogue and actions throughout the series. All of this make Rolf possibly one of the most memorable side characters in the whole series, it also helps that he's one of the few kids who's actually fairly nice to the Eds... unless they scam him or test his patience.
    • The great Baron O' Beef Dip, one of Ed's toys that Eddy put a walkie-talkie onto the back of to make Ed believe it was alive.
    • Despite being a Hate Sink for being a bully to Eddy for all of his life, Eddy's Brother takes the cake for being a rare character.
  • Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: One of the popular fan theories state that all of the characters are dead and the cul-de-sac is actually a purgatory, with The Kankers as the Satanic guardians preventing them from going to Heaven. See the WMG page for details.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Many fans often get irritated when most people call Rolf "Ralph".
  • Fanfic Fuel: The Kankers' backstory (why they are evil, what happened before they moved to Peach Creek, their father(s) etc.).
  • Fanon: It's common, in fanart where Ed is drawn with longer hair, to make him ginger like Sarah.
  • First Installment Wins: Season 1 in comparison to the others seasons is this to some fans. The humor contained less slapstick, the Crapsack World feeling was less prominent, the characters were more nuanced, the Cul-de-sac kids were less mean-spirited towards the Eds, the Eds had a more healthy friendship, and the Eds managed to have happy endings.
  • Fountain of Memes:
    • Ed and his random non sequiturs.
    • Rolf, whether it be his ancestors' wives' tales, his native home's customs, his overreactions to other characters' weirdness, or his seemingly-infinite amount of nicknames for every character.
  • Franchise Original Sin: The characterizations of the Eds in Season 5 has been heavily criticized for making them come off as unlikable and flanderized. While these character traits started to form in the second season, they were still considered fun to watch and had a good friendship with each other. Season 5 had the Eds do things such as ditching each other just to be friends with the kids while in disguise (Eddy) and delivering their report cards to their parents, knowing full well that they'd get punished (Edd). It doesn't help that they became more mean-spirited, making their friendship come off as forced.
  • Genius Bonus:
    • Rolf's "Direct me to your music box." Is funnier when you know that "Music Box" used to be spy code for "Radio".
    • The soundtrack is also surprisingly sophisticated, being performed by a jazz orchestra and containing themes for each character, variations and combinations of said themes, and key transposition. The only thing most people will pick up on is that when Johnny's on screen, you hear a loud TOCK TOCK TOCK TOCK.
    • In "The Ed-Touchables", Eddy tortures Plank during the interrogation by dripping water on him with a squirt gun. This is actually an ancient Chinese torture method which is said to drive its victims to insanity.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • You might have already noticed the huge American fanbase this show has by now.
    • The show is also really popular in Scandinavia, still frequently airing the reruns on CN and absolutely everything the show has made is dubbed. To boot, it's pretty hard to find a person there who doesn't at least know what the show is.
  • Growing the Beard: While the first season is considered one of the most popular seasons of the show, the second season gave way for Character Development and cleaner-looking animation (come the time they went to junior high school, the animation was as smooth as it is in the opening credits.)
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • A few offhand lines about Eddy's brother sound more unsettling after the Grand Finale reveals Eddy's abusive relationship with his older brother.
      • In the very first episode, Edd asks if they should feel guilty about Jonny's predicament. Eddy brushes it off, saying that a little childhood trauma builds character.
      • In "Ed... Pass it On", the kids seem thoroughly terrified of Eddy's brother, including Eddy at the end of the episode. Come The Movie, we now know there was a good reason for them to be terrified.
      • "Ed in a Halfshell" involved Eddy being pretty mean to Jimmy (and wedgying him repeatedly) to teach him how to be an effective scammer. When Ed and Edd call him out on this, Eddy retorts that he's just teaching Jimmy the way he was taught by his brother.
      • From "An Ed is Born":
        Eddy: No more beatin' up little Eddy, eh, big brother?
    • It is hard to watch episodes like "Smile for the Ed" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ed" after watching Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show and learning that years of abuse at the hands of his brother made Eddy believe that pretending to be a jerk was the only legitimate way to earn friendship.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • In "It's Way Ed", Double D finishes the episode by saying "In another ten years, we'll be back in style". He essentially predicted Big Picture Show 10 years in advance! Also counts as Heartwarming in Hindsight.
    • In "Quick Shot Ed", Eddy wonders how he can use his camera to "turn pictures into profit", then hatches an idea when he finds a calendar with a monkey's face on it. This scene becomes eerily prophetic following the 2021 NFT craze, with the monkey calendar bringing the Bored Ape Yacht Club to mind.
    • In "Eeny Meeny Miney Ed", Eddy tricks Ed into thinking Double D is an alien. A few years after this episode, Double D's voice actor would play an extraterrestrial in another show.
    • Nazz, a Tomboy with a Girly Streak who's predominately a Nice Girl with a bowl haircut voiced by Erin Fitzgerald, bears a shockingly similar characterization and physical resemblance to Chie Satonaka from Persona 4 who Erin also voices.
    • In Here's Mud In Your Ed, Eddy tricks Jimmy with a Smileyville scam, which promises numerous attractions with a colorfully drawn out map - with the actual "Smileyville" being a trashy alley with none of the promised attractions. Just a little over twenty years later, the Willy's Chocolate Experience in Glasgow used a similar method of scamming unsuspecting parents (a website full of AI-generated images promising colorful attractions) and the actual experience ended up featuring none of that.
  • Informed Wrongness: Apparently, Edd in "My Fair Ed" is somehow put in the wrong for trying to change Ed and Eddy (which he even blindly acknowledges) even though not only was it false, as he only was trying to make them more well-behaved, he had no other choice since the neighborhood kids (primarily Kevin) threatened punishment on him if he doesn't get his friends to behave. It certainly wasn't helped by the fact that Ed and Eddy had set up the plan to fool Edd into thinking that he made them worse and even allowing the neighborhood kids to shift their frustrations on Edd alone. So really, Edd had every right to do what he did since it was Ed and Eddy's fault the whole conflict started in the first place and Edd was the one the kids held responsible for.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: This is the usual sentiment towards Kevin sometimes but especially Sarah due to their mean-spiritedness towards the title characters, and both are the most vocal haters of the Eds and their antics. Meanwhile, the Kanker sisters are the closest thing to the recurring villains (until the movie), as they stalk, bully, and physically harass the Eds and everyone else For the Evulz, but they get much less hate than Kevin and Sarah; in fact, out of the Kankers, Marie and May are particularly popular, and fans are generally more forgiving to the Kankers because they actually like the Eds and torment them in a Loving Bully way (instead of just hating them like Kevin and Sarah do).
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
    • Double D being the most popular character. Shipped with everyone but Plank and Lee at least once. Yes, even Eddy's Brother. Over half of the shipping fics include him.
    • To a lesser extent there are: Nazz (shipped with Kevin, Edd, Eddy and Marie), Kevin (shipped with Nazz, Edd, Eddy and Rolf) and Eddy (shipped with Nazz, Edd, Kevin, Lee, Marie and, sometimes, Sarah).
  • Love to Hate:
    • Eddy, whose mischievous schemes can be quite hilarious at times, but quite effective, and sometimes you have to feel like he deserves preoccupancy.
    • Kevin to some extent. Even though he's hated by half of the fanbase, he's well-liked by a few fans who enjoy him for his hilarious one-liners, memorable moments and awesome ego.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Eddy's Brother, at least before The Movie came along...
    • Rolf, he's possibly the strongest kid in the Cul-de-Sac, but his relation to the trope is mostly thanks to the Hat of Discipline and the Almighty 3 Shoe Beating.
    • Ed himself, who's practically a canonical Reality Warper. There's a reason many people consider him to be one of the most powerful "Stand Users" in existence.
    • If you ask the fanbase, Double D can make anything out of random junk in his garage. Anything. Fanfics that have a more overt focus on adventure tend to turn him into a kids next door member in all but name. Sometimes it can get absurd, with having him build stuff like functioning jetliners out of cardboard and rubberbands.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Like many other long-running animated shows, it has a bunch of moments, episodes, and characters that a good portion of the fandom fail to see the basic point:
    • While Edd is smart, sane and definitely one of the most sympathetic characters in the show, fangirls tend to exaggerate his positive qualities and turn him into a Marty Stu, totally forgetting about his flaws (obsessive compulsive tendencies, physical weakness, judgmental nature, nagging and overreacting tendencies, lack of spine etc.). Also, some fans act like he never did anything wrong and think that every other character in the show is either a jerkass or a moron. Some people hate him for this exact reason.
    • A lot of fans tend to blame all of May and Marie's shenanigans on Lee's toxic influence. Because the former are forced to torment the Eds by her don't enjoy it at all, and have no conscience and free will to know better.
    • Fans will also demonize the neighborhood kids for their disdain towards the Eds, forgetting that the Eds sometimes provoke the kids into acting hostile. Granted the kids aren't that innocent either, but fans would portray the Eds as victims in almost every situation, even when it is the Eds' (or more commonly Eddy's) fault. Some fans even depict the kids as Gaining the Will to Kill the Eds, despite the fact that the Eds themselves cause the kids to get serious injuries from their scams gone awry.
    • Certain episodes focusing on pointless torment of the Eds are understandably disliked, such as "If It Smells Like An Ed" note , and "Sorry, Wrong Ed" note . However, episodes such as "The Good, the Bad, and the Ed" receive flak from a portion of fans for Eddy's apparently unjustified torture despite him being the architect of his own torment note .
      • Another episode that comes to mind is "Brother, Can You Spare An Ed." Fans of the show (and even on this very wiki) tend to paint Eddy as a victim of Sarah's wrath and Ed and Edd's karmic retribution towards him. They argue that Sarah shouldn't have trusted Ed with her money and that the whole episode was her fault. While Sarah could've picked a better person to entrust her money to, Ed has actually been shown to be fairly responsible when it comes to caring about her. Not only was he more than happy to do the favor for her, but he refused to even let Eddy hold the money. Only Eddy's constant pestering made him give in, and he was extremely apologetic about giving in. Regardless of how you feel about Sarah, it's unfair to demonize her for her actually justified anger towards Ed and Eddy spending her allowance money for themselves when she is, again, for once, not looking to cause the Eds trouble and actually made a reasonable request in the episode. It was Eddy who set the plot in motion with his greed and selfishness.
    • For the episode "Pick An Ed", you can see fans on YouTube and the Wiki page commenting on how mean it was for the kids to celebrate and/or not care that Eddy went "missing"note . While the kids came off as harsh for disregarding Eddy's disappearance, fans are forgetting the fact that Eddy behaves like a jerk to not only the kids, but to even his own friends. It also helps that if you're a jerk to people in general, people won't enjoy your company and will normally be pleased when you are absent for a long period of time. Some fans also think Edd was a jerk for writing the insult about Eddy's alter-ego "Carl." Although the insult made "Carl" a target of bullying, Edd only did it because Eddy was willing to start a new life as "Carl", in order to hang out with Kevin while ditching his old friends (he even agrees with Kevin about Ed and Edd being "dorks"). If Edd is guilty of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, Eddy is just as bad at it.
    • In episodes where Eddy is being punished without doing anything wrong such as "Who's Minding the Ed" and "X Marks the Ed", some fans will either twist the story so that Eddy looks like the bad guy or celebrate that he "finally got what he deserved" despite the fact that, Laser-Guided Karma and all, he almost always gets punished for his actions while all the other characters, even Edd, have gotten off scot-free with their actions at times ("Smile for the Ed", "To Sir With Ed", "Sorry Wrong Ed"...). Even then, Eddy tends to suffer Disproportionate Retribution for his more minor scams, and gets battered and humiliated in pretty much every episode, even after the ending to "Brother, Can You Spare An Ed", some fans don't think he's suffered enough. It's a bit confusing to complain that a character doesn't get hurt enough when he always does.
  • Moe:
    • Ed, the ditzy, but lovable oaf with a playful and innocent personality.
    • Edd: the kind, Adorkable, (nearly) always misblamed guy.
    • Nazz, being a sweet, cute, blonde girl-next-door.
    • Jimmy, a combination of The Cutie, Prone to Tears, and The Woobie... at least for people who don't see him as The Scrappy.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Near the end of the Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy series, Eddy's Brother crossed this within seconds of making his first appearance when he began to mercilessly beat the shit out of Eddy, and freely admit he's always done this to him.
  • Nausea Fuel:
    • In one episode, Ed starts sucking on a rain gutter that is filled with the usual disgusting things—that is, rotten leaves—then SWALLOWS IT.
    • Sarah at the end of "Run Ed Run". Her body is stuffed with jawbreakers to the point where it looks like she's about to explode. The gag that closes out the episode is that Sarah is very clearly about to vomit all over Eddy from having too much sugar in one sitting.
    • "Luck of the Ed": The Gross-Up Close-Up of a strange parasite with a monobrow living in Ed's dandruff-encrusted hair.
  • Never Live It Down:
    • Jimmy's Evil Plan in "If It Smells Like An Ed".
    • Also, Kevin blackmailing Eddy in "Your Ed Here."
    • Nazz humiliating Eddy in "To Sir With Ed."
    • The kids in general. Even after they finally accepted the Eds as their friends in the end of the movie, fans still refuse to let most of their treatment towards the Eds beforehand slide.
    • Ed standing up to Sarah in "Little Ed Blue.", of the "That kid is hardcore." variety.
    • Eddy's actions in "Brother Can You Spare An Ed" seem to have earned him his very own Hatedom.
    • Edd's actions in "Sorry Wrong Ed" haven't been well-received considering that he came off as insufferable and blind towards Eddy's plight.
    • Ed attacking the kids in the Halloween special and causing them to attack his friends while he gets off scot-free is also disliked as well.
  • No Problem with Licensed Games: Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures is actually a respectable video game adaptation of the show, emulating the look, feel and humor of the show successfully, mixed with some fun gameplay.
  • No Yay:
    • In the infamous episode "Your Ed Here", Kevin blackmails Eddy into making Eddy kiss Edd on the lips. Eddy does kiss Edd, and both of them act disgusted after the whole thing.
    • In the Valentine's Day special, Eddy sets up a kissing booth. Eddy puckers his lips up, only to find Kevin instead of another girl. Eddy's response?:
      Eddy: In your dreams!
  • Older Than They Think: The "Subaluwa" sumo sound effect is often associated with this show, but it actually originated in the Genie Junkie sketch from Liquid Television.
  • One True Threesome: Ed/Edd/Eddy, Marie/Edd/Eddy, Kevin/Edd/Eddy, [Marie/Edd/Nazz], Kevin/Nazz/Edd, [Marie/Edd/May].
  • Portmanteau Couple Name: Kevedd (Kevin/Edd), Nazarie (Nazz/Marie).
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: Aside from Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures (which is regarded as being pretty good by fans), some of the other licensed games the show got were not received well. Ed, Edd n Eddy: Jawbreakers! for the GBA was viewed to have lots of Fake Difficulty by most reviewers while Ed, Edd n Eddy: Scam of The Century received a 4.0/10 on IGN.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • Eddy gets hit with it a lot. Granted, he isn't exactly a saint and he does tend to get himself and the other Eds in trouble due to his scams and jerkass behavior, but lots of fans demonize him to make Edd look better in comparison. This is ignoring the fact that he does care about his friends deep down, even if he doesn't show it as much. Also, KevEdd writers usually portray him as a homophobe in fan-fictions.
    • Lee, being the least liked Kanker, gets hit with it as well, usually being portrayed as outright abusive towards her sisters, or at the very least worse than them. Marie is hit by this as well whenever May's the fic's protagonist.
    • In 90% of Edd/Marie fics Nazz is portrayed as either a slut, an Alpha Bitch, or both.
    • Kevin, who gets derailed into a flat Jerk Jock whenever he isn't shipped at the moment.
    • Jimmy gets this too. While he has some Bitch in Sheep's Clothing tendencies (like most characters, at some point), he is for the most part just a sensitive, gentle little boy. Yet fans still demonize him mostly because of the infamous "If It Smells Like An Ed" episode.
  • Sacred Cow: Out of all of the Cartoon Network shows, this one by far has the most dedicated fanbase that always places it as the best Cartoon Network show of all time, and anyone who doesn't really like the show or doesn't consider it the best ends up being hit with so much flak from said fans. PhantomStrider learned this the hard way when he publicly stated that he hates Ed, Edd n Eddy and doesn't understand its popularity.
  • Salvaged Story: The episode "Here's Mud In Your Ed" seems to be more of an apology to fans who hated "If It Smells Like an Ed" due to the fact that Jimmy went too far with his retribution and framed all three Eds when it was only Eddy who humiliated him. In the former episode, Jimmy tells Rolf that only Eddy tricked him out of his money, and they both come up with a funnier, more harmless joke to play on Eddy, and only Eddy, in retaliation.
  • Seasonal Rot:
    • Season 5 split the fandom in regards to this trope because of the sudden shift in the show's formula: instead of focusing on the Eds as they came up with creative, imaginative ways to scam their neighbours, most episodes centered around the children as they dealt with mundane problems at school. Some also disliked this season due to its overreliance on the Eds' Butt-Monkey status or the Flanderization of the rest of the cast. Others, however, enjoyed the changes to the status quo and felt the writing held up pretty well (even if they still don't think it's as strong as in previous seasons).
    • Some argue the rot started to begin as early as late season 3 and season 4. While there are still a lot of great and iconic episodes in them, it was also when the humor of the show started to become more actively malicious towards the title characters, with Ed and Double D suffering repercussions for things they had no part in and even Eddy suffering Disproportionate Retribution for some of his more minor scams. The most infamous examples from these seasons are "If It Smells Like An Ed" and "Your Ed Here", which are single-handedly responsible for making Jimmy and Kevin overly jerkish for many, respectively. This was also around the time the characters started to become more flanderized, and the Eds (especially Eddy) started to lose more of their redeeming qualities.
  • Ship Mates:
    • Edd/Kevin and Marie/Nazz shippers tend to get along pretty well.
    • To a lesser extent Kevin/Edd and Eddy/Nazz or Eddy/Sarah.
    • Many Edd/Eddy shippers like to pair Ed with May.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: Nazz/Marie is the most popular girl/girl shipping, despite those two hardly interacting with each other. Kevin/Edd also could qualify.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Edd/Marie vs Kevedd. Supporters of the former have a very negative opinion about the latter, even though it's not like the former's pairing doesn't have some flaws of its own.
  • Signature Scene:
    • "What happened to the stairs?!" is probably the most memorable scene in the series, both for how outlandish it is and Edd's (understandable) reaction.
    • An uncharacteristically grumpy Ed standing up to Sarah in "Little Ed Blue" is very well-liked for how tremendously satisfying it is to see Sarah be put in her place and frightened by her much stronger older brother.
  • Spiritual Successor: It is regarded as a far better The Three Stooges cartoon than the ones that were actually made.
  • Starboarding: Some fans seem to like the idea of Sarah having a crush on Edd as shown in canon.
  • Strawman Has a Point:
    • In "Oath to an Ed", Eddy is portrayed in the wrong for yelling back at Sarah after the latter constantly teases him. This ignores the fact that Sarah was being rude and unreasonable towards Eddy when he wasn't doing anything to provoke Sarah.
    • Eddy again in "Will Work for Ed". Eddy was being painted as his usual greedy self for getting annoyed at Rolf's actions, except Rolf kept docking Ed's pay for every small mistake he made and gave him an unreasonable request (peeling a village's worth of potatoes before he got back) under the threat of termination.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: A frequent complaint with the latter seasons is how it could be hard to find someone to root for. The Eds largely lose a lot of the sympathetic qualities they had in the earlier seasons, and the retribution they receive can often be overkill for the shenanigans they get up to. And even for the characters that do manage to remain sympathetic (Ed, Double D to a lesser extent), it can be hard to watch them constantly getting beat up by everyone else.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Nazz has the distinction of being the only girl on the show who isn't depicted as being psychotic in some way and she's The Heart of the cul-de-sac all the boys (except Jimmy and Rolf) have a crush on. Unfortunately, throughout the show's run, very little is done with Nazz, she only has three episodes about her (Plank has more storylines) and until later seasons she was a relatively Flat Character. Later seasons turned her into a bit of a Dumb Blonde, but she remained quite unremarkable in a cast of wacky, memorable characters. The Movie seems to address this by giving Nazz a prominent subplot with Kevin, a last name (the only other character besides the Kankers to get one, in fact) and she Took a Level in Badass, but overall a lot more could have been done with her character besides being the Only Sane Man of the cul-de-sac kids.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • The thought of Jimmy getting revenge against Eddy and devising a wonderfully complex plan to do so in "If It Smells Like An Ed" admittedly was a pretty cool concept, combined with the interesting detective elements. The main problem with the episode was that his revenge went way too far, as well as the fact that all three of the Eds were victimized.
    • In the beginning of "Hanky Panky Hullabaloo" we finally see a different side of one of the Kankers, when May cries after being rejected by Ed and there's a sweet moment with Edd trying to cheer her up. It could have been a good occasion to see more of May's Character Development and maybe a genuine friendship between her and Edd, at least for one episode. What we get instead is a silly Bizarro Episode about Edd and May being hit by tiny cupid's arrows and consequently acting like over-the-top Sickeningly Sweethearts.
  • Toy Ship: Most if not all of the main cast are pre-teens and frequently shipped with one another.
  • Ugly Cute: Everybody is this to some extent due to the art style, but May is the most evident example. Though she probably would be considered just cute, or at least cuter if it wasn't for her buck teeth.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic:
    • Eddy in "Sorry, Wrong Ed" is considered this. People feel bad for him for all the curses he suffers from answering the cursed telephone despite the fact that he brought it upon himself for digging it up even after Rolf, former owner of the phone, has already warned him of the curse (to be fair, Rolf never told Eddy what exactly the curse was and Rolf is a CloudCuckoolander, which could be why Eddy didn't take him seriously). However, most of the fans that see Eddy as the sympathetic type in this episode seem to be more upset over the fact that Edd shows no concern over what happens to Eddy; even after everything that happened to Eddy was right in front of him, he approaches it all scientifically.
    • Also in "All Eds Are Off", Eddy doesn't win the money in the end of the episode because he tried to cheat, but can you blame him for being pissed off about Ed's eating habits when he got a detention when Ed spilled his gravy mix in the pool?
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • Kevin in "This Won't Hurt an Ed". The viewer is supposed to feel sorry for him because Eddy kept exploiting his fear of needles. However, considering that the episode aired after "Your Ed Here" among his other Jerkass moments, more than a few viewers wanted Eddy to give Kevin what he deserves for once.
    • In "Tinker Ed", we're supposed to feel sorry for Jimmy because Kevin tells him that fairy tales aren't real. But maybe if Jimmy hadn't been running around the library and shrieking at the top of his lungs when Kevin was minding his own business and trying to write an essay, maybe Kevin wouldn't have messed with him in the first place. What makes it worse is that Kevin had already politely asked Sarah and Jimmy to keep it down, only for Sarah to start loudly reading the fairy tale just to irritate Kevin.
    • In "A Pinch To Grow an Ed" the viewers are meant to feel sorry for the kids when Eddy uses his elevator shoes to bully them. However, given they were making fun of Eddy for his height when he was minding his own business, it's hard to feel that sorry for them.
  • Unpopular Popular Character:
    • While his nearly-lethal idiocy annoys nearly everybody in-universe and it's implied that not even his own family likes him that much, Ed is loved for being so stupid, lovable and providing a lot of memes and comedy.
    • Eddy is the most straight-up example of the three. Nearly everyone in the show hates him, yet a lot of fans love him or at least sympathize with him.
    • Marie is this as well. While everybody but her sisters fears or loathes her, she's one of the most popular characters in this show. And despite her Abhorrent Admirer status on the show, plenty of male fans find her more attractive than the resident hottie Nazz. The same applies to May, to a lesser extent.
    • Jonny also qualifies, because even though he is liked more than the Eds, he is still not liked as much by the other kids either.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • Some of the characters' behaviors (particularly in the first few seasons) can be rather difficult to play for laughs in an age where the long-term effects of bullying are taken much more seriously, especially since these characters can be seen as harmful stereotypes of children.
    • In "Ed, Pass It On," Kevin's joke about the Eds getting married to each other wouldn't land well in the 2010's, especially since everyone is more accepting of LGBTQ.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Double D—it can be pretty easy for viewers to mistake him for a girl, due to a few things: 1.) His higher-pitched voiced, 2.) His hat resembling long hair and 3.) His somewhat feminine tendencies. Probably at least in part the source of the remark in the movie where Eddy's brother calls Double D his girlfriend.
    • There are a few fans of the show who believed that Jimmy was a girl due to his high pitched voice and his girly interests & hobbies.
  • Wangst:
    • Edd and Sarah overreacting over their lost items in the first episode... and finding them at the end.
    • Sarah bawling over her lost earring in "High-Heeled Ed."
    • Ed being in a bad mood over a pebble in his shoe, leading to the whole events of "Little Ed Blues". Double D is very much incredulous upon realising this.
    • Jimmy bawling and whining as if his foot was broken... when it only got slightly grazed by a clothespin in "Cry Ed" and yet almost everyone acts like he’s terribly sick. Sarah’s claim that “Jimmy’s the one who’s really hurt” sounds as ridiculous as the story Ed made up for Eddy’s injury, not to mention calling Eddy a “big faker” being very much hypocritical. Funnily enough, this claim is soon followed up by Jimmy being crushed by a tree, giving him heavy injuries.
    • For another Jimmy example, there's "It Came From Outer Ed." Sure, Jimmy has a right to be upset when Ed takes Mr. Yum-Yum, since Mr. Yum-Yum is a gift from Sarah, but for Jimmy to say he's "a mere shell of a man without Mr. Yum-Yum" is just pathetic.
    • Edd has an episode entirely dedicated to finding a shower after his parents chose to renovate the bathroom without his input. He can't seem to be unable to start his day on the right foot without a shower. If he can't get a shower, he'll whine, go insane, and invite all manner of germs and filth upon himself. This is moreso understandable in comparison to the other examples, due to good hygiene being an important quality in human beings and Double D being a Neat Freak but is nevertheless overblown.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Keep in mind that this was a show created by the artist behind The Brothers Grunt and Lupo The Butcher on a dare from his colleagues that he couldn't create a kid's show. While not outright vulgar most of the time, the episode with Eddy's magazine and the Kankers "seducing" the Eds, as well as many other absurd things, suddenly make a lot more sense.
  • Woolseyism:
    • The Brazilian dub ignores Ed's love for buttered toast and gravy in favor of making his favourite food be chicken with okra instead. Not only is this a common dish in many regions of that country, but it also perfectly matches Ed's obsession with chickens. The dubber also gave him many original catchphrases, most notably "Didn't hurt" whenever he is injured, lampshading him being Made of Iron. It all fits the character surprisingly well.
    • Since "Double D" wouldn't translate well into Polish, the local dub went with "Chudy Edd" ("Skinny Edd"), sometimes shortened to "Chudy".

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