"This is very strange."
''Ed, Edd N Eddy, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G...''
—The Kankers when the Eds first encounter them in the forest.
Nagged to Ed is the second segment of the first episode of the Ed, Edd n Eddy cartoon series, first aired in 1999.
The episode begins with the Eddy and Ed departing with Double D into the forest for DD's bug experiments, only to have a haunting encounter with the newly arrived neighbors, the Kanker Sisters, May, Lee and Marie, who all have crushes on them. They awaken in their trailer, where the sisters are unusually hospitable to them. Double D is rightfully fearful of the sisters, but Eddy is more than eager to be right at home with them. The Eds are swooned by their cooking, but apathy to the Kankers' advancements result in three women scorned, as the Kankers force the Eds to do their house chores. Naturally, Hilarity Ensues as they fail miserably at their tasks.
This is also the first episode where Eddy mentions his brother, albeit in an off-hand comment that the trailer park looks like a postcard he sent to him once.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: The Kankers.
- Bigger on the Inside: The inside of the Kankers' trailer looks more like a two-story house.
- Blank Book: When Double D is looking over the Kankers' books he finds one title that seems interesting. When he opens it though he sees there is nothing on the pages.Double D: This book has no print. These pages are blank!
- Department of Redundancy Department: "Mud tracker! You're tracking mud!"
- Distaff Counterpart: The Kankers to the Eds.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: The first of many, many examples the series had of the
controversial Kankers. While they're by no means sympathetic characters, a gender-swapped version of their relationship to the Eds would be horrifying. - Early-Installment Weirdness:
- This is the only episode where the Kankers are depicted sympathetically. There are hints that their bad attitudes are the result of personal trauma, and the Eds are shown to be somewhat ungrateful towards them (as grateful as you can be to someone who kidnaps you just to make you food and force you to be their husband). Later episodes would depict them as outright bullies with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. That said, this example isn't as jarring since it's easy to assume the early experience shaped the Kankers into who'd they become.
- Double D plans to leave the Kankers' house because they give him the creeps, but Eddy, of all the Eds, tells him to mind his manners, as the Kankers were going to make them dinner and because they're new. In later seasons it would be the other way around. It's not out of character for Eddy to be taken in by free stuff or for Double D to be paranoid, though the latter clearly hasn't gone through his Honor Before Reason shift.
- Easily Forgiven: The Kankers spend most of the episode bossing the Eds around for taking advantage of their hospitality and yell at them to get lost when they run away at the end. Immediately after chasing them away though their crushes on the Eds return and they admire the Eds as they run away, love-struck by the Eds.
- Evil Laugh: The episode ends wit the Kankers all breaking into evil laugher after admiring the Eds as they run away.
- Freudian Excuse: It's heavily implied that their mother blowing through three husbands and spending their adolescence impoverished is what lead to the Kankers' abusive attitudes, and it's easy to make the connection that this is why the only way they know how to show affection is literal husband hunting. It's also why they're offended when the Eds don't immediately want to marry them after being doted on for a few minutes.
- Henpecked Husband: Parodied. The Kankers scold the Eds for not pulling their weight around the house and threaten to leave them mere hours after they've all met.
- Hypocritical Humor: Eddy laughs hysterically at the drawings that the sisters have drawn of themselves with Ed and Double D, then freaks out, screaming "That's not funny!!" when he sees the one of himself, which he tears off the wall and throws away.
- Kiss Diss: When the Eds wake up in the Kankers' trailer and find themselves dressed in their dads' old bathrobes, the Kankers all lean in to kiss them. The Eds freak out at this this and back against the wall while the Kankers giggle at them. This serves as an establishing moment for the Kankers' crushes on the Eds and foreshadows the eventual relationship they will have with the Eds.
- Medium Blending: "Fishbowl 2" on the TV is done via live action fish puppets on strings.
- Misspelling Out Loud: Lee says she thinks she's in "L-U-V love" as she and her sisters happily watch the Eds run away.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Outside of the voices, the only glimpse we get of the Kankers in their first appearance is their eyes, and then a brief silhouette rear-shot of them.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Seeing Double D eating the sandwich the Kankers made so voraciously goes against his adamance of politeness.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The episode seems like it's going to end like this—only for the Kankers to introduce junior dolls of the trio.
- Stalker with a Crush: What the Kanker sister start out as, in the most literal way. Before they even kidnap the Eds, they've learned their names, decided who will marry who and drawn fanart of them together. All this despite their claim that they only just moved in.
- Through His Stomach: The Kankers attempt to win over the Eds by cooking them greasy burgers topped with pure lard.Lee: The way to a man's heart is through his arteries.
- Undressing the Unconscious: After the Eds get lost into a forest and end up falling into the mud and faint in terror when the Kanker Sisters come to help them. The Eds then wake up in the sisters' trailer to find the girls undressed them and put them into bathrobes that belonged to the their fathers, and their clothes are hanging to dry outside.
