Ed, Edd n Eddy is an animated television series created by Danny Antonucci for Cartoon Network. The series revolves around three friends named Ed, Edd (nicknamed "Double D" to avoid confusion with Ed), and Eddy—collectively known as "the Eds"—who are voiced by Matt Hill, Sam Vincent and Tony Sampson respectively. They live in a suburban cul-de-sac in the fictional town of Peach Creek along with fellow neighbourhood children Kevin, Nazz, Sarah, Jimmy, Rolf, Jonny, and the Eds' female adversaries, the Kanker Sisters, Lee, Marie and May. Under the unofficial leadership of Eddy, the trio frequently invents schemes to make money from their peers to purchase their favourite confection, jawbreakers. Their plans usually fail, leaving them in various, often humiliating and painful, predicaments.
Antonucci, an adult cartoonist, was dared to create a children's cartoon. While designing a commercial, he conceived Ed, Edd n Eddy, designing it to resemble classic cartoons from the 1940s–1970s. When pitching the series to Nickelodeon, the network declined to give him creative control, a deal to which Antonucci did not agree. He then pitched the series to Cartoon Network. A deal was made with the network to commission the series under his control. Produced by Antonucci's studio a.k.a. Cartoon, it premiered on January 4, 1999. During the show's run, several specials and shorts were produced in addition to the regular television series. The series concluded with a television film, Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, on November 8, 2009.
Ed, Edd n Eddy became one of Cartoon Network's most successful original series. It won a Reuben Award, two Leo Awards and a SOCAN Award, and was also nominated for another four Leo Awards, an Annie Award and two Kids' Choice Awards. The show attracted an audience of 31 million households, was broadcast in 120 countries, and proved to be popular among children, teenagers, and adults. The series has also included spin-off media such as video games, DVD releases, and a series of books and comic books featuring characters from the series. With over a 10-year run, Ed, Edd n Eddy became the longest running singular series to premiere on Cartoon Network, a status held until 2024 when it was surpassed by Teen Titans Go! It is still the longest-running singular Cartoon Network original series. The series also was broadcast on Teletoon in Canada.
Premise
Ed, Edd n Eddy follows the lives of "the Eds", three scheming boys who all share variations of nicknames of the name Edward, but differ greatly in their personalities: Ed (Matt Hill) is the strong and dim-witted yet kind-hearted dogsbody of the group; Edd (Samuel Vincent), called Double D, is an inventor, neat freak, and the most intelligent of the Eds; and Eddy (Tony Sampson) is a devious, quick-tempered, arrogant con artist, and self-appointed leader of the Eds. The three devise plans to bilk money from the other kids in their cul-de-sac, which they want to use to buy jawbreakers. However, problems always ensue, and the Eds' schemes usually end in failure and humiliation.
The cul-de-sac kids do not include the Eds as part of their group, making the trio outcasts. The group of kids are Jonny (David Paul "Buck" Grove), a loner whom his peers consider to be a nuisance, and spends most of his time with his imaginary friend, a wooden board named Plank; Jimmy (Keenan Christensen), a weak, insecure, and accident-prone child, who is most often seen spending his time with Sarah (Janyse Jaud), Ed's spoiled and ill-tempered younger sister; Rolf (Peter Kelamis), an immigrant whose customs often differ from the other children's; Kevin (Kathleen Barr), a cynical and sardonic jock who detests the Eds, particularly Eddy; Nazz (Tabitha St. Germain; Jenn Forgie; Erin Fitzgerald), usually seen with Kevin, is a calm and friendly blonde girl who the Eds, Jonny, and Kevin are infatuated with. All of the cul-de-sac kids share a common fear of the Kanker Sisters, Lee (Janyse Jaud), May (Erin Fitzgerald; Jenn Forgie), and Marie (Kathleen Barr), three bully girls led by Lee who live in a nearby trailer park and romantically harass the Eds. Each Kanker has a preference for who they wish to date and marry among the three, with Lee wanting Eddy, Marie wanting Edd, and May wanting Ed.
Aside from the Eds, the other cul-de-sac kids, and the Kanker Sisters, no other characters appeared in the series until Santa Claus had a cameo in "Ed, Edd n Eddy's Jingle Jingle Jangle", flying over Peach Creek to quickly drop off presents. During the fifth season, silhouettes of other people were occasionally shown, and in "Mission Ed-Possible", the arms of Eddy's father and Ed's mother were seen. An arm of Eddy's mother was also shown during "Smile for the Ed". In the series finale, Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, Eddy's adult brother (Terry Klassen) was seen for the first time, making him the only non-main character, and the only adult character to ever fully appear on the show. The series took place mostly within the fictional town of Peach Creek, and new locations were rarely introduced. Its first four seasons are set during a seemingly endless summer vacation, though from the fifth season onwards, the characters are shown attending junior high school in the fall and winter months.
Production Development
Although cartoonist Danny Antonucci began his career by working as an animator on various children's series for Hanna-Barbera, his later solo works were edgy and aimed at adult audiences. He was an animator on the 1981 film Heavy Metal, and gained notoriety with the 1987 short film Lupo the Butcher and then, after founding his own production studio, a.k.a. Cartoon in 1994, created the series The Brothers Grunt for MTV. It was quickly cancelled, however, upon being met with generally poor reviews.
On a dare, Antonucci then decided that he would try producing a children's animated series of his own. While designing a commercial, he ended up drawing three characters that he felt particularly pleased with. Growing excited over their potential, he named them Ed, Edd, and Eddy and spent the following months developing a show around them. In 1996, he faxed a one-page concept sheet and pitched the series to Nickelodeon, but the network declined to give him creative control, and Antonucci refused. He then pitched the series to Cartoon Network. The network agreed to let Antonucci have control of the show, and conversations between him and the studio continued.
Vice president of programming and production of Cartoon Network, Mike Lazzo, showed high interest in the series and requested a show bible, which came through by fax, a few pages at a time, over a period of the next few months. After an affirmative response from Cartoon Network president Betty Cohen, the legal paperwork and deal-making began, followed by a start-up meeting at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles. A deal was made that Antonucci's studio, a.k.a. Cartoon, would produce Ed, Edd n Eddy, making it the first Cartoon Network original series to be produced by an outside production company rather than Cartoon Network's Hanna-Barbera. The series also entered production and bypassed a seven-minute short; this marked the first time that one of the studio's original series had ever done this.
According to Antonucci, he based the characters on real people in his life. The personalities of Ed, Double D, and Eddy are based on his own traits as well as the activities of his two sons, while the cul-de-sac children and the Kanker sisters were all based on children he grew up with. Rolf is based on Antonucci and his cousins, since he was part of an Italian immigrant family, and grew up in a first-generation foreign household with different customs and ways of living, compared to those born in Canada.
Jimmy is based on one of his cousins, who was rather feminine and spent most of his time playing with girls rather than with boys. Jonny and Plank are inspired by one of Antonucci's childhood friends, a loner who spent most of his time outside with his blanket. He stated that he believed it was important to add Plank, a board of wood, to the show, and that he, "thought it would be really cool to do the show with Plank taking on a character of his own" and to cause Jonny to do things he would usually never do. Some wanted Plank to be able to talk, smile and blink as if he was alive, but Antonucci insisted that it should be treated as a piece of wood, brought to life by Jonny's imagination.
Casting Matt Hill, Samuel Vincent, and Tony Sampson were respectively cast as Ed, Edd, and Eddy. David Paul "Buck" Grove and Keenan Christensen played the parts of Jonny 2×4 and Jimmy, respectively, while Sarah was voiced by Janyse Jaud. Peter Kelamis voiced Rolf, while Kathleen Barr was cast as Kevin. Nazz was voiced by Tabitha St. Germain in season 1, Jenn Forgie in season 3, and Erin Fitzgerald in seasons 2 and 4–6. Fitzgerald also played the part of May, one of the Kanker Sisters, except in season 3 when she was voiced by Jenn Forgie. The other two Kanker sisters, Marie and Lee, were voiced by Kathleen Barr and Janyse Jaud. Eddy's adult brother is mentioned frequently throughout the series but does not appear until Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, where he is voiced by series voice director Terry Klassen.Credits of all Ed, Edd n Eddy episodes and the Big Picture Show
Animation Antonucci, an advocate of hand-drawn animation, wanted to ensure Ed, Edd n Eddy was produced in a way similar to cartoons from the 1940s to 1970s. As a result, the series was the last major animated series to use traditional cel animation, only switching to digital ink and paint in 2004. Cels were shipped to South Korea at Yeson Animation Studios for creating the initial animation, and then later edited back at Antonucci's a.k.a. Cartoon studio.
To give the impression of movement, Ed, Edd n Eddy uses "boiling lines" or shimmering outlines which Antonucci likens to cartoons of the 1930s. IGN has compared it to Squigglevision, and Animation World Magazine wrote that the way the line varies and shakes gives the animation a distinctive and spontaneous feeling as if it were drawn by children. The boiling line is created by tracing off a drawing three times through sheets of paper. Antonucci explained that he felt it "helps keep the characters alive" and that he wanted to depart from other Cartoon Network series and pay homage to the classic cartoon era.
All the children have multicoloured tongues; Antonucci said that the idea came after he saw his son and his friends with different-coloured tongues because of eating different candy while he was working on a storyboard. The characters went through several "walking cycles," a process used to determine how each character should walk or run, turn around, blink, etc. before the crew came up with the final product.
Music and title sequence Antonucci showed the theme song to the studios when first pitching the series, thinking it would be better than only looking at drawings. It was inspired by the Bob Crosby and The Bob Cats song "Big Noise from Winnetka," which was whistled, something Antonucci enjoyed doing as a child. Composed by Patric Caird, who created all the music in the series, Antonucci performed the whistling himself. Paul Boyd created the show's title sequence. The music of Ed, Edd, n Eddy is heavily influenced by 1930s and 1940s jazz and jump blues, rockabilly, boogie woogie, and the rock and roll of the 1950s.
Broadcast Although Ed, Edd n Eddy was originally set to premiere on November 16, 1998, at 8:00 PM, the pilot, "The Ed-touchables / Nagged to Ed," aired on January 4, 1999, as the sixth Cartoon Cartoon, due to minor post-production delays. It was the first Cartoon Cartoon to not have been produced by Hanna-Barbera/Cartoon Network Studios. During the series' original run, episodes often aired as a part of Cartoon Network's weekly programming block "Cartoon Cartoon Fridays."