Nothing lasts forever, and it couldn't be more applicable when it comes to television. Whether a show dies too soon or goes on for so long it loses what made it special to begin with. When you stick with a show for so long you tend to pick up on certain things, so when you're suddenly hit with that quality drop, it's far from pleasent.
Prologue
You may come into a series with two perspectives, either as a long term fan who’s witnessing the degradation or sudden oddity in real time, or someone who came in after the damage was done and are oblivious to the issue. This would determine where you stand with a series with no sense to the general consensus.
A big example is The Simpsons, which I’d be a fool not to bring up given the context. You can see it as a show losing its way if you were watching from the start, or if you came in later on you can adjust to the quality because, at least for a majority of the 2000s episodes the negatives weren’t noticeable compared to much later.
Some shows have problems that you can’t really pick up on unless you had been watching since the beginning, you have no idea how reviled the seasons may be, and against those who do you'd be preaching to the choir. And that is both my relationship with certain classic Cartoon Network shows, and my mentality.
The Prime Examples
Back during the checkerboard era, I'd like to call it, there were two things people took umbrage with, the Chris Savino era of Dexter's Laboratory, and the fourth season of Johnny Bravo. No comment on PowerPuff Girls since I want nothing to do with that show and I was never able to see much of a difference. I want to go over these because when I get to the main topic I know some people will be like "Oh what about these other late seasons?"
I watched Dexter's Laboratory in the 2000s, by this point both the Tartovsky and Savino eras had run their course and I was able to see a bit of each era. Aside from the animation and art direction, and keep in mind I was a kid back then, I didn't really notice anything wrong. I knew it was different, but the problems weren't as obvious to me. Of course certain gags you wouldn't see in the older seasons and the joke quality may vary, but it wasn't terrible. Dare I say even if I saw the entire series in order back then I wouldn't be phased. I get since this was worked on by Chris Savino, you know, outed as a creep people are much harsher to his episodes since they have no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But in the event you think I'm speaking in defense of a predator, one, I'm not nor do I ever intend to. Two, on the allegations let's do some math. Savino was outed in 2017, the report against him claimed his actions span back to at least a decade. That means Savino went dirty in 2007, long after his time at Cartoon Network. Therefore, as far as I know, nothing bad happened during his time on Dexter's Laboratory, and thus it is easier to separate the show from him. Under no other circumstance would I play devil's advocate like this.
Of course a show declining doesn't hinge solely on a change of leadership. Johnny Bravo is a special case where its sudden changes did more good in the longrun. Van Partible was around for the show's first season and would be gone for the second and third. In that time, new characters were introduced, existing ones had their traits or designs altered and certain aspects like celebrity cameos and talking animals were reduced.
The new seasons had its critics, Partible included, but overtime it seems people grew to accept them, especially given how the fourth season would turn out. Partible would helm it, trying to bring the show back to its roots while keeping aspects from the previous ones, and it didn't work. It somehow fared worse than the previous seasons, and most aspects criticized were those part of the first season.
In a way, the reception of the fourth season is kinda tragic, Partible had the rug pulled from under him, and in trying to bring back his vision and respect the previous one, you get the idea. Looking into it, I actually remember watching two episodes from this season, three if one of the episodes had Huckleberry Hound at the end, and I thought the episodes were fine, it's not horrible but something had been clearly lost. It's clear Partible was a fan of Hanna Barbera's shows and wanted to embody them the best way he could, but the timing of the fourth season muddled it. Maybe the whiplash is what threw people off.
That said, you have my opinion on the big examples of Cartoon Network's big fall offs back then, but what do I consider to be the worst offender personally?
Ed, Edd n' Eddy's Fifth Season
It's important to keep Dexter's Labortory and Johnny Bravo's later seasons in mind, in regard to what caused either to turn out the way they did. Creator shifts, falling behind the times, you know. This is a case where the creatives and staff largely remained the same, the series had remained in date by the time its last season debuted in 2005, I mean to be fair it didn't get delayed like Johnny Bravo did, it just took a little less than a year for EEnE. The time was right, the hands were the same, otherwise owed to the show being one of the few CN originals of the time to not be produced in-house, and you know what that means...
No excuses, no outside factors, no shakeups, no new characters that turned out to be terrible, no new actors, at most just a series surrendering to its traits.
Ed, Edd n' Eddy stood the test of time for many reasons. Taking Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, whatever have you gags and throwing them into a contemporary setting, one that the characters would occasionally break apart. There're few other shows like it which allowed it to become an all time classic.
The series had maintained some level of consistency throughout its run, I mean besides some portions of the first season, which is understandable as by then they were trying to find their legs. With consistency, it's a blessing and a curse, because by then certain expectancies are set, and if they aren't met then it can sour the experience. You can not deliver, or you can over-deliver, such is the case.
By the mid-2000s I began watching Cartoon Network more frequently so I was able to see the fifth season episodes when they were new, while checking out the older episodes when reran beforehand, I remember watching the Best Day Edder marathon so I'd have no excuse not to remember the series. I had a sense of what the series was like, and I went into the fifth season with decent anticipation.
Like many things, it wasn't obvious at first, but overtime cracks began to show, all for the worst. I hated the episodes, and it came pretty close to me turning my back on the entire series and characters. It looked right but felt wrong, similar yet different, what went wrong?
Again what went wrong?
The fifth season marked a number of changes with the series. Previously the series was produced with cel animation, being one of the last cartoons to use the style, but overtime would transition to digital ink and paint. Technically it started with the Christmas special Jingle Jingle Jangle which aired in 2004, but it aired after the fourth season had ended, so, transitional period and all that.
I bring this up because, from what I heard, Danny Antonucci stuck to cel animation by choice, so it's weird to see him switch it up. Must be a victim of reverse psychology, maybe somebody felt the style better suited the physical comedy, maybe he was forced to switch due to budgetary and time concerns, or maybe he just wanted to experiment with the process just to see what gives. Whatever the case he can do what he wants, the animation isn't the problem here, at most just leaning into other issues I'm about to bring up.
On the surface, it seems the fifth season delivered on the general core of the series, slapstick and crazy gags. However, they kinda fumble the bag with this because of how often the gags happen and the aftermath of each. Not to say the previous seasons episodes didn't go all out, but even they had a tiny bit of restraint. In this case they went full cartoony, you see gags you likely wouldn't see in the previous season, key word here is likely. I dunno, watch an episode from each and you may notice something's off.
The use of the gags here feels more cynical, for the lack of a better term. They just occur without much thought behind them, as if someone just took the gags on their presence alone and threw them in just because. There's putting things in with thought, and putting things in because, and the frequency of which, even being able to predict what would occur based on what's happening, dulls the experience, it shows a series is just phoning it in close to the finish line and want desperately to preserve fan interest. Nothing feels as out of pocket as it did in previous seasons, the gags feel more straightforward, and when you're in a cartoony world where anything is possible, the magic wears off. I'm going on about this because the gags are what made Ed, Edd n' Eddy so unique, so I sorta need to get into it.
Going back to the animation I also noticed the facial expressions, certain gestures look a lot more weird, like after four seasons seeing these characters make faces I never expect to see elsewhere. In some cases, it looks cursed, just because you have the power that doesn't mean you should always use it, especially recklessly, and if it just suddenly comes about after so long. Not to say the visuals are the only reason the season is so bad, but we'll get to that soon.
The fifth season marked the introduction of a new frequent setting, Peach Creek Jr. High. I get incorporating new scenery to increase potential plot ideas and locales, but I feel like this sorta undid another core aspect of Ed, Edd n' Eddy. Timelessness. The previous seasons had occurred throughout the summer, with little indication of progression. Of course you may argue that the series had occurred throughout summer break and it ended at that point, but that just raises the question on how much time occurs past each season, especially since Summer breaks in Canada are shorter than the United States'.
While there were signs of progression such as characters getting more mature, though this was toward the season 4 finale which was originally set to be the series finale, poetic in a way, even stuff like birthdays, the passage of time was a bit more subtle. We didn't see any true monthly progression until, uh yeah, the fifth season. So on one hand it's a bold move that could bring more opportunities, but on the other hand it could just be pointless.
Pointless, in that aside from the location little else is different. Now sure you have some gags that fit with the setting, but others do not. The setting is what it is, a setting, and one that doesn't have as much thought put into it. What do I mean by that? How about the fact that Sarah and Jimmy, younger than the other characters, go to the same school? Is this normal in Canada, this has confused me for years. You have to do a lot more than just have them go to class and hop on a school bus for this setting to have any meaning.
Now yes, stuff like grades, school sports, gossip, those do occur... in their dedicated episodes. One thing that has remained true to the series is that everything essentially occurs in a bubble, nothing that happens in one episode would be of any consequence in the other. It's safe to say these events are meaningless, and you only have to go by the experience of one episode, one or so, very dire, episodes, getting ahead of myself.
Let's talk flanderization, an inevitability for shows running too long. Characters are generally reduced to their basic traits by this point, or said traits are exaggerated in order to inspire more plots, jokes, whatever have you. It happened here, though not as obvious with most characters it shows with others. The worst victim of this has got to be Ed, who has either become a lot more dumb, or just too annoyingly happy a lot of the time, or perhaps both. I mean it was a point that Ed was dumb, but not to that extent, just surrendering to his interests and, of course not being the brightest bulb in the socket. You have to see episodes from either season to really understand this.
Other characters tend to go in and out of this, some like Sarah and Kevin tend to be more, I dunno, maniacal in most episodes, other times they act as they did time before. The Kankers while already the antagonists, are a bit more, well, antagonistic. In the past the Kankers usually turn up close to the end of the episode to throw a wrench in Eddy's scam or whatever he's doing, or just for a quick gag. You could argue they took the role of the school bullies, and if so what does that make Kevin... well, aside from the jock I guess. Jonny 2x4 has always been the weird one, and it feels like this has been amped up to eleven in most episodes, okay one. In situations like these they're worse depending on the episodes they occur in.
Eddy is more or less the same as he was, aside from being more loud in some cases. There was one or two times where Eddy became more antagonistic, and this was with Kevin during the booster shot episode. I can see this as Eddy having been pushed around by Kevin for so long he finally snapped and wanted to get some revenge, and after the whole Skipper business, can you blame him? Since he is among the few characters that changed the least, it isn't fun when he is on the receiving end, and this occurs a lot throughout the season. Okay yes this was also par the course for the previous seasons, but this just feels off, especially against the other changes.
But of all the characters Edd is the worst of them all here. In a lot of the episodes it feels like he has a more antagonistic role most of the time, combined with an air of condescension that I can't even get behind. Sometimes I feel like Edd has had enough of Ed and Eddy and is doing what he can to break from the group, which kinda makes sense since the rest of the Cul de Sac tend to favor him more than the others. Of course though, everything occurs in a bubble, so it's just one or many unpleasant experiences to go through. Edd gets his way, why should I care? One selfish act to counteract another, Kevin asked you the time and you take that as a reason to save him from a driver club in a garbage can?
Back then I hated Kevin so to see that episode end as it did hit hard, hence the overreaction if you found one.
A show is only as good as its characters, and it's one thing for them to under deliver, but if you've known about them for years and see the under delivery, you can't just let it pass, nobody has for any show like it. This is a case where the characters suck a lot of the time, and so do the episodes. The fifth season had the most bad episodes compared to others. And for further perspective, while the lowest rating an episode of the show got was a 6.0, if you look at a list of the show's episodes on IMDb, lowest ratings first, if you discount the more infamous episodes from previous seasons, almost all of the spots belong to episodes from the fifth season, these episodes rate the same as the worst Ed, Edd n' Eddy episodes, and the lowest rated episode of the entire series came from the fifth season.
So while many people may hold the fifth season in decent regard, it seems it doesn't hold up as well against the previous ones. IMDb basically serves as a community domain hence why I'm going by that site's metrics. But that aside what do the episodes have to offer?
An episode that feature the most gratuitous signs of bodily abuse, one where Edd decides to throw Eddy for a loop by calling him a no neck chump for reasons I'll never know, an episode where Eddy wants to be the center of attention at a football game and Ed just lets Eddy get taken away at the end, one where Edd goes mad trying to find a shower, and given how he acts most episodes it was so bad I actually didn't hate the episode back then.
Not to say every episode was a total miss, it's just that they weren't as good as previous ones, at most easy to get through. Among the stand outs are Cool Hand Ed for the high stakes premise, Every Which Way But Ed just for how absurd it was even though it got kinda stupid by the end, and I don't mean Ed flashing back too far I mean Eddy's reason to trap them there, is a quarter gonna mean anything by the end? I mean to Eddy yes but, you get the point. There is one more but I'll save it for later.
Back to the lesser end, of course there's the fact that what is widely considered to be the worst episode in the entire series, just so happened to be a season 5 episode. Smile for the Ed. The episode embodies the worst aspects of the season, over-exaggeration, throwing Eddy under the bus when he hasn't tried to do the same to others, and flanderization on Kevin's part. Come to think of it, most of the older episodes people hate had Eddy on the receiving end when he hasn't done anything to warrant it, again most because for at least one or two you could argue Eddy acted first. It isn't the case for that episode, not even most other episodes this season, even instances where he does they're not at the expense of others, hence how a lot of them feel off by comparison.
Also fun fact, Smile for the Ed was the only episode to not be directed by Antonucci, which goes back into how consistent things had been for the series, and why I'm so disappointed with the season. The feelings just grow for so long that you can't help but lay it out when the time comes.
But that's the journey, what's the destination and would said journey be worth it? The season finale would see Edd being framed as a bully due to a series of coincidences. The fact that Edd is losing faith in himself for hurting others, had the events of other episodes been kept in mind, had we seen the effect of Edd essentially leading Eddy on this would've helped validate a bulk of the season. Of course I'm not asking for some melodrama, I mean an instance where Edd and Eddy try to eek each other out only to piss off everyone in the making and show they belong to each other as friends.
That aside though, a lot of people considered the episode to be a satisfactory closing, they beat the Kankers and everyone's happy... at least that's how it seems. At least to me, the end of the episode was a bit underwhelming. Sure Eddy got the Kankers away, but they weren't the cause of the conflict, rather caught in the middle of Edd's coincidental beatings. Sure Eddy finally sticks up against them, but it doesn't hit like it should.
Not to mention the end loses more meaning since this was followed by an episode from the un-produced sixth season, and it had little to offer beyond a piss joke, but on a better note they had the opportunity to pay their respects to Paul Boyd, the animator for the series' opening titles.
But What About the Movie?
I know people are gonna bring up Ed, Edd n' Eddy's Big Picture Show. It's a great movie, wanna make that abundantly clear. It is a perfect finale to the series and it actually greatly impacted the characters for the better. We will never know what's under Edd's hat but we got to see Eddy's brother at least.
But on the topic of Edd's hat, I have a theory on what's under it. Remember the 2004 Fat Albert movie, when the group got back into their own world and Dumb Donald had his had off, and they saw there was literally nothing under there, I think the same could be said there. The eds are surprised at nothing being under Edd's hat, Eddy was just exaggerating and Ed questions if the lack of occupied space is causing pain.
Back on topic though, the movie works as a finale, but does it justify the existence of the previous season? No. As I mentioned before little that occurs in each episode would be of any consequence to the other. Little occurred in the fifth season that was worth calling attention to in the movie. I mean, aside from the argument toward the middle, but even then it would only work out if it was Eddy turning on Edd not the other way around. Either they deemed Edd to always be in the right, or they wanted to ignore what happened last season. If you have the fifth season in mind it also undercuts the impact of the fight because you're led to believe this was years of mistreatment boiling over, but Edd for the most part was the instigator, who just suddenly chose when to get upset, and we're supposed to pick Edd's side and Eddy must realize what he has done wrong.
Kinda broken honestly, and probably the reason why not everything needs to be kept in mind.
What I'm trying to say is that you almost don't need the fifth season, when the movie does a better job at ending things off. The digital ink and paint also helps give the movie more of a theatrical edge for a television film and makes the entire thing feel more grandiose, for a lack of a better term. Interest in the show had persisted to this point, was the fifth season made to keep the seat warm in the meantime? Who knows?
Final Thoughts
It was in the mid-2000s that I had begun to see certain things more critically. I had my favorites, and I was slowly getting things I outright hated. Ed, Edd n' Eddy's fifth season unfortunately fell into that light for me.
I had known the series well up to that point, so to see how everything was handled in the fifth, it wasn't a good experience and it hasn't got better for me looking back at it. I'd like to consider myself open minded when it comes to shows, especially overlong or underwhelmingly concluded ones. I'm willing to speak fairly to the Savino era Dexter's Laboratory episodes because they could've been a lot worse and just had the unfortunate artifact of riding off of the previous seasons, on their own the episodes are otherwise fine enough, some good even. I can even speak fairly to the fourth season of Johnny Bravo because the creator got back into it too late, and wound up alienating those who came into the series in its middle seasons, I'd even speak well of said middle seasons because they benefited the show in the long run.
But the fifth season of Ed, Edd n' Eddy, the creatives remained the same, it was brought down by decisions that ultimately didn't work. It brought out the worst in me, much like it brought out the worst in each of the characters. It felt like something was lost in the way, and when they tried to prove otherwise it just felt more cynical. It felt like a new crew was given a very literal outline of the series and took it as is without any other thought, even though nothing changed behind the scenes.
It feels worse because Ed, Edd n' Eddy is one of the quintessential classic Cartoon Network shows, dare I say more so than others like Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, maybe not as much as PowerPuff Girls given how much of a push the network gave it, but enough that it had provided ten years of content. With a milestone like that you need the quality to back it up, and one or a few bad episodes can be forgiven, but if they account for the bulk of one season, you'd think they wanted the show to end at season four and they did season five out of protest in the hopes this would end things. Either that or they wanted to do Big Picture Show but another season was included in the deal.
Whatever the case, the fifth season was hit with an inevitability that plagues many shows like it. Falling into the same pitfalls as others, a drop in episode quality and character writing quality. Had the series kept going it would've probably gotten worse, as we've seen with other shows that went on for too long, few had broke that curse.
The fifth season essentially served as a warning to what would've happened had Ed, Edd n' Eddy kept going. It's rare for a show to get better the longer it goes, and if we got what we did with the fifth season, no telling what more surprises we'd get later on. The proposed sixth season already got off to a pretty mid start, just saying.
But yeah, of all the Cartoon Network shows that have such middling final seasons, Ed, Edd n' Eddy's fifth pissed me off the most. With Dexter's Laboratory, if there were any changes to the characters they were either not noticeable or handled better, at most I only saw major downgrades to Dad, Dee Dee maybe, the worst is only noticeable if you know the older seasons well enough. With Johnny Bravo ironically it was when the personalities were otherwise reverted and the first seasons sensibilities were restored that people turned on the series.
Whatever the faults, they were much worse with the fifth season of Ed, Edd n' Eddy, there is nothing that can convince me otherwise, they would've been better off just releasing the movie after the fourth season, it would have the same intended effect. No show's season has upset me more back then than it, something was truly lost, or the worst things drowned out the good, not helping that two of the three top billed had suffered the worst.
But if you like the fifth season, good on you, glad you found some enjoyment in it and I'm not here to change that. Compared to other shows that had lost their good faith due to going on for so long, at least Ed, Edd n' Eddy was put down before it could get worse, we dodged a bullet, clearly.
At the end of the day, you can have the same heads on board, but you can't always keep the quality up forever. Know when to put the horse down.
