Edward and Eric

***Edward and Eric*** (sometimes shortened to ***E&E***) is an American animated comedy series created by Gary Sauls. It made its debut on Kids' WB on September 5, 1998, and ended its run on December 31, 2011, with 9 seasons, 200 episodes (with only two being shelved), a Broadway musical that ran from 2003-04, and a theatrical movie. The show is still sold on DVD to this day. All of the episodes (and the movie) are also available for digital purchase on iTunes, Amazon Prime, Vudu and PlayStation Store. The entire series (excluding the movie) is also available on Hulu, while only the movie is available on Netflix.

As of May 27, 2020, the series in all of its entirety is available on HBO Max.

The show is rated TV-Y7 FV, although prior to 2000, it was rated TV-Y.

It initially aired on Kids' WB until its last day on May 17, 2008. From then on, the series entirely migrated to Cartoon Network.

## Synopsis

The intellectually gifted Edward Pearson, along with his scatterbrained brother, Eric, their hardworking yet devoted single father, Paul, and their pet owl, Oscar, lives in Avenue A Apartment, which is located in Lakeside City. He's always up for an adventure or two with Eric and their group of friends, consisting of Joey Maldanado, the narcissist, Stanley Breault, the wealthy, father-like con artist, Dallas Jones, the loyal voice of reason, and Constantinos Gargano, the worrisome weakling.

The six of them attend Lakeside City School, which is an independent boarding school run by the immature and sadistic Principal Walker, and his hilariously-contrasting vice principal, Mr. Goodman. Also in attendance are Carver Brutus, the feared school bully, and Snodgrass Phthiraptera, the egotistical rival of Edward.

This all may sound normal, but things are always bound to have a weird, unexpected twist to them, or simply go out of control.

## Setting

The show takes place at Lakeside City, a fictional city located in the state of New York which also happens to be the only city in New York's "sixth borough", Lakeside. The show is set during the late 1990s, with things such as pagers, dial-up Internet, VHS tapes, cassettes, etc. being common throughout the series.

The show does not rely on continuity at all. In fact, most episodes end with a character being heavily injured, stuck in a situation, exiled, or even killed. While there are a few callbacks to previous episodes, they are kept brief and do not interfere with the series. Gary Sauls has also stated that he hopes anyone can watch any episode in any order and not feel “lost”.

## Main Cast

* Andrew Rannells as Edward, Oscar, and himself
* Josh Peck as Eric (Seasons 1-6)
* Robert Capron as Eric (Seasons 7-9)
* Wayne Grayson as Joey
* Gary Sauls as Constantinos and Mr. Goodman
* Edward Felker as Stanley and Jacob the Dog
* Dan Green as Dallas
* Mark DeCarlo as Paul
* Mike Pollock as Principal Walker
* Veronica Taylor as Carver
* Dee Bradley Baker as Snodgrass

## Production

Approximately 70 to 100 people work together whenever they produce an episode of Edward and Eric. Production of the series is handled at Chatterbox Productions in Astoria, New York, and when episodes are finalized, they are sent to Warner Bros. Animation in Burbank, California for approval. Every single episode is fully hand-drawn; the only instances where computers are involved is for scanning, which was introduced late in the third season, when the show started to use ink and paint animation. All of the episodes were also produced in the 16:9 widescreen format (making E&E the first ever animated series to be produced in said format), although Kids' WB cropped them into fullscreen due to HDTV not being common at the time.

Just like other eleven-minute cartoons, an episode of Edward and Eric would take at least ten to nine months to produce. Writing starts whenever Gary Sauls, Edward Felker, or anybody else on the crew come up with a story for an episode. Sauls, Felker and a team of writers plan it out, come up with gags, and give detailed notes on what should be added or changed. Once it looks good, they write down the script. They all revise it several times, and whenever they're done with making a final draft of the script and showing it to other Chatterbox employees, they send the scripts to storyboarders so they can illustrate the episode out (although in some cases, a writer on an episode may additionally be a storyboard director/artist). The final process is shipping it off to Rough Draft Studios in South Korea so that animation work can be done.

In the first season, however, Cartoon Pizza (which was known as Jumbo Pictures at the time) was responsible for animating the episodes, including some of the Season 2 episodes originally produced for the first season (e.g. The Haunted Recliner). Animation work was handed over to Rough Draft when the crew decided they weren't satisfied with most of Cartoon Pizza's results. Examples of their inconsistencies were Homeless being jam-packed with errors and Locked Out/Escape from Detention being the only pre-Season 3 episodes to be animated with the digital ink-and-paint method (although Sauls would go on to praise the latter's animation).

All of Edward and Eric's voice actors reside in New York City (with a few exceptions), and recording sessions take place in Chatterbox's recording studio on Wednesdays. According to the documentary, The Making of Edward and Eric, actors clock in at 9AM. Sauls has said, "Seeing the action unfold in the studio is why I really, really love Wednesdays. The sessions get more unusual and wacky - it's so much fun. And the way the actors record their lines is like an old-school radio show."

Whenever there are Los Angeles actors, they record their lines at Warner Bros. Animation, and the recordings are sent over to Chatterbox within a few hours. They are usually transferred via emails, in the highest quality possible.

When it comes to background music, Edward and Eric utilizes tracks from Associated Production Music (which hosts royalty-free music, thus leading it to being used in other shows such as *SpongeBob SquarePants*), as well as tracks exclusively composed for the show. Most of the original tracks are based on parlor music (e.g. Buffalo Gals, Camptown Races, She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain, etc). Edward and Eric's original tracks were composed by Jody Gray and Andy Ezrin, both of whom also composed tracks for the popular Cartoon Network series, *Courage the Cowardly Dog*.

Due to Edward and Eric being produced in New York City, the viewer may recognize some crew members from other cartoons produced in NYC, such as *Courage the Cowardly Dog* writers like David Steven Cohen and Susan Kim (both of whom have also written a few episodes for the PBS Kids series, *Arthur*, funnily enough). Michael Pecoriello served as the show's story editor and one of the head writers; he has also worked as the producer of the English dubs for both *Yu-Gi-Oh!* and *Yu-Gi-Oh! GX*, as well as the short-lived Nickelodeon series, *Welcome to the Wayne*. "Just about every episode was sparked or inspired by something that happened to one of us, or a story from childhood," Pecoriello stated. "A lot of things were mined from our actual childhoods. We were recalling the feelings we had as kids. Then we'd laugh about it, and at each other, as grown-ups."

Jacob Krarup, who was one of the two writers for the 2006 video game, *Bully*, was another one of E&E's primary writers. "I joined *Edward and Eric* around its fourth season, and it helped me flesh out *Bully*," he said. "Both of them perfectly emulate the feeling of being a kid again, which is kinda funny since they're about these kids fighting through a harsh society at the worst schools in the country."

## Reception

### Ratings

When *Edward and Eric* debuted, the pilot episode attracted around 11.22 million viewers. Within its first few months on air, the amount of viewers expanded. As the show progressed, it became the number-one children's animated series on television. Needless to say, it became a major success for the Kids' WB programming block throughout the years. It was so successful, that it dominated Kids' WB's other most famous show, *Pokémon*, which was an achievement that seemed utterly impossible at the time; the only other show that ever achieved that during the block's history was *Yu-Gi-Oh!*. The show was also so popular, that reruns also aired on The WB. Even when The WB became The CW on September 17, 2006, reruns didn't stop, at least until 2015 - a year after it stopped airing on Vortexx.

One thing that helped *Edward and Eric* become popular was that it was one of the very few comedy shows on Kids' WB. Most of the shows on the block were usually either action (*Batman Beyond*, *Jackie Chan Adventures*, *Static Shock*, etc), or anime (once *Pokémon* came into the scene). Even when there were other comedy shows (*Detention*, *Pinky and the Brain*, *Animaniacs*, *The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries*, etc), they were usually "killed" by *Pokémon'*s success (although some of them managed to "live", such as *What's New, Scooby-Doo?*), but *Edward and Eric* wasn't the case, as it stood out from the rest.

The time slot for new episodes was 9:30am on Saturday mornings, which was right before the time slot for new *Pokémon* episodes, and coincidentally, the show was Edward and Eric's "rival". However, there are a few exceptions to this, as some double-length episodes and specials have premiered in primetime slots. When the show migrated to Cartoon Network in 2008, the time slot for new episodes was 7:00/6:00pm EST on Saturday nights.

### Critical response

The show currently holds a rating of 7.8/10 on IMDb, and it held an 8.6/10 on the now-defunct TV.com. Edward and Eric has received critical acclaim from critics and is considered to be one of the best shows to come out of Kids' WB. The series is often praised for its humor, absurdity, appeal to different age groups, and wide variety of characters. It is considered a cult classic among the fanbase.

## Home video releases

### VHS

* Nonsensical Nonsense
* Nerd Buddies
* Adventures in Lakeside City
* Runaway Eric
* Halloween Capers
* Christmas Chronicles
* Summer Shock
* Crazy Antics
* Shaggy Dog Story
* An Onix-pected Adventure
* Are You There, Sauls? It's Me, Ed
* Eds Away
* Love is In the Air
* Misadventures in the West
* The Edward and Eric Movie
* Coulrophobia
* Holiday Mix-Up
* The Search for the Six
* No More Pizza
* There's No Place Like Home
* Edward vs. Snodgrass: A New Hope

### DVD

* Cartoon Crack-Ups
* Adventures in Lakeside City (Reprint)
* Christmas Chronicles (Reprint)
* Summer Shock (Reprint)
* Crazy Antics (Reprint)
* Love is In The Air (Reprint)
* Misadventures in the West (Reprint)
* Hometown Heroes
* The Edward and Eric Movie
* Incredibly Incredible Adventures
* Edward's Craziest Experiments
* The Suckers! Collection
* Going Out With an Ed
* The Very Best of Edward and Eric

### Box sets

* The Complete First Season
* The Complete Second Season
* Season 3 Volume 1
* Season 3 Volume 2
* Season 4 Volume 1
* Season 4 Volume 2
* Season 5 Volume 1
* Season 5 Volume 2
* The Complete Sixth Season
* The Complete Seventh Season
* The Complete Eighth Season
* The Complete Ninth Season
* Edward and Eric: The Complete Series

## Broadcast

* United States - Kids' WB (1998-2008), The WB (1999-2006), Cartoon Network (2001; 2002-2019; 2020; 2021-present), Adult Swim (2023-present), TBS (2000; 2008; 2016), Boomerang (2005-2016; 2018-2019), The CW (2006-2015), The CW4Kids (2008-2010), Disney XD (2009-2012), Vortexx (2012-2014)
* Mexico - Fox Kids and Cartoon Network
* Spain - Nickelodeon
* Canada - YTV
* United Kingdom & Ireland - Jetix and Cartoon Network
* Japan - Cartoon Network
* France - Disney Channel
* Germany - Nickelodeon
* Poland - Jetix
* South Korea - Tooniverse and Cartoon Network

## Trivia

* When Gary Sauls was once asked to sum up the show's humor, he said it is character and situation-driven with "a healthy mix" of slapstick, fourth wall breaks, surrealism and wordplay.
	+ E&E's humor also consists of occasional references to other forms of media (e.g. TV shows and video games). A majority of them are usually meant to mock them (e.g. the bear family from A Bear-y Good Day being based on *The Berenstain Bears*), although some are intended to compliment others (e.g. references to *SpongeBob SquarePants* that can be seen in episodes like Gone Fishing, Stranded, Constantinos' Lavatory Story, Old MacEdward, etc).
		- It is also not unusual for characters to drop real TV shows and whatnot by their names (e.g. Carver saying "Who do you two think you are, the Rugrats?" in A Visit to Grandma's, and Joey calling Eric "Spider-Man" in The Little Fly).
* Whenever Andrew Rannells voices Edward, he always uses his natural speaking voice. Due to his calm, easygoing nature in real life, he never yells, so he had to learn how to sound angry so that he could properly record his lines whenever there was a scene where Edward was mad or annoyed. He also had to make his voice high-pitched (or "girly") whenever Edward screamed out of fright or pain.
* Edward and Eric is the first cartoon to have ever been produced in the 16:9 widescreen format. It is also the only cel-animated (at least in the first three seasons) series to be in widescreen.
* The entire series was traditionally animated through the use of pencils and papers.
* The show was entirely produced in New York.
* Whenever two or more characters are having a conversation, they will occasionally stutter, hesitate or talk over each other. This was so they could feel more "authentic".
* Edward and Eric is the longest running show on Kids' WB, lasting 13 years (15 if you count the shorts) and 200 episodes. Considering it was also the last Kids' WB series from the 1990s to end, the era of those shows ended with it.
* During development, the show’s original title was “Edward Pearson’s Comedy World”.
* Each season finale is well known for having a "dark ending".
* The show is a notable example of Bloodless Carnage, as it is filled with slapstick, and the characters never bleed.
* Gary Sauls was so burnt out from working on the movie, that he doesn't have any memories of working on the first few Season 5 episodes.
* Edward and Eric is the only Kids' WB series from the 90s that lasted until the end of the block.
* Surprisingly enough, the show remained completely unedited when it aired on The CW4Kids.
	+ For years, there were rumors that certain episodes were actually censored, until Gary Sauls ended up debunking them.
* The show's budget was infamously slashed for a while due to a cancelled *Detention*crossover being completely scrapped in favor of An Onix-pected Adventure. Chatterbox never got their money back from the former (up until they started development on The Edward and Eric Movie), resulting in major budget cuts. You can read more about this incident in the latter's page, in the trivia section.
	+ When Chatterbox finally got boatloads upon boatloads of money from the movie's success, there were plans for the show's animation to switch back to cels in Season 5, but these ultimately fell through. There are supposedly cels of a few Season 5 episodes, but they are locked in Chatterbox's vault, never to see the light of day again.
		- Fortunately, this gave Sauls an even better idea: he decided to change the show's animation to an extremely cartoony and off-model style.
* Season 4 is the longest season, ranking in at 35 episodes.
* Throughout Season 5's run, Chatterbox received many complaints that the show's animation was "too cartoony", with some complainers even stating they preferred Season 4's stiff animation. So as a result, the crew made the animation for the seasons after that wackier than ever.
* The first time Edward and Eric aired on Cartoon Network was a special occasion in 2001, which was on October 5 as part of the Kids' WB Spotlight Show block. It was intended to promote Kids' WB and its exclusive shows. The episodes that aired that night were One For All (Not Really)/Will You Be My Friend?. Edward and Eric would then fully join Cartoon Network's schedule a year later on November 4, 2002, alongside *Pokémon* and *Yu-Gi-Oh!*.
* For no particular reason, reruns of the series returned to Cartoon Network on April 28, 2020, and lasted until August 20. The series had a timeslot of 6-7am EST on weekdays. Coincidentally, My Hero Academia reruns aired on Adult Swim during this time span at 5:30am EST.
	+ Reruns returned again on May 8, 2021 in a different timeslot: 5-8pm EST every day. This time, episodes have been airing in a random order.
		- This changed to 3-5pm EST on August 28, 2023 due to Cartoon Network's schedule adjusting to Adult Swim signing on at 5pm. On Saturdays, it also airs on Adult Swim during its first two hours as a way to compensate for the Checkered Past block not airing on weekends.
* The adolescent characters normally wear their school uniforms at all times, except for episodes/instances that are set in Avenue A Apartment (although Constantinos is an exception due to his poverty).
* Every adolescent character is voiced by an adult, except for Eric. This was because during the middle stages of development on the series, Sauls felt a child actor would fit perfectly with Eric's character.
* Edward and Eric was the only Kids' WB series to have its credits shown on Kids' WB, as the credits for all the other shows would get awkwardly pushed to the side.
* There has been a longtime rumor that the show was originally supposed to last one season. Gary Sauls has neither confirmed nor denied this rumor; in 2019, he joked that if the show was pitched around the time of *Pokémon'*s debut, it "certainly would have had a higher chance of ending up like *Detention*."
	+ He eventually confirmed it on November 2020 through Twitter. According to him, he had no idea it would've ended up as a "one-season wonder" until Warner Bros. bluntly told him over the phone, "We want to know if you can do this for 13 episodes." Having a bad feeling that was their way of saying the series sounded too generic, he immediately booked a flight to Burbank, California to change their perspective.
* Several months prior to the show's premiere, Chatterbox and Warner Bros. had several methods of marketing the series.
	+ Fake "Wanted" posters for each Lucky 6 member were scattered across all of New York's five boroughs, as well as several other major cities in the United States. As of 2020, copies of these posters are worth thousands on eBay, whereas fresh stacks of immaculate copies are currently stashed in Chatterbox's vault. Billboard versions of said posters were also prominent.
	+ Artists across New York City were contracted to paint official promotional art for the show on walls of select buildings.
	+ In June 1998, Warner Bros. held a competition offering up to $10,000, as well as a trip to Manhattan to attend an exclusive party for a sneak peek viewing of The Eddy Beginning.
* Master copies of the cropped, fullscreen editions of episodes that Kids' WB used are considered lost media. Technically, the fullscreen versions of most episodes can easily be found as there are many Kids' WB recordings available online, but what people are looking for are the HD versions.
	+ In 2019, when asked for their last known whereabouts via Twitter, Sauls stated it's "likely in Warner Bros' own archives", which he does not have access to. He also insisted all of the episodes in Chatterbox's vault are in the normal, widescreen format.
	+ All of the E&E DVDs and VHSes are also in the regular widescreen format, which leaves no hope to search through any of the home media.
	+ While episodes in fullscreen can occasionally be found on the Internet (usually Dailymotion), they are unofficially cropped. Videos that have a high chance of being legitimate almost always end up getting taken down.
* During development of the series, episode title cards were considered. However, this was ultimately removed in favor of an episode title simply appearing as soon as an episode begins, followed by the opening credits, so that there could be more screentime.
	+ A few title cards from 1996 were posted by both Sauls and Felker on Twitter in 2018.
	+ Title cards would eventually appear in some of Chatterbox's future shows, most notably The Breakfast Club and Tony and Esmond.
* During the show's first few years on Boomerang, only the first four seasons were aired. It wasn't until 2010 that Season 5 joined in. (WIP)
* Edward and Eric is the first animated series to be produced in New York City, next to *Courage the Cowardly Dog*.
	+ Coincidentally, some of CtCD's writers have also worked on E&E.
* The reason the show briefly aired in reruns on Disney XD was because at the time, a few other Kids' WB shows reran on the channel as well (*Batman: The Animated Series*, *Jackie Chan Adventures*, *Pinky and the Brain*, *Static Shock*, *Superman: The Animated Series*, and *X-Men Evolution*).
	+ The aforementioned shows were carried over from Toon Disney's block, Jetix, which E&E did not air on in the United States.
	+ Ironically, E&E was pitched to Disney at one point during development, but then they didn't show any interest it.
* Some of the early Season 4 episodes are actually holdovers from the later run of Season 3, which is easily noticeable due to the better animation quality, levels of facial expressions, and how some of the episodes are three pairs. This is the complete list of them:
	+ Love-Hate Relationship/Edward vs. Snodgrass: The Final Frontier
	+ Constantinos' Lavatory Story/Snack Attack/The Millennium's a-Comin'
	+ One For All (Not Really)
	+ The Good, The Bad, and the Nerdy
	+ Adventures in the Teacher's Lounge/Freezer Freaks
	+ It's All the Rage & Cycling for Morons