Smile for the Ed

"Smile for the Ed" is the 19th episode of Season 5 and the 121st episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. In this episode, Eddy gets a bad school photo on school picture day due to Kevin interfering with Eddy trying to make himself look good for the photo. The Eds try to edit Eddy's bad looking school photo, so that he can get the key to his brother's room.

Plot
It's school photo day and the kids are all getting ready before their pictures are to be taken. When Lee spills her perfume on Jimmy's clothes, he heads to the door, only for a chipper Jonny to notice that Jimmy and Plank are wearing the same outfit. This fuels his anxieties of being inadequate, and Jimmy makes a run for it while wailing about being too generic. The Eds then join the line, with Eddy examining his reflection in Jonny's reflection. When Edd notices and comments on this, Eddy tells his friends that this school photo is very important. As it turns out, his mom has promised him the key to Eddy's Brother's room if he manages to actually take a good picture this year, so it's of the utmost importance that he get a perfect picture.

Soon, though, the line moves forward, as the Kanker Sisters get their picture taken and move on. Next up is Sarah, dressed in a frilly pink dress, and behind her follows Rolf, who has placed a flour sack over his head and drawn a face on it in order to "keep from having his soul stolen". After his turn is over, Nazz takes a seat on the stool and poses for her picture. All the guys drool over, with Edd even remarking that he'd love to capture such beauty on his camera. Eddy then takes the stool, readies himself, and poses, ready to take the perfect photo–until Kevin says "dork", causing Eddy to jerk from his pose.

When we next see him, Eddy has gotten his photo back, and man is it ugly! He looks up from the picture in utter and complete despair. Edd tries to comfort Eddy, but when he sees the photo, there is really nothing complimentary he can say. Eddy slumps over his music stand just as the teacher comes in. Edd quickly gives Eddy his triangle, and as the band starts to play (poorly), he whispers to Eddy that he is a member of the photography club and can use his camera to retake Eddy's picture. This cheers Eddy up so much that he starts playing with fervor, but Eddy soon remembers that his mother can in no way know of the existence of his horrid picture, so he feeds it to Ed. Unfortunately, while Ed is eating the photo, the teacher points at him, and Ed hurriedly fumbles with his saxophone and ends up blowing the wet piece of paper out the end of it. The photo lands on the drum set, which Kevin is manning. When Kevin's drumstick lands on the wet piece of paper and gets stuck, Kevin waits a beat and then plasters it on a cymbal. The figure in the photo now revealed, Kevin looks at it and chuckles before showing it to his friends. The photo starts to make the rounds at school.

Later, the Eds exit a class for lunch, Eddy feeling confident that Edd's picture will impress his mother. They go to put their books in their lockers only to find a piece of paper stuffed into each one. Edd takes it out and blanches, just as the one in Eddy's locker falls onto his face. It seems that some jokester has made copies of Eddy's horrid photo and stuffed them into every locker in school. Eddy speeds through the school, grabbing the photos. When Edd tries to make Eddy think rationally, Eddy simply gives Edd a huge stack of the photos, and they hustle over to store them in Eddy's locker. Ed, seeing the source of the photos (a continually printing copier), grabs the copier and stuffs it into Eddy's locker as well. The Eds then head to the lunchroom to see what other horrors have been done with Eddy's photo.

When they get there, they find that everyone has received a copy of the photo and made a mask out of it. Eddy looks around, scared, only for a hand to grab him and drag him under a table. It is Lee, in an Eddy mask, who has decided to make Eddy kiss himself. Eddy's friends, knowing that they can't do anything, slam the doors on him, but Edd's eyes settle on an intercom.

Shortly thereafter, Edd has rigged up a system that will allow him to pirate the PA system. Edd speaks into it and impersonates the principal, telling everyone to give Eddy the copies of his photo back, or else everyone will face detention for the rest of the semester. While Eddy receives this news with glee, Edd starts to shake, afraid of the ramifications of what he's just done. Before he can consider this too much, though, Eddy exits the lunchroom, lugging behind him a bunch of copies of his photo and happily saying that the principal made the kids give them all back to him.

After the photos are safely hidden, Eddy gets ready for another shot at his portrait, a process which includes Ed doing "makeup" by slamming a chalkboard eraser into Eddy's face. Unfortunately, there is only one frame left in Edd's camera, so this one has to count. Eddy readies himself again, this time sure that nothing will ruin the shot, only for Kevin to drop a copy of Eddy's horrid photo in front of Edd's lens just as the shutter goes off. Kevin makes the excuse that he "forgot" one copy, and Eddy is incredibly disappointed, nay, destroyed by the realization that Kevin ruined his school photo once again. Before he can lament too much, however, the door of his locker bulges; it seems that the copies of his photo have taken up all the space in his locker, and the freshly-printed copies from the still-printing copier need more space. Soon enough, the copies explode out of Eddy's locker, drowning the school in copies of Eddy's school photo.

The end of school comes soon enough though, and at that point we can find the Eds outside Peach Creek Jr. High, cleaning up copies of Eddy's photo. Eddy laments his lot in life, as not only was he publicly humiliated but he also had to clean up the copies of his photo and got a week of detention for impersonating the principal, an act which he doesn't remember doing. Soon enough, though, he is distracted by Ed, who has made a drawing of Eddy receiving the key from his mother. Eddy angrily tears the drawing of the key away from Ed's notepad only to see a crayon drawing of him. Eddy, seeing that he's not making a funny face in this drawing, grabs it, tears it away from the pad, and runs off to give it to his mother. Edd is flabbergasted by this display of stupidity, but his attention is suddenly drawn away from Eddy when Ed offers to do his picture and does "makeup" on Double D. When Edd disappears in a cloud of chalk dust, Ed looks around, shrugs, and declares a self-portrait, hitting himself in the face with the eraser and raising another huge wave of chalk dust.

Memorable Quotes
Jimmy: [crying] "I'm so generic!"
 * Jonny: [staring at the disheveled Jimmy and not noticing his stench] "Wow Plank, you and Jimmy order clothes from the same catalog! How cool is that?"

Eddy: "Per-practicing for my school photo, Sockhead."
 * Edd: "Perpetuating our vanity, are we?"


 * Ed: [watching the snail festoon him with ooze] "I'm so pretty! Oh so pretty!"


 * Jonny: [after he and Plank have had their photo taken] "Whaddya mean, you think you blinked?"

Ed: "Pronto's my middle name!" [He gallops off.] "No, wait, it's Horace!"
 * Eddy: "Quick, Ed! We gotta get rid of them, pronto!"


 * Ed: [showing off his picture] " Look, Double D, a picture of Eddy. See? He's getting the key to his brother's room, and it's made of potato salad!"

Rolf: "Rolf has seen prunier."
 * Kevin: [showing Eddy's photo around] "Get a load of prune-face!"

Kevin: "Bummer." Eddy: "You heard the man!" Edd: [freaking out about the impersonation] "Did I just do that? I did, didn't I? I just impersonated the Principal! Made false declarations in his name! Oh, what have I done?"
 * Edd: [impersonating the principal] "Good Afternoon, Students of Peach Creek Jr. High. This is your principal speaking with a very important… uhh… announcement. Very good, ahem. All copies of student Eddy's school photographs are to be returned to him immediately. Failure to comply will warrant detention for everyone for the rest of the semester. Thank you."

Kevin: "3! Oops, forgot one." Eddy: [almost crying] "He did it again, Double D!"
 * Edd: "Ready on 3. 1, 2–" [Kevin butts in to ruin Eddy's replacement photo.]


 * Eddy: "Talk about adding insect to injury. Two hours of stinking cleanup, plus a week's worth of detention for impersonating the principal. I don't even remember doing that!"

Edd: "How very helpful, Ed."
 * Ed: "Makeup!" [He slams Eddy into a chalkboard with an eraser.]


 * Rolf: [wearing a potato sack over his head] "Rolf is ready to have his soul pilfered from his very eyes, yes?"

Eddy: "HELP ME!!!"
 * Lee: [repeatedly kissing Eddy with his school picture as a mask on her face] "Mwah! Stop kissing yourself! Mwah! Stop kissing yourself! Mwah! Stop kissing yourself!"

Marie: "Guess that rules out her face then!"
 * Lee: [to cameraman] "Make sure you get my good side BOZO!"

Trivia

 * Goof: In order to prevent anymore of Eddy's pictures from spreading around the school, he stole the photocopier and had Ed help him store it in his locker. However, there is no logical explanation as to why the photocopier would continue working outside of the copy room as no power cables were seen going to it.
 * We learn in this episode that Ed's middle name is Horace.
 * Also, Edd and Eddy's were revealed previously in "Your Ed Here" as Skipper (Eddy) and Marion (Edd).
 * All the characters appeared and spoke in this episode.
 * Edd complains that the outlines on Ed's drawing were squiggly. This is a reference to the fact that the characters outlines pulse and vibrate and is an instance of leaning on the fourth wall.
 * See the keyring being held up by Eddy's mom? It's labeled 'El Hombre' which is one of Danny Antonucci's nicknames.
 * In this episode, we get two glimpses of the adults in the show, however it only turns out to be the photographer's hand and Eddy's mom's arm.
 * Additionally, Eddy's Mom's arm seems to be rather hairy, which somewhat resembles a man.
 * In this episode, we also see that most of the kids play in the school's band. The kids and what instruments they play are listed as follows:
 * Ed: Saxophone
 * Edd: Glockenspiel
 * Eddy: Triangle
 * Nazz: Violin
 * Rolf: Bagpipes
 * Kevin: Drums
 * Jonny: Sousaphone (portable tuba)
 * Plank: Banjo
 * In one scene, Eddy shouts to Ed (who happens to be playing the saxophone) "Hey Charlie 'the Bird Brain' Parker!" Charlie "Bird" Parker was considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians of the twentieth century.
 * This is the only episode in the entire series directed by someone other than Danny Antonucci; it was directed by Scott Underwood instead.
 * No scams were seen in this episode.
 * This is the third instrument Ed is seen playing. His first was a violin ("Pain in the Ed") and the second one was a flute ("Who's Minding the Ed?").
 * In "Pain in the Ed," Eddy claims that if he played an instrument he'd play something manly like a kazoo, but in this episode he plays the triangle.
 * This is the third instrument Edd is seen playing. The first is the pedal steel guitar (as shown in "Avast Ye Eds" and "Brother, Can You Spare an Ed?") and the second one was the bongo drums (as seen in "Boys Will Be Eds").
 * This is the second time Nazz plays an instrument. The first was the tuba in "Hands Across Ed."
 * This is the third instrument Rolf is seen playing; previously, he was seen playing an accordion and a concertina.
 * This is the second time Plank plays an instrument. The first one was the pan pipes shown in "'Tween a Rock and an Ed Place."
 * The school band sounds horrible, even though many of the characters in it are shown to have some musical ability.
 * Jimmy was the only character to not have his picture taken. This is due to the fact that Marie and Lee wrecked his uniform, and he discovered that he and Plank were dressed alike, causing him to run off in tears because he was "so generic." Marie was also never seen getting her picture taken, but because she was seen walking away from the photography seat, it can be assumed that her photo was taken.
 * This is the second appearance of the snail. However, this may be a different snail due to the fact that Ed might have eaten the previous one shown in "Ed or Tails."
 * This is the first time we see an authority figure that works in the school (in this case, the photographer), but only his hands appeared.
 * This is the second time Lee ever reveals her eye.
 * Everyone got Eddy in trouble in this episode.
 * Kevin: messed up Eddy's photo, copied it, and ruined Eddy's photo retake.
 * Edd: impersonated the principal.
 * Ed: aided Edd's plan of impersonating the principal.
 * Everyone else: used Eddy's picture to make fun of him.
 * Nazz, Sarah, Rolf, and Jonny were the only characters who were shown getting their picture taken successfully without any interruptions.
 * Look closely when Rolf gets his picture taken with the bag on his head, as the crudly drawn eyes (with one being crossed-eyed) resemble the AKA Cartoon logo. This can be considered one of the "easter eggs" involving AKA Cartoon where the logo is used.
 * At the beginning of the episode, Eddy says "Really! I'm in like flint, Sockhead." This is a reference to the 1967 film In Like Flint.