Take This Ed and Shove It

"Take This Ed and Shove It" is the 25th and final episode of Season 4. It's also the 102nd episode in the entire series, and the second two-part episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. In this episode, Eddy finds the Cul-de-Sac kids are all growing up and tries to make his career out of it. Later he gets hit by a bunch of items and sees himself 90 years in the future as well as seeing the Cul-de-Sac 90 years in the future. Eddy must now find a way to get himself back to being a kid. This episode was originally intended to be the series finale, but due to popular demand, Seasons 5, 6, and the movie Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show were made.

Part One
For some strange reason, Ed is in a hot dog costume and standing in front of some curtains. Soon enough, though, he explains that it's time for The Panda Eddy Show and tears down the curtains, revealing Panda Eddy and his best pal, Balloon Poochie. Soon enough, Mr. Calculator Pants and Mr. Railroad-Rump show up to complete the cast of the show. With no actual plot written out for the show, however, Eddy's only hope is to skip right to the sales pitch, and he does so, suggesting that it would be great to own a Balloon Poochie for only twenty-five cents.

His audience is unimpressed, with Jonny and Plank calling the show "kindergarten" and Sarah saying that the trio must think their audience is full of babies. As soon as the three leave, Eddy angrily storms over to a trash can and throws his costume away, angry about the failure of his latest scheme. Edd tries to tell his friend that the kids are growing up, but is undermined by Ed playing with a pacifier. When Ed offers Eddy a suck, Eddy angrily throws him in the trash, too, causing the can to tip over and a tricycle to roll out of it. When Eddy asks what nutjob would throw away a good trike, the answer comes in the form of Jimmy, riding a brand new bike with training wheels. Edd points out that this is another sign of the kids' burgeoning adulthood, but his friends miss the point completely and assume that Edd just hates tricycles.

To show his friends what he really means, Edd takes them on a tour of the cul-de-sac. The first stop is Nazz's house, where she is inside watching TV. As the three stare at her, Edd explains that Nazz is developing on a multitude of levels; when there's no joke, however, Ed and Eddy get bored. Edd then takes them over to the lane, where they see Kevin showing off his first chin hair to Rolf. Kevin doesn't get the reaction he was looking for, though, as Rolf merely laughs and then rips his shirt off to display his hairy back to Kevin. Shocked, Ed proclaims that Rolf mutated, but Edd explains that all that happened was that Rolf physically developed (albeit to an extreme extent). Edd then mentions that it won't be long before the kids are fully grown and deciding on careers. This sparks an idea in Eddy's mind, and he drags his friends off to assist him in his latest scheme.

This scheme is Eddy's Career Counselling, which will set up the kids with their ideal career. The first one up is Jonny; after asking a few questions of him, Edd whispers something to Ed, and Ed goes and hides behind a cardboard prop painted to look like a computer. After making beeping and buzzing noises for a few seconds, Ed comes out with Jonny's career: A gopher. Eddy hands Jonny a diploma and hustles his customer away before chortling that the grown-up stuff is gold. Next up is Rolf, who is dissatisfied with his selected career as a potato-monger; thinking quickly, Eddy tells Rolf to go ahead and be a barber and sends Rolf out into the world. The rest of the kids quickly jump on the bandwagon and run forward, asking for careers, with one exception: Kevin, who thinks the whole thing is stupid.

Kevin's refusal to participate is no obstacle to the Eds, however, as the money they glean from the other kids allows them to buy jawbreakers. When they cheerfully run home from the candy store with their loot, however, they run into an obstacle: a chair placed in the middle of the yard. It seems that they have run into the office of Dr. Nazz, Denteress. She takes their jawbreakers away and locks them in her desk because they cause cavities, tapes them to the chair, and gets ready to work on them with a drill when a distraction comes in the form of a lumberjack. In cutting down a tree, Jimmy had inadvertently broken the cord that held him to the tree and slid down it, scraping his teeth against the bark and ruining his retainer. Nazz sees this as a dental emergency and goes to tend to it, allowing the Eds to escape.

Unfortunately, the jawbreakers are locked inside her desk very tightly. Ed and Eddy grab the desk and run off to Eddy's garage, where his father has power tools, only to be stopped by Sarah, who is working as a traffic light. Ed has to stop for the light, and he lets go of the desk, which bounces across the street and lands on a lawn. When the light changes, he runs over to get it and stands on it, his friends pursuing him, only for the desk to start moving, pushed by an unseen underground force. This force is Jonny, who eventually stops digging his gopher tunnel, sending the desk flying into the middle of the cul-de-sac, where it is commandeered by Rolf as a shampoo table as he gets to work cutting Ed's hair. When Edd and Eddy track him down, Ed has been given a haircut identical to Rolf's, but the bigger problem for them is getting the desk back. Eddy distracts Rolf by calling for a haircut, and while Rolf does his hair, Ed and Edd steal the desk. Once his haircut is done and his hair resembles Rolf's, Eddy takes off for his garage, telling Rolf to put the charges on his tab, and gets ready to go to work with his friends.

Part Two
The Eds proceed to try and break the lock on the desk in order to get to the delicious candies inside. The work is slow going, but it seems they're making progress, until Jonny suddenly burrows into the garage, sending Eddy flying towards the ceiling, where he clutches at a light fixture for support. Jonny climbs out of his hole, proclaiming a lunch break. Edd sees this as well-deserved, but Eddy considers the gopher a pest. Eddy doesn't have much time to contemplate this, however, as the board holding the fixture breaks and Eddy falls into the hole. Other things, stored above his garage, fall into the hole as well, and all of them hit him on the head, knocking him unconscious.

When Eddy awakens, he is in his room. He rises, body aching, and sees an old man in the mirror, whom he waves to, recognizing his grandpa. When the image in the mirror waves back, he looks around and sees that the old man is actually him. When he finds a cane in his hand, he tosses it away and heads for the door. When he throws it open, he is greeted by his two friends, who are also senior citizens. When Eddy asks Edd what happened to them, as they're kids, Edd chuckles and notes that they haven't been kids for over ninety years. Hearing this, Eddy freaks out and takes off running. Along the way, he passes his open garage and notices that the jawbreakers are still locked away even after all this time.

Eddy blunders through the cul-de-sac, scared at what he's witnessed. Along the way, he runs into a blind and somewhat deaf Jonny, who is playing chess with Plank. Jonny asks what he's staring at, and suggests that a decrepit Nazz forgot her pants again. Worried, Eddy runs away again, as Jonny starts the same conversation with a now no longer there Eddy.

Eddy escapes into a backyard, where he runs into Sarah, who is knitting with Jimmy. She hits him, and Eddy heads off, dazed, and runs into a light pole. This attracts the attention of Rolf, who calls him "Kevin" and proceeds to act strange. It seems that Rolf has gone senile. When Rolf angrily tells him to leave, Eddy is quick to comply, as he doesn't want to have to deal with this insanity when it's possible to escape it. Eddy starts to cross the street, but sees that his cane has reappeared in his hand and tosses it away. Kevin, now confined to a motor scooter in his advanced age, runs into Eddy, and proceeds to run over Eddy repeatedly in order to bully his old nemesis before leaving. Edd finds Eddy lying in the road and suggests that they go home. Hearing this, Eddy gets the idea that the jawbreakers are the key to their youth, and they head back to the garage.

Once inside, Eddy finds that his advanced age makes it impossible to pick up any tools. Thinking quickly, he instructs Ed to break the desk open, and Ed shambles forward with his walker. Ed raises the walker over the desk, but before he can bring it down, he sneezes. The sneeze crumbles the desk to dust. Eddy panics at this, and when he sees that his cane has once again reappeared, he falls into a frenzy, bashing himself repeatedly on the noggin with the cane until he suddenly wakes up in his garage, a kid again. Apparently the whole thing was a hallucination brought on by his being hit on the head with the items stored in his garage, but now everything is back to normal. Eddy cheers this, and he is only made happier by the sight of Ed having sawed through the desk, revealing three delicious jawbreakers. Eddy gladly takes one and prepares to savor the delicious flavor.

And then he wakes up. It seems that he dozed off in the middle of the cribbage game that the trio were playing in his room. When he realizes that he is in fact an old coot and will never be young again, Eddy bangs his head on the table, and it collapses. Ed then gets an idea and requests that Eddy pull his finger. Fed up, Eddy demands that his elderly friend grow up; seeing the humor in this, Edd begins to laugh, and the mirth spreads around the table. Even Eddy laughs, although he's still upset by the loss of his youth.

Deleted Scenes
There are two deleted scenes from "Take This Ed and Shove It" that did not make it into the episode. These were first shown at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con.

First Deleted Scene
After Eddy looks in the mirror and sees he is an old man, he thinks it is just a joke that is seen only in old cartoons. He then tells Danny Antonucci to wake him up. When he doesn't answer, Eddy yells at Antonucci to wake him up now. Antonucci doesn't respond to that either, so Eddy says he will give him [Antonucci] a new quarter if he [Antonucci] wakes him [Eddy] up, but when Eddy tries to take out his wallet, he instead finds a jar of Aunt Bonni's prunes. Eddy, upon realizing that he just got out a jar of prunes, protests that he's still a kid.

Transcript
Eddy: "Oh, my aching back! How'd I get back in my room?" ''[The old man is seen in the mirror. He seems to be an older form of Eddy.]'' "Oh, hiya, Grampa!" [He lifts his arm to wave.] "Aah! You're not granddad!" [The old man goes for a closer look.] "You're me!" [Eddy realizes what's going on.] "Oh, I get it! This is some kind of joke. This is one of those stupid done-to-death cartoon nightmares." [laughing] "Okay, you can wake me up now, Mr. Cartoon Director!" [The director does not comply.] Eddy: "Hey! Antonucci! Wake me up!" [He rummages in his pocket.] "Wake me up and I'll give you a shiny new quarter!" [He pulls out a jar of prunes.] "Eh? This ain't my wallet!" [Eddy observes the jar closely and soon figures out what it is.] "Prunes?! My youth ain't gone!!!"
 * [An old man stretches and stands up.]

Second Deleted Scene
After Ed unintentionally turns the desk to dust by sneezing on it, the scene is different. Instead of Eddy backing away, Eddy starts to sob over it. Lee Kanker comes in to see who it is. It's then revealed that she and Eddy have been married, had their honeymoon at the junkyard and had lots of babies (although these may be grandchildren, considering the ages of the characters). It is also revealed that Ed is married to May Kanker (who, like Eddy, uses a cane) and Edd is married to Marie Kanker (who has become obese). It then cuts to the main scene with Eddy hitting himself with the cane repeatedly until he becomes a kid again. Oddly, the audio track of Edd saying "Time has reduced it to dust, Eddy" still plays even when the scene where the desk crumbles has been passed by a few scenes. It is possible that the line was later added in when the previous scene was cut and that the clip played at Comic-Con used the aired scene rather than the production scene.

Transcript
Old Eddy: "Ed! Bust the stupid desk!" Old Ed: "Ed? I'll go get him, Eddy!" ''[The elderly workhorse lumbers forwards. He raises his walker over the desk and sneezes. The desk collapses into dust.]'' Old Ed: "Ed's not here, Eddy." [Eddy dives into the dust, head in hands.] Old Eddy: "It's just not fair! What'd I do to deserve this?" [A grandmotherly Lee throws the door open.] Old Lee: "Who's bellyachin' in here? Eddy! Welcome home my little trouble of love!" Old Eddy: "Kankers!" Old Lee: "Be a good husband and give me a wet one." [She makes a smoochy face at Eddy.] Old Eddy: "HUSBAND?!" [clinging to Edd] "TELL ME WE DIDN'T MARRY THE KANKERS! TELL ME, DOUBLE D!" Old Edd: "And we honeymooned in the junkyard. Don't you remember, Eddy?" Old Lee: "Hey! Quit running from your responsibilities!" [She pushes forward a wheelbarrow filled with screaming children.] Old Eddy: "This isn't–" Old May: "Hey, Eddy. What's the matter? Scared of a little dukey?" [Ed is holding three crying infants.] Old Marie: "Or did you swallow your denture drool again?" [Edd is feeding a baby a bottle.] [The Kankers laugh as Eddy backs away from the horrific scene.] Old Edd: "Time has reduced it to dust, Eddy." Old Eddy: "But I'm just a kid!" [He looks down and spots the cane in his hand once more.] "This is not happening!" [He hits himself over the head with his cane repeatedly.] "I'm not old! I'm not old! I'm not old! I'm not old! I'm not old! I'm not old!" ''[A normal Eddy is bandaged up in his garage, under a blanket with a pillow beneath his head. He is pretending to hit himself over the head with a cane.]'' Eddy: "I'm not old! I'm not old!"
 * [The Eds are in the garage, ready to crack open the desk.]

Memorable Quotes
Edd: "Well, you see--" Rolf: "Rolf wishes to be a barber." Edd: "A barber?" Rolf: "In the Old Country, he who cuts hair is viewed a man among men." Edd: "But Rolf he--" Rolf: [pulling up his sleeve, showing his muscles] "Rolf is a barber!" Ed: "Party at Rolf's house!"
 * Rolf: [after receiving his career results] "A potato monger!?"

Eddy: [hyper] "You-mean-maturing? You-are-maturing-I-am-maturing!"
 * Edd: "This day has simply been the most gratifying day I can remember, Eddy! Yet I can't help but ponder our own pass into maturity–"


 * Old Jonny: "Hey Eddy! Nice day isn't it? Whatcha' staring at? Did Nazz forget her pants again?"

Old Eddy: "Got what? Liver spots? I can't take this anymore!" [tripping over a chess piece] "Ow! My hip!"
 * Old Jonny: [looking at Nazz] "She's still got it, huh, Eddy?"

Old Eddy: [confused] "Huh? I'm not Kevin." Old Rolf: "Who is this Kevin you speak of? ROLF'S TRACTOR IS NOT FOR SALE!!!" ''[The camera cuts to Rolf's broken down tractor, which has a "FOR SALE" sign next to it. Rolf smiles and grabs Eddy.]'' "YOU FOOL!!" [He places Eddy on Old Wilfred] "Rolf does not love you, Nazz girl." Old Eddy: "Okay." Old Rolf: "YOU TAUNT ROLF'S TURNIP, JONNY THE WOODBOY?!? GET OFF ROLF'S PROPERTY BEFORE ROLF GETS HIS BEATING STICK!"
 * Old Rolf: "Hello, Kevin."

Old Eddy: "It was all just stories? Memories from the past?! We really are old!"
 * Old Ed: "You remember the funniest things, Eddy. Like…uh, I forget."

Old Sarah: "Skip rope? What do we look like!? A couple of babies!? We're knitting, you idiot!" [Jimmy is, indeed, knitting.] Old Jimmy: "And, no. You can't have one. I made this bedpan cozy for Sarah." Old Sarah: "So get lost, pops!"
 * Old Eddy: [confused] "Leave you to what?" [seeing something that looks like a jump rope] "Skip rope? Ain't you too old to skip rope?"

Trivia

 * Goofs:
 * When Rolf rips off his shirt for Kevin, Kevin's chin hair is showing. In the next scene, it is not there. It then reappears in the career counseling scene.
 * When the kids are getting their careers, there were only five quarters in Eddy's jar. Jonny usually pays for Plank, but the reason for the lost quarter could be that Plank didn't get a career.
 * When Edd and Eddy were chasing the desk, Eddy jumps over a bush, but he is later shown covered in brambles from the bush.
 * In the first deleted scene, the chair next to Eddy is transparent.
 * This is the second two-part non-special episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. The first was "If It Smells Like an Ed," the third was "Out with the Old, In with the Ed" and the fourth (and final) was "A Fistful of Ed."
 * If we take into account that in "Your Ed Here," Eddy is 12, then in this episode he would be at least 102 years old.
 * This episode was originally the series finale of Ed, Edd n Eddy.
 * In the first deleted scene, Eddy pulls out a jar from his pocket that says "Aunt Bonni's prunes". Aunt Bonni is a reference to Bonni Reid, who is the color designer of the show.
 * When Ed is on the desk you can hear the same tone that is in Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventures when the Batter-Ed formation is used.
 * In the first deleted scene, Eddy breaks the fourth wall by saying "You can wake me up now, Mr. Cartoon Director!" Later, Eddy says "HEY, ANTONUCCI, WAKE ME UP!"
 * Old Ed and Hot Dog Ed (in the gag, he's a real hot dog) were both seen again in Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show when Ed was zapped with the electric gum.
 * This is the 75th episode in which the Kankers do not appear, although they were originally in one of the deleted scenes.
 * Kevin was the only kid who didn't get a job at Eddy's Career Counseling.
 * Jimmy, Nazz and Rolf were the only ones that got actual real life jobs, but Rolf is the only one who professionally knew what he was doing. (Jonny got a job as a gopher, which is just an animal, and Sarah became a traffic light, which is just a machine to control traffic at intersections. Nazz and Jimmy, meanwhile, got jobs as a dentist and a lumberjack, respectively, but had no idea how to perform them.)
 * At some point over the next 90 years, Rolf would put his tractor up for sale after it broke down somehow.
 * Old Jimmy mentions that he was sewing a bedpan for Sarah. A bedpan is a device used as a toilet by bedridden people, so this might indicate that Sarah has developed bladder problems.
 * Cribbage apparently gives Ed gas. He may have mistaken "cribbage" for "cabbage", though.
 * Jonny has some hair in this episode when he is shown as an old man.
 * This was also the last episode produced with traditional ink and paint. AKA Cartoon switched over to digital color starting with Ed, Edd n Eddy's Jingle Jingle Jangle. Because Ed, Edd n Eddy are considered to be the last major animation production to use the traditional process, "Take This Ed and Shove It" can be considered to be the last cartoon in history to be completely done in traditional cel animation right down to the ink and paint.
 * It is revealed that Jonny 2x4's favorite color is magenta, his pants size is about 12 and his favorite vegetables are sprouts.
 * The title is a reference to the song "Take This Job and Shove It."
 * It was revealed that when Edd gets old he gets a cat named "Neils Bohr", named after a Danish nuclear physicist who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922.
 * Edd's cat's name is also a clever pun as Niels Bohr is responsible for helping formulate the Copenhagen interpretation, which gave rise to the famous 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment.
 * A running gag in this episode is that every time Old Eddy gets rid of his cane, it somehow always comes back to him.
 * Ed said "Magellan!" while evaluating Jonny's profile for a career. Magellan is Ferdinand Magellan, a well-known Portuguese explorer who attempted to sail around the world and has a South American passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific named after him (the Strait of Magellan). While Magellan died approximately two thirds of the way through the world-spanning journey, one of his ships was successful at completing the expedition.
 * Eddy calls Rolf "Figaro". This is a possibly a reference to Figaro, a character (and barber) in the play The Barber of Seville. Figaro was also the name of Gepetto's cat in the Disney film Pinocchio.
 * This is the last episode to air in 2004.
 * This episode was featured on the Ed, Edd n Eddy Vol.2: Fools' Par-Ed-ise DVD.
 * In "One + One = Ed," Rolf tells the barnyard animals not to burn the candle at both ends, as it leads to the life of a hairdresser. However, in this episode, he wants to become a barber.
 * This is the only episode to have deleted scenes released.
 * Ed says "Yummity Yum Yum" when he's about to eat a jawbreaker in Eddy's dream that he's still a kid. This line is paraphrased as "Zappity Zap Zap" in "Every Which Way But Ed."
 * The letter shapes and positioning of the phrase "shove it" in the title card might have been intentionally positioned to suggest a certain bad word.
 * We learn in this episode that Edd wishes to be an explorer when he grows up.
 * Additionally, we learn that Eddy apparently wants to scam kids for the rest of his life.
 * Eddy discovering he is old is a reference to Rip Van Winkle who slept for 20 years and awakened to find himself old.
 * It is unknown why the two deleted scenes were rejected, though time could have been a factor. Had they been kept, the episode would be 22:48 in length, assuming no other omissions.