wait remember Edgar and Ellen it was a short-lived Nickelodeon cartoon series that followed 12 year
old twin orphans that get up to some creepy and spooky Shenanigans within their Town between
pulling practical jokes on the residents of the towns or upon themselves they have devoted their
time to make sure someone is always getting pranked it has the perfect seasonal look that
reels back in the early 2000s Nostalgia but the legacy of the show remains tucked away in the
recesses of our minds as it would only run on TV from October 7 2007 to October 30th 2008 falling
into the category of other offbeat and recessed memory shows like Kappa Mikey The Secret Show 3
delivery corneal and Bernie and many many more all stemming from their time on Nickelodeon's
other channel Nicktoons so for today and right now tis the season let's take a look at the
history of this short-lived show what it was the origins of where it came from what happened to
it and more this is Edgar and Ellen I have some plans for what we may do with that power sister
if ever in your life you are faced with a choice a difficult decision a quandary ask yourself what
would Edgar and Ellen do and do exactly the contrary Edgar and Ellen got its start not
as a show but as a book series I know I know calm down reading is scary but we have to talk about it
starting off with a series of six books releasing from 2003 to 2007. the stories told follow Edgar
and Ellen twin kids who live alone in the small town of nod's Limbs with their parents being gone
and leaving them as orphans they live within a falling apart rotten 13-story mansion on the
edge of town that overlooks both a graveyard and a junkyard in which they use said junkyard
as a creative space to piece together different Contraptions they use for pulling pranks rare
beasts Taurus trap undertown pets Revenge high wire and nod's limbs All released over those four
years gaining a decent size following especially from those who are already fans of series like
lemony snickets A Series of Unfortunate Events from the stories and the visuals accompanying
the chapters along with the cover of the books featuring the twin soullessly staring at you
these books completely had a style all their own while having nods and cues to something
you'd Envision from Tim Burton as well as the literature and poems by Edgar Allan Poe which
by the way if you couldn't guess is where they derived their names from the series was written
by Charles Ogden you know the great Charles Ogden oh you haven't heard of him that must be because
he doesn't exist Charles Ogden is a pen name a fake name used instead of the author's real
name but here for Edgar and Ellen it wasn't just One Singular writer but a group of writers who
worked for Star Farm Productions to produce this book series aimed at children and young
adults the co-founder of star Farm Productions Rick carton would take up the role of being the
artist to bring the world of Edgar and Ellen to Life Giving Aid to the stories with some dark
and Gothic illustrations and the series would be published by Simon Schuster children's publishing
later on a sequel book series would release three volumes for more stories under the name of
Edgar and Ellen noticey with the book's hot air frostbites and split ends adding on a separate
standalone book titled Mischief manual which takes the storytelling and places it in the perspective
of Edgar and Ellen but with the success of the books came the opportunities to move on to another
medium slow and steady Edgar and Ellen would be turned into 13 in total two minute animated
shorts that would run on the Nicktoons Network in between different shows from 2005 to 2006 which
would eventually be turned into a full-fledged show The Following year in 2007 with a total of
26 episodes spanning one season over the next year ending in 2008. now while the book side of things
were great for Edgar and Ellen why wasn't the show a main staple stay on Nicktoons you worry too much
shares on Edgar and Ellen are back these two are insane insanely awesome
the show itself would follow in the footsteps of the book series expanding the stories and scope
of these characters their schemes and pranks as well as the town that they live in between that
the twins also have to deal with the groundskeeper heimert who while being still a pretty creepy dude
in the show holds no weight to this image here from the books just nightmare fuel right here
they also have a pet this one-eyed hairball thing named pet when it comes to the shorts there was a
very creepy yet charmingly funny Pace that kept them fairly interesting and a nice breather in
between the other shows you're already watching the show however now having more time to work with
for their storytelling lost a bit of the impact the shorts had firstly the visuals of the show
were fine and passable just your standard cheaper budgeted Flash animation but what it lacked were
the Aesthetics of the background detailing that made the world feel more Bleak and deteriorating
be sure the Mansion is still unkept and has a creepy who can even live here aura about it but in
compare person to the trash ridden falling apart and downright rotten feeling the shorts had for
the Mansion there just was this overall lack of grime which made the books and the shorts feel a
bit more special but outside of the Aesthetics of the show is the show giving you substance within
is it entertaining is there enough here to make a full-fledged show work it's a very mixed bag it
does have some genuine fun moments and it is fun to see what these two will come up with and then
at the same time get backfired with but that's really the main crutch of the show sometimes this
involves them somehow being heroes or mainly just dealing with Stephanie who is basically
the main antagonist of the show which is weird to say since Edgar and Ellen aren't any form
of moral High Ground characters to root for but in comparison to the attitude of Stephanie yeah
these two just seem like some harmless pranksters but just disregard any harm that comes from those
pranks okay she has a Sinister side that is more explored in the books more so than the show but
you still get some bits and pieces of that side of her based on her actions and how she treats
others along with that she is really smart and often uses her one-up on knowledge to her benefit
more specifically how she can basically manipulate anyone almost anyone the twins her tactics do not
really do much else but annoy them on a couple of occasions however they both or one of the
twins ends up teaming up with her for a mutually beneficial reason the dynamic between the Twins
and her can be entertaining but at the same time a bit of a redundancy episode to episode for the
most part like I said the character in the book series portrays her as a lot worse and more evil
overall which is why it's confused fans of the book series whether or not the cartoon takes
place before the events the book series or maybe it's just its own continuity that is completely
separate I suggest treating both entities as their own separate thing just utilizing the same basic
plot points and characters the biggest takeaway from the show aside from it just not being as
interesting as the source material is the lack of charm by that I mean the light tightening
up of characters not being able to be fully as creepy evil or weird instead of the dread you
feel staring into the eyes of Edgar and Ellen on the book covers you just get some quirky off-beat
characters Stephanie isn't as much of a true monster as she can become in the books highmarks
isn't as terrifying as he is portrayed in the books there is just so many chances that the show
could have adapted a bit better to get somewhat closer to at least the feeling of these characters
being similar Nickelodeon was definitely hoping to capture a younger demographic with the show
than the original book series popularity was capturing which could possibly explain why it
kind of feels the way it feels now while the show also did come out in Canada and was syndicated
to other networks across the world the show would still have to play ball with Nickelodeon it faced
similar problems to other shows before it like Invader Zim with the only difference being that
Invader Zim didn't lighten things up it just found workarounds to please the network but
that's a story for my next video as well as that show was made for Nickelodeon's Flagship Channel
rather than just being acquired by Nickelodeon which is what this property was even though it
was a Nicktoons original it was still a temporary broadcasting deal that's why in syndication you'll
see it being broadcasted on other channels the show does have its moments where the characters
do get in some funny situations that lead to some pretty fun conclusions but it never kept
that consistency of always delivering that the original shorts for the series did their best to
keep a lot of what made fans of the books happy and at least one really cool thing the series
would do is have this ending two minute segment for each episode that was directly conceptualized
by the fans of Edgar and Ellen if you went to the Edgar and Ellen website there was a spot
where you could write who you were and suggest an idea storyline or some details you'd like to
see for a short and the ideas that would be picked would end up premiering at the end of an episode
accompanied by the name and age of the person who came up with it Edgar and Ellen would even
speak to the creator of the idea through the short before going on to do whatever the suggestion was
it was a nice little component to the show that definitely found its charm aspect but a two-minute
short at the end unfortunately doesn't help the two segments beforehand to have similar results
Saturday at 8 30.
in the end ultimately Edgar and Ellen just didn't have the audience support tuning in
like the books had had and even though Nicktoons is the channel where Nickelodeon shows get pushed
to to start digging their grave Edgar and Ellen were the ones playing in that graveyard until
they would eventually fall within the same Graves dug out kind of again it was acquired
programming and labeled an original but really it had smaller second lives elsewhere it's odd
because there was an effort to push this show and promote it unlike a lot of the others just for
Nicktoons shows I mean it had Target stores back in 2007 creating a special section to promote the
books and the new TV show with a creepy house display with both of the characters all over it
everything in that section would be plastered with either Edgar or Ellen's faces or with anything in
relation to the theme along with some items for sale aside from the books that featured
the characters on them heck even Del Taco got on board the Edgar and Ellen train in 2008 for
a Halloween celebration even if it would be right around the show finishing its last few episodes
it spawned aboard game puzzles and had a website that featured some fun pranks cards and birthday
wishes you can send to others and games with the popularity of the books there was some banking
on this series doing well and being a potential hit for this sister Network to Nickelodeon but
yeah it just never hit those Heights and you can claim low viewership low interest lack of outside
tie-in merch aside from the books but in the end it really boils down to the show kind of being
in this Middle Ground of not being too great or overly bad it was extremely okay the problem with
that however is without being on either end of that being so good you need more of it or so bad
it's fun to watch and laugh at the absurdity of it all being in that middle ground can lead to a
forgettable experience or a less than satisfying revisit based on nostalgic curiosity if anything
the shorts themselves are definitely the real standout here and if you are to revisit Edgar
and Ellen the books and the shorts may be best to experience it again Edgar and Ellen is in an
awful experience to get get through or anything like that it just feels a bit Bland especially
in comparison to the source material being so heavily stylized it feels like it lost bits of
its identity because so if it played more into those creepier detailings and the atmosphere
followed suit I think it would have been something a lot more special in the end ultimately a limited
budget does hold back the time and resources for that so this is just a mere wish of what could
have been done and not ashaming of it not being such but let me know your thoughts on this show
or the book series in general were you a fan of this property in the early and mid-2000s heck
are you still a fan all these years later let me know in the comments below thanks so much
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channel follow me on Twitter and I'll be back with another video soon but until then later
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