[Eddsworld] The PERFECT episode for each era

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]I recently made a YouTube post titled  “What should I talk about in a new video?”, a wholly original idea I know, and one  commenter suggested that I “objectively choose one standout episode representing each  Eddsworld era and why they're so representative”.

[00:00:14]And it was an immediate hit.

[00:00:15]I think the comment speaks for itself, but I’d  like to clarify things before we get any further.

[00:00:19]I am not looking for the “best episode”  or my personal favourite of the Classic, Legacy, and Beyond eras, although  quality is certainly a factor. I’m looking specifically for the videos that  represent the show during each timeframe.

[00:00:32]The one I’d point to as examples of what  the show was doing for any given year.

[00:00:37]You might disagree with my choices or  even my approach, so I encourage you to share in the comments below. My aim with  this video is really just to give you some insight into how Eddsworld has changed over  time, this is just a fun way of doing that.

[00:00:50]Right off the bat, Edd’s time as show  runner was the longest and the most dynamic in Eddsworld history, so we have plenty  of candidates for the “standout episode”.

[00:00:58]Hammer and Fail might be the first video that  comes to mind. As far as I can tell it’s been a fan-favourite since it came out, the animation  is rock solid and because it’s essentially a bottle episode taking place mostly in-and-around  the house, it’s a tight showcase of the main character dynamics. I might consider it to be the  most “polished” of Edd’s episodes in some ways.

[00:01:18]Zanta Claws 3 meanwhile is arguably Edd’s  finest work. While the story is obviously atypical with Tom as the main antagonist, I  think the Zanta Claws trilogy as a whole is a good cross section of the kind of show  Edd built. Watching these three in order would be a good way for a new viewer to  understand what the show was and how it changed during the Goulden years. Zanta Claws  3 was the peak of that growth, in my opinion.

[00:01:44]On the flip side, Movie Makers is one of  the early greats and an old favourite of mine. Much like Hammer and Fail it is a  character driven story where each boy is on top form and it’s incredibly  ‘internetty’. I'd say it makes for a better cultural time capsule  than any other episode I can name.

[00:02:00]I’m tempted to say that Spares  might be the runner up for Classic Era Ambassador. It’s rough around the edges  but still technically impressive with all of those clones filling the screen. The comedy is  silly and a little juvenile, and it’s exactly as violent as you’d expect from the earlier  years. Edd’s fingerprints are all over this one.

[00:02:18]But for my money, the standout  episode from the Classic years that I think best represents  this era would be… WTFuture.

[00:02:25]It features everything we’ve talked about  up until now - the characters, the comedy, the charm, but I’m crowning it king of the  Goulden Years because it perfectly showcases Edd's flair for the cinematic. His cartoon  was always trying to be bigger than it was, even when the animation was at its roughest, the  action was often punching well above its weight.

[00:02:43]Sometimes his videos were just vehicles for  comedy, but for most of the “main” Eddisodes, Edd would try to make a story that's big and  ambitious and, I'll say it again, cinematic.

[00:02:52]As a high-concept Terminator parody, this  episode achieves that ambition without sacrificing any of the laughs. Fourth Wall  Breaks and absurdist comedy and slapstick, character-based comedy, word-based comedy, and  let’s not forget the reference humour. Expect to find all of these comedic styles popping up  in all of the best episodes from every era.

[00:03:10]And if you needed any more convincing, it’s  also a fan favourite. In 2021 Eddsworld hosted a March Meddness competition where  fans voted for their favourite Eddisodes, and when pitted against the most popular Eddsworld  videos of all time, WTFuture claimed the #1 spot.

[00:03:26]And with that, WTFuture secures its place  as the definitive Classic Era episode.

[00:03:33]As the shortest and arguably most  easily defined era of Eddsworld, there's a lot to consider when picking  the “representative” Legacy video.

[00:03:40]The first one I think about is, naturally,  The End. This is probably the most iconic episode nowadays, I suspect that The End  is a common starting point for newcomers and it still dominates fan discussion  more than a decade after release. One could say that The Legacy was more  narrative-driven than years gone by, and The End pays off that ongoing storyline  while still having plenty of laughs to boot.

[00:04:01]You could also nominate Fun Dead, which is  the most popular single Eddsworld video, and it's not even close. I think it’s notable for  being so technically impressive, Fun Dead took one of the oldest, most pervasive Eddsworld  tropes and a familiar narrative structure, and gave it a scale and polish that hadn’t  been seen before. And by scale and polish, I don’t mean the episode went to the dentist.  Fun Dead is definitely a great blend of the old and the new, which looking back now kinda  feels like the mission statement of The Legacy.

[00:04:28]My first choice when I started  this exercise was Saloonatics, and I really want to say Saloonatics - partially  because I love that episode and partially because it’s so different. One of Legacy’s defining  traits was its willingness to play with setting and especially animation styles, and Saloonatics  might be its greatest success story in both of those regards. It certainly looks nothing like any  other episode, and I know that old-west Eddsworld has a passionate cult-following. I wonder  how many fans would want a new episode that returns to this time period and all of these  characters, I think that would go down well.

[00:05:01]I’m hesitant to crown Saloonatics though  because it’s maybe a little too weird.

[00:05:06]The animation and setting are just too different  from anything else even within the Legacy.

[00:05:11]A representative episode would have the perfect  mix of Legacy weirdness and Eddsworld familiarity.

[00:05:17]And in my opinion, the episode that  does that best would be Poweredd.

[00:05:22]It's got that bit of experimentation with  a beautiful animation style that's unique to this single episode, but it still  feels familiar to what Edd was doing before. The script is also very Legacy  - It’s narrative driven with a deeper exploration of established characters and  a three act structure with big setpieces, but again I think it stays true to Eddsworld’s  humble origins. Not least with all the callbacks to the classic era and the return to classic ideas  like superhero Edd and obviously the neighbours.

[00:05:48]I also think this one has Tom and Eddie written  all over it. The jokes are usually absurd, occasionally dark, and almost always  at a breakneck pace. I love it when a director I’m familiar with tackles  an existing world because you can often pick out their trademarks -  PowerEdd feels like the marriage of an Eddsworld video and a TomSka sketch  and I mean that in the best way possible.

[00:06:08]Poweredd has my vote for  the definitive Legacy video.

[00:06:12]And finally, Eddsworld Beyond. Even though  we’ve had more years with Beyond than Legacy, and I think it’s been quite  successful in shaping its own identity, I found this one to be quite difficult.

[00:06:23]As far as candidates go, I often think back to  the first two Beyond videos - Fan Service 2 and Casting Call, both set in Eddsworld HQ. Both  have a self-awareness to them that’s pretty pervasive in the current era, responding to fandom  activities and attitudes, and acknowledging the contemporary state of production through comedy.  While every era has this kind of meta-humour, Beyond has a particular brand of self-awareness  that’s been there since the very beginning.

[00:06:48]On the flipside, I could also make a case for  the two most recent Eddisodes with Eddsworld characters - Tord’s Next Adventure and Tales of  Terror. Neither of them are comedy videos - one of them features the psychological horror  of being trapped in an endless cycle, never making progress because you’re at  the whim of an uncaring higher power and the other is Tales of Terror, but both  showcase an artsy experimentation we're seeing a lot of nowadays. Again, there've been  experiments all throughout Eddsworld’s history, but I could not imagine Eddsworld characters  starring in anything like this pre-beyond.

[00:07:19]As much as I love these videos and I consider  them to be some of my favourites, they do have the Saloonatics problem of being a little too  different from everything else to be a good Beyond representative. That might be a problem with this  exercise, when variety is one of your strengths, how can you pick a representation of your  work? How would you do this for, like, Stephen Spielberg movies? I don't think you could.

[00:07:41]For something more traditional, The Beater Bunny  is the most popular Beyond video in terms of view count. As well as kicking off an ongoing  storyline that's presumably still in motion, this one feels notable for the style of  comedy, particularly with the use of cutaway gags. There's always a main storyline going on  where funny things are happening with the boys but then just out of view something equally  ridiculous might be happening with some side character who is secretly moving the plot along  in their own way. Cutaways are not for everyone and this particular trope is certainly  not present in every episode nowadays, but when we do get them they almost  give more “world” to Eddsworld ya know.

[00:08:15]But for my final pick, I'm locking in Surf &  Turf Wars part 2. And also part 1 if you'd like, I'm not picky. This one is brimming  with that self-awareness I was on about, manifesting mostly in fourth Wall Breaks and  even opening with a literal jump the shark moment. It's got worldbuilding cutaway  gags aided by the A/B plot structure.

[00:08:35]It’s got the ongoing storyline and it's got  the distinct Beyond visuals and soundscape.

[00:08:40]I’ve already praised Beyond’s animation plenty  of times. It’s an extension of Edd’s style but with each animator bringing so much of their own  flare to each scene, and with this particular episode I can only imagine the work it would have  taken to bring this hulking Matt lobster to life.

[00:08:55]But this time around I wanna highlight the sound design and especally the music.

[00:09:02]Background music in the Beyond era  has been bittersweet and haunting and dramatic and playful, they’ve had  a bunch of composers bringing their skills to the table and this video  might just be my favourite example.

[00:09:13]Next time you watch Surf & Turf Wars pt.  2, listen out for how lovely some of the music sounds and pay attention to how it  complements the dialogue-free moments.

[00:09:22]A lot of thought clearly went into something that  most viewers might not even consciously notice.

[00:09:27]With WTFuture and Poweredd I can point to  one thing each video does particularly well.

[00:09:32]WTFuture is ambitiously cinematic, Poweredd  pays homage to Edd’s show while carving out something new. But with Surf and Turf Wars, I  think they just nailed all the fundamentals.

[00:09:41]It’s funny. It’s dramatic. It's beautiful.  It’s my pick for the standout Beyond video.

[00:09:47]And those are my big-three standout representative  Eddsworld episodes. Do you agree with my picks or would you have gone in a different direction.  Either leave a comment below, or just leave.