Disclaimer: I do not own the cartoons used within. If I had a nickel for everytime I had to say that, I'd go the mall and throw them at people.
This fic is a "Roger Rabbit"-esque environment in a "Cartoon Hollywood", in which the Eds (from "Ed, Edd, n' Eddy", my fic will center around them) get cancelled and each try to pursue their own goals while walking among the other cancelled characters of the cartoon world. One isn't quite ready to give up them being famous, one tries to find love, and the last just wants to be happy...
And of course, I will feature other cartoons and guest stars later.
Yeah, the fic is a little dark, but if you don't mind a little angst, I think you'll enjoy it (I hope you'll enjoy it).
"No, Double D, that's not how you're supposed to do it!" Eddy yelled at his smarter, albeit nerdy companion. Double D was putting together some sort of giant electronic machine. It was for Eddy's latest scam… The Giant Cell Phone.
"Oh, and now you can put together mechanics?" The hat-wearing Double D quipped.
"Did you just say, 'put together mechanics'?"
"Oops,"
"It's put mechanical things together, you idiot!" Eddy shouted. He grabbed his head.
The small blinking light on the camera shut off for the umpteenth time that morning.
"Will you ever get that line right?!" Eddy shouted.
"I didn't mean to…" Double D whined. "Can we just shoot again?"
"Don't shoot!" Ed raised his hands into the air.
"No, we're done for the day," The cameraman, whose nametag read Avatarjk137 the Cameraman, looked tired, and his messy, thick brown hair accentuated that. "We'll continue this one tomorrow," He adjusted his glasses with green lenses and picked up a clipboard. "We still have three more and this one to finish, so PLEASE try to concentrate…"
"I am concentrating!" Double D insisted. It wasn't his fault Eddy wasn't screwing up his lines lately.
"Constipating?" Ed was cockeyed. And ignored.
"I know you're trying, you guys. But please… a little more concentration and a little less flubbing, okay?" After pulling his tucked-in gray polo shirt out of his standard navy blue pants he walked off, leaving the Eds behind.
"Ugh… I'm tired. Let's get something to eat," Eddy said to his two actor pals. Though he was quickly getting tired of Double D's mind being elsewhere and not on the show as of late, he was still happy. "Ed, Edd, n' Eddy" had become a very popular show. It had holiday specials and was featured on canned ravioli and macaroni n' cheese boxes alike. And as a special bonus, it was one of the most long-running shows in Cartoon Network Studios. And Eddy was one of the stars (though he couldn't help thinking about the title being changed to "Eddy" every once in a while).
"See ya, Kev. Scene just wrapped up." Eddy waved goodbye as he, Double D, and Ed made their way out the metal double doors into the hallway. Kevin was not quite as disliked by the Eds off the show as he was when the cameras were rolling. And Nazz didn't ignore the Eds so much… rumor had it that she had a short fling with Eddy a couple of years into the show. The Canker Sisters weren't even as bad. Just as crazy, but not as bad. They were more friends than admirers. In fact, if anyone on the show was dislikeable off the set it would have be Jimmy the diva.
The "Ed, Edd, n' Eddy" studio room was at the end of a very long hallway. Along the way to the exit Eddy passed a couple of bathrooms, the "Teen Titans" studio room (so quiet there lately), and the "My Gym Partner's A Monkey" studio room. Eddy rolled his eyes passing this last one. It took the studio room that formerly belonged to "Megas XLR". The Eds had made good friends with the "Megas" characters. They were still close, but it was hard to maintain a relationship with people who were fired out of your studio.
Soon, they reached Eddy's favorite bar (which served dinner too); Moe's Tavern. The Eds were still underage and never drank, but they were well into their teens out of the show (and still no taller). The bar was full of troubled people and cancelled people alike. It was the 'hot' place to flock… if you were off the air. But Eddy and a handful of other 'hotter' cartoon and anime characters were known to frequent it anyway.
It was especially fun tonight because Eddy's favorite band was playing: Puffy AmiYumi (they were playing EVERY night, though), and it had been more populated since the bar owner, Samurai Jack, had announced his 'five for five' deal (accusations that he ripped off Arby's have been consistently denied: Jack claimed Arby's, in fact, only had a five for five dollars and ninety five cents deal).
"Alright, Double D," Eddy leaned forward and crossed his arms. "Your mind is TOTALLY off. Where the hell are you? Earth to Double D, come in, Double D!"
"You don't have to be rude about it!" Double D crossed his arms as well and leaned back. "If you must know, the answer is simple: I've found somebody."
"Ooo! Really? Hot!" Eddy exclaimed.
"I found somebody!" Ed pointed to Eddy, harboring a snicker from the table over.
"NO, Ed, not that kind of 'found somebody'!" Eddy hissed.
"Oh. Ohhhhh…" Ed looked at Double D and tried to conceal his laughter. "Hahahaaa…" Ed leaned over to whisper to Double D, "What does Eddy mean?"
"Knowing you, she probably isn't much of a looker…" Eddy teased. "Don't keep us in the dark, Double D. Who is it?"
"Well, she's very unique…"
"Uh-huh…"
"Very strong…"
"Uh… whatever… keep going."
"Very pretty…"
"Uh-huh…"
"Very metallic…"
"…what?"
Double D smiled. But he suddenly whipped his head around, looking to see if anyone was spying on them for information for the media… which wasn't unusual around those parts. "XJ9. The robot girl. Jenny. You know… 'My Life as a Teenage Robot'?"
"Yeah…" It suddenly made sense to Eddy. The two had been good friends for a while and their friendship really blossomed after Jenny's show was 'fired' (the term in their town used for a show being cancelled, as opposed to fired being just used for jobs). It seemed that shows in the widely known Cartoon Hollywood (or just 'the C.H.') were being cancelled and new seasons being rejected was a craze that was sweeping like wildfire. "Well, Double D, just get your head in the game and focus for a few more episodes, okay?! Then you can have all the time in the world to focus on your new girlfriend,"
"It would be my pleasure," Double D smiled.
Meanwhile, just a few seats down, a pale teen took off his black cap to reveal a head of bright red hair. He was muttering to himself and writing on a notepad that read The Weekly Espionage at the top. "Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius, will get promoted soon if he keeps getting great stories like this…" He giggled, and then paused in thought. "Wait, this is my only good story yet… well, I still rock!" He scribbled the title of his article at the top: 'Former Nickelodeon Starlet Cheating on Her Beau?'
----------0
"You call this a freaking story?" The young blond girl yelled at Jack. Her dark blue eyes glared at Jack from under her drooping bangs (the rest of her hair was tied back into a ponytail). "I couldn't publish this as fifth-to-last-page, half-page, off-topic editorial in our least successful magazine, The Global Sunshine Fish-Lover's Gazette! It's THAT stupid!"
"But…" Jack said. "That's not a magazine from our company. Is that even a magazine?"
"Of course not! It's just a bunch of magazine titles that I took apart and pieced together in my mind! And your story would still be too boring for my Mind Magazine!"
"Ahhh, but Yellowfur… my dear editor-lady-who-is-at-a-higher-status-than-me chief lady… the glory is that looks stupid and unbelievable, but once you start reading, my writing- it captivates you!" Jack responded. He was nervous, but not enough to skip the gloating and desperate convincing.
"You don't know the first thing about this business, do you?" Yellowfur snarled. "You have it the other way around! Captivate people FIRST, then if you must be boring, be boring after you get their attention!" She paused to look at the papers in front of her. "'Jimmy Neutron and Dexter Tie in the Genius Competition." She looked up at Jack. "AGAIN'. It's nothing new. That means it's not NEWs." She was standing up, but she walked closer to Jack. "If you want to get by in this company, you have to uncover some dirt. And not just sandy, light-colored, fake dirt. Not faux dirt. I want dark, gray or brown, possibly muddy, worm-filled DIRT. The type that makes you look like your own shadow if you get it all over you!" She smiled, revealing almost vampire-like fangs. "And fudging the truth a bit is perfectly acceptable. EVERYBODY does it."
"But if we get discovered for lying, won't we be taken off the shelves?" Jack asked.
"Taken away? Pfft, I say! Pfft! Remember, Spicer: Snitches and talkers get stitches and walkers. Unless you're working for me. Then you get cash."
Eddy, Edd, and Ed dashed down the white-walled, gray carpet-lined hallway as fast as their clumsy selves could let them run. They were late, and they knew that if they were late again (after two previous days of being late) Avatarjk137 the Cameraman would get angry at them, even though they weren't nearly as late today as yesterday and the day before. And even though he was the cameraman, he also had higher authority in what went on throughout the studio.
"It's all right, we're here!" Eddy burst open the doors and tossed his black jacket aside. Sorry. We overslept. All three of us. Except Double D. He was trying to wake us. And stuff. So sorry." Eddy looked around. "Uh, where are the donuts?" He said after glancing at the table where breakfast (and lunch) was served on workdays. It was chaos in the studio; people running around, fiddling with equipment, picking things up, putting them down, shouting into cell phones or blackberries or at young gofers who were unfortunate enough to say the wrong thing at this hectic moment. It was TOO hectic for a Friday… Fridays were meant to be relaxed and fun, not like Mondays.
"Hey, Avatar! Where's breakfast?!" Eddy called out to the frazzled-looking man over the mess when he saw him walking towards him. "Is that it over there?! I see donuts!" Eddy pointed to a bag of Dunkin' Donuts on a chair.
"DONUTS! NUTS OF DOUGH!" Ed shouted with happiness.
"Where were you?!" Aavatarjk137 the Cameraman yelled. "You guys got fired!"
"Yeah, whatever. Look, we'll start shooting after we get some sugar in our blood, okay?"
"Didn't you hear me? You're fired!"
A second time was too much effort to push a joke in Eddy, the self-proclaimed prank king's mind. "What? What do you mean FIRED?"
"Cancelled! Cartoon Network doesn't want the next season!" He shouted at them. "They weren't joking around when they told us to film the 'last episode'!" He threw his clipboard off to the side on a table. Big red marks dotted the papers on the clipboard. "How stupid of me! I thought 'last episode' was some sort of STYLE or something… apparently so did some of the higher-uppers, because we've got like six more episodes, but whatever!"
The Eds stood staring at him as he answered a cell phone call by arguing with the person on the other end. They didn't even notice the chaos continuing, Kevin leaving the studio in a huff, Nazz and Rolf following him soon after, men walking in and beginning to push parts of the sets back into the darkness that was the back of this particular studio, the rest of the supporting cast of their show departing, and the donuts being eaten.
"What…?! But… how come we don't get a say in this?!" Eddy hollered. "How'd it happen?"
"You don't get a say because you're the actors, not the directors or producers." Avatar responded as he put his cell away. "They said it jumped the shark when you went back to school in the show, and they also said the newer shows seem to be well-received as far as ratings go. I guess they want to make room."
Most of the stage crew had left already. Avatarjk137 the Cameraman, the Eds, the men moving the set parts, and a few people here and there that were either clearing off the refreshment table or working with the electronics were all that remained.
"Now what do we do?!" Double D nervously asked. "We're out of a job! Do we get unemployment compensation?"
"Nooo…" Avatarjk137 smiled and handed them each an envelope. "But cheer up! You do get this week's pay!" He walked past. "Bye, guys! Good luck! I have to go work on another show!"
"I'm not in my happy place…" Ed mumbled.
"None of us are," Eddy grumbled as he looked at his last paycheck on his prized show.
If possible, avoid requesting characters or TV shows... I've got a full plate of people already that are going to have small yet important roles, small and unimportant roles, a couple lines, cameos, etc.
I encourage constructive criticism, but I would love it if you take the time to review either way. Flames, criticism, praise, just your honest opinion.
Oh, and by the way... the real Yellowfur isn't usually like that (that much of a bitch)! But I do like to say "Pfft, I say. Pfft!".