Edgar & Ellen



"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."

A series of children's books by Charles Ogden that was adapted into an animated series. The title characters, a pair of 12-year-old twins, are notorious pranksters who cause mischief and mayhem in the town of Nod's Limbs. The two of them live in a thirteen-story house on the edge of town with their pet (named 'Pet'), a strange creature that vaguely resembles a one-eyed, hairy mop head. Their groundskeeper, Heimertz, lives in a shack near the house, never says a word, and wears a perpetual Slasher Smile. There is also a junkyard near the house where the twins get parts for the many unlikely contraptions that they build. Nod's Limbs itself is an overly cheerful town run by the inept Mayor Knightleigh. His daughter, Stephanie Knightleigh, is Edgar and Ellen's main rival in their quest for amusement.

The books and the animated series start with similar setups, but soon diverge. While the book series moves into an overarching plot, the animated series focuses on day-to-day hijinks.

The books so far are:
 * 1) Rare Beasts (2003)
 * 2) Tourist Trap (2004)
 * 3) Under Town (2004)
 * 4) Pet's Revenge (2006)
 * 5) High Wire (2006)
 * 6) Nod's Limbs (2007)
 * 7) Hot Air (2008)
 * 8) Frost Bites (2008)
 * 9) Split Ends (2009)

Additional material includes: Mischief Manual, Hair 'Em Scare 'Em (a pop-up book), and Graphic Novelty (a comic collection).

Tropes shared by both

 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Explained in the books. First, they're the storm drain variety of sewer, not the sewage kind. Second, they were originally built so that people could take leisurely, well-lit strolls in them, but gradually fell into disrepair and had the lighting grates paved over.
 * Alpha Bitch: Stephanie Knightleigh
 * Anti-Hero / Villain Protagonist: In the books, the twins are Villain Protagonists in the first book and Anti-Heroes in the rest. In the cartoon, it varies from episode to episode.
 * Black Sheep: Miles is sometimes shown as one of these within his family, such as when he's the only one to take interest in Ellen's carnivorous plant.
 * Brainless Beauty: Blake Glide
 * Brother-Sister Team: Edgar and Ellen, when they're not busy pranking each other.
 * Cheerful Child: Miles
 * Complexity Addiction: Edgar falls into this sometimes.
 * Creepy Child: Edgar and Ellen.
 * Drunk with Power: Both the books and cartoon have examples of this; see below for details.
 * Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Edgar and Ellen.
 * Fat Idiot: The Mayor, at least by our standards. By Nod's Limbs standards, he's perfectly average.
 * Flash Back:
 * The prologues of High Wire and Nod's Limbs.
 * In the animated series, the "Heimertz Family Album" segments serve to reveal bits of Heimertz's past this way.
 * Gadgeteer Genius: Both of the twins to some extent, but especially Edgar. Exaggerated in the animated series, where they build much more elaborate contraptions.
 * Girl Posse: Stephanie has one in Cassidy Kingfisher and Pepper Poshi, mostly in the TV series due to the books' lack of school scenes. The books mention a couple of others too, but these two seem to be at the top of the pecking order.
 * Half-Identical Twins
 * Limited Wardrobe: The twins wear the same striped footie pajamas all the time.
 * Mad Scientist: Edgar. Ellen could qualify as a mad botanist, given the way she dotes over her carnivorous plant.
 * Man-Eating Plant: Ellen has one, but it's not big enough to actually eat anyone.
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Pet
 * Our Founder: A statue of the town's founder, Augustus Nod, sits in the middle of the park.
 * Parental Abandonment: The twins' parents apparently left years ago on an around-the-world holiday, and haven't been heard from since. The twins never really questioned this, oddly enough.
 * Perpetual Smiler: Heimertz.
 * The Pig Pen: The twins don't really bother much with hygiene.
 * The Prankster: Of course.
 * Prehensile Hair: Pet
 * Shadowland: Nod's Limbs has Smelterburg in the TV series, and Lach Lufless in the books.
 * Shout-Out: The twins' names, to Edgar Allan Poe. They even have a bust of him in their home.
 * Slasher Smile: Just...Heimertz.
 * The Speechless: Pet
 * Spoiled Brat: Stephanie Knightleigh
 * Sugar Bowl: Nod's Limbs, though it's not as extreme as most examples. Also Frøsthaven and Cougar Falls (both from the books).
 * Theme Twin Naming
 * Thirteen Is Unlucky: The twins' house has thirteen floors, and their mere presence is certainly bad luck for the rest of town. In a sort-of aversion, though, only eleven of those stories are above ground; the other two are basement levels.
 * Trickster Twins
 * The Voiceless: Heimertz

Tropes from the books

 * Anti-Villain: Eugenia
 * Artifact of Attraction: The balm, to some.
 * Big Bad:  in the Nodyssey books.
 * Big Damn Heroes:  in Nod's Limbs.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Frost Bites, as the twins are forced to separate at the end.
 * --the one thing that keeps it from being a total Downer Ending is
 * Broken Pedestal:
 * The Chase: The Nodyssey books are all about this.
 * Cut Short: As it stands, it looks unlikely that the series will continue, with a number of storylines and plots still unresolved.
 * Defector From Decadence:
 * The Determinator:, whose Determinator side shines full-force in the Nodyssey books.
 * Downer Ending:  and   For the former, there is one ray of hope left, noted above under Bittersweet Ending.
 * Drunk with Power:
 * Edgar in Split Ends.
 * Balm apparently has this effect on people; the condition is known as Mad Duke's Disease.
 * Family-Unfriendly Death:
 * Gold Fever: The town eventually succumbs to this in Nod's Limbs, after many days of working on the treasure hunt together finally wear down their spirits.
 * Humiliation Conga: Rare Beasts. Not only was the twins' scheme a complete failure, they get blasted with hoses and left lying in the mud, while all the kids they wronged get some payback as they walk past by insulting them, kicking mud at them, pulling their hair, etc. Oh, and a jar of fire ants from earlier broke, so they're swarming all over the twins and biting them. You can't say they didn't deserve it, though...
 * Idiot Ball: Edgar in Split Ends. He goes a bit unhinged in his isolation and ends up derailing his plans for some needlessly complicated personal vengeance, which both fails and lands him in deeper trouble.
 * Kubrick Stare:  in an illustration in Nod's Limbs.
 * Laser-Guided Karma: Rare Beasts puts the twins through a Humiliation Conga at the end, and Tourist Trap--despite the twins having far more sympathetic goals this time around--ends with them getting caught in a rain of pigeon poop.
 * In "Rare Beasts" the twins cause untold misery when they steal all the pets in town. In "Nod's Limbs" they are desperately trying to save their own.
 * Lawful Stupid: Everyone in Lach Lufless.
 * Malaproper:  frequently uses these.
 * Plot Device: Balm. Eventually, everything comes back to balm.
 * Rhymes on a Dime
 * Riding Into the Sunset: Hot Air ends with the twins leaving Nod's Limbs in a hot-air balloon as the sun rises.
 * Samus Is a Girl:
 * The Scapegoat: The mayor makes Bob the intern wear a disguise and pretend to be the Mason so he can arrest him.
 * Something Only They Would Say: How the twins test each other when they reunite in Split Ends.
 * Stand Alone Book: Rare Beasts is unique in that it has no direct ties to the rest of the series. It basically serves as an introduction to the life of the twins.
 * Story Arc: The 'original' series has its own. The Nodyssey books are the start of another.
 * Talking to Themself: Edgar in Split Ends.
 * Wham! Line:
 * Talking to Themself: Edgar in Split Ends.
 * Wham! Line:

Tropes from the TV series

 * Alternate Continuity: Not explicitly, but there are some important differences between books and show which clearly set each apart as its own thing.
 * Drunk with Power: Ellen in the episode "Commander in Stripes".
 * The European Carry All: Edgar's purse-- um, "temporary satchel substitute".
 * The Great Whodini: The Amazing Edgarini.
 * The Jinx: The black cat named Gwendoline (dubbed Miss Fortune by Ellen), who causes disasters just by walking by.
 * Lighter and Softer
 * New Age Retro Hippie: Ms. Moon Violet
 * Something Else Also Rises: In one of the "Heimertz Family Album" shorts, one of the young Heimertz's suspenders pops open after he receives a kiss on the cheek from a woman he just saved.
 * Two Shorts