Edgar & Ellen

Edgar & Ellen
Author(s)	Charles Ogden
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Children's books Animated series
Publisher	Simon and Schuster
Publication date	2003-present

Edgar & Ellen created by Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, is based on two twelve-year old twins who cause mischief and mayhem in their sickly sweet town, Nod's Limbs. The series currently contains seven books, a new companion guide: The Mischief Manual, and plans for more in the works. Rare Beasts is the first, followed by Tourist Trap, Under Town, Pet's Revenge, High Wire and Nod's Limbs, Hot Air, Frost Bites and Split Ends. The Mischief Manual, a book written in the voice of the twins themselves, hit shelves in June 2007. A weekly TV series premiered October 7, 2007 on Nicktoons.

Edgar and Ellen live in a 13-story mansion on the edge of Nod's Limbs. Ellen is older by 2 minutes and 13 seconds. They live with a hairy creature who they refer to as Pet — a hairball with an eyeball. Their groundskeeper and caretaker, Heimertz, lives in a small shack just outside the house. Their mansion is located near a now disassembled junkyard, which the twins had lovingly dubbed their "Gadget Graveyard". They take parts from it and create marvelous contraptions for trouble.

Both of the twins wear striped footie pajamas and prank each other all day long—when they're not pranking the goody-goody townspeople of Nod's Limbs. They are clever, fearless, mischievous and creative. So creative, in fact, that their pranks often backfire hilariously.

Books

• Rare Beasts (2003) ISBN 1-58246-110-4
• Tourist Trap (2004) ISBN 1-58246-111-2
• Under Town (2004) ISBN 1-58246-126-0
• Pet's Revenge (2006) ISBN 1-4169-1408-0
• High Wire (2006) ISBN 1-4169-1500-1
• Nod's Limbs (2007) ISBN 1-4169-1501-X
• Mischief Manual (2007) ISBN 1-4169-3935-0
• Hair 'Em Scare 'Em: A Pop-Up Misadventure (2007)
• Hot Air (2008) ISBN 1-4169-3935-0
• Frost Bites (2008) ISBN 9781416954644
• Split Ends (2009)
• Graphic Novelty: A Comics Collection (2009)

Books are published by Simon and Schuster in the United States, Canada, and the UK. Internationally books are published by Hachette Children's Book Australia, Pocket Jeunesse (France), Grupo SM in Spain and Editora Rocco in Brazil, among others.

Series one overviews

Rare Beasts

Main article: Rare Beasts

In Rare Beasts, the twins realize wreaking havoc can incur expenses, so they come up with a unique fundraising scheme: they'll nab the pets of Nod's Limbs and sell them as exotic animals for big bucks. But things don't go as planned when a purloined python gets hungry.

Tourist Trap

Mayor Knighleigh plan to destroy the gadget graveyard in order to build his own fancy hotel, using a group of celebrities to sponsor it. The twins manage to steal Stephanie Knightleigh's position as tour guide, taking the celebrities for a ghastly tour. The twins manage to sabotage the world's largest French toast festival, seemingly crushing Knightleigh's plans. When then find out that one tourist, Alex Sai, wrote a positive review on Nod's Limbs tourism.

Under Town

In Under Town (released 2004), someone is tormenting the fine people of Nod's Limbs...and for once, it's not Edgar and Ellen. A new prankster is one step ahead of the twins, making mischief all over town. To discover the identity of this daring new foe, Edgar and Ellen must descend under town to stop this rash of copycat capers once and for all.

Pet's Revenge

In Pet's Revenge, Edgar has to plot solo when Ellen suddenly turns into a model of proper behavior. She (voluntarily) takes a bath and even accepts an invitation to a slumber party. Surely she's got a scheme up her (unusually clean) sleeve. Or has a hairy traitor managed to break up the devious duo...

High Wire

The twins' groundskeeper, Heimertz, has a dark and secret past shrouded in... the Big Top. When the circus comes to Nod's Limbs, everyone, especially Edgar and Ellen, gets their money's worth.

Nod's Limbs

The legend of Nod's missing golden limbs resurfaces, and a town-wide search commences. The entire town becomes obsessed with a treasure hunt that leads to the twins' turf, and the intruders dig out a collapsed cave to discover something far more shocking than gold.

Other books

Mischief Manual

The Mischief Manual is Edgar and Ellen's first chance to write a book in their own voice, "out from under the thumb of Charles Ogden". In this book, the twins share their trade secrets and inspirations for all manner of misdeeds and mayhem, including skill-building exercises, sample blueprints, and schemes to try at their home.

Setting

Nod's Limbs is the town where Edgar and Ellen live. It's so sickeningly sweet that it makes your teeth hurt. There is no originality to the people that live there- which is why Edgar and Ellen are such a foil for them. The twins attempt to liven up the place as it's a place so clean and shiny that one just wants to throw mud at it just to mix things up a bit. Living in it is, in the twins' own words, "like living inside a sugar cube".

The creators

Charles Ogden is an avid camper and fisherman. He collects insects and has travelled in pursuit of various specimens to the North Pole, the South Pole and Poland. Mr. Ogden and his insect collection make their home in a cool, dry, preservation-friendly environment, far removed from prying eyes.

Rick Carton, the illustrator, has been drawing for a long time. In his Chicago studio he has a cherished collection of every pencil ever worn down to a nub during his lengthy artistic career. He has never formally studied art; instead, the art community has diligently studied him. They are yet to release their findings. He also co-created a company called Star Farm Productions in Chicago, that helps the Edgar & Ellen series come to life.

The cartoon shorts

The TV series is co-produced with Bardel Entertainment in association with YTV and Nicktoons Network. Nicktoons Network airs Edgar & Ellen two-minute shorts every day. There are twelve in total. Six holiday specials began airing on Nicktoons Network on Labor Day Weekend 2006. The Back-to-School special, "Accept No Substitutes," was followed by a Halloween special, "Trick or Twins," a winter special, "Cold Medalists," a Valentine's special entitled "Crushed", and an April Fool's special "Nobody's Fools." The next one, called "Frog Days of Summer" will air on 3 September.

Some of specials have an exclusive quality: The twins will sing a song during the special and the ending credits are shown against a mauve background.

In Canada, YTV is set to begin the show in September.

The cartoons mainly show the pranking activities of Edgar and Ellen, but also include supporting characters like Mayor Knightleigh, Bob the Intern, Pet, Buffy the Muffin lady, and several other entertaining Nod's Limbsians.

Edgar and Ellen hosted the Scare-a-thon on Nicktoons during Halloween weekend of 2005 and did so again in 2006.

TV series

Edgar & Ellen (Television series)
Created by	Charles Ogden Rick Carton
Written by	Adam Beechen Scott Gray Steven Kriozere Guy Toubes
Directed by	Keith Ingham
Composer(s)	Hal Beckett
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	28 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Delna Bhesania Barbara Ferro Trish Lindsay
Producer(s)	Brian Behling
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	Studio B Productions Bardel Entertainment Star Farm Productions
Broadcast
Original channel	Nicktoons Nickelodeon
Original run	October 7, 2007 (2007-10-07) – July 21, 2010 (2010-07-21)

The television series premiered on Nicktoons around October 7, 2007. Then it premiered on Nickelodeon since November 21, 2007 until May 23, 2009. Two episodes of the series were shown. The series airs every Sunday at 5pm and 8pm and 4-5am PST. The television series also premiered on Nicktoons around October 22, 2007.

Edgar & Ellen is broadcast internationally by Cartoon Network Latin America, KTV in Africa, LUK in Spain, TG4 in Ireland, MBC in the Middle East, Noga in Israel, and in Southeast Asia and northern Europe by Nicktoons International. In Malaysia, it broadcasts on ntv7 with Malay subtitles.

The show also airs new episodes every Tuesday on Rollercoaster on the ABC in Australia.

Target stores

To promote Halloween in 2007, Target created a section in their stores with a haunted house facade featuring moving likenesses of the two, giant pictures of Edgar and Ellen, and branded and licensed products featuring them. They also featured prominently in-store displays.

Target also sold for Halloween an Edgar and Ellen pepe, which shows the episodes "Trick or Twins" and "Cold Medalists".

Del Taco

Halloween 2008 Del Taco promoted Edgar & Ellen in over 500 stores throughout the western United States.

Website

Edgarandellen.com is an interactive website currently being accessed in over 12 countries. Fans can submit their own artwork, reviews, and even ideas for episodes that will be incorporated into the Edgar & Ellen television series. Users can chat about all things Edgar & Ellen on the blog forum or choose to play a variety of online games.

NOTE : The website is not active anymore.

External links

• Official website
• Star Farm Productions Home page
• Edgar & Ellen at the Internet Movie Database
• Spex Studios home page