Eddy takes a phone that Rolf tries to get rid of as he thinks it looks really cool. However Rolf's quaint but cursed telephone of doom starts creating bad luck for Eddy whenever someone answers the telephone. Eddy must now find a way to get the phone's curse off of him.
Tropes:
- Agent Scully: Edd doesn't believe in the supernatural and keeps insisting there is no curse and Eddy's unbelievably bad luck is just a coincidence and it has nothing to do with the phone.
- And I'm the Queen of Sheba: This exchange when the phone rings for the first time:Eddy: It's probably Nazz.Edd: And I'm Theodore Geisel.
- Animals Hate Him: Thanks to the phone’s curse, Eddy gets sprayed by a skunk, trampled by a herd of hippos, and attacked by a dog.
- Butt-Monkey: Eddy spends the entire episode suffering Amusing Injuries because of the cursed phone.
- The Cassandra: Rolf tries to warn Eddy about the phone having a curse that has plagued his family for generations. Eddy doesn't believe him at first but soon after stealing the phone, he realizes Rolf was right. Edd, on the other hand...
- Cursed Item: The cursed telephone. It constantly rings by itself and will not stop ringing until someone answers it, and once it’s answered, something unpleasant happens to the phone’s owner. If the phone is stolen, the curse transfers to the person who stole it, but if the phone is given away, the curse will continue to affect its previous owner.
- False Dichotomy: Edd's argument against Eddy being cursed is faulty. He states it's a series of coincidences like a fallen streetlight having a rusted bolt, even though it is both highly improbable for all these unfortunate coincidences to only hit Eddy and the events having physical causes doesn't actually preclude them being driven by a curse. Also, they had previously seen that even in someone else's hands, if the phone gets answered the consequences will still hit Eddy, so there isn't evidence that it's not correlated to the phone since it's only out of their sight.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: Edd exclaims "Edward!" after Eddy gets hit with his record. Ed replies, "Yes, mommy?"
- Here We Go Again!: Eddy gets rid of the phone by handing it off to Jonny. Thinking the curse is over, he gets back to scamming, but suddenly starts having accidents again. Edd thinks it's proof positive that it was all coincidence and not related to the cursed phone; fact is, it's the result of Jonny answering the phone (and handing it to Plank).
- Hot Potato: Eddy tries to return the phone to Rolf, but Rolf won't take it back and throws it back. The phone goes back and forth between Eddy and Rolf, until it's caught by Ed, who shouts "Hot potato!" and throws it to Edd. And then Edd and the phone get thrown back and forth.
- Jerkass Ball: Edd is at his worst in this episode. He shows no sympathy for Eddy's pain and only cares about arguing that Eddy’s painful accidents are a coincidence. Towards the end, he is smiling at seeing Eddy suffer more accidents after getting rid of the phone, because he thinks it proves his point.Edd: Coincidence, Eddy!
- Kick the Dog: To get rid of the curse, Eddy tries passing it onto Jonny, who did nothing to provoke him, by gluing the phone to his head in a fit of desperate insanity. It doesn't work, though, and the curse continues to torment Eddy.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Eddy steals Rolf’s cursed phone and the curse passes on to him, causing him to spend the entire episode suffering terrible pain. He then tries to get rid of the curse by giving the phone to Jonny so he’ll have to live with the curse instead, but the curse stays with Eddy.
- No Ending: The episode has a mix of this and a Downer Ending. Eddy fails to get rid of the curse and the episode ends with him continuing to get injured offscreen.
- No Sympathy: Edd shows absolutely no concern of Eddy's wellbeing and is only interested in arguing that curses don’t exist and Eddy’s accidents are pure coincidence.
- Pet the Dog: After Eddy gets hit with the record, Edd can be seen helping him up.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Edd: "There's no! Such! Thing!"
- Rage Breaking Point: When Eddy gets rid of the phone and declares there are no more curses, Edd screams, "Telephones aren't cursed, Eddy, THEY'RE PLASTIC!!"
- Sanity Slippage: After getting increasingly frustrated with Eddy's belief that the telephone is cursed, Edd goes off the deep end after Eddy gets run over by a herd of hippos, smiling like he's just had a screw come loose.
- Serial Escalation: When the accidents from the curse first start, they're minor, like Eddy getting hit by a flying record, getting tangled up in a loose bed spring and such. By the end of the episode, the accidents start becoming extremely painful, such as getting hit by a truck, struck by lightning, and trampled by a hippo stampede.
- Smelly Skunk: At one point, the phone’s curse causes Eddy to get sprayed by a skunk, leaving him smelling terrible.
- Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter: A downplayed example. After Eddy gets rid of the phone, he expresses so much happiness that he's no longer cursed that he plans a scam around his Ed-Flakes cereal being "curse-free" and gloats that he's no longer cursed. Of course, this happiness crosses over into Tempting Fate territory and he still ends up bludgeoned by the phone's curse.
- Supernatural Phone: The phone that Rolf tries to get rid of has a supernatural property that inflicts suffering upon Eddy once he takes it and gets answered by anybody. Eddy eventually catches onto this property and tries to rid himself of the curse by getting rid of the phone, though fails to do it properly.
- Tempting Fate: After giving the cursed phone to Jonny and thinking he’s gotten rid of its curse, Eddy gloats by selling cereal and advertising it as “curse-free”. The curse then immediately resumes inflicting horribly painful accidents on Eddy.
