Death by Cartoon

Happy Tree Friends – Winter Break (2004) Mondo Media

Somehow Christmas carols are more charming when mumbled completely incomprehensibly by woodland creatures just before they die horrible deaths. If you have never been treated to the hilarity of the Happy Tree Friends, then it can be difficult to explain. In fact, I find that a written explanation of Happy Tree Friends can sound downright psychotic. For instance, here’s a description of the first Happy Tree Friend short I ever saw on a collection from Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation (which should have been a giveaway right there): a pair of raccoons named Lifty and Shifty steal a cow from a blue moose named Lumpy and then make their getaway on a hot air balloon. When Lumpy tries to stop them by holding on to the hot air balloons rope he gets dragged until his spine comes out of his skin. Lifty and Shifty then also meet gruesome ends as they try to avoid hitting a power line. (If I remember correctly one of them is impaled on some evergreens when tossed out of the balloon basket and the other one has his intestines ripped out and entangled on a windmill.) See what I mean? It’s psychotic. It sounds like the plot for the next Saw movie. And if I try to insist that this is funny in some sort of transgressive way I end up sounding like a psycho-killer. Explaining this kind of humor only makes you sound progressively more insane, which is also kind of funny.

Here’s the thing about comedy, though—it is inherently transgressive in some way. If it doesn’t disturb the order of things it isn’t really funny, now is it? Put another way, if I were to get run over tomorrow by a Model T driven by a talking squirrel it would be tragic, but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t funny (for several different reasons) even if it was kind of gruesome. The Happy Tree Friends are a form of comedy that allows us to laugh at the worst-case scenarios of life and it’s that much funnier because it involves such improbably cute woodland creatures and the like. It’s a formula used to great effect by It’s Happy Bunny, where a cute bunny is used to mouth phrases that would be funny enough on their own but are twice as funny when juxtaposed with a cute bunny. Happy Tree Friends operates in a similar vein. It’s so wrong, but it’s the wrongness of it that makes it so damn funny. The thing about it is that the violence is so extreme that it puts most horror films to shame. It is in fact sickening. But if you’ve ever wondered if sometimes Blue from Blue’s Clues gets depressed and wants to eat a gun and end it all, or if you ever get so sick of sugar-saturated lies of Saturday morning, then you’ve probably wished for something like this to happen. Admit it, you wouldn’t mind seeing an episode of Pokemon directed by Eli Roth or Quentin Tarantino or Rob Zombie. Sometimes you’d welcome it. Hell, you might even laugh at it. Well, there’s no reason to go that far, because the Happy Tree Friends have you covered in finding a solution to the Unbearable Cuteness of Being.

And if that wasn’t enough, Winter Break is a Christmas Special! That’s twice the sticky cuteness and excessive happiness at no extra cost for you!

First up is the Winter Break Special.
Episodes
1. Stealing the Spotlight
This episode features Pop and Cub, a pipesmoking bear and his diaper clad beanie headed kid (Where’s mom in all this?) Lumpy the blue moose, and Nutty, a green squirrel who is hopped up on sugar or cocaine-laced candy. Lumpy is admiring his Christmas lights (he lives in a trailer) when he sees Pop and Cub putting up their lives. Lumpy is envious. He hatches a plan. Meanwhile Pop and Cub get into progressively worse problems when Cub loses a tooth and Pop tries to hammer it back in. Nutty mistakes Lumpy’s lights for candy and tries to eat them but Lumpy proceeds to disembowel him when he is putting up his lights. Cub is covered in roof tacks when a bucket of them falls on his head. Lumpy is still envious of Pop & Cub’s lights so he builds a new amalgamation of lights that is actually as bright as the sun and proceeds to burn the other creatures to a crisp and actually blows up the moon. At last, Lumpy is satisfied.
You could say that the moral of this episode is that envy is bad, or something like that.

Kringle Bells
These “kringles” are Christmas card short shorts. In this case, the discovery of a red nosed reindeer ends with the reindeer kicking the blue creatures face apart. Brilliant.

2. Tongue Twister Trouble
This episode features Sniffles a nerdy anteater (he’s got a pocket-protector).
Sniffles tries to get an ant while iceskating but ends up with a tongue stuck to the ice, which provides the ant with a perfect opportunity to torture Sniffles in an improbable (but isn’t it all improbable?) way using a very cute kitten, a rope and an anvil.

Frosty Kringle
Sniffles and a friend are working on a snowman when Lumpy skis right through the snowman. At the bottom of the slope Lumpy looks down and sees that he’s got those two impaled on his skis so he gets to work sliding them off. Oh, Lumpy! You should really watch where you’re skiing!

3. Out on a Limb
This Lumpy episode plays out like a classic short story. Lumpy is chopping down a tree but he trips when trying to get clear and lands on his leg. When he tries to use his axe to cut his way out the axe-head goes flying off. Now he’s faced with a MacGyver situation. He has an axe-handle, a paperclip, a button and a metal spoon. He bites on the axe-handle and then it takes him all night to hack away through his leg with the spoon just to get to the bone, which then requires using a nearby rock to hit the spoon with. He bends the spoon and finally cracks through the bone only to discover that he’s been hacking all night at his free leg. He now picks up his severed leg and bites on it as he prepares to hack through his other leg with the paperclip. This cartoon is an allegory for American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Kringle Feast
Lumpy’s dinner guests are all passed out from the oven’s gas as Lumpy tries to get the thing relit. When he does get his lighter going the result is a beautiful orange mushroom cloud. This cartoon is also an allegory for our foreign policy in the Middle East.

Kringle Karol
A quartet is mumbling Silent Night at someone’s doorstep. When the door closes there’s a sound and then some screaming. The door opens and giant icicle has taken root where one of them used to have a face.
They do a cute version of Silent Night.

4. Snow What-That’s What
This episode features Giggles the pink chipmunk and Cro-Marmot, a prehistoric critter frozen in a block of ice.
Giggles gets into a snowball fight with Cro-Marmot. (You might ask how that can be possible given the fact that Cro-Marmot is frozen in a block of ice. If you ask that, then perhaps you have no sense of whimsy or any sense of humor.) In fact, Cro-Marmot throws the first shot. Not bad for a critter frozen in ice.

Kringle Presents
Cub is killed by a toy train. Any further explanation would just be insane.

5. Ski Ya-Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya
This episode features Flaky, the porcupine with dandruff (a truly pathetic character) and Disco Bear. I hate Disco Bear. I hate the very idea of Disco Bear. Disco Bear should die a horrible death and in fact I wish Disco Bear could take the place of every other creature in this series and he should die in their places. But maybe it’s just that I envy Disco Bear’s self-confidence…especially with the ladies. Maybe, but Disco Bear must die. Disco Bear nearly kills Flaky and sends the poor Porcupine on a ride up on the world’s most insane ski-lift. Flaky’s ride down consists of skiing down the mountain with a foot nailed to a plank trying to outrace an avalanche and then getting cut into small cubes by a chain-link fence. Meanwhile, Disco Bear is in his cabin enjoying some fondue. God, I hate Disco Bear. The only thing that made me happy here is that Disco Bear takes the plank and nail right on his forehead at the end, and if you ask me that’s too merciful and quick for that ‘70s throwback.

Kringle Tree
Giggles is picking out a Christmas tree and Lumpy (always handy with the axe) prepares to cut it down for her. But, of course, he instead cleaves Giggles’ head because Lumpy never seems to look before swinging.
Let that be a lesson for you all.

6. A Class Act
This is the best episode in this set and if you don’t want to see any other mayhem then you have to see this one. Why? Because this one is some sort of community theater or school Christmas pageant gone wrong. It’s all about the backstage shenanigans. My favorite part is Lumpy as the beret-wearing director who insists the show must go on (despite some horrific on stage deaths) and then when it’s clear there’s a disaster he’s the first to escape through a window backstage. The follow spot is operated by a blind mole, Lifty and Shifty provide a snow effect by shaking Flaky, but the star of this piece is Toothy the purple beaver whose inspirational mumbled rendition of O Tannenbaum can bring a tear to the eye of even the most jaded blue moose. This piece is destined to be a Christmas classic. The end is a metaphor for the resilience of mankind in the face of tragedy.

Bonus:
1. Ski Patrol
So, you want to joint the esteemed ranks of the Ski Patrol!
This “irregular” episode is just for you fans of Atomic Testing videos, as it is done entirely like an old informational film. The retro charm of this one makes it a must see.

2. Carols
This bonus feature lets you enjoy the Happy Tree Friends without any violence because all they do is stand in a doorway and mumble Christmas carols. They do a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells, followed by an incomprehensible version of Deck the Halls and my favorite version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas of all time. Oh Christmas Tree isn’t as inspiring as when Toothy sings it solo in A Class Act, but I like how Giggles and Cuddles look like they forget the words halfway through. And of course who wouldn’t like a version of 12 Days of Christmas with no intelligible lyrics?

3. Happy Tree Vee
This function allows you to just vegetate in front of an exceptionally happy image. Comes in your choice of Yule log (the classic fireplace), Pretty Colors (a color bar) or Snow Daze (black and white snow). Obviously this function is only for the seriously demented.