I think the key thing is what the show is being directed towards. For example, Itchy and Scratchy really isn't anything more then a more violent and bloody version of Tom and Jerry. I don't mind them because they are essentially crazier, cracked up versions of Tom and Jerry and simply the Simpsons version of them.

The gag is seeing them beat the bejesus out of each other, and the fact they are not cute looking or generally seeking "decent" forms of play makes it easier to find it funnier. However to me, Tree friends seems more like someone's form of venting, like a "kill the thing you hate the most" TV show.

This show just seems like someone's visualized fantasy of ripping cute toons into a million bloody pieces because the creators probably find characters like Disney toons, Care bears, and etc nauseating. To me, there will ALWAYS be shows you hate and you wish not to see again, but this, this is just cruel.

Even if I didn't grow up on toon characters similar to the Tree friends in my cartoon days, I still cannot for one minute stomach such a god awful, heart wrenching, and unnecessarily brutal show that not only pushes the gore factor over the edge, but does it to characters who DON'T belong in that element.

Now sometimes its funny, like when South Park did the imagination land 3 part episode, that was funny because some of the toons did adult things and the jokes weren't solely based on ripping the cartoons to shreds because they hated them. Tree friends takes characters who are innocent and essentially harmless and puts them through worse treatments then your average horror movie does.

Now maybe some people find the reversal of cute and cuddly to gory gruesome funny, but not this way. You can make violence funny without going to such extreme measures of visualizing your hatred of cartoon characters some people grew up with and turning it into something like this.

The most important thing I feel that makes violence funny is either stupid violence, or eliminating the pain factor. Monty Python's Black knight felt no pain and had both arms and legs chopped off, and it was funny because he didn't stop, he just kept going and acted like he didn't feel anything at all.

The Tree friends feel everything. They weep, they cry, they run around screaming making it worse, hurting others, and just seeing their faces like that its just....ugh. It may sound hypocritical of someone who watches both R rated movies/TV shows and kids cartoons, but I don't find this mix pleasant or entertaining. To put it bluntly.....it hurts me to watch this show, it really hurts.

It'd be like watching someone pull teeth or having to watch Frankie scrub the floors in "Imposter's" or Mac being put through Hell in "Surprise for you", that's how strongly I feel against Happy Tree Friends, but I mean no offense to fans of the show. It's just how I feel.

It's all just personal taste I suppose, Mr.M. I for one can't imagine how people can enjoy torture movies like "Hostel", but they do.
It makes me wonder if entertainment will become more and more violent or family friendly in the future. I guess that's up to future generations.

I actually enjoy Hostel but that is set up in an entirely different setting and environment. Sex is essentially the point of that movie, sex in a foreign place where there isn't a whole lot control of policing going around.

It's an adult plot for an adult movie for adult characters, where as Tree friends is kids characters in adult show but I see what you mean about tastes.

Excellent point. I forgot that Hostel was still a story driven movie. As far I can tell, based on what others have said, HTF is just a violent for the sake of violent.
I'm almost half asleep right now so I'll probably get some sleep before I try and process this stuff so I can attempt to make a thoughtful post.;)

This show sounds stupid IMO. That coming from a guy who has laughed at some of the deaths in Predator. =X

Well, after seeing so much fan-stuff inspired by this show, and after viewing what y'all had to say about it, I went on to the show's site and actually watched some of it.

Yeah, it was pretty disturbing. While I can stomach the violence (strangly enough), I'm with jekylljuice and Mr. Marshmallow here. It's not exactly something I'd want to watch regularly, and I just don't like seeing the cute cartoon critters being harmed to that extent. Yeesh. Poor animals. I rather like cute cartoon critters, but c'mon. This is a bit much.

A while back I watched an ep of this out of morbid curiosity. I then watched the rest of the eps that were out of the time due to it being a total train-wreck. It's horrible, but you can't look away. (Though I actually had to look away at some points. Oddly enough I can handle some cartoon gore, but when it involves bones or eyes or skinning I can't stand it.) I nearly threw up afterwards. Yet for some odd reason I go back to the website to look at a new toon out of, again, morbid curiosity. (And I always regret it.)

I don't like it. I don't find it funny at all. :/

The only merit it has is that it stays away from perverted humor 98% of the time. I consider perverted humor to be below excessively violent humor.

or a combination thereof 8D

I went back for another look. Not quite so bad the second time around as far as the shock value goes but it rapidly becomes very predictable; if you see a sharp object, you know that someone will eventually be impaled on it, if you see a lit cigar then you know that something or someone will soon either burn or explode, etc. I've seen fanfics that were less predictable. The gore factor gets old very fast; you know it's coming, you just don't know how long you have to wait for it. There's no real plotline as far as I can tell; it's pretty much just an excuse for the writers to indulge in the butchery of small forest creatures in various ways, all of which are painful, both for the animals and the viewers. One wonders who exactly is the target audience for this stuff. On the plus side it's not badly drawn, and there's no real dialogue (which would take too much creative effort to write and would distract from the rupturing organs). For me the highlight of the show was before it began, when I was treated to a short commercial featuring the rockin' Erin Esurance, the only cartoon character I'd ever buy insurance from. ;D

That isn’t quite true. I’ve written ten thousand word articles on the characters, so I’m pretty sure it’s not just mindless violence. The characters have depth and there are actually plots. There just isn’t any continuity.

The person who animated those Erin Esurance advertisements actually worked on a few special episodes of Happy Tree Friends.

Really? Ten Thousand words is quite a lot. Surely you were padding it out just a little bit? Please can I read one just so I know what the score really is with Happy Tree Friends. I'd hate to think I've missed something enlightening. :D

I used to watch these shorts back in 2001, and didn't really think they were anything special, the premise kind of wares thin once the shock value wares off.

That's why I prefer Pib and Pog - I think they did a funnier and more appealling job of nailing the whole "extreme cuteness meets sick and twisted-ness" factor, for a couple of reasons (both of which, needless to say, are just a matter of my own personal preferences).

1) The HTF gang are cute and innocent. P&P, on the other hand, are "cute" and "innocent". While the central joke of HTF basically involves the juxtaposition of sweet and harmless little characters with gruesome and horrific situations, the central joke with P&P kinda works on the reverse principle. Pib and Pog themselves are actually quite nasty and hateful little beings who get massive sadistic kicks out of seeing one another suffer, the irony being that the setting and execution of their shorts is done in the style of a show for pre-schoolers. Consequently, most of the humour here springs not from P&P's misconduct itself, but from the kindly-voiced narrator's efforts to put a cheerful spin upon each and every one of their viciously mean-spirited antics. That narrator is a brilliant foil and, I don't know, she makes me laugh.

2) Compared to the violence in HTF, the violence in P&P is, at best, incredibly mild, and for me that's a real plus point. There's no blood or gore, and the worst that really happens to P&P is that their plasticine bodies get temporarily contorted out of shape. A lot of their antics, such as going at each other with machine guns, dunking each other into concertrated sulphuric acid, and impaling one another on beds of nails, are an ounce more extreme than you'd expect from the usual spectrum of cartoon violence (certainly for a show aimed at pre-schoolers), but the fact that they respond in a very traditional cartoon manner somehow makes it a more effective and better balanced mixture of irony for me.

As for Itchy and Scratchy, the Tom and Jerry pretext ran its course very quickly for me. I always thought they worked most effectively whenever they were used as a foil for the Simpsons themselves. Had they been introduced as an independent cartoon on their own, then it's my opinion that they wouldn't have had much to sustain themselves.

BEST SHOW EVER Disco bear being teh best

Why didn't these ever get merged? :P (I don't read many of the OT threads unless it's something I'm into.) Merging now.

are you Stalking me.....

YES. 8D

No.

Ooh, awkward...okay, I'm a little hesitant to revive this thread, for I fear that I'm going to make myself immensely unpopular for what I'm about to say, but here goes...

I just wanted to retract those previous reservations I expressed about Happy Tree Friends earlier in this thread, because, strangely enough, I actually do rather like this show now. Don't ask me how it happened. I'm still the same highly squeamish person that I always was, but over the past three or four months, I've watched quite a bit more and found myself becoming more and more attached to the characters, who I think are actually pretty eclectic and interesting (the misconception that they're just cute little bags of blood and organs to be spattered at very turning does not, I fear, do them justice). The earliest internet shorts were certainly fairly crude, but I think that by the time they got round to the TV series (at which point the incongruousness, while always a crucial part of the atmosphere, was no longer the entire joke within itself), both the concept and the characters had been developed surprisingly well. And, while there is still quite a lot of stuff in HTF that makes me cringe, I guess that I've more-or-less learnt to accept it within the context of their world. My favourite character is Disco Bear.

Oh, and I still hate Itchy and Scratchy, but that's possibly because I'm opposed upon principle to the concept of an evil blue mouse repeatedly dismembering an innocent cat.

If it makes you feel any better, so do I. Occasionally I come into this thread looking for the link, click it, and watch. I think I watch it mostly for the sheer absurdity of it all, and in truth it's better than a number of shows on CN these days. Academy-award material it ain't, but sometimes I don't want to bother with high art or stirring dialogue, or even a plot; some days I just want to indulge in something mindless. :cheesegrin:

Same here, but it beats the hell out of shows like Mighty Mouse and Tom & Jerry. Why cats always seen to get the short end of the stick in these and other old cartoon I'll never understand. I like cats and frankly a lot of those shows annoyed the crap out of me. :frankiemad:

LOL, you'd buy insurance from Frankie if she were selling it. No, you'd even buy doggie doo-doo on a stick, if Frankie were selling it.

About this show, I don't think I could ever bring myself to enjoy it. Maybe in ten more years, after I'm all jaded and sick of living in this world. Granted, I only saw a few 2-minute shorts, and not the actual TV sequences which most people here seem to agree were much better.

That's good to hear. The other day, my housemates and I were having something of a House marathon, and there are bits of that show which I find to be gruesome and difficult to watch (basically, whenever they have close-up glimpses of the surgical procedures, that's me squirming in my seat). The violence in Happy Tree Friends can be pretty graphic and extreme, but it's still of an instrinsically very cartoonish nature. I suppose that, in its own highly distorted way, it's actually very sweet and innocent after all. :scribble:


I love cats, and I've never understood that particular trend either. I probably wouldn't mind them always being allocated the villainous roles if such cartoons didn't always protray them as being so mind-numbingly stupid to boot. Oh well, thank god for the likes of Garfield, Heathcliff and Top Cat.

I don't go there; I just watch the cartoon. HTF is great when you're in the right mood. :bendy:

An eyeball can't do that... :eek:



Note - Posts #63 - #68 moved here from Imaginary Party thread.

You wouldn't be talking about Toothy the beaver's little misadventure with a woodpecker and a lollipop, now would you?

Yep. First episode I saw. The memory lingers, much like my post-episode pharmacy bill. :weirded:

My first episode too. Personally I think it's a pretty good place for HTF newbies to start, since it's about as bad as any of their misadventures get. If you can handle that particular eye-popping (quite literally, in this case) grotesquery, you know you can handle any of them.

I must admit to laughing rather loudly at the one where one of them got his tongue stuck in an anthill. 8D

We've got a HTF thread around here somewhere as I recall. ;D

That would be Sniffles the anteater - usually the victim of tongue-related accidents. I feel sorry for him, since those ants he sometimes goes after can be really sadistic, and their actions go waaaaay beyond merely defending themselves.

Yeah, it's in Other Entertainment, though most of the people on NF really don't seem to like it. Originally, as I recall, I was amongst the detractors. Then, one day, something just...happened, and I suddenly started liking it. I always knew I had a morbid side, deep down, and I'm glad it found its outlet eventually. Besides, Disco Bear (star of my current avatar) is way too awesome to be ignored. I love that bear so much! :bloosmirk:

Same here. Just kind of grows on you, in some strange manner.

Moved our last 6 posts here from Imaginary Party; may as well have them in their proper location. ;D

Awesome. I guess they were just a bit too coherent and sophisticated to reside in the Spam section, huh? ;D

Sense happens. 8D

About 20 minutes after my last post here my accountant dropped by to pick up some paperwork. I mentioned that we were discussing HTF online; he'd never heard of the show so I described it as a short web cartoon where small cuddly animals suffer horribly and die in amusing ways. That pretty much summarizes it. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. :bloocross:

Thirty bucks says he goes online tonight to check it out. 8D

Lol. You'll have to keep us posted on his reaction. 8D

Have you ever watched any of the TV episodes, Cass? I personally like them better than the web cartoons, since they had a bit more plot (into which the trademark carnage is neatly incorporated) and were able to expand upon the characters a lot more.

Can't say I have, mostly because until recently I wasn't aware that the show was on TV. I'm assuming it's not on a channel I get, though; I have basic cable but nothing more, as I don't watch enough TV to justify paying for the additional channels.

You could probably find most of the TV episodes if you did a few searches on youtube. That's where I got to see them all, anyway.

To the best of my knowledge G4 has (or had?) the TV!HTF shorts for viewing...if not, YouTube's your best bet

(My favorite Friend(s) are Lifty and Shifty - Their deaths amuse me more than the others for some reason) :P

Anybody wanna see my Happy Tree Friends stuff? :bloogrin:


My Happy Tree Friends trexi figurines:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4672/snaps106at6.jpg

From left to right: Toothy the Beaver, Petunia the Skunk, Giggles the Chipmunk, Splendid the Flying Squirrel, Mole and Buddhist Monkey. I was really chuffed when I discovered a local shop which sold them for only £4.00, and over time I managed to build up the full set. Sadly, a Disco Bear trexi isn't included (though I do have a t-shirt of him, see below) - it's kind of obvious that they only went for the HTF characters with round ears and more-or-less bare heads, so that they'd only have to mass-produce one basic figurine (Buddhist Monkey looks a bit strange, probably because the ears on the character are a lot lower down). As for the tails, they kind of cheated and just painted them on the back. Oh well, I still think they're awesome. There's a special "bonus feature" too - when you twist the top of each figurine's head, it detaches and reveals the brains within! Erm, could I give you a demonstration on a family-friendly forum? :cheesegrin:

For the record, Buddhist Monkey is supposed to be a SDCC exclusive, whatever that means, but if this local selling point is anything to go by, then he seems to be as readily available as any of the other characters.

Below is my Disco Bear shirt, which I got from Zazzle.com, and also a plush toy of Nutty the Squirrel which I picked up a few months ago on ebay. The plush toys were made by an Australian company, and I have no idea which and how many characters the full range actually included:

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/4705/snaps108uf9.jpg

Love it. ;D

I really want a whatzhisname the moose plushie now. ;D

The moose's name is Lumpy. I like this show, too.

Lumpy! Yes! I knew that! ;D

I'm such a liar. 8D

Lumpy's design reminds me of Bullwinkle but simpler. Makes me wonder if Bullwinkle might have been an influence on the show's creators to some extent. Neither character is all that bright. :cheesegrin:

Thanks!

And yes, Lumpy the moose reminds me quite a lot of Bullwinkle too. I think that I've actually seen a few plushes of him kicking about on ebay. By far the most novel HTF item I think I've seen up to grabs on there was a Cuddles the rabbit plushie with detachable intestines. :eek:

Nice collection there, JJ! :) I personally have never seen the show, and don't know if I'll ever want to, but that doesn't mean I can't support fans of it in saying it's always cool to be able to show you're a fan of it. :bloosmirk:

Lumpy is a moose? Funny, not only that he might be similar to Bullwinkle, but I'm also reminded that Scout Master Lumpus on Camp Lazlo is also a moose, and his nickname has been "Lumpy" in some episodes.