Happy Tree Friends

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Happy Tree Friends
File:Happytreefrineds3lc.png
Happy Tree Friends title card
GenreBlack Comedy
Gore
Created byRhode Montijo
Kenn Navarro
Aubrey Ankrum
Developed byRhode Montijo
Kenn Navarro
Warren Graff
Voices ofKenn Navarro
Rhode Montijo
David Winn
Dana Belben
Ellen Connell
Warren Graff
Aubrey Ankrum
Liz Stuart
Nica Lorber
Jeff Biancalana
Peter Herrmann
Michael "Lippy" Lipman
Francis Carr
Theme music composerJim Lively
Country of originUnited States United States of America.
No. of seasonsThree (Internet)
One (TV series)
No. of episodes119

57 Internet Shorts

39 TV Series Segments

8 Smoochies

6 Kringles

9 Irregular Episodes (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producerJohn Evershed
ProducerLiz Stuart
Running time3 minutes (Internet)
21 minutes (TV) TV series episode segments are 7 minutes.
Original release
NetworkG4
ReleaseInternet Series: 2000-present
TV series:October 2, 2006-present

Happy Tree Friends, often romanized as HTF, is a Flash cartoon series by Mondo Mini Shows, created by Kenn Navarro, Aubrey Ankrum and Rhode Montijo. Warren Graff is sometimes credited in creating Happy Tree Friends. Since its debut the show has become a popular internet phenomenon and has won a cult following.

As indicated on the official site, the show is "not recommended for small children". Nonwithstanding the cute appearance of its characters, the show is extremely violent, with every episode featuring a lot of blood and gore, and violent deaths in almost every episode.

While the violence of these deaths is comparable to that of The Itchy & Scratchy Show (the short cartoon featured on The Simpsons), the portrayal of death in Happy Tree Friends is more graphic and articulate.

The show is nearly free of dialogue; however, when the characters do speak, their words are severely garbled. Though it is obvious what each character's reaction is, their words can barely be understood. According to the website, the idea for Happy Tree Friends was conceived by Rhode Montijo when he drew a yellow rabbit, slightly resembling Cuddles, on a piece of paper and wrote "Resistance Is Futile" underneath it.

History

Beginning

While working on Mondo Mini Shows, Rhode Montijo drew a yellow rabbit that bore some resemblance to Cuddles on a piece of paper and wrote "Resistance Is Futile" underneath it. The drawing made several employees laugh.[citation needed] In 1999 Mondo gave Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo and Kenn Navarro a chance to do a short for them. They came up with a short named Banjo Frenzy which featured a dinosaur (an earlier version of Lumpy) killing three woodland animals (earlier versions of Cuddles, Giggles, and Toothy) with a banjo. From there Mondo gave them their own internet series, which they named Happy Tree Friends. They got new writers and animators to work on the show.

Success

Shortly after its internet debut in 2000, Happy Tree Friends became an unexpected success, getting over 15 million hits each month[1], and being shown in film festivals.[citation needed] In some countries, the episodes can be seen on television. They can be seen on the French, Dutch, German, Polish, Filipino, Brazilian, Lithuanian, Italian, British and Latin American MTV channels, the Greek Mad Music Channel, the Russian 2x2 channel, Canadian television channel Razer and on the Australian Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) network. On June 10, 2005, the shorts were shown during Attack of the Show!. A series, Happy Tree Friends and Friends, began to air on August 29, 2005, as part of the late night Midnight Spank block, owned by G4. The series also features Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, and Angry Kid. The series has been reformed into its own show, rather than as a part of a compilation as before. Happy Tree Friends has also gained a collection of Audibles and an "IMVironment" for Yahoo!'s instant messenger. It is featured on many websites on which flash cartoons can be watched, such as Newgrounds, Atom Films, Purple Twinkie, Albino Black Sheep and the official Happy Tree Friends website. On select 2007 Ozzfests, some Happy Tree Friends episodes were shown on the big screen.[citation needed]

Encouraged by the show's success, its creators have released four DVDs (First Blood, Second Serving, Third Strike and Winter Break) containing the episodes shown on the website and others that have not been released. A collection consisting of the first three DVDs and five bonus episodes, Overkill, has also been released. Two episodes, Stealing the Spotlight and Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya!, are only available in the Happy Tree Friends: Winter Break DVD.

Happy Tree Friends is currently one of the most downloaded iTunes podcasts and over 1000 fan-made videos have appeared on YouTube[2].

TV Series

See also: List of Happy Tree Friends episodes

Happy Tree Friends gained its own TV show in 2006[3]. It was first shown at Comic-Con, 2006 and some of the segments were shown on the website a few weeks prior the show's premiere. The Happy Tree Friends TV series premiered on September 25, 2006 at midnight on G4. Each half hour episode of the TV series contains three 7 minute segments. So far 39 segments have been aired, making 13 full episodes for Season 1. Pictures of the first 6 episodes can be seen on G4's website. The Canadian channel Razer currently airs the show in syndication. The show is also broadcasted on MTV in the Europe and Latin America. It has also shown on Paramount Comedy 1 in the UK from May 11, 2007 for a short time and on MTV One in the UK from September 7, 2007. According to the writers a second season is planned, but it is unknown when or if it will air.

Show characteristics

File:Happy Trails - Cuddles Giggles Toothy and Petunia.jpg
From left to right: Cuddles, Giggles, Toothy, & Petunia riding a school bus in the episode "Happy Trails".

All the characters are anthropomorphic animals, and many of them show two front large buckteeth when they smile. All the Happy Tree Friends except for Lumpy and Sniffles have the same pink Care Bear heart-shaped noses. In early episodes, most characters played the roles of children doing childish games. However, as the series progressed the age concept was dropped, and now characters act variously like children and adults in different episodes. The only characters with established ages are Pop and Cub.

At the beginning of each episode, the characters are typically found in everyday situations. (Also, they are often seen singing or humming the same tune.) However, these situations always escalate into violence, mostly because of very unfortunate, surprising accidents with otherwise harmless instruments.

Each episode starts with introduction credits resembling a children's book, which portray the show's logo, the episode's name, which is usually a pun, and cast. After the ending credits, a moral follows. Examples include "Wash behind your ears!" and "Don't bite off more than you can chew!". While adding to the children's book theme, the moral sharply contrasts with the violence portrayed in the episode. Since the episode "Happy Trails Part 2", the moral is an ironic reference to what happened to the characters in that episode.

Internet episodes have a typical duration of less than three minutes. Usually only a few of the characters are used in a single episode, but occasionally larger episodes have been released where most of the characters appear. TV episodes last about half an hour, having three segments of about seven minutes.

Currently, new episodes are released once a month. An episode list can be seen on the official website, which contains a list of older episodes available on demand from the site. However, some of these episodes are only available for a limited time, as this list is exchanged with other episodes every other week.

Fall Out Boy music video

Main article: The Carpal Tunnel of Love

Fall Out Boy's music video for "The Carpal Tunnel of Love" is an episode of Happy Tree Friends. Fall Out Boy is featured in the music video, appearing as cartoon bears, along with Cuddles, Giggles, Nutty, Toothy and the Mole. Lumpy causes the death of all the characters in the video, including himself. All of them die the same type of graphic, bloody deaths that are featured in the TV show.

Characters

File:HTF characters.jpg
The full cast of Happy Tree Friends
Main article: List of other Happy Tree Friends characters

Video game

Main article: Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm

A video game titled Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm is planned for release in Spring 2008. It is being developed by Stainless Games and Sega for Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360 and the PC[4] . Writer Ken Pontac currently posts a blog on the Happy Tree Friends website telling fans about the adventures of the staff making the game.[5]

Controversies

Many parents have expressed concern about the graphic content of Happy Tree Friends. One parent even complained about the show in a letter to the Washington Post when she saw her 6-year old son watching the show.[6]

The warning "(CV CARTOON VIOLENCE Not recommended for small children or big babies)" is displayed in two places on the home page of the Happy Tree Friends website in very small type in the bottom left hand corner, and in larger, but subdued type on the right hand side under the bulletin board section. Neither the "About the Show" nor the FAQ page indicates that the show is not appropriate for young children. The "cartoon violence" referred to in the warnings is at times gruesome.

Music and sound-effects

Sound Engineer Jim Lively

  • The music featured before, after, and during each and every episode of Happy Tree Friends is composed by Jim Lively, the sound engineer for Happy Tree Friends. Lively has been in the sound business since the age of 16, and plans to continue his career of "making sounds for a living," as described by Jim Lively himself.[citation needed] Lively primarily works in sound design and dialog editing, although he continues to mix music.

Foley Artist Francis Carr

  • Foley artist Francis Carr joined the team later on in development. Usually working with sound engineer Jim Lively, he has been able to expand his career. Francis Carr is also noted for being the voice of Russell.

Crew

Name Position Years
Kenn Navarro Director, Animation Director, Writer 2000 – present
Rhode Montijo Director, Art Director, Writer 2000 - 2004
Aubrey Ankrum Director, Writer, Storyboard artist 2000 – 2006
Warren Graff Story Editor, Writer 2000 – present
Ken Pontac Story Editor, Writer 2004-present
Jeff Biancalana Writer, Animator, Storyboard artist 2001 - 2005
David Winn Writer, Animator 2003 - present
Alan Lau Animator, Writer, Director, Storyboard artist 2001 - present
Jason Sadler Animator, Writer, Director 2001-present
Mark Fiorenza Writer 2000 – 2003
Brad Rau Animator, Storyboard artist 2001 - present
Roque Bollestros Writer, Animator, Director, Storyboard artist 2001-present
Paul Allan Writer, Animator, Director 2000 - present
Nica Lorber Animator 2000-present
Michael "Lippy" Lipman Storyboard artist, Animator, Director, Writer 2000 - present
Peter Herrman Storyboard artist 2000 – present
Jim Lively Sound Designer, Music 2000 - present
Francis Carr Foley artist 2004 - present
Jerome Rossen Music Composer 2005-present
John Evershed Executive Producer 2000-present
Liz Stuart Producer 2000 - present

Awards

    • 2003: Best Animated Short Film Made for the Internet for the episode Eye Candy
    • 2007: Best Animated Series For Adults for the episode From Hero To Eternity
    • 2004: Best Animated Short Made For The Internet for the episode Out On A Limb
    • 2005: Best Animated Short Made For The Internet for the episode Mole in the City
    • 2007: Best Television Series For Adults for the episode Double Whammy Part 2

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Kenn Commandments". coldhardflash.com. April 05, 2005. Retrieved 2005-04-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "HTF Youtube videos". youtube.com. September 15, 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Graff, Warren (August 07, 2006). "TV series blog". happytreefriends.com. Retrieved 2006-07-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Sega announces Happy Tree Friends False Alarm". sega.com. February, 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Pontac, Ken (February, 2007). "Ken Pontac's video game blog". happytreefriends.com. Retrieved 2007-09-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Ellison, Katherine (October 23, 2005). "What's Up, Doc? A Bloody Outrage, That's What". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2006-07-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

IMDB profiles

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