Recap / HTF - Class Act

"It is better to give than to receive!"

Airdate: November 3, 2002

"Class Act" is the tenth episode of the second (internet) season of Happy Tree Friends.

The Happy Tree Friends put on a Christmas play that eventually goes haywire starting from Nutty biting off a chunk of Sniffles's body, Sniffles running into a rope that causes a sandbag to fall onto Giggles's costume (cutting her face off), Giggles slipping over her own face that distracts Mole, Lifty and Shifty dropping Flaky (skinning her alive) due to Mole's light being shone on them, to Toothy running away with his candle dropped on stage, setting the school theater on fire. Cuddles tries to escape, but his costume blocks his and other critters' way out. His head soon ends up being squeezed through the hole of his costume before the rest of his body gets trampled by the rest of the Happy Tree Friends. Outside, many of the critters suffer from various injuries in one way or another. A shooting star flies by, and Toothy decides that the show must go on. He begins singing again, calming the friends (except Fliqpy) down, and they soon join hands (or what is left of them) and sing together around the burning school theater. An explosion occurs, killing everyone.

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"Class Act" provides examples of:

• Absurd Phobia: Obviously Played for Laughs by the BlurB!.
  Face-a-phobia is the irrational fear of severed faces
  It affects thousands of beavers and turtles every year
• Agony of the Feet: Handy's injury involves both of his legs being chopped off, effectively making him immobile.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Mole's mole position, Nutty's candy accessory, and Lumpy's antlers.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • At some point off-screen Handy gets most of his legs cut off.
  • Petunia loses most of her right arm.
• Artistic License – Biology: Giggles's face is left with nothing but a blank red layer after it gets cut off.
• Artsy Beret: Lumpy wears a beret while directing the play.
• Captain Obvious: Two of the BlurB! captions.
  Fire is HOT!^note We got nothing...
  Snow is COLD!^note Yup, still nothing...
• Caption Humor: One of the episodes with a BlurB! version.
• Christmas Episode: The episode centers around the characters putting on a Christmas play that soon goes wrong.
• Christmas Songs: "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" is heard at the beginning of the episode, while "O Christmas Tree" is sung by Toothy (together near the end of the episode).
• Curtain Call: The final part of the episode where everyone outside the schoolhouse is quite notable for being the only scene in the entire series where every character appears together.
• A Day in the Limelight: One of the few episodes to star Toothy.
• Disaster Dominoes: It starts with Nutty taking a bite out of Sniffles and ends with the school theatre on fire.
• Downer Ending: Double Subverted, and probably one of the most memorable. Despite most everyone suffering horrible injuries, they're all moved by Toothy's singing and join hands to sing along with him. As the camera pans up to a single star in the sky, the burning school explodes, killing them all.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: Every single character in the show (even Splendid and Cro-Marmot) dies in this episode.
• Everything Explodes Ending: The episode ends with the school theater exploding.
• Eye Scream:
  • Mole has his cane impale through his eye. He does not react as much as just trying to dislodge it.
  • Pop gets a black eye once outside.
• Faceless Masses: Anyone not the main characters in the crowd.
• Fingore: One of Cub's hands has its fingers cut off.
• Flaying Alive: Flaky gets skinned after she falls down the chimney.
• Fold-Spindle Mutilation: Cuddles suffers from this thanks to the combination of his costume's hole and the crowd forcefully pushing him in an effort to escape. Nicknamed "Slinky Face" by the show's crew.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: As Flaky is falling, the cursed idol can be seen tucked into the rafters.
• Funny Background Event: During the scene where the school burns down several events are shown such as:
  • Disco Bear's hair being burned up.
  • Cub's head being pierced by a Christmas tree star. If you look closely while everybody's squeezing Cuddles through his costume, you can see Pop slipping on one of the former's ears, causing him to drop Cub, who falls on the star.
  • The Mole being impaled through the eye with his own walking stick.
  • Flippy/Fliqpy killing a generic tree friend.
  • Nutty crying after being singed by the fire.
  • Mime trying to cheer up a generic tree friend with balloon animals.
  • Handy somehow having had his legs chopped off.
  • Flaky shivering in the cold after having her skin ripped off.
  • Cro-Marmot staring at everyone in the distance.
  • Shifty trying to help Lifty due to the latter having had half of his body removed.
  • Sniffles looking at his bitten torso.
  • Giggles looking at her sliced-off face.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Lifty loses his lower half at some point off-screen.
• Ignorant About Fire: Toothy, panicked from what's been going on during the play, drops the candle he was holding near one of the curtains, setting it on fire and eventually causing the incineration of the whole building.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Nutty takes a bite out of Sniffles, thinking his costume's an actual candy cane.
• Lampshade Hanging: One of the BlurB! captions lampshades Lumpy suddenly regaining his hat outside despite dropping it earlier in the school theater.
• Limited Sound Effects:
  • Cub's scream is reused from "It's a Snap".
  • Flaky's moan when she is shivering outside is reused from Giggles's in "Happy Trails Pt. 2: Jumping the Shark".
• Made of Explodium: The school rather inexplicably explodes spectacularly at the end.
• Major Injury Underreaction: The Mole, being the Mole, does not seem too phased by having his walking stick stabbed into his eye and through his head. He mostly just seems to be trying to dislodge it.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: Lumpy is a play director in this episode.
• Oh, Crap!: Every time something in the play goes wrong. Culminates with Lumpy fleeing the scene.
• "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: At first played like this, but then...
• Raised Hand of Survival: Cuddles weakly raises his hand in front of The Mole while the camera caused by the carnage caused by the fire that broke out, revealing that he survived his Fold-Spindle Mutilation.
• School Play: The premise of the episode. Which goes haywire, predictably.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Lumpy does this after realizing how bad the Christmas Play has become.
• Serious Business: This episode is infamously subject to much debate among fans regarding who was/were responsible for the whole ordeal and whether everyone is actually killed. It took a few instances of Word of God to confirm many of the debates.^note For the ones responsible, it was first considered to be Nutty, until Kenn Navarro posted a tweet that, to summarize, pretty much places everyone involved in the play responsible.^note For the deaths, Warren Graff stated that everyone in the episode died, but the reply was made on a forum that is no longer accessible.
• Shake Someone, Objects Fall: Lifty and Shifty do this to Flaky to make her dandruff look like falling snow for the play.
• Shout-Out: The scene where everybody joins hands and sings around the burning school is likely a reference to How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.
• The Show Must Go On:
  • Lumpy refuses to end the Christmas Play even though several of the characters are getting brutally injured.
  • Toothy does this near the end when he starts to sing again to cheer everyone up.
• The Show Must Go Wrong: The characters put on a Christmas play, but it all goes horribly wrong when Nutty mistakes Sniffles' candy cane costume for an actual candy cane and takes a bite out of him, setting into motion a series of Disaster Dominoes that end with a fire breaking out and most of the characters being injured in one way or another.
• Special Edition Title: The first episode to have a Christmas-themed intro.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The school theater explodes at the end of the episode.
• Sugar Apocalypse: Easily the most notable one yet in the series, especially with the involvement of all main characters at the time. As a Christmas Episode, no less.
• Tear Off Your Face: Giggles's face ends up being cut by her own costume. Nicknamed "Pizza Face" by the show's crew.
• Unexplained Recovery:
  • When the bitten Sniffles is first shown, he appears to have lost his left arm. He seemingly recovers it once outside.
  • Pretty much everyone somehow ends up looking fine regardless of their injuries during the final shot due to their silhouetted looks depicting them as if they have no missing body parts (Particularly Cuddles, who's beheaded on-screen but somehow manages to survive long enough to die with the others).
• Updated Re-release: One of the early episodes to be part of the "Classics Remastered" releases, which rerelease early HTF episodes in HD.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Played for Laughs yet again.
  Pizza Face and Slinky Face later teamed up and now run a detective agency that go around the country solving crime.
  They also have a successful off-broadway production and a comic book featured at the back of the "Weekly Shopper's Paradise".
  All proceeds from their businesses benefit the "Animals without Faces" foundation.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: This episode comes close to having the rare happy ending for HTF with Toothy lifting everyone's spirits and getting them to sing in harmony despite all that occurred. Then the school explodes, killing everyone.

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