- "Give but never give up!"
Airdate: September 1, 2002
"Happy Trails Pt. 2: Jumping the Shark" is the first episode of the second (internet) season of Happy Tree Friends, and serves as a direct sequel to the first season finale "Happy Trails".
Cast away on a deserted island, the gang mourn the loss of their friends. The next morning, Giggles is hunting for some fish using a stick. A jellyfish stings her foot, which leaves Giggles confused at first. Cut to Giggles shivering horribly with a badly swelled foot. Sadly, she dies. Flippy is then suddenly approached by Lifty and Shifty, who offer the gang a ride on their inflatable raft. At first, everything goes well, until Flaky sits back and unknowingly pops the raft thanks to her quills. After the raft sinks, the friends begin to swim back to the island in panic as the sea is infested with sharks. Lifty and Shifty, however, get eaten. The rest of the gang turns on Flaky for destroying their hope of escape. Cut to a new grave being made with no respect for her. The next day, the gang succeeds in building a rocket thanks to Sniffles's help. After they take off, however, it turns out that the rocket is hindered by too many items inside. To solve this, they throw away various items, including Lumpy. Unfortunately, this causes the rocket to fly way too fast, to the point where it approaches the sun. Back on Earth, Lumpy is now resting on a chair while roasting a sock. An explosion is seen on the sun. In response, Lumpy just applies some sunscreen on his arm.
"Happy Trails Pt. 2: Jumping the Shark" provides examples of:
- Ambidextrous Sprite: Flippy's crest on his beret, Lumpy's antlers, and Handy's tool belt.
- Artistic License – Physics: All hat-wearing characters keep their hats on when they sink. Consider that no one holds their respective hat to keep it from floating up.
- Artistic License – Space:
- Stars are drawn over the shaded part of the moon, which is impossible.
- The rocket passes by six planets before flying straight into the sun.
- Actually flying into the sun is incredibly difficult for physics reasons, as it requires cancelling the orbital velocity of the Earth (or whatever planet the show is set on).
- Bloodless Carnage: Despite all the gruesome deaths in this episode, only one (Sniffles) actually has any on-screen blood.
- Body Horror: Giggles gets stung by a jellyfish, causing her foot and leg to swell up so badly that it gets bigger than the entire rest of her body combined.
- Characterisation Click Moment: Sniffles's knack for inventing starts in this episode.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:
- Sniffles's head explodes as the rocket flies closer to the sun. Flippy and Handy, meanwhile, die from the sun itself, along with the rest of Sniffles's body.
- Flaky is murdered in a manner apparently too horrible for even a show like this to show onscreen.
- Death Glare: Flippy, Handy, Sniffles, and Lumpy quite literally drop these on Flaky after she pops their raft.
- Didn't Think This Through: Lifty and Shifty whipping out an inflatable raft for everyone was surprisingly selfless of them. Too bad they forgot a porcupine was one of the survivors.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Flippy, Handy, and Sniffles hum the show's theme song during their flight.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Flippy, Handy, Sniffles, and Lumpy kill Flaky for accidentally bursting the boat. Debatable as they couldn't risk her quills destroying something else.
- "Far Side" Island: The premise of the episode is the characters getting trapped on one of these and attempting to find a way to get home.
- Hope Spot: Lifty and Shifty's raft. Cue Flaky's quills...
- Hurl It into the Sun: What happens to the rocket built by Sniffles and the other three living Tree Friends near the end of the episode.
- Killed Offscreen: Done rather infamously with Flaky. All the episode shows is the other castaways glaring furiously at her after she accidentally pops their inflatable raft. Cut to Flippy pounding down the cross at her grave with the others looking on, ominously hidden in the shadows, as seen on the page image.
- Kitchen Sink Included: One of the various items the characters throw out to make their rocket ship lighter is a kitchen sink.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Handy, Flippy, and Sniffles all get this in the end after murdering Flaky. Lumpy does not, though one could make the case that he is stuck on the island with limited resources to escape or survive.
-
Licensed Game: The HTML5 game Strandead is based on an alternate scenario of this episode. The castaways launch Giggles into the air with a giant slingshot, and she has to reach safer shores 3000 feet away by bouncing on birds and using a fire extinguisher as a jetpack. - The Load: Lumpy appears to be this for Sniffles, Handy, and Flippy when they throw him out of the rocket.
- MacGyvering: The gang, with Sniffles's help, manages to build a rocket out of the wrecked school bus and the island's tree.
- The Millstone: Flaky. Throughout the episode, the only thing she accomplishes is accidentally popping the group's inflatable raft with her quills, causing them to lose their only way of getting home.
- Mirthless Laughter: Flaky laughs nervously as the rest of the group glare murderously at her for ruining their chance of getting home.
- Multi-Part Episode: The episode is a continuation of "Happy Trails".
- No Ending: The episode ends with Lumpy, still stranded on the island, applying sun screen to his arm, unaware that he's the last survivor of the group.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: For once, Lifty and Shifty don't do anything immoral and actually try to help the others get off the island. This results in them being eaten by sharks.
- Nothing Is Scarier: How the gang killed Flaky remains a mystery. Word of God stated that this is intentional.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Lumpy, Handy, Sniffles, and Flippy (apparently as his normal, sane self) murder Flaky for accidentally popping the raft.
- Retcon: Flippy, Lifty, and Shifty did not appear with the rest of the group in the previous episode but appear in this one.
- Running Gag: Flippy placing graves for their fallen friends.
- Self-Deprecation: The episode's subtitle might be this, as it is not uncommon for long-running shows to jump the shark in quality.
- Sequel Episode: To "Happy Trails".
- Smash Cut: From Giggles being confused at her stung foot to immediate hypothermia that kills her.
- Spell My Name With An S: One of the writers, Paul Allan, is credited in this episode as Paul Allen, like in the previous episode.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Giggles, Lifty, Shifty, Flaky, Sniffles, and Handy die yet again in this episode.
- Threatening Shark: The sea surrounding the island is infested with sharks. Lifty and Shifty are the only ones to die from them.
- Throw the Dog a Bone / Sole Survivor: Lumpy is the only character to still be alive in the end.
- Vocal Dissonance: Flippy with Pop's voice. This is because Pop was originally going to be in the episode but the writers could not see Pop murdering characters like Flaky in cold blood and appearing without Cub. The character change occurred after the voices were recorded, with Flippy as the replacement because both characters share the same voice actor.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: There were seven friends on Lifty and Shifty's raft, yet there are six who are seen swimming back after the raft sinks (unless the missing friend is swimming underwater, presumably Handy).
- Your Head A-Splode: Sniffles's death. The rocket he's on flies too close to the sun, causing his head to explode.
