- "Always look on the bright side of life!"
Airdate: November 9, 2003
"Stealing the Spotlight" is the twenty-third episode of the second (internet) season of Happy Tree Friends. This episode pretty much marks show's very first TV special, featured in a collection called Happy Tree Friends Winter Break.
Lumpy enters one-sided competition with Pop on who has the better Christmas decorations after noticing the latter setting up his own decorations with the help of Cub. As for the father-son duo, Pop has just climbed down his ladder and is about to move it somewhere else when he accidentally smacks Cub into the snow with it, causing one of his teeth to fall out. Pop tries to place it back by himself to no avail. He ends up deciding to use his hammer to, well, hammer the tooth back, with unsettling results, though Cub is happy. Back at Lumpy's place, the moose is carrying a ball of Christmas lights when Nutty happens to jitter by from his usual sugar rush. The squirrel notices the lights, mistakes them as sweets, and proceeds to eat them. This causes his organs to get pulled out when Lumpy tugs and forcefully pulls the lights. Meanwhile, Pop is hammering some nails on the roof to tie the lights around, not noticing that the bucket containing the nails is sliding down the roof until it finally falls. By the time Pop looks down, the bucket has landed on Cub's head, with the result too horrific to be seen. The episode cuts to Pop trying to remove all the nails stuck in Cub. He soon finds one nail that refuses to budge. Hammering it back in only makes things worse, but there is nothing else he can do to remove it anyway. After all that trouble, Pop takes Cub outside and plugs the electricity in to turn on all his Christmas lights. The decoration manages to wow Giggles and Petunia, who happen to be passing by, as well as Lumpy. Bothered by this, he decides to do something that he feels can surpass Pop's work. The result is an unholy abomination consisting of various light-generating objects stacked on top of his trailer, including a lighthouse. Lumpy puts his goggles on before turning on his decoration. The night is suddenly filled with light, as if it were daytime. Of course, the intense light leads to fatal results: Giggles catches fire, Pop is boiled to death, Cub explodes, and Toothy and the rest of the critters end up vaporized. The light is so deadly it even generates a moon-destroying beam. After the showcase, the burned Lumpy takes off his goggles, revealing that even his eyes have fallen victim to his own lights. The Mole, who even managed to shield his blind eyes earlier, gives Lumpy's decoration a (flaming) thumbs-up.
"Stealing the Spotlight" contains examples of:
- Absurdly Bright Light: Lumpy goes way overboard in his one-sided Christmas light competition with Pop by stacking various bright items that aren't even Christmas related on his trailer, like a streetlight, neon signs, and a lighthouse light. When he switches them on, the light is so intense that it, among other things, makes the Mole (who is blind) shield his eyes, disintegrates Toothy, and generates a laser that blows up the moon.
- Ambidextrous Sprite: Lumpy's antlers.
- Argument of Contradictions: At the end of the BlurB! version, the caption writer and the Comedy Robot get into a "Shut up" "No, you shut up" argument.
- Asshole Victim: Considering what Pop does to Cub throughout this episode, his death is sort of deserved.
- Beyond the Impossible: Somehow, Lumpy's lights are so bright that even Mole has to shield his eyes from it.
- Brick Joke: In the BlurB! version, when Lumpy yawns at the start of the episode, the caption mentions how yawning is contagious and asks if the viewer is yawning. At the end of the episode, right before the credits, it asks "Are you yawning?" again.
- The Cameo: Truffles can be found hiding at two points in the BlurB! version.
- Caption Humor: One of the episodes with a BlurB! version.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:
- Nutty has his organs and intestines forcibly pulled out of his mouth.
- Pop's head boils from the heat of Lumpy's light.
- Toothy instantly disintegrates from the extreme heat.
- Detonation Moon: Lumpy's lights are strong enough to fire a laser into the moon, blowing it up.
- Downer Ending: Lumpy's lights become too strong, causing the deaths of several innocent people.
- Easter Egg: One of the BlurB! episodes to feature binary codes, courtesy of the Comedy Robot.
- Eye Scream: Lumpy's eyes pop like bubbles when he takes off his googles after watching his lights.
- Faceless Masses: The panicking background victims who end up vaporized.
- Gone Horribly Right: Lumpy's Christmas lights are beautiful... and so bright that they vaporize everyone but himself and the Mole.
- Human Pincushion: Cub's head, meet nails.
- Lampshade Hanging: A BlurB! caption points out the scene where Lumpy walks backwards into his trailer with the door closing without him interacting with it.Hey who shut that door?
- Limited Sound Effects: Cub's giggle is reused from "Rink Hijinks".
- Made of Iron: Lumpy and Mole are within ground zero of the former's lights but manage to get off without dying, although the former loses his eyes and one of the latter's thumbs is set ablaze. Meanwhile, characters like Toothy completely disintegrate from exposure to the light.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Lumpy still dons his goofy smile even after his eyes pop from the light.
- Man on Fire: Giggles and Cub get set on fire by the extreme light and heat during Lumpy's Christmas lights showcase.
- Mythology Gag: Two of the BlurB! captions mention Team Lammy and Team Truffles, a reference to the show's "Vote or Die" event from a couple of months before the BlurB! was released.
- No Body Left Behind: Pretty much everyone who died by disintegration.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Pop has this reaction pretty much every time he accidentally injures Cub.
- A massive version of this happens during Lumpy's fatal showcase.
- Plank Gag: Pop accidentally hits Cub in the head with the ladder he's carrying, causing the child to fall over and lose one of his teeth.
- Product Placement: A Running Gag from the BlurB!. It features mentions of various (fake) products based on certain scenes in this episode.
- Running Gag: The BlurB! keeps advertising fictional products throughout the episode.Lumplandia Deluxe Trailer now available
Order Nutty's "FaceCandy" kit before midnight
Get your HTF holiday lights now
Jewelry available in the HTF body piercing store
Add a little class to your trailer with the "Touch of Elegance" holiday light package
Try our Happy Tree Friends soothing strawberry steroid cream
The Mole "Thumbs Up" lighter available for a limited time - Self-Deprecation: The caption below is placed over Pop's horrified reaction, to represent the audience.What do you really think about this blatant repurposing of old content?
- Shout-Out:
- Cub's head injury is a reference to Pinhead from Hellraiser.
- One early BlurB! caption.MC Hammer first appeared around 1961
- One of the BlurB! captions, during the moon destruction scene.Planet explosion taken from the 1978 "Superman" film.
- Spit Take: At the start of the episode, Lumpy spits out his morning coffee when he sees how much nicer Pop's Christmas decorations are than his.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Giggles, Toothy, Cub, Pop, and Nutty die.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Lumpy and the Mole survive.
- The Tooth Hurts: Cub loses one of his teeth from having his head smacked from behind by Pop's ladder.
- Uncertain Doom: The fates of Flaky, Petunia, Sniffles, Lifty, and Shifty. We don't see them dying, but they're probably killed by the Christmas lights.
- Unknown Rival: Lumpy gets envious of Pop's Christmas decorations and goes to extreme lengths to outdo them. Pop remains completely unaware of this, instead just devoting his time to putting up his own decorations (and trying to patch up Cub when the latter inevitably gets injured).
- Your Head A-Splode: Cub's head explodes from the intense light and heat of Lumpy's Christmas decoration.
- Your Size May Vary: As Petunia and Giggles approach Pop's house, the fence is as high as their heads. In the very next shot, however, the fence only comes up to their chests.
