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Why do the Friends always come back to life, and/or where are they?
It is a misfired attempt to remove all but natural death.
Some powerful magician/Reality Warper/someone with the Lamp of Lumpy the Djinn once wished that only natural death should be permanent, so no one would die before he should. And thus, every death and injury from violence, accident or poisoning is only temporary. Which are the only deaths we have seen reversed. Illnesses and conditions are not affected however, thus explaining the permanence of Flaky's dandruff (the eponymous "flakes") as well as her phobias and paranoia, Petunia's OCD, and Fliqpy.All other permanent afflictions and deaths would, according to this theory, be due to (what the effect considers) natural causes: Sensei Orangutan presumbably died of old age, Pop's wife/Cub's mother succumbed to a disease, and Russell is suffering from a birth defect, while Handy lost his hands to necrosis note - Jossed in "Just Desert". Lumpy is killed by a tornado, but still comes back. Not old age or disease but still entirely natural.
- The tornado could be considered a freak accident, as could the number of animal attacks they’ve sustained over the years.
The constant death/revival cycle is due to Sniffles constantly rewinding time.
Exhibit A: Blast from the Past. Sniffles is the direct cause of all suffering for the Happy Tree Friends.
Though not intentionally as Sniffles makes life worse for everyone in the majority of his episodes on thoughtlessness. Blast from the Past was the first to occur, and Toothy breaking his arm was meant to happen. But Sniffles messing in the Time Stream made the situation worse and worse, directly causing his own suffering with the Ants. Ultimately, he creates a stable time loop in that episode, by giving up after the Merry go Round splatter, and just sets it back to the way it was before he intervened. But at this point, the time loop was so messed up it continued after that. Life would have been normal, just a few hours or days occasionally repeating, if he had not gone for the Idol. The Idol is shown on at least two occasions to cause disaster or agonizing death. Still, Sniffles retrieved it. It's presence was worked into the Time Loops he began, and thus everyone in the immediate area is doomed to constantly die horribly, only to become alive again after a loop. Had Sniffles not gone for the Idol in the first place, then life would just be similar to Groundhog Day. Or if he had not meddled in the Time Stream, then their deaths would be final, and merciful. So Sniffles is to blame for it all! Splendid uses his time-backing powers a lot.
Despite Splendid being a Failure Hero, he seems to have a good reputation in-series. Explanation: Splendid always does the trick he did in Better Off Bread to reset time to the day before and save his good name after the episodes that he stars in ends. Following this, either Gems the Breaks is the last episode in the time-line, or Splendont decided to reset the day Splendid died. (Let your Alternate Character Interpretation choose the reason.) The HTF Universe is really a hallucination
Think about it: each character represents a different person. They are all (except for Cub - he just happens to be with Pop, or is part of Pop's hallucinations) taking the same drug. The universe and their forms represent their imaginary world, and their deaths represent them suffering from abuse of the drug in reality. The show is actually a Show Within a Show itself.
Excuse the Mind Screw in the last sentence.In a few cases, the HTF videos are educational (e.g. Copyright School), but most of the time, it's rather comedy with a slapped-on Aesop at the end that may or may not make sense in context. That reminds me of Executive Meddling...The theory is that, rather than the episodes we see being their "reality", what we see is something that the character-actors within the show have recorded.
Therefore we now have a few explanations:
- All the deaths are done by loads and loads and loads of editing
- They "return" because their actors return to their roles
- Handy remained handless because his "actor" is also handless
- Either Pop's wife chose not to enter the show or Pop really is a widower whom the "director" chose for the show
Happy Tree Friends takes place in Purgatory.
A huge disaster caused by a single mistake killed all the forest inhabitants, cursing their souls to remain in Purgatory until they can break the cycle of violence and destruction. Only when they can get through a day without horribly slaughtering each other can they pass into heaven. Happy Tree Friends takes place in Hell.
The frequent wholesale slaughter is the result of the twisted games of some bored but omniscient demon.- Or how about a bored witch, right, tropeeeeeeeeers?
- And what could be a better eternal torment than eternally dying the most gruesome deaths, with no escape? Suffering through this as the world mocks you with the illusion of harmony.
- That leaves the question of why they're damned. Flippy killed people in the war, and Lifty and Shifty are thieves, but what about the rest?
- Flippy likely committed war crimes and/or enjoyed killing a little too much. Fliqpy is his personification of this intense urge.
- Lumpy is often shown to be selfish, and frequently kills people with his own incompetence.
- Handy got sent for laughing and relishing to the shortcomings of others.
- Disco Bear led a life of hedonism and debauchery.
- Pop allowed his son to die due to negligence, which is why it's his number one torture.
- Splendid was a vigilante, and never really cared about his incompetence leading to the deaths of innocent people.
- Russell was a pirate.
- Nutty is a clear case of gluttony along with a general lack of care towards others.
- Petunia used dangerous pollutant chemicals to clean things and let her obsession get the best of her.
- Flaky was a coward that did little to help people so she could save her own hide.
- Toothy was a self-proclaimed "dentist" that destroyed people's teeth.
- Mime did twisted performances that harmed people.
- Giggles is guilty of having way too many sexual relationships and constantly cheating; giving into lust.
- Cuddles is guilty of being somewhat of a bully towards characters like Flaky (pushing others around and being clueless of their feelings)
- Lifty and Shifty are thieves who laugh at the misery of others.
- Sniffles is somewhat of a mad scientist with a fixation of treating animals like shit (the ants)
- The Mole may be blind, but he’s always doing things that require vision and is shown to not really react or care when something he does leads to the pain and screams of others. He’s a sadist.
- Cro-Marmot was something of an asshole during his prehistoric days.
- Lammy has Dissociative Identity Disorder (Mr. Pickles). Even though she has two personalities, her psychopathic one led to her being sent to purgatory.
- It's already been establish that Truffles is a stuck up jerk, so there you go.
The town where everyone lives is a Genius Loci very similar to Silent Hill
Except instead of "playing with" troubled visitors, it does it to its own inhabitants. It's also able to warp reality like the other one, but while Silent Hill uses its power to create a nightmare version of itself, this town uses its power to continuously revive and wipe the minds of the citizens so they can be killed again and again; as well as cause everything that can go wrong to go wrong, which is what ends up killing everyone every time. Much to the amusement of the town.The entire series is in Flippy's head.
Flippy's in a mental hospital somewhere, imagining the entire thing. Would explain why everyone dies so much, only to come back, good as new the next day: Flippy was in war, and apparently, war and how bloody it was is all he can think about now. It also would explain why Flippy could be out and about with his mental state.- So this series is even MORE like Umineko now!
By contrast, it's all in Splendid's head.
The only episode set in "reality" would be Wrath of Con.After that episode, the other superheroes in the HTF-world started to wonder where their blue frenemy had gone after the Con. When they finally found him, Splendid was in a terrible mental state and sent to a special mental hospital that, in addition to insane Muggles, also accepted fallen superheroes and somehow stripped their powers off.The episodes where Splendid tries to save people but fails are all what he tells people who ask him how he got there, ending up with a Multiple-Choice Past with a serious case of believing his own lies.The reason that Splendid never swoops in to save people from Fliqpy's rampages is that Splendid reads about new murder cases in the newspapers, and thus imagines the same person doing all of those deeds to the people that he accidentally killed himself, as a form of getting rid of his guilt. Possibly Flippy is a recurring guest who visits a friend of his in that mental hospital and Splendid just won't trust that eternally cheerful guy with the military uniform.The victims of his superpowers or the ones he'd previously failed to save were the only ones that Splendid ever saw dying, so when he imagines the outside world, he thinks that everyone's Made of Plasticine because he doesn't know about the more peaceful kinds of death. Yet again, imagining the same people that he killed going to the afterlife for other reasons.
As he spirals further and further into depression over his failures, he tries committing suicide through overdose several times, which is what's really going on in "Gems the Breaks"). When the vomiting starts in that episode, what's going on in reality is that he gets a bunch of pills stuck in his throat, and dies of either choking or the pills' effects.
The entire series is set on a hyper-realistic Gmod server.
All the characters are players who play out hilariously gruesome scenarios. Any player or tree friend that dies eventually respawns, and the grisly deaths are played for the amusement of the players. It all takes place in Flaky's head
As seen in Without A Hitch, Flaky suffers from daydreams where she imagines herself dying horrible deaths. Taking this further, every episode is just one of these daydreams, which do not only concern the poor girl herself, but also her friends (including events she never partakes, but knows that their friends would attend). This might also explain why many characters switch between adult and child: Either she is a child who already worries about her adult life, or she is imagining what could have gone wrong in her childhood.//Notably, here, Flippy and Lammy are just a kindly veteran and a shy girl suffering from fits of PTSD and Schizophrenia, respectively, but are not violent. However, in Flaky's tortured imagination, she fears the day when their mental illness harms other. And the final scene of "Without A Hitch" is imaginary as well, reflecting her fear that, in her paranoia, she might end up harming her friends.- Or, of cause, the nightmares are from different periods of Flaky's life.
Happy Tree Friends takes place in an overlap world between Higurashi and Death Note.
Kira hates furries, so he slaughters them in increasingly more gruesome ways in frustration that they keep coming back when the "Groundhog Day" Loop resets.- Jossed. The Death Note rules specifically state that the cause of death listed must be physically possible, something that Happy Tree Friends isn't particularly concerned with.
- Although "physically possible" could just be more loosely defined here...
Cub's mother/Pop's wife made a Deal with the Devil.
She sold her soul to make sure her son and husband (as well as the rest of the cast) always come Back from the Dead. The HTF gang are either in an RPG or a tabletop game and can be revived.
The characters come back to life each time round, and Lumpy takes some care trying to retrieve all of the corpses in Take a Hike, so maybe the characters have been "just knocked unconscious" by all those horrible incidents and Lumpy was trying to get them to the local doctor for rezzing before a Total Party Kill occurred. Furthermore it would explain the insane risks Made of Plasticine characters take, and the fact that they can survive apparently fatal injuries only to die of something small later; for them, its just lots of lost HP. No prizes for guessing what the GM is like.- Leading on from that, what would the characters stats be like? Low wisdom stats all around naturally, though not necessarily low intelligence. For example, Sniffles is smart enough to assemble advanced technologies, but the things he does with them... Lumpy though... I guess he would have the highest charisma seeing as he always seems to end up in a leadership role despite his being The Ditz, but he's clearly the dimmest of the bunch.
- Perhaps they're in a hyper-violent stress-relief game of Toon?
The characters in HTF are Time Lords/Ladies.
The reason they can die horribly in one episode and be back to die horribly in the next episode is due to regeneration. None of them are in possession of a working Tardis.- But if that were true, they wouldn't look the same in every episode.
- They all have the Time Lord equivalent of Down Syndrome.
- They use PLASTIC SURGERY!
The characters are revived with electricity.
Suspected in the Slap Happy iOS game, where if Cuddles ends up dying, he has to be electrocuted to be revived. Restorative Surgery & A Heaping Helping Of Cloning Technology.
As seen in I Nub You, people who have been completely minced by accidents (or theoretically murder) can be restored somehow, provided the pieces are all there and the surgeon is competent. While Lumpy is most certainly not a genius, he is at least competent enough to hold dozens of jobs and may have even taught Giggles in the field of medical practice if you pay attention. When a person's parts are not accounted for, or are otherwise impossible to acquire, such as when someone is eaten or... atomized, Sniffles' technological wizardry allows for a cloning machine for when it's necessary, and he is unable to abuse it the way he abuses every other invention of his because everyone else in town needs it to survive day to day.- Jossed. Handy and Russell would have their missing body parts back, and Flippy and (possibly) Lammy’s mental illnesses would be cured.
The Happy Tree Friends can all regenerate.
Dying horribly is pretty much par for the course for them. Flaky is the youngest of them, and hasn't quite settled into it yet, while Lammy has started to go insane in other ways by this madness.- Cub is younger than Flaky, and he seems to be pretty used to dying. Maybe Flaky just finds death inconvenient.
The characters are descendants of something in the distant future Gensoukyou.
It's no secret that both the fairies and the Tree Friends are stupid enough to repeat doing things that would - and do - kill them. Here, the theory branches:- Scenario 1 is based on this claim: "There have started to be more fairy characters in Touhou. Assuming that there'd be some male fairies (though they wouldn't be given the spotlight), this might be due to more being born."
- Scenario 2: The humans in Gensoukyou know/realize that they are pretty much screwed if they want to leave their village. They start to think about the fairies who used to bother them so - perhaps their abilities could be useful?
- Either way, the human population slowly becomes "infested" with this type of "mutants". Reimu and Marisa (or their heritage if they aren't around themselves) really hate what happened to the rest of the humans, and so sweet-talk Yukari into gapping the whole population out. For some reason, she gaps them into America, and it's sometime later than THAT that HTF takes place.
Happy Tree Friends takes place in the same universe as Higurashi: When They Cry.
... except the interval of the loops is shorter.- Why would it loop? Witches. Though which one of the characters is a witch/sorcerer isn't clear.
The characters' parents went to a Cthulhu Cult.
The parents were cursed, pretty much like other immortal, when the characters were in their wombs. This would explain the apparently unexplained revivals, the particular ways of leaving this world (thinking that Cthulhu is the responsible of them both in this Universe and the other) and the fact that no one seems to remember their own deaths. It may not be the same ritual, but one similar.- We also now have an explanation for almost none of the parents ever showing up. As it only has to be similar, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that they had to have realistic deaths (or committed realistic suicides) to get out of the curse themselves.
The Happy Tree Friends are a set of stories.
- Here the theory branches.
- 1: The pilot is the only episode set in the series' reality. After the dinosaur killed the two kids and the head bit him, it called the police and the dino was sent to jail. The dino had to do community service and it chose story telling to children. In order to encourage the homicidal dino to actually do his service, he was given very morbid stories to read - the HTF-episodes. The twins would warn against stealing and thievery, and Flippy was included to tell the kids about how bad wars really are.
- 2: None of the stories are real, even in-universe. A parent was forced to tell his kids (and their friends) a story. The parent had a very bad day, and told them one where the kids get killed, which he then slapped a silly Aesop on. After realizing what he has has done he immediately apologized... Only for the kids to love it, and ask him to tell them similar stories over and over.
It's the end of the world.
Apparently in HTF they are sapient animals in another world. But we've seen traces of humans (like human skeletons), and if you look at the globe it's the same as ours. Here's what I think: The humans had some kind of biological fuck up and the human race would be doomed but scientists discovered that animals were immune to this, and decided to cross breed the animals. W.A.R. broke out, and the cause of the fighting was a plant in the forest which brings people back to life. Only a few people were allowed to use this plant, which is why so few of the characters' parents are shown. Flippy was given the duty to bring these plants home because the Cursed Idol made it necessary to have a bigger stock of plants. They're toys.
A violent ten year-old kid wanted ninja toys and Grand Theft Auto, but his mom thought that was too violent so she gave him some cute stuffed animals. This is the result.- This would explain the heart-shaped noses.
This is a magical forest.
The animals aren't even alive; they are spirits of the forest, that's why they never age. W.A.R. was against the creatures of darkness, and with some casualties, Flippy's side won the the war. However, there is a spy who tries to kill them out of the forest.They don't stay dead long thanks to their immortality. This is an odds calculator.
Someone with a probability-drive calculator wanted to check the scenarios for twenty animals Madeof Plasticine. However, the animals are remembering their deaths and how improbable they are. Lammy was the last straw, and now Truffles is trying to get them out. Lumpy is the reason.
Some years ago a demon was released from hell. Being tired and weary he decided to rest. When he saw some kids he got an idea; to build a town, disguise himself as a blue idiotic moose, and turn runaway children into animals wiping their memories. He offered them to live in the town, feeding off their deaths and pains turning their dreams into nightmares. One day a little girl had to chose between her real friends and a pickle - Lammy. Truffles wanted to find her, and has done so. The series is a more "ordinary" "Groundhog Day" Loop than the ones mentioned above.
Higurashi and Umineko are murder mystery-series (no matter what fan-opinion has to say on that matter) and you find yourself asking "How could that kind of death happen?" when watching HTF more often than "How and why did (s)he die/get killed?". The characters are replaced by clones
A cloning machine exists somewhere, always generating clones to replace other clones who have died in a past episode. Each clone is more delicate and more Lethally Stupid than the last. All the deaths take place in dreams
The characters, in reality, are locked up in a mental institute. They constantly have dreams or fantasies of themselves or their friends being maimed and killed horribly, either due to tragic pasts or because they're sadists.- The episode "Dream Job" could imply this fact. In this episode, Sniffles builds himself a helmet allowing him to take control of his dreams - possibly in hopes of ending the epidemic - that is until Lumpy screws everything up and drives him mentally insane. In a way, Lumpy is indeed responsible for much of the carnage.
- If this is the case, then I think we need to give Klonoa a call. Fliqpy, The ants, and Whistle (The dog that appears in some episodes) could very well be nightmare creatures!
The Cursed Idol is the reason.
Long before the series began, the Cursed Idol was created alongside the Earth in the HTF parrallel timeline, and thus held the universe in balance. But, shortly before the series, someone tampered with it Indy style and instead of the Idol harvesting its power from the peace and tranquility, it instead harvested its power from the bloodshed from the Tree Friends' excruciating deaths, and therefore to make sure that this power wouls not run out everyone who dies must be brought back to life. Everything that happens before the 'Tampering' would remain when any Tree Friend is resurrected. Handy and Russell lost their limbs before the Tampering, as did the Mole and Sniffles with their eyesight; as with Petunia's OCD, she got it prior to the Tampering. With Flippy/Fliqpy, Operation Tiger Bomb takes place before the Tampering, explaining Flippy's PTSD and why we never see his teammates in other episodes. Same goes for Nutty's sugar addiction and Lammy's schizophrenia. Pop's wife died before the Tampering. This also explains why more people seem to die around it (Treasure These Idol Moments, Idol Curiosity), so it can get more power. It all takes place in Arcadia
The Happy Tree Friends are Changelings whose master transformed them into cutesy anthropomorphic woodland critters and placed them in a seemingly sickingly sweet world, creatively killing and resurrecting them time and time again for its sick amusement. Splendid, Lumpy, Fliqpy and the Mole are favoured slaves/overseers whose high body count is rewarded with a comparatively high survival rate, although (since we are talking about the True Fae) Fliqpy is still stuck with his old, good, personality most of the time."Mom" managed to escape, however, she either had to abandon her family, or she was the only one who avoided capture. Whatever the reason, the Master punished Pop by cursing him to accidentally kill his beloved son for all eternity while staying alive himself, grieving in guilt (at least until the next circle). Several other characters who are especially prone to particularly cruel fates, such as Snuffles, are also attempted escapees, as are Flaky (punished by retaining at least some memory between reboots, thus eroding her confidence) and Handy (punished with permanent loss of arms).
The Idol and the Ant family are the Master's favoured forms when appearing in person. Mr. Pickles is another guise invented to toy with its newest victim, Lammy.
The characters don't actually die
When death occurs to a body, the muscles relax and potentially expel waste. None of the characters have ever pooped upon their supposed deaths. To add to this, their medical systems have defied the impossible - notably Petunia and Handy being brought back to life after being hacked to pieces in "I Nub You". So it isn't that hard to imagine they somehow recover from their injuries. Every episode/two-parter is a separate timeline
Every episode takes place in a different timeline, which is why some characters survive while others die, why the same characters can have radically different jobs between episodes, and even little things like how Lumpy's characterization can vary widely. We're not seeing the same exact characters dying over and over, we're just seeing very similar yet technically different versions of the same characters dying at different points in times and in different ways. Once one episode ends, we cut to a different timeline altogether. They're playing on (a slightly modified) Casual Mode.
Every time a character dies, they stay dead for the rest of the episode, only to come back fully healed as early as the next episode. The only time a character dies permanently is when the plot calls for it. In Casual Mode on Fire Emblem, every unit who is defeated, no matter how much damage they've taken, retreat from the map and are usable again the next battle. The only difference is that in Happy Tree Friends, the characters actually do die, but are able to respawn and join the next episode in which they appear.A light colored wolf and a dark colored wolf (neither of which are anthropomorphic or have names but can talk) that continuously fight have properties that would be seen as god-like compared to normal animals. Both of them are capable of causing lycanthropy on an anthropomorphic tree friend, with the dark one having them become feral every time they turn into their canine form while the light one has their victim retain some 'humanity' (or "animanity", or whatever) in their wolf form. But more importantly, tough, they guard the souls of the Tree Friends in a spirit world of some sort. This is why the Friends come back, but almost everyone forgets why they died upon resurrection. They are Demons.
The entire series is just written/drawn by a high schooler.
Some high schooler was a professional writer. One day, his friend asked him to come up with a series about cute animals dying in horrible ways. He accepted it and now makes and sells these comics to the public. Because there was no lore to his comics, the dead animals come back to life. This was to be a paradise.
The world these people live in is intended to be a lovely paradise, and it has been for a very long time. Accidents happen, and the people were blessed with incredible resilience and the ability to endlessly be repaired, no matter how catastrophic their injury. A technology capable of generating a replacement body when the previous one is liquefied or otherwise completely lost even exists, though it has the downside of temporarily regressing the mind of a subject (which is why characters are sometimes adults and sometimes child-like). Arguably, it's still lovely, but Happy Tree Town is now the resting place of a cursed idol that even at extreme ranges makes daily life absurdly dangerous and forces the people to be as flimsy as foam. Most of the town's medical personnel have fled when they noticed the trend, leaving Lumpy mostly in charge, and only the most oblivious or foolish citizens yet remain in Happy Tree Town. The experience of death typically erases the most immediate memories leading up to it, and so the people don't develop PTSD from repeated trauma... with the exceptions of Lumpy and Flaky. Flaky remembers everything, every time, and is now anxious about almost everything. In Lumpy's case, it's more that he's too oafish to begin with and literally cannot regress to a dumber state than he usually exists in, though if he stays intact for long enough he develops additional expertise, such as lumberjacking. The idol's hateful influence is why the wildlife are so bizarrely vicious, and why things seem to just abruptly break if it results in direct harm. Most of the rest of the world continues to be fine, but it can still occur anywhere; the nexus of it is just Happy Tree Town. The existential dread of all this is completely lost on the entire cast. Theories that are linked to the Groundhog Day Loop-possibility
The episode Without a Hitch takes place in a rare world where Flippy never suffered from PTSD.
There are several things that occurred in that episode that should have have made him "flip out" under normal circumstances (the car crash, getting stabbed in the freaking eye, etc.), yet he didn't. Furthermore, Flaky's recurring visions of Flippy murdering her in horrific ways could be explained by her remembering bits and pieces of past worlds a la Minagoroshi-hen, by her having an advanced case of Hinamizawa syndrome (note that symptoms include fucked-up hallucinations of people with creepy eyes and paranoid distrust of people one normally feels safe around), or a combination of the two. She would have likely died via heart attack or slitting her throat with her nails had her airbag not deployed and splattered her. Alternatively, perhaps she did die this way; the airbag was yet another hallucination. Of course, the chances of Flippy being free of his mental affliction were one to a million; once Rika (or Happy Tree Forest's equivalent of Rika, I'm really not sure) moved on to another world, the old Flippy was back.- Another possibility: Flippy doesn't flip because his PTSD has been, if not really cured, at least weakened. Flaky is believed to be one of his best friends, after all. He can still flip, but it's harder and the flipping is much less intense. More on this further down in the "character"-section.
The death of Cub's mom/Pop's wife is what starts the string of deaths in every time loop.
It makes sense considering that, if the hints are to be believed and she is truly dead, she's the only character who stays that way. The reason the Happy Tree Friends are doomed to suffer and die again and again is because Pop always fails to save her. Pop's wife died in the same accident that Handy lost his hands in, which would explain why he always appears as an amputee even when worse injuries to other characters seem to have no lasting effect.- Maybe the same accident is what caused Russell's body parts to be missing.
The Idol causes all of the deaths (unless they are murders, when it just makes them much easier).
It shows up too often as a background cameo for it to have no effect whatsoever. Perhaps there are more than one, too... Pop's wife/ Cub's mom almost always finds the idol and gets killed by it.
The exception is Idol Curiosity, which is the only time so far where it has showed up in a place that made sense. Cub controls the time loops.
He travels through the time-space continuum indefinitely, trying to find a world where his father is not a bumbling moron and his mother is still alive, and he must start over again every time Pop gets him killed/somebody else dies. Two possible roles for Flaky in the time loops
- 1: She is the only one who has a vague remembrance of their many deaths. (Her memories of the past loops seem to be getting clearer. She is the only one that knows that the world is dangerous and that certain characters should be avoided.)
- 2: She might also be the one who controls the loops.
Cuddles is the reason behind the loops.
- Just before Cuddles dies (in Blast From the Past) he shouts "Oh my God, I'm gonna die! Not this old death again!".
- Cuddles and Toothy are almost always the characters who play pranks on others. In the original timeline, Cuddles came up with a trap and asked Toothy for help, but it went wrong and gave them such bad karma that the incident is the reason for them having the most deaths and injuries of the cast.
The loops are already over.
If you combine the above theories with the lower of the episodes being in non-chronological order, this could be possible. And now We Wish You and Asbestos We Can Do are less time-wasting and more like short snippets of Slice of Life to show us that they did get their happy ending... even though we might as well watch more past loops for kicks. Character-based WMGs
Cro-Marmot
The Cro-Marmot that we see in Dino-sore Days isn't him, but an old ancestor, given the slightly different appearances.
This Cro-Marmot was eaten by pterosaurs, whereas the Cro-Marmot we see today is unscathed aside from being frozen. Unless characters were able to revive back then, these could certainly be different characters. Cro-Marmot used to be a normal Friend
Possibly about the same age as Disco Bear (we can tell from Ipso Fatso that DB's an ex-star) or somewhat younger. We do know that he was successful in many areas, including the piano - Cro-Marmot might simply have been interested in history and based his Artist's Name on his favorite historical period. Then somebody became jealous of him, and decided to give him a Fate Worse than Death (that may have backfired, given Marmot's a Perpetual Smiler). Proof: Flaky has a picture on her watch where he isn't encased in ice, which would be pretty hard to take if he was frozen before the camera was invented.- He may also be able to communicate through the ice on his block getting melted into the forms of letters, given how the Interviewer in Intimate Spotlight isn't able to talk with him traditionally, and he still can get himself a date.
Cro-Marmot will be unfrozen in a future episode
His ice block will melt and Cro-Marmot will explore the world around him, causing mayhem as an uncivilized Neanderthal.- Alternatively, the episode will show him unfrozen back when the world was prehistoric, complete with ancient ancestors of the rest of the cast.
- Semi-confirmed in "Dino-Sore Days". We see him unfrozen in prehistoric times, but no other main characters appeared.
Cro-Marmot has frost-related superpowers
Realising how dangerous the world is, Cro-Marmot keeps himself encased in a block of ice that, while harmless to him, deflects most damage (rendering him the most durable character apart from Splendid and Splendont); he can manifest temporary icy limps to manipulate objects and can manifest writing in his ice, so he never needs to dismiss his armour. Inconsistencies in his temperature are also caused by his powers.A more exotic power is his ability to freeze fire, as seen in Swelter Skelter.Flaky
The real reason Flaky is afraid of baby chicks...
...is because the only part of A Bug's Life she caught was the end. She likely fainted and missed the rest after :Hopper bites it. Or rather, gets bitten.- Or maybe it isn't the chicks she's scared of. She's got Xanthophobia -fear of the color yellow. And what yellow character did she used to hang out with that kept pressuring her into doing dangerous things? That's right, Cuddles!
Flaky is a Tomboy.
There's the complete lack of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics that's characteristic of the female characters but her voice still sound very feminine (well, compared to the slightly deeper male characters and the confirmed female characters), she's thought of as female by most of the cast and fans alike, a Smoochie shows she likes baseball, and we never see her do anything considered girly in the show unlike Giggles, Petunia, and Lammy. All of that sounds like a tomboy candidate. The only real note is that she would be an example of a very rare shy, cowardly tomboy in opposition of the more traditional bold, boisterous tomboy.- The creators stated that she is a girl.
Flaky is Transgender
.Of the male-to-female kind or possibly of the non-binary sort.- ...I'd say Jossed. Cuddles acts a lot like a girl to some viewers, but that don't make him a girl. Flaky's a gal that happens to not have a lot of feminine characteristics.
Flippy
Flippy is partly cured of his PTSD as of Double Whammy Pt. 2
Depending on whether or not psychological changes span episodes/death in the HTF-verse. He was shown to be cured of his Split Personality at the end of Double Whammy (before promptly being run over by a semi), and this has since been carried on into Without a Hitch. In Without a Hitch, even though Flaky imagined him flipping out three times, he never actually flipped out despite being in the presence of pretty good triggers: loud thunder, a car crash, and a bloodied Flaky. Giggles covered in ketchup was enough to set him off in Flippin' Burgers, so a badly injured Flaky should have made him flip out, if anything.- Jossed. He easily flips out in Random Acts of Violence and On My Mind, both episodes taking place after Without A Hitch.
Flippy's PTSD hasn't been cured yet.
And not just because the latest Love Bites seemingly Jossed it either. The primary proof for this is refuting the primary evidence used to say he has: Without a Hitch. But don't worry, Flippy x Flaky shippers, 'cause I don't think this sinks anything.With the exception of Flippin' Burgers, all of Flippy's flip-outs have a similar cause: events that remind of him of gunfire or fire in general. In short, they remind him of the enemy and being under attack. As a Shell-Shocked Veteran, this would cause him to subconsciously switch to "kill-mode" in order to survive the oncoming battle.
In Without a Hitch, no such trigger poses itself. Although on first glance, one would think the sight of the wounded Flaky would set him off, it doesn't... because this isn't a situation that would require him to flip out. This brings up a different set of war memories: the wounded ally in need of medical attention; never leave a man behind. The original kind, caring Flippy is the one needed here and not the id-riddled killing machine, so he's never triggered in the usual way during the course of the episode.
The only exception, as previously stated, is Flippin' Burgers, where he flips due to seeing Giggles "blood"-stained (though in that case she was "dead" while Flaky was just injured), though there are two possible explanations. One, in a similar situation during the way which Flippy is remembering, there were enemies near the scattered corpses, which would be a trigger for "kill-mode." Or two, it indicates that while Flippy isn't cured, he's getting better.
- In "Flippin' Burgers" the "kill-mode" might have been triggered by Cuddles laughing at Giggles' "bleeding".
Along with PTSD, Flippy also suffers from Lycanthropy.
Because come on, I'm pretty sure actual people with PTSD do not act that malevolent or evil during traumatic episodes. It would also explain him growing sharp fangs and eyes turning yellow-ish. One more thing, it would be pretty cool. Flippy was a Child Soldier.
Vague Age of the whole cast aside, it only makes sense from a psychological standpoint — dissociative identity disorder can only be formed from severe childhood trauma, and while PTSD alone explains some aspects of Flippy’s flip-outs, other aspects like how Flippy and Fliqpy generally don’t share memories points at DID. Alternatively, Flippy could have unrelated childhood trauma from before the war, and perhaps Fliqpy took the brunt of the bloody gory warfare, which is what made him the Ax-Crazy defense mechanism we know and love. Among the enemy soldiers Flippy had to fight against was the Flower Hill Army.
The Tiger army seen in "Operation Tiger Bomb" may not be the only enemy soldiers Flippy had to fight. On one of his missions, he may have been sent to Flower Hill to aid in the fight. However, while on the mission, he gets captured and sent to a Flower Hill P.O.W. camp. A riot soon breaks out there, and Flippy (who is still shell-shocked from the events of "Tiger Bomb") goes on a rampage and escapes the camp. He then goes around killing every enemy soldier he could find.Lammy
Lammy has mild reality warping powers.
She can turn any pickle she sees into her imaginary friend, Mr. Pickles. As seen at the end of her debut episode, she's in prison and is served her food, which has a pickle in it. The pickle is seen inanimate for a second, then it changes into Mr. Pickles. This power also the one that give Mr. Pickles life and intention to causing harm on the others.- I assume this is meant to justify Mr. Pickles's arrival in the prison given the extremely low odds that it's the same pickle she started with?
Lammy will never be used in another cartoon, ever.
She ends her first episode alive and (aside from some Eye Scream) well in a prison for a reason: so she can't get out.- Unless she imagines that Mr. Pickles is trying to kill her and thus commits suicide... Then she'll return.
- JOSSED: Lammy appears again (with Mr. Pickels) in "The Chokes On You," but it's only a background cameo. And then she gets another full-fledged appearance in Royal Flush. She is a regular character now.
- Unless she imagines that Mr. Pickles is trying to kill her and thus commits suicide... Then she'll return.
Alternately, Lammy is intended to be the new Flippy.
If Flippy has been cured of his PTSD by the end of Double Whammy, then the HTF universe is one insane serial killer short; someone new needs to be added to restore equilibrium. However, this carries the risk of causing Lammy to become a Replacement Scrappy due to Flippy's popularity with the fandom.- And if she shows up again, her eye will still be all swollen up (think about Handy's lack of arms).
- Jossed: Flippy still isn't cured of his PTSD as seen in On My Mind. Lammy shows up again in "The Chokes On You," but her eye isn't swollen there. And if Royal Flush is any indication, Mr. Pickels might be a little more than just a hallucination...
Russell
Russell's a Stepford Smiler who does not remember his days on sea.
This is basically a back-story for every episode except "Something Fishy", dealing with these oddities:- 1: Pirates are known as the packs of wolves of the seas, yet Russell is the only pirate we ever see in HTF.
- 2: He lives on land, yet has had two homes designed to look like boats.
- 3: Although pirates in general are supposed to like raiding other ships, Russell reacts pretty strongly to injuring others, even going crazy after killing Lumpy by mistake in Get Whale Soon. note
- 4: Unlike Handy, Russell doesn't show any irritation about lacking body parts, in his case not having any legs or right/left hand and eye.
- 5: The one time when he doesn't say "Yarr!", in ''A Sight For Sore Eyes", he breaks the "rule" of pirates never saying "I" while apologizing to the Mole.
Russell grew up with a crew that convinced him that anybody who didn't belong to the crew, sailor or landlubber alike, wasn't worth any mourning or afterthought and simply was an enemy, although the crew treated another like Vitriolic Best Buds at worst. They also warned him that he never should admit to being a pirate, as that would cost him his freedom and land him in gaol for a lifetime.
However, the crew was one day attacked by another ship who sunk their boat. All of the other pirates drowned or were taken prisoners, but Russell himself was carried by the waves to the closest beach - to "Happy Tree Town". The doctors and nurses of the hospital treated him, but he pretended to be amnesiac so he wouldn't have to explain himself and be punished. Most of the doctors couldn't understand his heavy piratespeak (they dismissed this as a result of the same accident that would cause his amnesia). He couldn't help but notice how elder people sometimes would die in the hospital surrounded by their loved ones, and that there were people who arrived at the hospital who lamented their loss of limbs. This made him gradually think more and more about how many he had injured in similar matters himself. It didn't help his guilt that he eventually was forced to warm up with the others due to loneliness, and that he realized how these people were worth a lot more than he previously had thought. Eventually he couldn't imagine ever hurting anybody again.
The doctors had run out of realistic prosthetics at the time when Russell was allowed to walk around again (after all, he felt like he couldn't tell them whether he had been without legs for a long time), so they just used a few wooden pegs to test him. Some of the others in the hospital then started to joke about Russell making a great pirate. Although this first made him afraid that he'd gotten found out, he eventually realized that they didn't have anything against pirates, so he went back to looking and acting like one for the rest of his life. The other citizens dismissed this as a result of the damage to the head which also caused his amnesia, as he kept insisting that he couldn't remember anything before waking up in that hospital bed (now out of genuine guilt).
As time went by, he started to idealize the memories of his lost crew. They weren't ''all'' dead, he could certainly find some of them if he went off to search for them (which could be what he was doing in Get Whale Soon at the beginning), and he had oppressed all the memories of making people suffer. Reminding him about the truth is only possible through him killing somebody else, and that is why he goes over the edge when he does.
Russell only thinks he's a pirate...
But actually has a serious mental issue from watching too much pirate movies (someone who says "Yarr" all the time is probably not normal). If it's anything severe, he deliberately cut off his own body parts and replaced them with an eye patch, hook and peg legs to enhance his appearance. As an alternative to/combination of the two above...
Although Russell was part of a ship's crew, it was a perfectly normal ship. It sunk, and he ended up with a case of Identity Amnesia due to damages to his psyche and head, and had to amputate his limbs (and eye?) in hospital.- He has a crack in his skull as shown in "Something Fishy", which could be evidence for the amnesia part.
The Mole
The idea of Mole being - or rather, have been - a secret agent wasn't completely scrapped.
In Mole in the City, he's seen doing things that might seem a bit odd - actually knowing that he went past the room he should go to, for example, and the audience being allowed to watch through his POV at one point.It's said to be just a spinoff, but The Mole manages to break himself and Handy out of prison in Don't Yank My Chain.Note also that Splendid has shared jobs with Mole once... Splendid only has this job in order to hide his true identity.The Mole used to be a slightly clumsy, but still competent agent, who decided to disguise himself as blind in case any enemy government would get suspicious that someone was messing with them.His clumsiness had a price, however: as he put his "mole" back on and it started blinking in the end of Mole in the City, the little "poof!" blew part of his face up and rendered him blind.He couldn't have his real job as an agent anymore, so he became his mask and move to the outskirts of whatever city the HTFs live in.
Along with the above, this explains how he can be seen doing jobs that require sight - he kept them from the period when he hid his true identity - and why he keeps doing all those stupid blind mistakes. Like Handy, he hasn't gotten used to his disability yet.
The Mole is a sadist
He might not be able to see anything, but he's not deaf. Take a look at Wipe Out, where he makes sure that his surfing board is in good condition. Even when Lumpy gets onto the board. Skin feels rather different to a surfing board, and he should have heard the screams. We have a similar problem in Every Litter Bit Hurts, where Giggles gets impaled and the Mole takes her heart out like it's trash.Adding this to his habit of eating things he shouldn't eat, One can only imagine what his human self would be like... The Mole suffers from a severe brain disease.
As has been observed repeatedly, the Mole seems so oblivious to the outside world that blindness is not sufficient. My proposal is that he either suffers from delirium or dementia (maybe it is just me, but he seems older), or a crippling psychosis. The Mole has no face
He got into a horrible accident that disfigured all his facial features except his nose and mole. Since then, he wears a pair of shades and a turtleneck to hide how his face looks.Lumpy
There is more than one Lumpy
Lumpy is not a single character, but rather, the Lumpies are a clan of very similar-looking moose, explaining several inconsistencies:- Lumpy seems to hold a large number of jobs over the series. At least some of these, however, are actually separate characters, particularly the recurring ones like Lumpy the Teacher or Doctor Lumpy.
- Lumpy's house is quite inconsistent. These are inhibited by different Lumpies.
- Morally, Lumpy can range from apathetic to benevolent, but only causing more problems due to panic and low intelligence, with occasional episodes of outright villainy (We're Scrooged, Every Litter Hurts) or heroism (Lumpy the Teacher).
- On the same note, while Lumpy is usually very lazy, Lumpy the Teacher and Lumpy the Postman have demonstrated extreme dedication to their job.
- While still stupid, Doctor Lumpy is capable of grotesque medical miracles worthy of Madaraki Fran.
- Lumpy normally doesn't have a pet, but in Junk in the Trunk he has a pet elephant, and adopts all the animals stolen by Lifty and Shifty in the end.
- Lumpy is, with the exception of the zombies in Remains To Be Seen and Fliqpy possessing a bike and a genie Giggles at the very end of As You Wish, the only character to be portrayed as a supernatural creature - not only once, but three times (a giant in Dunce Upon A Time, a genie in As You Wish and a vampire in All In Vein). These three are presumbably ancestors of the contemporary mortal (so to speak) Lumpies.
- Lumpy has hoofed feet in "Every Litter Bit Hurts", but is shown with humanoid feet in "Wipe Out". Similarly, he also has blue eyes in "Concrete Solution" versus green eyes in "Wishy Washy".
- Also, Lumpy showed up in the whale's belly (a la "Get Whale Soon"), even though he was supposed to be at another place, in "Milk Pong".
- Maybe there are clones of every character in the world of HTF. That would actually explain a lot.
Lumpy is brain-damaged
Looking at his mismatched antlers, it is possible to assume he was either born with or experienced some form of head trauma in his life that made him the way he is. This might explain a scene in All Work and No Play in which Lammy gets her head cut in half with a metal bar.Sniffles
Sniffles is foreign.
As an anteater, he is the only major character whose species isn't from North America. It is possible to assume he is from Central or South America, where real anteaters are found. Maybe this is why he is unable to eat The Ants, since the ones from his homeland are much easier to kill. Sniffles is an alien
His skull is often shown to have a rather humanoid appearance, with a hollow snout and a second pair of jaws and teeth in his skull. In real anteaters, the snout is in fact part of the skull and they completely lack teeth. This could explain why Sniffles is so intelligent and able to create advanced inventions. He isn't actually an anteater, but from a race of aliens that settled on Earth millions of years ago. Their original mission was to protect ant kind, but thanks to Sniffles screwing up they are now at an eternal war with each other.The Ants
Ants are a minority race
The ants seem be the only insects with intelligent traits. In "Crazy Ant-ics", there is a photo of an ant soldier, confirmed to have died in the war. Yet if they were treated like other anthropomorphic characters, then Sniffles probably wouldn't try to eat them. Their sadism could be backlash against the bigger, more superior beings. In "Tongue in Cheek", they appeared to be living under poor conditions, seen churning butter and milking an aphid (the insectoid Expy of cows). They live in anthills and steal picnic food because they cannot afford/are denied proper necessities that other characters enjoy. The Ants are dead.
The ant Sniffles' prehistoric counterpart ate? That was the Ants' ancestor. Therefore, the Ants, as well as every episode that featured them note , are basically Ret-Gone. And nobody cared in the long run. If the Ants are brought back, they will fall into Karma Houdini Warranty
Given how infamous they are among the fandom for never being punished for their sadistic actions, should they ever come back, the tables could turn against them to satisfy the fans. Episodes could end either with Sniffles winning or at least the Ants dying first.Handy
Handy's injury is recent.
... despite the series spanning over a decade. He is always wearing bandages, as if still in recovery, and has yet to have any prosthetics fitted. And, of course, he constantly forgets he's missing his arms, which you'd think he would get used to eventually. Possibly, he is cursed to suffer the same debilitating injury every time he "comes back" after the credits roll. Handy has Handy Feet
How would the guy get things done offscreen without using his nonexistent hands? He uses his feet of course!Related to two or more characters
Flippy is the reincarnation of Buddhist Monkey.
Both are very peaceful characters normally, but are incredibly murderous when angered. However, Buddhist Monkey is far more controlled in his rage then Fliqpy, but this might come down to Nature versus Nuture - namely enlightenment due to Sensei Orangutan versus PTSD from the W.A.R..Additionally, Random Acts of Silence could be interpreted as a twisted repetition of Books of Fury.- In addition to this, the villains that Buddhist Monkey constantly kills? Green Bears!
Flippy actually likes Flaky that way.
The fact that Flaky is the only one who is spared by Fliqpy can be hinting to some subconscious affection from within Flippy. There's another point fact that it was Flaky's screams, of all characters, who snapped him out of his flipped-out state. Flippy followed Flaky in 'Without a Hitch' just to help her as well as catch a ride. There's also a cameo photo of Flaky, Lumpy, and Flippy together, implying that they hang out often off-screen, and the evidence that Flaky knows Flippy's birthday as well as where he lives supports that they know each other very well. While he was shown to be going on a date with Giggles in a short, it was likely just Flippy testing out his dating options. The fact that Fliqpy spared Flaky in an episode after his date with Giggles can be a clue that Flippy MIGHT have some heavy feelings for Flaky. MIGHT.- Shippers assemble! I've been working on this theory for a long time. Besides the proofs you put, I'd like to point out another two. Remember Double Whammy? The first time Flippy flips out, he kills everybody and bathes in their blood. The defenseless Flaky comes by and screams, causing Flippy to go back to his usual self. Why would Flaky's screams wake him up? Also, in Party Animal, there is a moment where the flipped out Flippy is looking for prey. He sees poor Flaky inflated because of her allergy and thus unable to move. What does he do? Ignores her and keeps looking for victims.
- Flippy is known to come out of his flips if he hears loud noises. And maybe he didn't attack Flaky in Party Animal because she looked nothing like Flaky. Flipqy consciously killed Flaky 4 times anyways.
- Actually, Flippy killed Nutty too, in that episode, and Nutty looked nothing like Nutty. He was just a spinning tornado. Why wouldn't he have killed Flaky too? On the contrary, Flippy's view actually lingered on Flaky while he was searching for victims, but he just went to kill Sniffles anyway, whose only nose could be seen outside a barrel. It would have been much easier for Flippy to go and kill Flaky, but he didn't do it. Someone actually stated at one point that the creators didn't make Flippy kill Flaky because she was the one who had organized his birthday party, implying that Flippy had become too attached to Flaky to kill her during the series, even as his psychopatic, evil self. That's why he didn't flip out and kill her in Without A Hitch either, when he could have easily done it there as well, because he wasn't cured completely. (Random Acts Of Silence was released after Without A Hitch and he flipped out there).
- Yes, but that was in the beginning of Happy Tree Friends. In latter episodes, he apparently gets closer to Flaky (the signs that they're becoming really good friends - Flaky even might be Flippy's best friend- are mentioned by the first two fellow tropers), which determines him to have feelings for her, feelings that might interfere with Flippy's instinct to kill her. There are two episodes in which he doesn't kill her actually: Party Animal and Without A Hitch, even though he could have easily done it.
- I already explained why he didn't kill Flaky in Party Animal. And Flippy might have been cured in Double Whammy part 2.
- He's not. He flips out in Random Acts of Silence, an episode that aired much later.
Toothy is the glue in his relationship between Cuddles and Sniffles
These three characters are often seen hanging out together in episodes. Cuddles is a mischievous rebel and Sniffles is a nerdy bookworm. These aren't normally characters you'd expect to get along, but perhaps with Toothy being The Everyman of the trio there is some sort of a balance.One-guess characters
In Class Act, the Idol exploded.
How else could the school explode, and powerfully enough to kill Splendid?The reason Whistle is only triggered by whistling is that the researchers considered Fliqpy to be triggered too easily. Especially considering the episode's end, they were successful ...at least, until the first whistling sound. Nutty had an incident a long time prior the events of the series...
Where he somehow lost his eyes. However, when he was supposed to get replacements, they didn't really have any real ones to donate, so Sniffles (or somebody as smart as him) had to create new eyes for Nutty. Problem was that, due to a mistake, candy got involved by accident in the creation of his eyes. When they were inserted and somehow worked (this series ain't too realistic, deal with it) the brain also got affected, thus building basis for his way too sugary daily life.This would be a way to explain how Russell, after slicing Nutty's eye off to use as a contact lens, saw the kite's string in the same way as Nutty did - the problem wasn't in his brain, but his eyes. Truffles will eventually become a main character
Hopefully he won't just remain The Cameo forever. The writers will soon be making an episode that truly introduces his character. Hints have been suggested in Clause for Concern and All in Vein.- He will probably have a Spoiled Brat personality. Look at his fancy sailor suit, typical grumpy stare, and a picture of him Blowing a Raspberry.
- The personality part has been confirmed.
- Jossed. Word of God is that the creators want to honor the spirit of Vote or Die by keeping him subliminal.
Mime used to belong to the Mime Cult
At one point in episode one of ''On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness'', the protagonists encounter a mime who formerly belonged to what he calls the "mime cult" (basically, as one LPer put it, a cult worshiping "Cthulhu's socially awkward cousin"). The mimes in that game can hurt you with their invisible objects (they frequently conjure swords), and Mime interacting with and even "seeing" that his invisible safe has been taken away seems to hint at the possibility that he is/was the Token Good Cult Member. The reason Disco Bear is stuck in the '70s
There is evidence he is financially wealthy (owning a hot tub, to a private ski chalet, and even a gold submarine). It is possible he earned this living back in the 70s due to releasing a hit album or more. When his successful career was eventually axed at the end of the disco generation, Disco Bear was too consumed by his fame to move on, turning him into the Disco Dan he is depicted as today. Cub is older than he looks
In the short "Chore Loser", Cub is seen playing with a Game Boy before going out to rake the leaves. Neither of these would be possible to do for an infant. Cub might actually be a bit older than this age, but is still in a diaper because his Bumbling Dad couldn't potty-train him. Miscellaneous
Happy Tree Friends is an example of a typical animated series in the future
Think about it: Recently pretty much all animation has been shifting towards becoming more and more gory, with less clever jokes and more characters having violence inflicted on them with genuinely gory effects, instead of cartoony injuries. Examples would be Spongebob Squarepants, Family Guy, or The Simpsons. In 20-30 years, all animation will have become identical, removing any attempts at comedy besides horrible injuries inflicted on innocent people. In that time, a show called Happy Tree Friends was created, and it was the most popular show ever, eclipsing everything else. However, one person built a time machine and brought the show into the past in the hopes of becoming rich and famous. The result is the show Happy Tree Friends existing in our timeline.- Interestingly enough, this could result in a Stable Time Loop, where the popularity of Happy Tree Friends in this timeline further pushes animation in the gore department, resulting in the "original" version of the show being made in the future.
- Maybe it’s a futuristic attempt to teach kids safety gone very, very south. With all the deaths caused because of mismanagement of home appliances, callous behavior around dangerous animals, and not thinking things through, you can’t say HTF has no educational value to it.
The episodes are not in chronological order.
Here are a few examples of my hypothesis:- In Take a Hike, Flaky tries to help a baby chick back to its nest, but fails and gets killed by the mother. This makes little sense, since From A to Zoo established that she is afraid of chicks. However, if the former episode occured before the latter, this all makes sense: Flaky was killed after trying to help a chick, and is now afraid of them.
- The episodes where Giggles flirted with other characters, like Blind Date and Giggles' Love Bites, occurred before the episodes where she is in love with Cuddles... or after.
- This could also mean that Flippy is cured after all.
- Jossed: Double Whammy Part 2 and Without a Hitch are not connected in any way according to Word of God, as seen here. This means...yes, Flippy is not cured of his PTSD.
- Jossed: Double Whammy Part 2 and Without a Hitch are not connected in any way according to Word of God, as seen here
We don't have a Flippy vs Splendid episode yet...
Because if such an episode where to be released, the amount of Awesomeness generated by it would cause the world to explode. Mondo Media is currently looking into ways to keep the damage contained behind the fourth wall. Those are all nicknames.
A lot of those names would never show up in real life... And those two with realistic names could easily have moved to the neighborhood only a short while before the deaths/loops start happening. (Lammy may have lived there since her birth, but could be shy about newcomers and rarely get the guts to get to know them.) Lumpy planned to have Mummies at the Dinner Table in the Kitchen Kringle.
If the gas leak really was what offed the other friends, he should have been the first one to go down, as he was in the kitchen himself. We can also only see the gas from a short distance from the kitchen, indicating that it wasn't a lethal threat for Cub and Giggles yet. We also have the issue of the Shlifty twins being there (according to Word of God, although we only see one of them), despite it being quite clear that Lumpy doesn't like themnote .Several of his deaths occur when he's guilty as hell and not just a Lethal Klutz (in those cases, he most often survives), and guess what - here he caused an explosion that killed himself and probably some other poor sods who were walking in the forest, just after he started to laugh maniacally...
He started with slipping a lot of sleeping pills into their drinks. The first ones to go were Giggles and Cub, as Giggles was in a couch (indicating that she felt tired and decided to take a nap), and Cub could be playing a bit before falling asleep. Petunia, however, was determined to go and prepare the table, no matter how tired she was feeling. Cuddles and Toothy hadn't drunk as much as the others, and only felt sluggish when Petunia suddenly collapsed in the doorway, making them really scared. Lumpy, upon seeing that they would flee and probably report it if he didn't stop themnote , strangled Toothy and Cuddles, and then made them sit at the dining table after their deaths.Meanwhile, Lifty and Shifty had come to steal some things. Suddenly when they tried to get away, they found that every door was locked and they couldn't get out before they were caught and murdered by Lumpy (it's up to you how he killed them). Lumpy didn't even bother bringing both of them to the table, but dumped one of them there, and then went back to the kitchen to prepare the dinner as if nothing had happened. The gas leak prevented that from happening.
The Happy Tree Friends are made of candy.
- But apparently not hard candy. Evidence: Class Act, where Sniffles gets partly eaten by Nutty who has chocolate stains all over his mouth afterwards.
- It's just the color of the blood mixing with the color of Nutty's fur. Besides, what are their bones and internal organs made of?
- Internal organs could have a higher concentration of gelatine combined with something that makes them keep their shapes.
- This theory makes Flippy killing Shifty with a cookie far more horrifying.
One of the characters will be Killed Off for Real
In a show where characters die all the time, it is possible that in the future, the writers will announce that they will be killing someone off for good, maybe even replacing them with someone new. But then, of course, the character will come back to life after a few episodes and his/her death will all prove to be a joke. It would make a good April Fools stunt. Some characters represent the Seven Deadly Sins
- Greed: Lifty and Shifty are always trying to steal things from other tree friends. Heck, they can't even share with each other.
- Lust: Disco Bear frequently flirts with Giggles and Petunia, to their displeasure.
- Envy: Handy when it comes to his lack of hands.
- Pride: Cuddles appears overconfident at times, often leading to his demise.
- Gluttony: Nutty is so obsessed with candy that he literally takes them from babies.
- Wrath: Flippy. Need we say more?
- Sloth: Splendid seems to be the most worthy candidate. He would rather do other things besides saving people, and he tries to look for the quickest way out of it. A good example of this being "Better Off Bread".
A new character will be introduced in the movie
It could be an unspoken of left-over from Vote or Die. Or even one submitted by fans in a contest. The series will end with everyone being killed
How else would you end a show like this? As a bonus, the characters will either end up in some sort of afterlife or be reincarnated once again.For extra bonus, it's actually a neighboring kingdom to Mushroom Kingdom, which is also a colorful place. The Happy Tree Friends actually live somewhere in Canada
Happy Tree Friends is a case of Furries Are Easier to Draw.
We see both sapient and animalistic forms of various species throughout the show’s run. Also, note that, similarly to Mickey Mouse, the characters rarely, if ever, do things typical of their species (aside from Sniffles, but he could be a kid curious about entomology). Happy Tree Friends will have an episode revolving around the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Considering how relevant it was in 2020, the show could very well have an episode regarding it. Considering it's said to be a deadly disease, many of the deaths could very well be revolved around it. Think of South Park: The Pandemic Special but with the Happy Tree Friends characters.- This episode will end with everyone dead on earth and the virus mutates into a cartoony giant monster and devours the whole world, nuff said.
Lumpy will have a girlfriend in future episodes.
The movie, and potentially a revival of the series, will be picked up by Netflix
With the most recent episode having aired in 2016 and no updates ever since, it is almost certain that the show has ended production. However, it has consistently gone through hiatuses throughout its run, mostly caused by budget issues. A movie that was confirmed by Mondo to be in production, but has yet to see the light of day, is believed to be the cause of the latest hiatus/cancellation of the series. Kenn Navarro, a co-creator of the series, has expressed optimism on it possibly returning in spite of the grim outlook.Netflix is no stranger to reviving shows (Shaun the Sheep and more recently Johnny Test are just a few examples). If the Happy Tree Friends movie were to happen, chances are Netflix will obtain the rights to the series and produce it, perhaps alongside a second season of TV-length episodes.
