YMMV / Happy Tree Friends

#-G

• Adorkable:
  • Sniffles. Nerd Glasses and a pen protector? Check. Geeky and smart? Check. Some of the most painful, sadistic deaths in the series? Check.
  • Flaky is a shy, awkward character.
  • Toothy's freckles, buck teeth, and tendency to cry make him quite lovable in his own special way.
  • Lumpy, despite his unique looks, is a pretty adorable klutz.
  • Nutty may be a crazed maniac, but he's still a very adorable one at that.
  • Pop, Disco Bear, The Mole, and Flippy are good examples of the adult Tree Friends being just as charming and lovable as the rest because of their respective quirks.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • Some of Lumpy's deaths can be so violent and miserable that even his detractors will feel sorry for him. Notable examples include his Mutilation Conga in "The Chokes on You", his agonizing death in "Letter Late Than Never", and practically every episode where he performs genuine heroic actions and then dies.
  • Even Disco Bear's detractors felt like his treatment in "Put Your Back Into It" was too hard to watch without feeling sorry for him, especially at the end, where Russell ends up cooking his head and serving it on a plate to Giggles.
  • Hell, some of the characters' deaths can be so gruesome, that even their detractors will find it hard not to pity them.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The show's lack of coherent dialogue and continuity leads to the fans creating a lot of these, enough to fill its own page.
• Alternate Self Shipping: Flippy×Fliqpy is surprisingly popular.
• Angel/Devil Shipping: Any pairing including Flippy, due to his possible berserker state. Shifty and/or Lifty with someone they robbed in an earlier episode may count as well.
• Angst? What Angst?: In "Party Animal", where Flippy is having a birthday party, he turns into his evil self when he hears popping balloons and kills all his friends. Once he hears Flaky explode, he turns back into his good self but doesn’t seem to bat an eye when there is blood all over the place and even dead bodies. Instead, he just casually drinks a smoothie, which was made out of The Mime being pushed into the mixer by Evil Flippy, not seeming to notice the taste of blood and even seems to enjoy it. All of this as if he didn’t see all the blood or remembering that he had friends over. (He probably didn't.)
  • In general, the Tree Friends often demonstrate themselves as uninterested to the frequent deaths on this show. Usually, they will either quickly overcome their friends' demise, laugh it off, have a confused expression, or sheepishly flee the scene.
• Awesome Music:
  • Fall Out Boy's "The Carpal Tunnel of Love", of which the music video uses HTF characters.
  • The opening theme to "Ka-Pow!" is an awesome rock tune fitting for the more action-oriented spin-off.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The second half of "A Sucker For Love". Most of the episode is a random montage of Nutty's fantasies about loving, dating, marrying, impregnating, murdering for, and dying old with a box of chocolates.
  • Unicornius's cameo in "Pet Peeve".
• Broken Base: Has its own page.
• Cargo Ship: Nutty/Candy is notable for being canon in Sucker for Love, to the point where Nutty imagines he made the candy pregnant.
• Canon Fodder: Thanks to Negative Continuity and a lack of exploration to the characters' personalities, the nature of Happy Tree Friends universe is filled with mysteries:
  • Who is Pop's wife? And how did she die exactly?
  • Is Mr. Pickels real, or is he entirely a figment of Lammy's imagination? And if he is, how does he move from place to place even without Lammy's involvement? How did he singlehandedly dispose of Flaky? To a lesser extent, why does Mr. Pickel kill others who interact with Lammy? Is it from jealousy and fear of getting replaced by them, psychopathy, or a similar case to Fliqpy, where he perceives Lammy's new friends as enemies?
  • How did Handy lose his hands? Why does his injuries remain permanent whereas everyone else can regenerate from severed limbs? How is he able to perform hand-related tasks with little to no struggle? And why does he suddenly struggle when the audience visibly see him doing the activity.
  • For that matter, how did Russell lose his eye, legs, and even right hand and why couldn't they regenerate after their amputation?
  • In a similar case to Handy, the entirely frozen Cro-Marmot is able to move and perform tasks perfectly fine, despite his predicament. How does he do it? How was he even frozen? And why doesn't his ice block melt, especially in episodes like "Swelter Skelter"?
  • Who is Truffles? What's his deal? Why does he constantly hide in obscure locations?
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Given how he often gets off scot-free for murdering others, it can be pretty satisfying watching Fliqpy getting killed for a change. For example, in "By The Seat Of Your Pants", when Lumpy tries to raise down the flag, Fliqpy ends up getting disemboweled, resulting in his death.
  • Similarly, Lumpy's deaths are considered immensely satisfying by some, as he is a spotlight hogger with a lengthy survival rate and a huge kill count.
  • For anyone who doesn't like Shifty for bossing Lifty around and leaving him for dead, his Karmic Deaths can be satisfying to watch, despite their Squick-y nature.
  • Any instance where Pop dies can be a joy to watch since his incompetent treatment of Cub and for acting like a smug idiot can get insufferable at times.
  • Given his extremely high survival rate and usual negligence, all while getting away scot-free, episodes where Splendid dies (namely, "Class Act" and "Gem The Breaks") are generally considered breathers by fans and his detractors alike.
• Common Knowledge: Many well-known aspects of the show are treated as official in the fandom when it is not the case at all. This is not helped by the crew's tendency to be vague and the Fandom wiki's content often being rife with Fan Speak, speculation, or outright unsourced information.
  • Check the Fan Nickname list down below and try to tell a fan they are not official. For example, the idol that always brings misfortune to the cast? It is just called the "idol" (in commentaries) or "talisman" (in the Java games). The name "cursed idol" came from fan art.
  • The name "Fliqpy" is only used in the context of W.A.R. Journal (and the rare third party involvement a la The Crackpet Show) and is never referred to as such in the main series. His official character style guide refers to him as "Flipped Out Flippy".
  • All characters having defined ages when they are mostly Vague Age unless their design makes it clear (but only within a range, exact age remains unknown). This is caused by fans taking fanon as canon, not helped by search engines' AI poorly compiling the info to answer fans' questions and they take it without question.
  • The Orphaned Series of a web show D_Void being related to HTF. The only similarity between the two is the premise of Funny Animals getting into unfortunate situations and graphically dying (but IN SPACE!) and the fact that Kenn Navarro was also responsible for the show. D_Void is in no way a spinoff of Happy Tree Friends. It is just another animation series Kenn worked on. It does not help that HTF's actual spinoff, KA-POW!!, fell into Stillborn Franchise.
• Crack Pairing: The fans seem fond of making these and Ships That Pass in the Night. See that trope for examples.
• Creepy Awesome: Fliqpy. Yes, he is a brutal murderer, but that's what it makes his fans see him as a badass character.
• Creepy Cute: Fliqpy in a way. Yes, his Slasher Smile makes him look terrifying and he is a cold-blooded killer who provides some of the show's creepier moments, but he retains the cute body and bright colors. And come on, his facial features aren't that scary.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Adorable and cute characters dying horrible deaths is one thing. There is some Dead Baby Comedy, courtesy of Cub, who isn't even out of his diapers and dies just as gruesomely, is another.
• Dancing Bear: The show had no continuity, dialogue, or character development, the animation was crude, and there's almost zero story; its entire draw was "cute cartoon animals being killed off in incredibly violent and bloody ways". This was fresh and innovative at the time it first started airing, but pigeonholing itself into this sole gimmick is believed to have led to its decline, as the shock value of the gore gradually wore off, which was a big problem when that was the only thing the series had going for it.
• Delusion Conclusion: Because the series has a habit of killing off characters only to have them come back to die again ad infinitum, many theories have sprung up to explain this, including that it's all in someone's head, whether a hallucination, a game, or an imagining.
• Designated Hero:
  • Lumpy, Pop, and the Mole in most of their starring roles. No matter how well they mean, they usually make things worse for everyone else and get off scot-free (usually).
  • While the above examples are likely intentional, the Ants have always been portrayed as in the right, even when the fans hate them for torturing Sniffles (going far beyond self-defense).
• Designated Monkey: As many fans have taken notice, Sniffles and Petunia often get the short end of the stick. While they don't die as often as other characters, they usually get some of the most painful, slowest, and messiest deaths the show has to offer.
• Designated Villain: Sniffles, specifically in "Suck it Up". Usually, it's Sniffles that causes the conflict, but in this episode, the Ants do. And Sniffles is seen as the antagonist because he rightfully gets mad and attempts to fight back.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Nutty's inability to pay attention to certain things as well as not being able to sit/stand still, hints towards ADHD, and his large appetite towards candy hints towards him having a binge-eating disorder. He's also shown signs of sociopathy as he doesn't care about the lives of others (he sometimes even laughs at the carnage around him).
  • Russell seems to have some sort of insanity complex, perhaps a form of PTSD, as shown in "Get Whale Soon" and "Snow Place to Go".
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Flippy/Flaky fans voiced their outrage when the Love Bites short "On My Mind" came out, which featured Flippy on a date with Giggles.
  • Cuddles/Giggles has fans who could not imagine either of them in other pairings, even though Giggles has dated several others in the show.
  • Handy is hated by Shifty/Petunia and (to a lesser extent) Toothy/Petunia fans for conflicting with Shiftunia and Toothtunia. While the hate has died down a bit in recent years, fans who ship Petunia with other people are still a little upset.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Girls just can't seem to stop pairing up Flippy with their original characters... or just Flaky. His PTSD also makes him sympathetic in some viewers' eyes, and although Lumpy usually murders Flippy out of self-defense, Flippy is often used as a reason to hate the blue moose. That said, Flippy is only a Draco when he turns into Fliqpy — otherwise, he's a sweetheart.
  • Lifty and Shifty is an interesting case, as fans will usually keep them as troublemakers and thieves while downplaying their worst traits. This includes skimping on their outright murdering of other Tree Friends, which, intentional or not, they are usually unfazed by. This is especially the case with Lifty, who is often portrayed as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who only does what Shifty tells him to do in fear of making him mad.
  • Sniffles, who often is viewed as the hapless victim in the rivalry between him and the ants. While the Ants would leash some Disproportionate Retribution onto Sniffles, most the fans tend to not realize (or even flat out ignore) how Sniffles is going after a family of ants that are very much sapient and had no qualms over eating the youngest member. This doesn't even factor in Sniffles' persistently chasing the same family of ants who had put him through torture on every encounter.
  • While Lumpy is often controversial because of his stupidity, other characters with a personality and stupidity similar to him often have their signature vice downplayed or overlooked:
    • Pop tends to be easily forgiven for all the flaws he have, with several fans seeing him as a flawed but ultimately well meaning father. While he is proven to genuinely love his son, his irresponsible behavior often puts Cub at risk, and though you can argue that some of Cub's deaths were caused by someone else, it is often because of Pop's neglect anyway. Although Pop's notoriety isn't so bad when compared to the likes of Lumpy or even Flippy, his survival rate is technically higher than both of theirs' (yes, even Flippy's), while his kill count is on par with Lumpy's. Pop has even gone as far as to inflict deliberate pain onto his son in rare instances. To name a few examples - hammering objects into Cub's face regardless of the pain he shows, using extreme methods to dislodge his son out of a kitchen sink like fracturing his exposed bone or tying a rope around Cub's neck to yank him out, and even killing him on purpose when he mistakenly assumed Cub was still possessed by a demon.
    • Splendid is often portrayed as a competent (or at least good intended) superhero. In truth, Splendid is incompetent at his duties and seems to neglect those who he is supposed to rescue. "Gem The Breaks" shows that Splendid is willing to kill innocent bystanders if they get in the way of his mission.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Splendont, Splendid's Evil Counterpart, only appeared in one episode and not even in the main series (he appeared in the "Ka-Pow!" spin-off), and yet his popularity rivals that of some of the main characters.
  • Despite only appearing for a brief 30 seconds in one episode before being killed off, Flippy's comrades, Sneaky and Mouse Ka-Boom (especially the latter), have as many fans as the examples above. The Tiger General from the same Spin-Off also has his fans for being a Four-Star Badass extraordinaire and for being the only character in the whole franchise to fight Fliqpy on equal terms.
  • After the first Truffles's Video Bomb Competition ended and the digital trading cards were released in packs, expect to see one or two characters featured in each pack to be this. Some fans even wish that those characters end up in the actual show instead of the winners, cameo or not.
  • FatKat's mascot, who only appears as The Cameo in "Take Your Seat". Quite a few fans unaware of the character's origins love his and want to see more of his appearance in regular episodes, despite the fact that it's just a guest cameo.^note FatKat being the animation studio responsible for the TV series.
  • Truffles has an ironic fandom of his own, usually to diss Lammy and Mr. Pickels, if not the entire cast except himself. But there are also genuine fans of him, usually wishing for him to be a main character one day.
  • Lammy has appeared in very few episodes because of her late arrival, yet her popularity is almost on par with the other females. She is especially this in regards to being paired up with Mr. Pickels; usually, it's Lammy who gets a sizable fanbase and all the attention.
  • The soldier bear from "In Over Your Hedge" is considered to be the most intriguing among the Faceless Masses (well, while also literally faceless) according to the fandom, as not only he has a full design instead of being a silhouette in the background but also a more unique and defined design not seen anywhere else in the show considering the show's tendency to recycle graphical assets.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Despite (or maybe because of) being an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer, Fliqpy is a fan favorite. His character is widely viewed as badass, especially since he kills his victims in creative ways.
  • While only appearing in one Ka-Pow episode, The Tiger General gets this treatment as well. Especially since he is so far the only character to have actually been able to fight against Fliqpy.
• Fan Myopia: The series has its share of overzealous fans who don't understand why the show has budget problems and will feel personally offended if you point out the series' flaws (such as the writers still relying on the series' shock value when other contemporary shows with similar themes tried diversifying). This reaches hypocritical levels when the same fans would be willing to, say, donate to a fan animator's Patreon instead of the actual showrunners (and worse, the fan animator would be free to boast how they can do better than Mondo).
• Fan Nickname:
  • The name "cursed idol" came from a fan art. It is officially referred to as simply the "idol" or sometimes "talisman".
  • The unnamed background characters are nicknamed "Generic Tree Friends". A similar case goes for the ninjas that Buddhist Monkey fights which are called "Generic Tree Ninjas".
  • The villainous rat seen in "Mole in the City" actually has No Name Given. Most people just call him The Rat.
  • The general that Flippy and his comrades fight is usually referred to as the Tiger General. The closest thing to an official name for him is actually The General.
  • The sensei is also called the Sensei Orangutan by most fans. In a blog, he was just referred to as the Master.
  • Sniffles' ancestor, as seen in "Blast from the Past", is given the nickname "Prehistoric Sniffles". In the DVD commentary for the TV show, he is referred to as "Cro-Sniffles". In the storyboards for the episode, he was given the name "Cave Sniffles", making his actual name unclear.
  • The main villain of the Buddhist Monkey series is an unnamed dragon who appears only in silhouette, who's nicknamed "The Dark Shadow Lord".
  • Sometimes, Fliqpy is given the name "Evil Flippy". Interestingly enough, some blogs for the show have used that name on occasion. On the flip side, Flippy's normal self is sometimes called "Good Flippy". As a matter of fact, the name Fliqpy itself could also be considered one. While it does come from a canon source, the fans use it far more extensively to refer to him than the actual crew, who instead tend to use the aforementioned "Evil Flippy" or variations thereof.
  • A frame that appears during old episodes that is completely different from what it's supposed to be (see Blooper in the Trivia page) is dubbed "Quick Shot Moments" by fans. The wiki on Fandom uses this name.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Even though Cuddles/Giggles and Handy/Petunia are official couples, in the anime fandom Giggles is commonly paired with Splendid, while Petunia is often paired with both Flippy and Shifty.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • DO NOT mistake any well-known fan-made character as a canon character. At best, you'll drown in disappointment, but at least other fans are willing to simply correct you on that. At worst, you'll be shouted at by the more hostile fans, especially if they don't like the idea of fan characters in general (which also isn't helped by the idea of Truffles's Video Bomb Competition).
  • During the post-TV series era, saying that Flippy has fully gotten over his flip-outs was enough to garner wrath of fans. It didn't help that the next time a flipped-out Flippy appears, it's only in Flaky's imagination ("Without a Hitch"). The fanbase has calmed down since the release of the Love Bite short "On My Mind", which depicts Flippy flipping out.
  • Character concept-wise, mentioning that the cast is a complete rip-off of Care Bears characters will anger certain fans.
  • Fans that have done their research don't like hearing FatKat being referred to as a permanent part of the cast. FatKat is neither a canon HTF character nor a fan character; he's a guest character (for a single HTF Break) who is simply a HTF version of an animation studio's mascot.
  • Referring to Flippy and Fliqpy as the same character will mash quite a few buttons. From a physical standpoint, they are, but given the sheer night-and-day difference between the two, trying to blame Flippy for something that Fliqpy did can grate some nerves.
  • Taking Mondo's official statement about Flaky's gender as canon is enough to enrage the more hardcore, progressive Flaky fans. The show's crew members remain vague about it, with Kenn Navarro even not liking the mystery being blown like that according to his Reddit AMA done years after the statement. It is still okay to refer Flaky as female (as most official media tend to use this interpretation), but insisting it is canon is not.
  • "It's not a TV episode! It's a segment! Call it 'One Foot in the Grave' for episode and 'The Wrong Side of the Tracks' for segment, you idiot and liar!" —Certain HTF fans
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • When My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic was growing in popularity, some HTF fans took offense at the show "taking" the other fans away. Not helped by the HTF Social forum ending up talking more about MLP and lambasting anything HTF during the 2010-2011 hiatus. While there are some that enjoy both, it took a while for the rivalry to cool down.
  • HTF and other Mondo Media show fandoms tend to not play well with each other, but none are more notable than Dick Figures. When the show debuted amidst the 2010-2011 hiatus and became popular, some HTF fans used to whine that Dick Figures is stealing the spotlight while Dick Figures fans were tired of whiny HTF fanbrats requesting the same thing to be published over and over again. In the end, Dick Figures managed to overthrow HTF in both rating and financial success while HTF ended up wallowing in obscurity as Mondo had less interest in HTF and gained more success from the newer hard-hitters.
  • Back when it was still relevant, the Shoddy Knockoff Product London Mobile Buddies (now known as MobéBuds) somehow gained fans, ironically or not, and considering its notoriety, the two fandoms do not get along well. And the less said about LMB's creator, the better.
  • There is an example with the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom (when otherwise they can be Friendly Fandoms), particularly regarding the games post-Sonic Colors, as some Sonic fans (and even non-fans) loathe the writing done by Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, calling them hacks and in turn using the show as a reason to back their hate. When the HTF fandom learned of this, they were baffled by the surprising hate, and naturally hated the haters back.
  • A small but vocal part of the fanbase has been critical of Star vs. the Forces of Evil due to the character Sean heavily resembling Lumpy. Of course, this alternates with Friendly Fandoms for the same reason.
• Fandom VIP:
  • As one probably may have guessed from some of the other entries, French animator Nemao is a pretty big figure in the HTF community thanks to his wide variety of HTF fanworks.
  • Sebastian Rodriguez is another HTF content creator who is well known among the fandom, thanks to his acclaimed Happy Tree Friends: Amnesia series.
• Fanon:
  • Fans try to apply Flintstone Theming to locations or objects of interest in the show. Any variation of the show's title and woodland-related puns are welcome.
  • It's not uncommon for fanfics to attribute the characters’ tendency to die and come back to life in the next episode to their world being subjected to some kind of curse or another supernatural phenomenon that makes its inhabitants die in horrible and gruesome ways every single day, before resetting everything, dooming everyone to an eternity of torture. Whether the characters are aware of this and remember their deaths depends on the story.
    • Some go even further and have said curses also warp the character’s personalities, usually by accentuating their worst traits, like Flippy’s PTSD and Lammy’s apparent schizophrenia (leading to Insane Equals Violent), Nutty’s addiction to candy, Shifty’s callousness towards his brother, Pop's incompetency as a parent, Lumpy’s lethal idiocy, and so on.
  • Fans also do not have any problems putting Spin-Off characters into the main show's setting and have them interact with the main cast, no matter how out of place they are.
  • For an example that actually involves the show's assets, any interpretation of the characters in CartoonStar's (or htfgames.com) works is considered this. So, bikini-wearing Cuddles and Giggles, half-melted Cro-Marmot, Mole with visible mouth, etc.... all non-canon.
  • If a given character has a disability (Handy's lack of hands, for example), fans will try to come up with a background story that explains it.
  • While most Happy Tree Friends characters have so far shown attraction to their opposite sex, a few characters have widely accepted LGBTQ sexualities declared by fans.
    • Fans are completely lenient on making Toothy gay, even claiming this to be his sexuality in canon. In particular, a few scenes in the show, such as Toothy being the only male character who cheers for Lumpy in "Wipe Out!" also caused viewers to genuinely run with this interpretation. Furthermore, he's one of the few male characters who's never seen going on a date with Giggles.
    • Cuddles is commonly interpreted as being bisexual, due to being in a relationship with Giggles and the frequent Ho Yay between him and Toothy.
    • Flaky was confirmed to be a female. However, as her gender previously spawned a controversy, plenty of fans welcome the idea of Flaky being transgender, nonbinary, or genderfluid.
    • Pop and Disco Bear are a popular ship in spite of almost never even sharing the same episode together. Given that Pop has a biological son and Disco Bear constantly flirts with Giggles and Petunia, it's pretty much accepted that the two are either bisexuals or closeted homosexuals.
  • To parallel Giggles the chipmunk's seen mother in "Helping Helps", many Fan Works feature a mother of the Screwball Squirrel Nutty as well.
  • Because he seem to rarely feel grief whenever someone near him dies, Handy is widely believed to be a sociopath.
  • Most fanon pairings are way more popular than ones in canon and are frequently implemented into fanfics. For instance, Disco Bear/Pop and Flippy/Flaky are considered the most iconic pairings in the fandom aside from Cuddles/Giggles and Petunia/Handy.
  • Although most of the cast have black Pie Eyes at most, it is pretty common for the Tree Friends to be depicted with visible eye colors. Cuddles is usually drawn with blue eyes, while the other characters might be drawn with iris sharing the color of their fur.
    • Because the "Collect Them All" section in the First Blood DVD claims that The Mole has blue eyes, he is usually drawn with blue eyes whenever he's not illustrated wearing glasses in fan art.
  • Given his frequency to suffer eye injuries, Toothy is usually drawn with a scar or glass eye.
  • Even though Disco Bear, Flippy, and Pop all rarely interact with one another, many fanworks have depicted them as a trio.
  • This often happens with some characters with parts of their body always covered: Handy being drawn with ears ^note With the exception of two episodes, Handy doesn't actually seem to have visible ears., Pop with a belly marking (which seems to be unlikely considering his son Cub lacks one), etc.
  • While almost everyone in the show has inconsistent ages at best, a few characters have them consistently estimated by the fanbase. With Shifty in particular, his Myspace once stated that his age was 27 and most fans were confident that this number was his canon age.
  • Flippy has never been stated to have fought in Vietnam. The war he has fought in was just referred to as "Weaponized Animal Regiment" (or "W.A.R" for short). Of course, most fans assume W.A.R is an alternative name for Vietnam in the HTF Universe.
  • Since Fliqpy has never killed Cub, Handy, or The Mole (at least voluntarily), most fans have interpreted it as him following a moral code that prevents him from killing handicaps or infants. Additionally, on some occasions, Fliqpy also spares Flaky from his sadistic killings. You can probably tell where this is going.
  • In fanworks where the characters are given more humanoid designs (or are outright humanized), it's not uncommon for folks to depict Flippy as being Covered with Scars brought on from his time during W.A.R.
  • Most humanization works made by Japanese fans of the show consistently give Flaky a sweater, likely to reflect her timid nature.
  • Because Flippy lost both of his arms in "Operation: Tiger Bomb" (which serves as his backstory), a very popular fanon involves him with scars and stitches on his arms to indicate that they were reattached.
• Fanwork-Only Fans: Due to the stomach turning and rather formulaic nature of the series, a lot of fans find themselves engaging in the fanworks more than the show itself. Whether it's for fleshing out the characters, toning down the gore, or the frequent Alternate Universe Fics that often play a lot of the series' stables for drama.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Any ship involving Evil Flippy or the Lifty and Shifty duo.
  • Evil Flippy x The Tiger General has been seen.
  • Oddly, a few have come around to shipping Sniffles with the female Ants.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Five Nights at Freddy's, another bloody series about brightly colored Funny Animal characters.
  • As mentioned on the Fandom Rivalry above, Sonic the Hedgehog, another franchise with Funny Animal characters. In fact, both fandoms might as well have a counterpart comparison of their own, mainly that both are notorious for low quality when it comes to fan characters.
  • Also with South Park, another animated series that is done in a brightly colored style, is filled to the brim with violence and has had its fair share of controversy, even predating Happy Tree Friends by two years. This is especially evident among Japanese fans.
  • A minor example, but they have been this with MAD as well, simply because the German version of the magazine happened to cover the show in two issues released in 2004 and 2007. Coincidentally, the 2004 issue's portrait involved a crossover with South Park, although the 2007 one also had it with SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • With Friday Night Funkin', thanks in large part to two mods (both of which center around Flippy) that were partially responsible for the Newbie Boom of the franchise, and how the game was a sendoff to old-school flash animations, including HTF.invoked
  • Since the release of Chapter 3 of Poppy Playtime, there had been an overlap between fans of this video game and Happy Tree Friends. Specifically, fans have compared HTF's and Poppy Playtime's Smiling Critters' Care Bears-esque character designs mixed with child-unfriendly themes (though the former is for Black Comedy while the latter is played for horror), to the point there are even crossover fan art depicting the Smiling Critters as if they were in Happy Tree Friends.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show's garnered a following in Japan, to the point that exclusive merchandise has been made in that country. Certain characters are more popular overseas as well; there's a particular contrast in popularity between East and West regarding Lumpy and Mime (the former is a Base-Breaking Character while the latter is generally overlooked), whereof the former sometimes receives disturbing amounts of love.
  • Judging by the amount of German and Czech HTF products, it also seems to have a following in Germany and the Czech Republic.

H-Z

• Harsher in Hindsight: The HTF crew's various attempts to fund the show starting from The New '10s became this when, disregarding the factor where the show's dated formula making it not as much of a Web Animation juggernaut as it was back then, it was discovered that MondoMedia was indeed having difficulty earning money through YouTube despite its massive playlist due to being demonetized.^note This also explained several of their other popular hits like Dick Figures abruptly stopping. This bit was explained by Mondo themselves early in 2024. And before this self-admission, James Farr of the Super Smash Wars fame made a comment under the "Too Much Scream Time" video where he expressed skepticism of Mondo behind the scenes, as when he was partnered with Mondo he was unable to be paid back due to Mondo allegedly "going out of business."
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Fans have been suggesting Splendid fight Flippy, much to the creators' dismay. The Deadeye Derby mobile game eventually included a boss fight with Flippy. With Splendid being a playable character, it is now officially possible to see it happen. As Flippy isn't playable in the game, Splendid wins.
  • Sniffles being an expy of Arthur the aardvark becomes a lot funnier when you realize both characters started out with long snouts that got shorter over time.
• Ho Yay:
  • Flippy/Splendid is probably the most popular pairing after Flippy/Flaky in Japan. One of the main reasons may be that people always wanted them to fight each other so that they could see who would win.
  • Lumpy and The Mole have actually dated in one episode (although The Mole was unaware of it, and Lumpy was dead), so it is a fairly popular couple. Shipping Lumpy with Russell is also common due to Russell being a fanboy of Lumpy in the Copyright School and a few other episodes where they get along well.
  • Especially on Pixiv, certain shippers like the idea of Disco Bear becoming Cub's second dad after entering a relationship with Pop.^note Oddly enough, despite them both being bears, these shippers rarely joke about either being The Bear.
  • Going hand to hand with the Fanon of Toothy being gay, he is frequently shipped with Cuddles. This pairing is possibly the most popular Ho Yay couple in the fandom, which is understandable, as they form the most prominent friendship in the show.
  • It's implied that Sniffles and Nutty are good friends (the former even shakes the latter's hand in the False Alarm episode), so it's a fairly popular couple.
  • In a lesser fashion, Giggles and Petunia fall into this trope, as they're often portrayed as very close friends.
• Hype Backlash: The Best Happy Tree Friends Character Tournament poll results were considered predictable by name, seeing as the last two characters standing in the final voting session were Flippy (who eventually became the winner) and Flaky.
• Incest Yay Shipping:
  • For some reason, Shifty/Lifty is very popular among the yaoi crowd.
  • The Splendid x Splendont shipping could arguably be another example, though others see it more as Selfcest, considering Splendont came from a mirror.
• Iron Woobie: Handy; fans often feel awful for him for being an amputee, but he doesn't let said condition stop him from tackling a situation. It also doesn't help that he has one of the lowest survival rates in the series.^note Which also goes for the TV series. Take, for example, "Change in Heart", where he is the only character that dies in the episode. What hammers this home: right before his epic death in "Don't Yank My Chain", he just lets out a little whimper.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The general consensus of the "Still Alive" package. While fans were happy with five additional episodes after the two-year-long hiatus, the episodes themselves barely clock into the two-minute mark, minus the intro and credits. The episodes themselves also were met with average reception by fans (minus "An Inconvenient Tooth", which was positively received, and "In Over Your Hedge", which was more divisive). Most feel that it's only worth the six dollars if you want to support the creators.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • Part of what caused the series' decline in popularity is the fact that there were very few attempts to shake up the formula of the show, with detractors/former fans criticizing HTF's reliance on shock value as eventually becoming tiresome and too predictable.
  • On the technical side, fans have wished the show would be better animated after so many years instead of being bound by Adobe Flash/Animate's limitations, considering that the storyboards, official sketches, and other related works (KA-POW!! and guest director shorts like "Dino-Sore Days") have proven that the crew is capable of more artstyle variety instead of just recycling what they already have. They are also sick of the TV series artstyle which only grew stiffer over time and wish for a new, proper Art Evolution for the show already.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains:
  • While it goes without saying that Fliqpy is one of the only characters to intentionally kill others on a regular basis, Lumpy, Pop, Splendid, and The Mole are more hated by the fanbase. While all of them are responsible for many deaths in the series' run, the latter four have a far worse reputation, given their habit of killing others through stupidity, selfishness, or even malice. It doesn't help how that, while Fliqpy has a Freudian Excuse and is used sparingly, Lumpy, Pop, Splendid, and The Mole's episodes revolving around their flaws often come across as stale and formulaic to viewers.
  • There are also the Ants, who, despite their actions being (partly) in self-defense, are the most despised characters for their Cold-Blooded Torture of Sniffles. While Flipqy has killed others in horrific ways, he does have a lot of charm, something the Ants do not have.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Sniffles constantly tries to eat the ants, but that doesn't justify how much cold-blooded torture he suffers from them.
  • Pop can be a very neglectful and irresponsible father, but he always has a mental breakdown anytime his son dies or is injured, which happens a lot. In "Water Way to Go", he believes he lost Cub in the ocean (when in reality he had accidentally run him over with his boat) and desperately does anything he can to find him, complete with heavy breathing and baggy eyes. What's worse, the episode ends right there.
  • When he's not a normal Woobie, Handy falls into this. His general Lack of Empathy towards other characters who are killed in front of him (save for Petunia and The Mole) takes a few sympathy points away from him, but it doesn't take away the fact that he gets some of the most frequent and gruesome deaths in the series, not to mention that his disability carries on to the next episode unlike the other characters who suffer similar predicaments to his.
  • Lifty and Shifty steal, are often very unsympathetic (but loveable), and usually deserve what happens to them, but their deaths are some of the most sadistic. The fact that the show portrays them to be robbing out of poverty doesn't help.
  • Fliqpy might be a murderer, but he can't really control his actions and seems to regret it in his main "Flippy" persona.
  • Disco Bear in "Easy Comb, Easy Go" when he cries over his Traumatic Haircut. In that same episode, it's implied that he is only pretending to be an egoist due to self-esteem issues.
• Karmic Overkill: Although Lifty and Shifty have their moments, Sniffles deserves a special mention. Sure, he clearly wants to eat the Ants. However, their retaliations easily fall under Cold-Blooded Torture and Disproportionate Retributions, with "Tongue in Cheek" being the most notable. Yes, the anteater is trying to eat them again and he gets their home destroyed, although it's unclear exactly how intentional the latter is.^note The destruction occurred from the inside and we only see what's happening on the outside. The Ants respond by sadistically torturing him in brutal ways even for a series like this one. Also, they give him easily the most painful death (or, at the very least, easily one of the most painful deaths) in the entire franchise.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Flippy has been paired up with just about everyone: Flaky, Splendid, Giggles, various fan characters, himself...
  • Giggles is a technical canon example of this. Since she Really Gets Around and has several love interests throughout the show, there are many popular ships involving her.
  • Petunia is slowly starting to become this. She's been shipped with Handy, Mime, Giggles, Flaky or Lammy, Toothy, and even Lifty or Shifty.
  • Even Cuddles to an extent. Fans have paired him with Giggles, Toothy, Flaky, Lumpy, and even Flippy.
  • Within the Ka-Pow gang, Mouse Ka-Boom and Splendont have proven surprisingly popular. Some examples include Mouse Ka-Boom being paired with Flippy, Flaky, or even Giggles, while Splendont is often seen with Lifty, Flaky, and Evil Flippy.
• Love to Hate: Fliqpy may be a psychotic mass murderer, but his absolutely gruesome and surprisingly badass kills are seen as some of the best of the show, making him one of the (if not the) most popular characters in the series.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • A scene from "Letter Late Than Never" in which Cuddles finds Cub's pizza-like corpse inside a flattened box. This has been featured in a series of internet fads known as "Dear, I Found _ in the Pizza Box", where an image would replace Cub's body, usually either something completely silly, such as Morshu giving the middle finger with both hands, or, because of Cuddles' shocked reaction, something that the creator dislikes, such as The Twilight Saga.
  • i think netflix is broken / its not its not its not its not its n^ExplanationA series of tumblr posts from 2017 in which the user finds the show on Netflix's list of dark TV shows and clicks on it before finding out the show's true nature. The post got so many notes over the years that the user changed their URL.
  • welcome to social^ExplanationAround 2008 or so, MondoMedia launched the Happy Tree Friends Social website... But by the time The New '10s rolled around, the remaining regulars barely talked about the show at all. The phrase refers to the utter confusion newcomers might have had to the (often Not Safe for Work) chats that have absolutely nothing to do with the show. The Questionable Times of Happy Tree Friends Social is a Tumblr blog archiving some of these moments.
  • The quote "Can't compete with fan animators"^ExplanationThe show's notorious hiatuses have always been caused by funding problems, whereas fan animator Nemao has managed to make a sizable revenue out of his fanmade works. Nemao himself smugly pointing this out has spread the meme further, specifically the last quote.
  • Disco Bear's a simp ^ExplanationWhen the word "simp" began being used in 2020, many Happy Tree Friends fans began using this word to describe Disco Bear and his attempts to flirt with Giggles and Petunia.
• Memetic Molester: Disco Bear, an adult character who often flirts with Petunia and Giggles, a pair frequently depicted as children or teenagers, usually gets called this.
• Memetic Psychopath: As Handy rarely shows any grievance or remorse at his friends' deadly misfortune, plenty of fans have referred to him as a sociopath.
• Mind Game Ship: Fliqpy ships, in general, tend to run on this.
  • Lammy x Truffles can jokingly fall under this category, as some fans believe his photobomb appearances are actually him stalking her.
  • Some portray Shifty as being manipulative, with him sweet-talking Flaky or Giggles.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Quite a lot of people make OC Tree Friends (many of them using more human names instead of cartoony-sounding ones that invoke Punny Name and/or Meaningful Name) and pair them off with characters, just like in any other popular fandom.
  • There's a surprising lack of gory fanart within the fandom; fans opt for more realistic violence and grimdark tones instead. On the other side of the coin, some fans prefer the pure Sugar Bowl aspects of the show and remove all the graphic violence.
  • Overall, it seems that there's just as much of a fandom for the character designs and "pre-continuity" Sugar Bowl as there is for the main show.^ExplanationHardly any continuity, characters who could be interesting if developed enough, and opportunities for just about any genre with them — truly a fanwriter's (or artist's) dream, as your imagination is the limit while you still can "cash in" on how obscure fanwriters receive more attention than obscure writers of original works.
  • The point of this show is to appear as a cruel Subverted Kids' Show whose shock value lies in cute cartoon animals living in an innocent-looking Sugar Bowl getting killed in various ways, even ways not logically possible in real life. Also helps that the show runs on negative continuity to keep the cast going and come up with more ways to kill them. Cue the fans who try to apply continuity to the show and/or make up OC relatives to the cast.
  • Fans also tend to miss the show's appeal of being purely reliant on actions and visual gags for its humor. Written text In-Universe is very rarely used in the show, only limited to Freeze-Frame Bonus Easter Eggs and special occasions (such as in the Smoochies). Even if a character's speech is nearly intelligible, it is usually done as a gag without sacrificing the action. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the infamous promoted fan episode "All Work and No Belay" got panned so much...
  • Even fans that are into the Black Comedy aspects of the show tend to fall into one simple mistake: death by guns. The show's creators actually loathe this type of killing method, stating that it's cheap to the point they dismiss any existence of guns in the world of Happy Tree Friends. A more improvised and creative "gun-like" use (like in W.A.R. Journal) is more preferred.
  • The Love Bites already made it clear that the collection is of anti-Valentine's Day Episode with the included message being punny takes on break-up messages, yet fans still see these shorts as genuine Valentine's Day episodes, never mind there are regular episodes of the latter type ("A Sucker for Love" and "I Nub You"), and would hope that any new Love Bites short would feature a ship they wanted to see.
  • Speaking of shipping, look at the many shipping-related YMMV entries on this page and try to wonder if the show has always been entirely focused on that instead of, well, cute critters dying horribly.
  • Modern fans, typically those originating from Tumblr or, in general, The New '10s tend to take the disability aspects of certain characters, whether physically like Handy's lack of hands or mentally like Petunia's OCD, too seriously when they are meant to be Played for Laughs as part of Crossing the Line Twice Black Comedy and thus for the mental ones they are not supposed to be an accurate depiction of the real thing, just typical comical exaggerration in fiction befitting the show's theme. Yet debates started anyway and some fans even felt offended by this aspect of the show.
  • Character examples:
    • Splendid fans tend to emphasize his good superhero archetype and make him almost always able to save the day, forgetting the fact that he's an Idiot Hero who's Played for Laughs.
    • Certain Flippy fans, mostly ones involved with shipping, invoke the classic Draco in Leather Pants. This is usually done by removing his flip-out tendencies (thus missing the point of his name), toning down his evil side for shipping purposes, and making his flipped-out mode able to spare targets out of his affection for them, among many other things. Then there are those who decided to literally split Fliqpy from Flippy without any justification, a la his mental battle from "Autopsy Turvy/Double Whammy pt. 2". These fans basically forget that Flippy is a Rambo Expy, and the tension building to his flip-outs is basically one of the show's running gags.
    • Truffles fans, especially the more genuine ones. Many of these fans tend to beg Mondo to make Truffles into a main character instead of being demoted to background cameos, pretty much missing the point of the "Vote or Die" event.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The sounds of the tree friends laughing and chattering happily, as heard at the beginning of episodes such as "From A to Zoo" and "Remains To Be Seen".
• Nausea Fuel: If you're sensitive to hyper-violence, then it might not be a very good idea to eat while watching this show.
  • Petunia drinking disgusting algae-filled water in "Take a Hike".
  • Flippy's swollen lips getting cut off by the closing iris in "Party Animal" might be hard to look at depending on the type of person you are.
  • In "Tongue in Cheek", Sniffles attempts to use a mind-control device on the ants he intends to eat. Big mistake. The ants reverse its effects so that they control him and then proceed to force him to brutally torture himself.
  • In "Eyes Cold Lemonade", Giggles (who is blind due to bandages wrapped around her head) mistaking Petunia's eyeball for a lemon, juicing it, and uses it to make "lemonade". And drinking it.
• Nightmare Fuel: Does have its own page, but mainly if any small children accidentally watch it (we tried to warn you). And some older viewers too, if they aren't into that sort of thing.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Complaints about Freemium games aside, probably the only game worth belonging here is the iOS-exclusive Happy Tree Friends: Deadeye Derby, an online one-on-one FPS game based on the episode "Camp Pokeneyeout". It makes use of the smartphone's features quite well (gyroscope and touch screen) and has fun gameplay, either against other players or bosses. Aside from gameplay, if you're a collector, you can win/earn actual HTF merchandise from this game (obviously, it needs to be shipped). It also has one feature rarely implemented on other games of this type: You can also gain premium currency by exchanging the regular currency with the former.
• Once Original, Now Common: The show had a large following back during the 2000s and early 2010s, due to its premise of a Gorn-filled Subverted Kids' Show web series being very unique during the period when the internet was still gaining public popularity and professional content creators were relatively rare online (enough for it to get a season on TV). Nowadays, that obviously isn't the case anymore, because digital animation had become increasingly accessible, meaning high-quality works with similar themes and appeal are now a dime-a-dozen. There's also the fact that these subsequent works generally understand hooking and keeping an audience requires more than one gimmick, which is believed to be the reason Happy Tree Friends fell into obscurity and faced a halt in production by the mid-2010s, since its creators made no real attempt to diversify the series and kept gory shock value as its sole draw (which eventually wore off).
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • The 2010-2011 period is more well-remembered for the accusations that Mondo stole the "All Work and No Belay" fan episode (even though it was put in the Fan Fest section, a section specifically for promoting fanwork) and the many fans jumping ship from that. The fan-made short itself, in turn, ends up being associated with the downfall of what is left of the show instead of a product of love from the fans.
  • The Still Alive announcement is more well-known for gating the new episodes behind a paywall despite promises of free public release (which they did later).
• Periphery Demographic: One would be surprised to see that children, especially those below the age of 13, can also be fans of this show despite the show's joke-y disclaimer "Not for small children or big babies!".
• Popular with Furries: Most fan works feature the characters as humans, but nevertheless, it attracts furries.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: While most official (or officially approved in the case of the games in htfgames.com) HTF games tend to be So Okay, It's Average due to being plain arcade games or just one of those "generic" Flash games, the absolute low point when it comes to the games is probably Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm for the Xbox and PC. Before the smartphone games, it was the only major release (the older mobile games are rather obscure), and it's the only one to be released for a console, at that. Graphically, it stays true to the show, but perhaps too much. The mostly solid bright colors look unpleasant, the Happy Tree Friends' 3D models look plain (what with the stiff, flat face whose expression only changes when he/she gets certain injuries), and the blood and gore graphics might as well not be "gory"-looking at all. Gameplay-wise, it's just an uninspired Lemmings lookalike minus the behavior-changers (you can only either freeze, thaw out, scare off, or burn the Happy Tree Friends) but with more Artificial Stupidity. While every level has environment-based gimmicks and traps, they all still feel the same. Also, the game's rather short (at around 2 hours quickest), it doesn't make use of all HTF characters (not counting the episode that comes with the game and the Xbox achievements' pictures, only 8 out of 20 (Lammy and Mr. Pickels didn't exist yet) main characters are in-game) and the special episode it promises is already readily watchable on YouTube officially and in its entirety.
• Recurring Fanon Character:
  • Ale is a grey wolf character created by AleEvilSoldier on DeviantArt. She became so popular that some fans mistook her for a canon character.
  • Rainbroach's (formerly yoshi-lord) fan characters, especially the vaguely feline Fresko, were among the many fan characters that symbolized the show's fandom during mid-2000s.
  • Lemy the lemur was also a popular one due to the artist attached to, Doctor-Lemur (formerly zolrac3005), being an early example of a fan animator that managed to ape the official HTF artstyle and combine it with Darker and Edgier military-based stories, which other fans tended to copy as well, even including Lemy and other zolrac-associated characters.
  • Thanks to Nemao's general popularity, it's no surprise that his character Snowers (a winged tanuki) became such a well-liked character among the fanbase.
  • The growing popularity of Sebastian Rodriguez' Happy Tree Friends: Amnesia series has led to his character Xebas becoming one of the most popular OCs in the fanbase, thanks to his absolutely mysterious presence and being the source of the amnesia plague.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Disco Bear, specifically during the TV series. He went from being the annoying Casanova Wannabe to a more layered character. In "Change of Heart", he's shown to be an unhealthy eater, in "Ipso Fatso", he attempts to lose weight by exercising (with minimal success), and "Easy Come, Easy Go" implies that he might suffer from low self-esteem. This has made him go from being the most unliked character into being one of the most well-liked.
  • Petunia, while certainly not disliked, didn't have much of a personality, to begin with, and wasn't a talked-about character. She was pretty much a different colored Giggles. Come her Neat Freak persona in the TV series, however, and she's considered one of the most interesting.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Often for Fliqpy. The most notable case is "By the Seat of Your Pants", where many viewers were against Lumpy for killing Fliqpy in an act of self-defense.
  • A good number of people root for Sniffles to win against the Ants (especially in "Suck it Up" where they start the conflict by messing with Sniffles and getting off scot-free and "Tongue in Cheek", where they mercilessly torture him).
  • Lifty and Shifty, but to a much lesser extent than the above.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Lumpy. There are genuine criticisms, such as having by far the biggest case of Spotlight-Stealing Squad in the show, especially in the TV series. He also gets chastised for having the highest kill count and occasional villainous role while frequently surviving at the expense of others. What Lumpy's critics tend to forget is that while he has one of the higher survival rates, the chance of him dying in an episode is 50/50, and because of how often he appears, his death count is arguably as high as Cuddles'. Additionally, some of Lumpy's deaths are among the most brutal and painful in the series ("Wishy Washy", "Letter Late than Never", "The Chokes on You", "I Got You Under My Skin"), and the episodes that have him be deliberately callous always kill him off. Due to the target rarely being on Pop, whose most frequent victim is his own son and has a higher survival rate than Flippy, or Splendid, who always gets away with his apathy except for that one time and survives incidents he caused that should've logically killed him (the explosions in "Wrath of Con" and "Breaking Wind"), accusations of Lumpy being an Idiot Houdini feel like a shallow product of genuine frustration at the writers for relying on him too much.
  • During the Turn of the Millennium, Sniffles tended to be made unlikeable or outright antagonistic to the nicer side of the cast, due to the era not taking nerd characters well combined with his relative unpopularity that time.
  • A minor case with Shifty. While he is willing to leave Lifty behind, he's not as bad as most fans make him out to be. Most fanfictions centered around the twins usually have Shifty's Dirty Coward and Cain and Abel tendencies turned up to eleven, with him acting as a big brother bully towards Lifty when in the actual show, he's merely just a scamp towards his brother. Regarding both Lifty and Shifty, some fans also tend to portray them as serial killers. In reality, they only aim to kill another Tree Friend in cold blood when absolutely necessary for their schemes.
• The Scrappy:
  • The Ants are extremely hated by a large portion of the fanbase due to their sadistic and disproportionate torture against Sniffles just because he wants to eat what's part of his diet. It doesn't help that they always get off scot-free.
  • Cro-Marmot isn't well-liked due to his uselessness (being trapped in an ice block will do that to you). Not helping is that his gag of somehow accomplishing things off-camera (the only real joke he has other than that he exists) is something already covered by the much more versatile and well-liked Handy. Even the creators have stated that they don’t like him much.
  • Mr. Pickels has very few supporters. More often than not, nobody really pays any attention to his existence, and when they do, Mr. Pickels is usually disliked for having little development and/or killing other characters and framing it on Lammy. It doesn't help that he's usually unfavorably compared to Fliqpy or that he has the highest survival rate.
• Seasonal Rot: Fans seem to agree the rot began when the show returned to the internet after the TV series, which itself suffered from being Screwed by the Network (see the Trivia tab). While at first the earlier Season 3 internet episodes ran well enough almost on par with the TV series to the point that fans thought that those were made out of scraps from the TV series, release dates became sparse, gapped between monthly to several months long. The deaths became less inspired as well, with the common low point being Nutty's death in "Swelter Skelter" which exaggerrates Made of Plasticine too far just for a fried egg joke. Then the first warning sign began when the crew ran a Kickstarter campaign to attempt reviving the KA-POW!! spinoff, which failed miserably, all while the show ended up in a year-long hiatus. Its revival on 2012 began rough but still promising, having the episodes released more regularly, but sharp-eyed fans began to notice the quality drop with Limited Sound Effects use and Recycled Soundtrack becoming more prominent (and can not be excused unlike its older days due to advancing technology) and Limited Animation being employed more to mask its (unfortunately Harsher in Hindsight) tightened budget, with the most notable example being "By the Seat of Your Pants" having animation so minimal that only the focus characters have proper animations while others barely move and the first-person view to transition from "fine" to "chaos" upon emerging from the pool is clearly meant to avoid animating Flippy's kills. It eventually culminated in the irregular short "Too Much Scream Time" which was made with entirely recycled audio, most jarringly reusing voice samples from the pre-TV series VAs. As of 2024, Mondo Media attempted to gain funding again through YouTube channel memberships, but only time will tell if this revival can climb out of this reception.
• Shock Fatigue: The show's over-reliance on the formula of cute, cuddly animals dying in increasingly horrifying ways, while revolutionary for its origin year of 1999, has come across as gimmicky and repetitive to the fanbase later on. This is generally believed to be why the show fell out of popularity and the output of episodes slowly ground to a halt.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • In many ways, Happy Tree Friends is the real-life version of the The Itchy & Scratchy Show segments from The Simpsons, only while that show was presented in-universe as a children's program (specifically a parody of violent children's animation), Happy Tree Friends is very much meant for adults.
  • In addition, the KAPOW! short "Operation: Tiger Bomb" can be seen as an adaptation of Squirrel and Hedgehog. Both shows feature cartoon animal soldiers (in “Tiger Bomb”, there is W.A.R.^note Weaponized Animal Regiment and the unnamed tiger army, while Squirrel and Hedgehog has the Flower Hill Army and its various enemies) in wartime, with blood and gore to boot. The only difference between both shows is while Squirrel and Hedgehog is North Korean propaganda aimed at children, KAPOW!, being a spin-off of Happy Tree Friends, is explicitly made for adults and animated by an American animation studio.
• Squick:
  • If you're sensitive to hyper-violence, then the entire show is a big squick factory.
  • Lumpy drinking his own stomach acid in "I've Got You Under My Skin".
• Tainted by the Preview: In a repeat of Still Alive, the fact that newer content starting from 2024 is paywalled (through YouTube channel membership this time) until a later date made the already skeptical fans even more skeptic and unwilling to subscribe. Note that while Still Alive is more expensive, it is a one-time purchase instead of monthly subscription, the latter of which does not play well with the demographic which skewed towards young.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Prehistoric Ants actually being eaten by Sniffles and his prehistoric counterpart in "Blast From the Past" is viewed as this.
  • Nearly anytime Lumpy dies can be this to some fans.
  • Similarly, Splendid dying in "Class Act" and "Gems the Breaks" is this for those who hate him.
• Tear Dryer: In "And the Kitchen Sink", Cub is buried up to his neck in the sand and it looks like he's been beheaded, causing Pop to let out an anguished Big "NO!". Then Cub coughs, revealing that he's still alive, just without anything below the waist. The delighted Pop cuddles him.
• Theme Pairing: Many characters are shipped due to their similarities. Notably, Lumpy/The Mole^note Popular couple due to being the most inept of the cast leading to a high kill count, which either lead to or was caused by an episode where Mole goes on a date with Lumpy after the latter's death.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The actual winners of Vote or Die, Lammy and Mr. Pickels, after "Royal Flush", have been Out of Focus despite being the newest characters. They've appeared only four times since, only in featuring or appearing roles, with Lammy (despite being thought of as a character who rarely dies) dying in all but one. This is especially true for Mr. Pickels, who has done nothing outside of cameos in his inanimate form.
  • Some feel Cro-Marmot would've been a more entertaining character had he been an unfrozen caveman who could actually do stuff and get into unique scenarios rather than a Living Prop relegated to the occasional background cameo or Behind the Black gag.
  • Heck, just about any character who was pushed Out of Focus and/or has spent most of their episodes as an interchangeable Living Prop can fall into this trope. Giggles, Cuddles, Petunia, and Toothy get this the worst; The former three gain their own unique personality quirks in the TV series but mostly (if not completely) go back to being flat side characters after their given starring episodes. Meanwhile, Toothy doesn’t even get the luxury of having a starring role in the TV series. Then there are the cases of established characters becoming Demoted to Extra, such as Giggles, Mime, and Cro-Marmot never having starring roles after the TV series and most infamously, Flaky not getting another starring role following the fanfic-fueling Without A Hitch.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some fans feel this way about "A Vicious Cycle" for apparently scrapping another Flippy episode in favor of a possessed object (which, to be fair, is possessed by Flippy).
• Trans Audience Interpretation: Flaky was originally envisioned as male, but after many viewers thought she was female, the creators eventually stated her to be female. Because of this, along with her not having eyelashes like the other female characters, some fans portray her as a trans girl who hadn't come out yet when her first episodes aired, or as nonbinary or genderfluid.
• Unexpected Character: FatKat's appearance in "Take Your Seat" can be as he is actually the mascot of an animation company who worked on the television series.
• Unfortunate Character Design: There was a fan character with some visual similarities to FatKat's mascot.^ExplanationThe character is question was Brandy the arctic fox by Mr-Shin (formerly 090shinsuke090). He has a blue and white color scheme similar to FatKat at a glance. When the mascot made a cameo appearance, fans who didn't know of him lashed out against the fan character's creator.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • If you couldn't tell from the other entries, Sniffles in episodes where he's against the Ants.
  • Lifty and Shifty can sometimes come across as this. How much we are intended to not like them is debatable, but some episodes show that they are poor and are usually seen grabbing meat, implying that they can't actually feed themselves.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The Ants. The viewer is supposed to feel bad for them because Sniffles tries to eat them. But given that they torture Sniffles in ways that not even Fliqpy would put his victims through, it's downright impossible to.
  • Lumpy and Pop can count as well. Despite their good intentions, their incompetence has caused a lot more harm than it's done good.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Nutty is implied to be viewed as a nuisance and a menace among the Happy Tree Friends. In real life, he's one of the show's more popular characters; probably the most popular who's not Flippy or Flaky, to the point he (tied with Mime) came in third place in the Best Happy Tree Friends Character Tournament.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Flaky's gender was debated for a while. The confusion got referenced in the episode "Something Fishy", where Flaky's shown trying to decide which bathroom to go in, and the episode never shows which one she went to. That said, official material tends to use "she" more than "he", even if one can disregard Mondo's tweet about Flaky's gender reveal like Kenn Navarro could.
  • Cuddles often gets confused for a girl due to his high-pitched voice, pink bunny slippers, and light pastel-yellow color scheme. In episodes where he and Giggles are dating, YouTube commenters are shocked to discover Cuddles' true gender.
  • While his case is less infamous, a good number of viewers have mistaken Sniffles for a girl. This is often attributed to his more feminine-sounding voice, courtesy of Liz Stewart.
• Viewer Species Confusion: To name the most egregious cases, Giggles (a chipmunk) is notorious for being constantly mistaken as a bear, some viewers have assumed Sniffles (an anteater) to be an elephant, it's somewhat common to see a YouTube commenter referring to Flaky (a porcupine) as a hedgehog, Disco Bear (a bear) is often compared to a lion, and the list goes on. Cuddles (a bunny) and Lumpy (a moose) are the least susceptible to these misconceptions. The show's usage of Only Six Faces has only made this more problematic.
• Vindicated by History:
  • Several of the less popular main characters eventually gained better fan reception in late 2010s. The "new blood" fans, without getting into the extreme thoughts, have appreciated the various character quirks which allowed them to easily enjoy the comedy and sympathize when the character in question gets injured/killed. Divisive characters like Lumpy were finally appreciated for the comedy value compared to the vehement hate in the 2000s, and main characters on the lower popularity tier like Pop, Lifty, Shifty, and Disco Bear began to rise up in popularity.
  • The animation from the earlier internet seasons (particularly season 2) has been given better attention even by the newer fans as they felt it struck enough balance in fluidity and expressiveness without sacrificing the other (most of the time) despite still contending with bandwidth limitations at the time. In contrast, while the newer artstyle worked well enough for the TV series, fans have begun to hate it and even the later internet episodes (and even the TV series itself) out of disgust over the comparatively more robotic animation.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: We can't help it just because it's saccharine. The episodes start out fine... until the middle bordering on end.
• The Woobie: Honestly, who isn't? Given the nature of the show, it would be easier to list characters who don't fit the bill, like Lumpy, Lifty and Shifty, and Splendid.
  • Flaky, who — unlike her sometimes blissfully unaware friends — responds with the appropriate amount of fear to the messes she ends up in.
  • Toothy for his tendency to cry.
  • Sniffles (see Jerkass Woobie) and Petunia for their often exceptionally brutal and gruesome deaths. In particular, Petunia's the only character to have ever deliberately committed suicide (in Wishy Washy), and Sniffles has what many consider to be the single worst death in the entire series (in Tongue in Cheek).
  • The non-Ax-Crazy side of Flippy goes into this territory when he realizes that he's been brutally killing his own friends in Double Whammy Part I. He gets more and more traumatized after every flip-out and ends up cuddling a teddy bear while in a Troubled Fetal Position after the third one.
  • Cub. Unlike the other characters, who at least have some form of defense (somewhat), Cub is just a child and lacks that ability. Therefore, he's completely at the mercy of the cruel world of Happy Tree Friends (no thanks to his clueless father).
  • Handy, a beaver who is physically impaired because his arms remain amputated, unlike most other injuries. Not helping matters is his very low survival rate, as Handy only survived a whopping two episodes in the TV series and none at all in Seasons 2, 4, and 5.
  • Lammy. She genuinely wants to have a peaceful time with the other characters, but Mr. Pickels ends up finding ways to murder them. Even when she tries to stop him, she ends up being mistaken as a murderer by the other characters (mainly Flaky).

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