The Wrong Side of the Tracks

"The Wrong Side of the Tracks" is the first episode of the first season of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

HTF Episode Description
Keep your hands and feet in the car at all times! (Part 1)

It’s going to be a Lumpy ride, hold on! (Part 2)

Lumpy repairs a rollercoaster. Need we say more? (DVD)

Plot
Giggles and Nutty enter Lumpy's carnival, followed by Sniffles, who is looking for money with a metal detector. Cuddles, wearing a blue hat with antlers on the side, drags Flaky onto a roller coaster, much against her wishes. They, along with Disco Bear and Russell, enjoy the ride (with the exception of Flaky) until they come to a sudden stop. Lumpy walks by on the opposite side of the track and Flaky vomits upwards, leading everyone to realize they're upside down. Despite Lumpy dislodging part of the cart (and a wheel) from the track, all four make it off the ride safely, leaving everybody with disappointed expressions. When Cuddles and Flaky get off the walkway, Cuddles spots Flaky's vomit nearby, and stares at Flaky in confusion, in which Flaky responds by shrugging her arms nervously. Lumpy places a "broken" sign by the entrance to the roller coaster and slips on Flaky's vomit,

Sniffles continues his search for money, becoming disappointed when his metal detector leads him to the detached wheel from Flaky and Cuddles' cart. Lumpy gets to work on his roller coaster, laying down a piece of missing track. He can't find a hairpin that goes in to hold the tracks together, as it has fallen to the ground where Sniffles discovers it. Lumpy decides to jam his pencil in the hole, figuring it'll work just as well. He next begins hammering a part of the track while Nutty sits nearby, eating cotton candy. The hammering causes the stopper on a cart, which is on a small hill in the track, to come dislodged. The cart rolls down and flies off a part of the track that has fallen off, knocking Nutty away. He flies into, and is impaled on, a ringtoss peg, forced to watch his heart slowly stop beating. Handy manages to land a ring around the peg Nutty is on and celebrates, showing no concern for Nutty's well being. Lumpy walks toward Nutty's cotton candy and seeing nobody around, takes it and starts eating it.

As Sniffles continues his search for money, a balloon-carrying Mime walks up to Lumpy, who is holding a wooden board with nails sticking out of it. Sniffles finds a nail with his detector and tosses it away in frustration, popping Mime's balloon. Lumpy, startled by the noise, turns around and hits Mime in the head with the nails in the board. Oblivious to what happened, Lumpy walks away with Mime still stuck to the board. Later, Lumpy looks at the blueprints for what the roller coaster is supposed to look like and then looks at his own roller coaster. The tracks are twisted and incomplete, but Lumpy decides the roller coaster is ready for riding.

Lumpy removes the "broken" sign and sends a three cart coaster on its way. Handy and Cuddles sit in the first cart, Giggles and Petunia sit in the second cart, and Lifty and Shifty sit in the third cart. Everything goes well until the pencil Lumpy jammed in the track breaks, causing the portion of the track to fall off. When the six riders reach it, the carts break up. Cuddles and Handy keep moving forward, unaware of any problem, while the others fall down onto another section of the track. They land on a hill in the track and balance perfectly, but the carts become disconnected, sending Giggles and Petunia forward and Lifty and Shifty backwards.

Meanwhile, Cuddles and Handy come upon a small tunnel in the track. Handy ducks while Cuddles keeps his arms in the air, losing his hands when they hit the sides of the tunnel. Cuddles screams in pain and Handy looks at Cuddles, then his nubs and laughs mockingly at Cuddles, who falls out of the cart when he passes out (or dies) from blood loss. Handy suddenly realizes he's heading straight towards a wall of glass, and he can do nothing but scream in pain. He crashes through the wall and emerges, cut in half vertically by a large piece of glass.

Lumpy is awoken from a nap as Lifty and Shifty ride by, screaming. Lumpy gets on a handcar and begins following them around the twisted and confusing track, soon finding himself being followed by Lifty and Shifty. When he comes upon a string with flags hanging above the track, he grabs on, flips around, lands in Lifty and Shifty's cart, and holds onto the string as they slow to a stop. He gets out of the car, but unfortunately, he jumps onto the edge of the tracks, where he falls off. He lets go of the string, which hooks on the cart and launches the brothers away. Shifty flies into the turnstile that sits at the entrance to the park, shredding him to death. Lifty lands just short of the turnstile and laughs at his fortune. The cart, however, flies down and knocks him into the turnstile, where he suffers the same fate as his brother.

Lumpy sits up on the track he's fallen on and jumps to his feet when he sees Giggles' and Petunia's cart heading for him. He braces himself and pushes back on the cart, trying to get it to stop. He keeps moving backwards, however, he is slowly filed down by the friction. When the cart reaches the edge, there's nothing left of Lumpy but his antlers, and the cart teeters treacherously on the edge, leaving Petunia and Giggles screaming in terror. Below, Sniffles finally finds a coin and picks it up, pointing his metal detector skyward as he does. The metal detector begins beeping rapidly as the cart Giggles and Petunia are in crushes him. Petunia and Giggles land with so much force that their spines are forced out (Petunia through back, and Giggles through neck) and Lumpy's scalp and antlers land on Giggles' head, resembling the hat Cuddles wore earlier.

The episode ends with someone taking a photo of the dead Giggles, Sniffles, and Petunia and ends up in a frame from the park's gift shop.

Moral
"If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing right!"

Deaths

 * 1) Nutty is impaled on a peg in a ring toss game, removing his heart.
 * 2) Mime is hit in the head by a plank with nails. (Caused by Lumpy)
 * 3) Cuddles loses his hands on the roller coaster and falls to his death. (debatable, as Lumpy had survived a fall in Letter Late than Never)
 * 4) Handy is cut in half vertically by a large piece of glass.
 * 5) Shifty and Lifty are shredded by the turnstile leading into the park.
 * 6) Lumpy's body is filed down by friction as he tries to stop a moving cart.
 * 7) Sniffles is crushed by a roller coaster cart.
 * 8) Giggles and Petunia die from the force of the impact of their cart hitting the ground, causing their spines to break out. (Giggles through neck, Petunia through back)

Goofs

 * 1) The directions of Lumpy's antlers change numerous times, sometimes during continuous shots.
 * 2) The directions of the antlers on Cuddles' hat change several times.
 * 3) The distance between Nutty and the cart that falls off the tracks is too far to still be in the air when it reaches him. It should be also noted that the cart didn't have enough declining track pieces to gain enough momentum to reach him while still in the air.
 * 4) When Mime dies, blood splatters to the ground. When his corpse is shown, his blood disappears.
 * 5) Handy isn't one of the featuring characters.
 * 6) Lifty and Shifty change positions in their cart numerous times.
 * 7) Handy crashes into the glass wall head on. It is impossible for him to be cut in half vertically.
 * 8) The flags on the string of flags that Lumpy uses to slow down Lifty and Shifty's cart change color in between shots.
 * 9) When Lumpy tries to stop Giggles and Petunia's cart, his feet begin to file down, however in the next scene, his feet detach from his body with no signs of damage.
 * 10) A yellow hard hat (like Handy's hard hat) appears on the broken coaster sign when Lumpy picks it up, even though the hardhat wasn't there when he set the sign up.
 * 11) When Shifty gets shredded by the turnstile, one of his organs bounces off something, though there is no object there at the beginning of the episode. (Though it was just a "breaking the fourth wall" moment)
 * 12) When Giggles' and Petunia's cart crushed Sniffles, there is no impact sound for Petunia.
 * 13) Russell's whiskers are missing when he is inside the roller coaster cart.
 * 14) When Disco Bear and Russell are in the roller coaster their scream is heard but there mouths aren't moving.
 * 15) When Cuddles, Flaky, Russell and Disco Bear are stuck upside down, Cuddles was shown to have a seat behind Flaky not next to her like Russell and Disco Bear.
 * 16) Sniffles is more of a featuring character.
 * 17) In one shot Shifty has mitten hands while Lifty has fingers.
 * 18) Cuddles' fluff of hair goes through his hat, while there is no hole in the hat.
 * 19) Mime was impaled on the right side of the plank. But when we see that plank of wood boarded up, Mime was on the left side. If that board was hammered in correctly, Mime would have been on the right side or his corpse would be upside down on the left side.
 * 20) Lifty And Shifty periodically have the regular Pac-Man Pupils, though this may be intentional.
 * 21) If you look closely at Lumpy when lands in Lifty and Shifty's cart, he landed in the back. But when we see a closeup of them, Lumpy is in the front.
 * 22) If you pay attention when Nutty got impaled, one of his eyes is dark green when he blinks.
 * 23) When Lumpy trying to stop Giggles and Petunia's cart, he was in kneeling position. When his feets get scraped down, he's shown standing upright.

Trivia

 * The title of this episode is an idiom which means the bad side of town.
 * Nutty is the first Happy Tree Friend to die in the television series. His death is similar to Giggles' death in Every Litter Bit Hurts and Pop's death from As You Wish.
 * This is the only season premiere where Lumpy dies.
 * When Giggles, Petunia, Lifty, Shifty, Cuddles, and Handy are entering the roller coaster, Mime's corpse is still nailed to one of the boards.
 * This episode marks the second time Handy has laughed at another's misfortune shortly before his own death, the first being Wheelin' and Dealin'.
 * Interestingly, Handy's laugh is similar to that of the desired episode.
 * Lumpy_Lifty_Shifty_swapped_vehicles.png comedic effect, when Lumpy was chasing after Lifty and Shifty, the vehicles they were riding in swap places briefly. Lumpy was in the roller coaster cart, and Lifty and Shifty were riding on the pushcart.
 * When Lifty is shredded by the turnstile, The Cursed Idol and Cub's ball (from Havin' A Ball) fly out.
 * When this episode aired along with From Hero to Eternity and And the Kitchen Sink on YouTube, the alternate title for the conglomeration of the segments was named "One Foot in the Grave." Cuddles, Giggles, Flaky, Lifty, and Shifty appear in all three of these episodes. Cuddles, Giggles (debatable), Lifty and Shifty die in all three, while Flaky dies twice.
 * This was Francis Carr's first time voicing Russell, and Kenn's first credited time voicing Lifty and Shifty.
 * This is the first episode that Dana Belben had her voice sampled. The other episode is Snow Place to Go.
 * One of the stuffed Lumpy dolls later appears in the polluted lake in a future TV episode Every Litter Bit Hurts.
 * This is one of the few episodes where Lifty and Shifty do not steal anything.
 * Cuddles' injury is similar to Flippy's injury from the Ka-Pow! episode Operation: Tiger Bomb. However, Flippy was able to survive while Cuddles didn't.
 * This episode is the first to show Sniffles with a shorter snout as opposed to the longer snout seen in the earlier internet seasons.
 * A roller coaster ride going horribly wrong and killing everyone involved may be a reference to Final Destination 3. Furthermore, Mime dies a similar death to the character Erin from Final Destination 3.
 * When Giggles and Petunia are about to fall to their death, Giggles screams the same way she did in Eyes Cold Lemonade, where she was voiced by Dana Belben.
 * The way Lumpy tries to stop Giggles & Petunia's cart is similar to the runaway subway train scene from Spiderman 2.
 * When Cuddles and Flaky see the roller coaster you could hear Cuddles say "Come on!" and "Come on it's not gonna kill ya!".
 * After Handy goes through the shards, you can see a white line going through the middle of his body. Though, this was most likely the glass that cut his body in half.
 * All the characters in this episode, with the addition of Flippy, The Mole, Toothy, and Cro-Marmot, appeared in Double Whammy Part I and in its continuation, Autopsy Turvy (Double Whammy Part II).
 * Some Fans of both Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas and Happy Tree Friends say that The Wrong Side Of The Tracks episode was a reference to the Mission in San Andreas' "Wrong Side of the Tracks" due to most members in the episode died and the Vagos gang members died on the train after getting shot by Big Smoke.
 * Lumpy is responsible for every death in this episode. Although Sniffles was indirectly responsible for Mime's death.
 * This is one of only two starring roles in the TV series that Sniffles stars and hasn't invented anything, the other is Idol Curiosity.
 * This is the first episode where Russell survives.
 * Not counting the starring and featuring roles in the beginning, Cuddles is the first person to appear in the TV series, as he is the first one to appear on camera, riding the roller coaster in the background. If you did count the starring and featuring role pop-ups in the beginning, then Lumpy would be the first person to appear in the TV series. If you counted the intro of the TV series, because of the page flip, Pop and Cub would be the first to appear in the TV series.
 * This is the first episode where the characters have curved buckteeth.
 * The music during the Lumpy, Lifty, and Shifty chase scene was used in the Splitting Hares video.
 * This was also used as one of the 'panic' music(when the alarm bell is getting closer to ring) in Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm.
 * Disco Bear, Russell, and Flaky were the only survivors of this episode.
 * The YouTube thumbnail for Part 2 spoils Cuddles' injury/death.