A Change of Heart

"A Change of Heart" is episode number 7.1 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

Starring Roles

 * Lumpy
 * Disco Bear

Featuring Roles

 * Giggles
 * Petunia
 * Cuddles
 * Cro-Marmot

Appearance Roles

 * Handy
 * Flaky
 * Mime
 * Toothy
 * Nutty
 * The Mole
 * The Whale

Plot
It's time for Disco Bear to shine by playing one of the songs in the cafe's jukebox and dancing in his grooviest way. Petunia turns the lights back on, however, to inform him that his breakfast is ready. As he sits at the bar, Disco Bear thanks her by blowing her a kiss, but she rejects it by blocking the heart-shaped kiss. He is grateful of this kind of breakfast as he gobbles down some fried chicken, eggs, and bacon. Suddenly he sees a stick of butter, which he picks up with a chicken bone and deep fries. He then eats it in one bite and suffers a heart attack, falling unconscious to the ground. Petunia sees Disco Bear's condition and gasps in shock.

Back at his house, Lumpy makes a sandwich using hospital equipment. As he's about to eat it, his pager beeps which means he's needed at the hospital. He arrives at the hospital on his bicycle and with the help of his nurse, Giggles, he cuts Disco Bear's chest open with a scalpel. Disco Bear opens his eyes and screams in pain, apparently having not been anesthetized prior to the operation. Lumpy fixes this by bonking Disco Bear on the head with a mallet. Lumpy then opens Disco Bear's chest, removes his heart, and takes the fried stick of butter out of one of the heart valves. This causes the heart to deflate and Disco Bear begins to flatline.

Lumpy hands Giggles the air pump for his bicycle's tires and tells her to pump. This succeeds in keeping Disco Bear alive, so Lumpy goes to look for a new heart in the hospital's refrigerator. Lumpy finds various organs and a moldy old sandwich, but no heart. He gets a call about an emergency and hurries to the scene of the accident where Handy somehow crashed his plane into a whale, killing them both. Lumpy sees Handy's exposed heart and decides to take it for Disco Bear.

Unfortunately, the heart slips out of Lumpy's hands and as he tries to pick it up, he keeps kicking it away. He eventually kicks it onto a soccer field, where Cuddles takes the heart from him and kicks it around like a soccer ball. Lumpy eventually gets the heart back but, forgetting his mission, he kicks it over Cuddles' and Flaky's head and into the goal. He initially celebrates his goal, but he realizes what he's done when he sees the heart has splattered against the net. Meanwhile, Giggles is getting tired from pumping Disco Bear and stops for a breather. Disco Bear begins flat lining again and Giggles quickly resumes her task.

Lumpy sadly walks away from the soccer field, when he comes back across the scene of the accident. He looks at the whale and gets an idea. He begins pedaling back to the hospital with the whale's giant heart strapped to his back. He gets stuck when he rides into a narrow tunnel, prompting him to untie himself from the heart and push on it. A semi truck drives through the tunnel, however, and knocks the heart loose. The heart rolls with the semi truck and Lumpy runs on top of it, trying not to fall. The semi crashes with his bike, however, forcing Lumpy into the wrecked remains of his bike while the heart and truck move out of sight.

Once more, Lumpy sadly walks away, dragging his now mangled bike behind him. He passes by a butcher shop, however, and finds a fresh heart in the window. He runs in, only to find there is a long line of customers ahead of him. Giggles by this time is out of breath and looks pale and exhausted. Back at the butcher shop Lumpy finally gets served, but he decides to purchase a few other items while he's there.

Lumpy arrives back at the hospital eating a sandwich and holding a brown paper bag. He sees Giggles passed out on the floor and Disco Bear lying dead on the gurney. Lumpy uses the defibrillator on Giggles to wake her up and yells at her to keep pumping. While Giggles begins pumping again, Lumpy uses the defibrillator to heat up his sandwich. He then unwraps one of the items he's purchased, surprised to find it's a rack of spare ribs. He then opens the other bags, only to find two steaks and some sausages. Lumpy realizes he's been eating the heart as a sandwich.

There's suddenly a loud crash outside and Lumpy goes to investigate. He sees the truck that was pushing the whale's heart has crashed into an ambulance. Even though the heart is dirty and there are probably injured people in both vehicles, Lumpy happily takes out his scalpel. Later we see Lumpy listen to Disco Bear's heartbeat. Sadly, the whale heart is way too big for Disco Bear's body, causing his skin to bulge out and leaving him bedridden. Giggles, still looking sickly from before, arrives with a tray carrying two meals on it. She lifts up the lid to one revealing a cheeseburger, which Disco Bear happily reaches for. Lumpy, however, pushes him back and lifts up the lid to the other plate, revealing a slice of tomato on a piece of lettuce much to Disco Bear's disappointment. Lumpy picks up the cheeseburger and takes a bite out of it. He begins having a heart attack, but, undeterred, he continues eating the burger.

Moral
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder!"

Deaths

 * Handy and a whale die in a plane crash (off-screen).
 * Technically, Disco Bear dies while flatlining in the hospital, several times.

Goofs

 * 1) Disco Bear moonwalks directly backwards from the jukebox to his seat. When he sits down, however, one can only see tables and the entrance behind him.
 * 2) When Disco Bear takes a napkin to clean his mouth, and he falls of his chair, the napkin disappears.
 * 3) Lumpy's antlers change directions numerous times, sometimes during continuous shots.
 * 4) Lumpy only throws three organs out of the fridge before it is empty, even though there are four organs on the top shelf alone.
 * 5) The semi truck is bigger than the whale's heart, therefore it should not have been able to push the heart out of the tunnel.
 * 6) When Lumpy gets stuck in the tunnel, his bike keeps moving forward without him. When Lumpy is on top of the heart being pushed by the semi truck, however, the bike is parked completely horizontal in the road.
 * 7) After Lumpy wakes Giggles up and she begins pumping again, the heart beat doesn't appear on the monitor even though it begins beeping.

Trivia

 * 1) Disco Bear's image appears on the record in the cafe's jukebox, indicating he may have released that album. As he has a gold record on the wall of his bedroom in Ipso Fatso, this could provide further evidence that Disco Bear was a musician during the 70s, which would account for how he can afford his large house.
 * 2) While playing soccer, Cuddles' bunny slippers have cleats and an angry expression.
 * 3) In the butcher shop, Cro-Marmot has blood on his apron.
 * 4) Lumpy eating sandwiches is a running gag in the episode.
 * 5) Among the garbage attached to the whale's heart at the scene of the crash is a newspaper with an article about Lumpy on it. Lumpy would later be present in a newspaper article in A Sight for Sore Eyes, where Lumpy once again was a doctor.
 * 6) The storyboard originally had Toothy in the truck that crashed at the end of the episode. Lumpy checked Toothy's pulse, found none, then noticed the whale heart. Though he could've used Toothy's heart, Lumpy took the whale heart instead.
 * 7) Lumpy may possibly have died after the end of the episode, because he appears to be the only heart surgeon in the city, there are no donor hearts left, and Giggles is exhausted and probably wouldn't be able save his life. This is, of course, assuming that his heart attack was similar to Disco Bear's.
 * 8) Since all of the deaths in the episode occurred before and (debatably) after the episode, this episode is one of only a few that contains no deaths witnessed in it.
 * 9) When this episode aired along with A Hole Lotta Love and Mime to Five on Youtube, the alternate title for the trio of segments was named "Seventh Heaven". Cuddles, Mime, Petunia, Cro-Marmot, The Mole and Lumpy appear in all 3 episodes.
 * 10) It is unknown why Nutty is in a butcher shop, since he is addicted to sugar, however, he may be filling in a role for the creators.