Mime to Five

NormaMime to Five is episode number 7.3 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

HTF Episode Description
Working hard for his money, Mime asks how much is that unicycle in the window?

Mime works a series of very odd jobs to get money for a new unicycle. (DVD)

Plot
The episode begins with Mime walking along, when suddenly, he discovers a gag shop. In the front window, a shiny, brand new unicycle is being displayed. Eager to buy it, Mime digs through his pockets, and is saddened when he discovers that he has no money. Needing to get some more money, Mime needs to get a job. He goes home, picks up his newspaper, and begins looking through the want ads. Scrolling through the jobs, Mime decides to get a job at Russell's sea-themed fast food restaurant.



Mime gets put on drive-through detail, with Pop being his first customer. However, Mime, being a mime himself, greets him in complete silence. Not hearing anybody greeting him, Pop frustratingly shouts into the speaker box while a line of cars behind him honk their horns. Thinking something's wrong, Mime turns up the volume on the box, which lets off some high pitched feedback. The pitch and volume of the noise makes Pop and Cub's ears bleed uncontrollably and the windshields of all the cars in line to break, the shattered glass killing their occupants. Russell fires Mime for this blunder and Mime goes back home to look for a new job.

This time, Mime decides to try his hand at being a lifeguard. He scans the ocean, using his hands as a pretend pair of binoculars. He spots Sniffles drowning out in the water and runs towards the beach in what appears to be slow motion. But in the background, Petunia is seen walking at normal speed, revealing that Mime is intentionally running in slow-mo. Mime begins dragging in an imaginary body onto the sand and performs CPR on it, apparently losing his patient, Mime starts crying and "screaming". Sniffles' dead bloated body washes ashore and Petunia faints, falling on Sniffles' chest and causing the seawater in his body to spray into the air from his mouth. Mime, knowing he messed up again, opens an imaginary umbrella and sadly walks away.

Looking through the want ads yet again, Mime decides to become a window washer. He works diligently at a doorway to a barber shop, leading Disco Bear to cautiously move forward to get inside. He discovers there is no glass in the doorway and walks inside, annoyed. After getting his hair done, he once again sees Mime cleaning the space in the doorway. Figuring Mime is just acting again, Disco Bear walks through the doorway, this time, in a casual manner. Unfortunately, a sheet of glass was placed in the doorway while he got his hair done and he gets cut by the glass, falling down dead. Mime, knowing that he messed up yet again throws his bucket away, realizing that working is harder than it looks.

As he walks away, a flyer flies in his face, advertising the circus. Realizing that he has found the perfect job, Mime gets ringmaster Lumpy's attention to apply for a job. After his juggling, plate spinning, and balancing acts get him nowhere, Mime balances on one hand, spins a plate on his nose, does a fire breathing trick, and juggles active chainsaws with his feet, all at once. Finally grabbing Lumpy's interest, Mime is hired to do random chores, such as cleaning up after the elephant.

Curious as to what's going on inside, he peeks through the tent to see Lumpy leading his group of killer ducks through a ring of fire. On the trapeze, a nervous Flaky hugs the pole while Cro-Marmot amazes the audience, and Mime, with an amazing, yet unseen, flip. Mime sadly walks back to his task, when Lumpy calls him over. Lumpy hands Mime a measuring spoon, and a barrel of gunpowder, and Lumpy tells Mime to put two, and only two, spoonfuls of gunpowder into a cannon for the next act. Mime runs over to Toothy, the operator of the cannon, and tries motioning Lumpy's instructions, which Toothy nods in agreement to. When Mime leaves, however, Toothy isn't satisfied with the very little amount of gunpowder with just the measuring spoon, so he begins pouring in 2 barrels of gun powder instead of 2 spoonfuls of gunpowder into the cannon.

Mime sees Lumpy paying Cro-Marmot and decides to ask for his money. Lumpy, misunderstanding Mime's outstretched hand, tosses Mime a shovel to resume his chores. Meanwhile, Toothy begins pouring a second barrel of gunpowder into the cannon, indicating he still didn't understand Mime's instructions about using the measuring spoon. Cuddles, dressed in a cape and helmet, is then lowered into the cannon for his act. With everything all set, Toothy fires the cannon. But because of the amount of gunpowder Toothy put in, the cannon explodes at both ends. Toothy, black and burning flies backwards and hits a pole where he smashes into dust for a second time. Cuddles, on the other hand, flies forward, having been cut in half at the waist with his intestines holding his two halves together.

Cuddles' bottom half wraps around the pole Flaky is standing on, splashing blood in her face, while he stretches out and grabs onto another pole. Flaky, blinded by Cuddles' blood, begins walking on Cuddles' intestines as though she's on a tightrope. Cuddles, still holding on to the pole, screams in pain as Flaky's every step on his intestines recoil the pain. About halfway across, Flaky regains her vision, loses her balance, and begins falling. Hearing Flaky's cries for help, Mime quickly grabs a trampoline and places it below of Flaky. As a result, she gets flung back up. Flaky feels like she's safe, that's until she flies right into Cuddles' intestines, which split her body into two, killing her.

Flaky's blood splashes on Lumpy, who is currently feeding his killer ducks. The ducks smell the blood and fly out of their cage, eating and tearing Lumpy apart, leaving nothing but his whipping arm. They begin flying throughout the circus, causing the crowd to flee in panic, except for The Mole, who just claps. Giggles gets attacked and eaten alive by the ducks before the tent collapses and the ducks fly away. Mime exits the fallen tent, completely covered in blood splatters. He sees Lumpy's overflowing wallet, and decides that since Lumpy won't need it anymore (because he's dead), he may as well take it.

Mime then comes back to the gag shop, carrying Lumpy's overflowing wallet. But the moment he arrives, he is shocked to discover that the unicycle has been sold. Mime is deeply saddened by this. Seconds later, Cro-Marmot comes out of the gag shop on guess what... the unicycle! This prompts a jealous Mime to glare at him. As Cro-Marmot rides away into the sunset, one of Lumpy's killer ducks (or a normal duck) perches itself on his block of ice.

Moral
"Keep your nose to the grindstone"

Deaths

 * Pop, Cub, and numerous Generic Tree Friends are killed when the feedback from the drive through speaker breaks the windows of their cars, with the glass shards piercing their body.
 * 1) Sniffles drowns in the ocean. (Debatable, as Petunia might have revived him after falling on top of him)
 * 2) Disco Bear walks into a plate of glass and cuts himself in numerous places. He probably died of massive bleeding.
 * 3) Toothy flies into a pole and is smashed into dust.
 * 4) Flaky is sliced in half when she flies into Cuddles' intestines.
 * 5) Lumpy feeds his killer ducks a live goat, which they viciously devour.
 * 6) Lumpy, Giggles, Russell, Nutty, The Mole, Cuddles, and numerous Generic Tree Friends are eaten alive by Lumpy's Killer Ducks. (All Confirmed by Kenn Navarro)
 * 7) Lumpy's Elephant may have been possibly eaten alive by Lumpy's Killer Ducks. (Debatable)

Injuries

 * 1) When Mime turned up the volume, the feedback caused Pop and Cub's ears to bleed. If one looks closely when Pop is rolling up his car window, blood can be seen seeping out of his eyes.
 * 2) Sniffles is seen drowning in the ocean.
 * 3) Petunia faints after seeing Sniffles' bloated body.
 * 4) When the cannon explodes, Toothy is all black and burnt.
 * 5) The pressure of the cannon causes Cuddles to get split in half at the waistline.
 * 6) The tent collapses on Mime, albeit no injury.

Goofs

 * 1) The feedback caused by Mime shatters the car windows, but not the restaurant windows.
 * 2) The eye patch Mime is wearing when he works at the restaurants changes in between shots.
 * 3) As usual, Lumpy's antlers change directions numerous times, sometimes during continuous shots.
 * 4) When Lumpy is lighting the ring of fire, Flaky can be seen, but Cro-Marmot can't.
 * 5) Cro-Marmot's club switches hands several times.
 * 6) In the scene when Flaky falls just before she bounces on the trampoline, the blood covering her face is no longer there. She could have wiped it off during her fall.
 * 7) When Giggles, Nutty, Russell, and The Mole walk into the circus tent, Russell is missing his tail.
 * 8) How did Mime possibly get the job at Russell's restaurant if he couldn't speak?
 * 9) Petunia had more of a featuring role.
 * 10) Giggles and The Mole would have most likely had appearance roles.
 * 11) When Flaky dies her blood is dark red, but as her blood splashes on Lumpy its a brighter shade. Her blood becomes dark again when Lumpy looks at all of the blood on his body. (This is mostly noticeable for the blood staining Lumpy's shirt)
 * 12) When Disco Bear died, he had his eyes closed. But when Mime looked back at his body, his eyes were open.
 * 13) Mime's restaurant uniform included a pirate hat and and an eye patch, but when Mime arrived back home after Russell fired him, he was seen with the hat, but not the eye patch. (He may have taken it off between shots though)

Trivia

 * The title of the episode is a play on the phrase "9 to 5," a term that is used to describe average work hours (9:00 AM to 5:00 PM).
 * There's also a Dolly Parton song with the same name.
 * When this episode aired along with A Hole Lotta Love and A Change of Heart 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 three episodes. Lumpy (Debatably) dies in all three episodes, Cuddles and The Mole dies twice, Petunia and Mime die once, and Cro-Marmot survives all three.
 * Running gag: Every time Mime tries to do his job, he ends up killing someone.
 * The way Mime runs into the water to "save" Sniffles is a parody of the TV show Baywatch.
 * This is the second time Toothy spontaneously combusted into dust. The first time this happened was in Stealing the Spotlight and the third instance occurred in Easy Comb, Easy Go.
 * This would be one of the three instances where Cuddles gets split in half, and his intestines are the only thing holding him together. The other two are I Get a Trick Out of You, and See You Later, Elevator.
 * This is the first and only time Generic Tree Friends appear on screen in the TV series.
 * The sound Pop makes when he gets angry at the drive thru is the same sound he made in Snip Snip Hooray! when he tries to turn on his razor, while its unplugged.
 * Lumpy feeding the killer ducks with a live goat may be a reference to Jurassic Park. (Debatable)
 * This is one of four times in the TV series where Lumpy is killed by animals (the other three are Doggone It, Take a Hike and Letter Late than Never).
 * Because he survived in this episode, Mime is one of only two characters who has had a starring role in more than one TV episode to survive every TV episode he has starred in (the other being Pop).
 * The surviving cast (Mime, Petunia and Cro-Marmot) are the same characters who appeared in the Chill Kringle short.
 * When the water is pumped out of Sniffles' body, several fish and a crab also come out of his mouth.
 * Some of the Generic Tree Friends in the circus tent resemble Sniffles and The Mole (similar ear shape), This happens again in the flash game Stay On Target.
 * The music playing in the background when Mime finds the circus paper is the same from the YouTube game Milk Pong.
 * Mime is responsible for every death in this episode (though Sniffles technically killed himself unless Petunia revived him).
 * This is the first TV episode where the Generic Tree Friends appear (as the people in the circus audience crowd).
 * An HTF flash game named Hare Trigger is based on this episode, specifically on Cuddles' act involving the cannon.
 * In this episode, it is implied that Mime is near-sighted, as he needs glasses to read the newspaper. (However, since the glasses are just Groucho Marx gag glasses, it is also possible that this was only intended as a joke.)
 * The screams made by Lumpy when he dies are the exact same as the ones he makes during his death in Pet Peeve. Furthermore, Lumpy dies the same way in both episodes.
 * Flaky's death is similar to The Mole's death in The Carpal Tunnel of Love.
 * In reality, there are no such thing as killer ducks.
 * This is the first time dollar signs ($) appear in a character's (Mime's) eyes. This also happens to Lumpy in We're Scrooged!
 * The deaths of the three bear characters that appear in this episode all coincidentally involve glass shards impaling their bodies.
 * When Mime goes through the want ads for the first time, the first two icons that appear are a typewriter and an animation cell. These two things are one of the many key elements in making an animated cartoon, as the typewriter represents the people who write the episodes, and the animation cell represents the animators.
 * This is debatably the only one of Mime's starring roles which he survives where other characters survive in the regular series.
 * This is one of only two episodes where Lumpy is depicted as a villain in an episode where he doesn't have a starring role. The other is Dunce Upon a Time.