Eye Candy

Eye Candy is an episode of the Happy Tree Friends internet series, the second of season two, and twenty-ninth episode overall.

This episode is considered to be Toothy's most famous role in the series.

HTF Episode Description
One of our most requested episodes, Eye Candy has a high degree of cringe factor! What is it about the eyes that make people squirm so much? It's hard to watch Eye Candy without a real physical reaction, but that's the beauty of this episode. Eye Candy won a prize at the Annecy Film Festival in France and continues to be a real fan favorite.

Plot
The scene begins with Toothy cheerfully running through the forest, holding a large yellow lollipop in front of him. His happiness ends soon as he trips over a log, causing the lollipop to get lodged in his eye socket. Screaming, he pulls on the lollipop's stick, forcing his eye and the optic nerve, still connected to his head, to fly out of his eye socket and get tangled around a tree branch.

Toothy tries pulling on his optical nerve, but fails to get his eyeball down from the branch. Whining and wailing in pain, he begins climbing the tree. When he reaches the branch his eyeball is resting on, we get a view of how difficult it is for Toothy to see with both of his eyes pointed in different directions.

Toothy reaches for his eye, but unfortunately, a woodpecker lands on the branch and starts pecking his eyeball. Recoiling from the pain, Toothy loses his balance and falls off the tree, which is revealed to have been located on the edge of a cliff, causing Toothy to dangle from the branch of a tree off a cliff from only his optical nerve (which acts as a bungee cord). Toothy tries climbing back up his optic nerve, but he loses his grip and slides down again.

Ultimately, Toothy's brain is pulled out from his eye socket, followed by his other eye as Toothy falls to the ground a few feet below him. Before the episode ends, the bird defecates on Toothy's head.

Moral
"Keep your Eye on the prize!"

Deaths

 * Toothy's brain and his other eye exit his head through his eye socket.

Goofs

 * 1) Toothy has normal buckteeth throughout the episode. Animation supervisor Jeff Biancalana mistakenly animated Toothy with normal teeth like his friends.
 * 2) Through Toothy's point of view, his loose eye sees a higher branch even though Toothy's eye landed on the highest branch.
 * 3) The optical nerve on the right is much longer than the left (though this may be because it was stretched out).
 * 4) In reality, it would be impossible for Toothy to see out of his damaged eye, due to the fact that the eye cannot work if it is detached from the socket.
 * 5) When Toothy falls from the tree, he falls from the middle of the tree. But when it zooms out, he is falling straight from the branch.
 * 6) When Toothy is climbing up his optic nerve, his hand is positioned as if it is in front of him, closer to the camera.
 * 7) Toothy appears to be walking straight off a cliff.
 * 8) When Toothy first approaches the tree, the tree is huge. But when Toothy began falling, the size of the tree shrank dramatically.

Quick Shot Moment
In the scene where the woodpecker lands on the tree just before it begins pecking at Toothy's loose eye, there's a brief shot of Toothy's eye getting flung out of its socket when Toothy attempts to pull out his lollipop.

Note: This is fixed in the Classics Remastered version.

Trivia

 * The meaning of "eye candy" is visual images that are superficially attractive and entertaining but intellectually undemanding.
 * This episode won the award for best series at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival of 2003.
 * In addition to being a fan favorite and award winning episode, Kenn Navarro has stated that this was the most fun episode to make.
 * This is the first episode in which Toothy sustained an eye injury, something that later became a character trait.
 * This used to be the only episode where Toothy has a single starring credit until the Season 3 episode Brake the Cycle was released.
 * This episode is among six instances where a character cried during his/her death due to the degree of pain. The other instances are Toothy in Brake the Cycle, Petunia from Read 'em and Weep, Sniffles from Tongue in Cheek, Flaky from Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya!, Lumpy from The Chokes On You, and Cuddles crying from his injury from In a Jam.
 * This episode introduced an updated featuring sequence that was used till Just Desert, when it was replaced with the current featuring sequence.
 * Two HTF flash games are made based on this episode, which are Gogo Toothy and Flying High.
 * The woodpecker in this episode looks similar to the fictional character Woody Woodpecker.
 * There are no female characters in this episode.
 * The woodpecker will later be seen in the beginning scene of the episode in Eyes Cold Lemonade
 * The woodpecker is the same woodpecker from the episode Hide and Seek, though with a different color.
 * This episode marks Toothy's most famous role.
 * This is also considered Toothy's most famous death.
 * Toothy has no sign of the trademark mitten hands.
 * Discounting the woodpecker, this is one of the episodes where a character appears alone.
 * This is one of six episodes where a character (Toothy) is forced to cause pain on him/herself, the others being Lumpy in Out on a Limb, I've Got You Under My Skin, and The Chokes on You, Flaky in Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya, and Disco Bear in Easy Comb, Easy Go.
 * On MondoMedia's YouTube page, there is a scene of this episode in their promotion video.
 * The YouTube thumbnail spoils Toothy's injury before death.
 * Eye Candy was one of the episodes shown at the AOD event.