In a Jam

"In a Jam" is episode number 12.2 of the Happy Tree Friends televison series.

Starring Roles

 * Cuddles

Featuring Roles

 * Lumpy
 * The Mole
 * Handy
 * Sniffles
 * Russell
 * Nutty

Appearance Roles

 * Mime
 * Cro-Marmot

Plot
In Cuddles' house he finishes decorating his bedroom with Happy Tree Band memorabilia, when an alarm clock rings. With that, Cuddles turns on his TV and watches a performance by the band, consisting of Lumpy, Handy, and Russell. During the performance, however, Russell accidentally knocks a glass of water over on his amp, which electrocutes him to death.

To find a new band member, Sniffles, the band's manager, posts flyers around the city. Cuddles comes across one and thrills at the thought of becoming a rockstar. He goes to the music store and tells Mime, the clerk, that he'd like to buy the six string guitar in the window. When Mime rings him up, however, Cuddles realizes he has no money and can't complete the transaction.

Cuddles sadly walks down the street, when he comes across Nutty, who is holding a coin and has a bandage wrapped around one of his arms. Cuddles asks Nutty where he got the money, and Nutty points him to a bloodmobile parked on the side of the road. Cuddles enters and tells The Mole, who works in the mobile, that he'd like to donate some blood. At first The Mole misses Cuddles' arm with the needle, stabbing the chair and unknowingly filling the IV with chair cushioning. When The Mole readies a second blood pack, however, he hits Cuddles' arm. Unfortunately, it takes him many tries to find a vein as he stabs Cuddles' arm numerous times, moves the needle around in his arm, and even breaks a needle off in his arm. Eventually The Mole gets it right and a whimpering Cuddles watches his blood flow into the pack.

Cuddles later leaves the bloodmobile, woozy from his blood loss. He notices, however, that The Mole gave him a button off his lab coat instead of a coin. Cuddles goes back into the bloodmobile to protest to The Mole, who has begun sewing a coin on his lab coat where the button should be. Misunderstanding Cuddles' complaint, The Mole gestures Cuddles back inside to donate more blood. After donating again, Cuddles is sickly and low on blood. Nevertheless, he is happy when he finally receives his money.

At the auditions Cuddles runs in, hugging his new guitar, to stand in line behind Nutty. Nutty pulls out a flute-shaped lollipop and plays some notes on it before eating it, laughing, and jittering off. Next, Cro-Marmot wows the band by playing a flawless guitar riff. Cuddles is called on next and he walks to the center of the stage. Though initially impressed by his stage presence, the band cringes when Cuddles begins playing random, mismatching notes. As Cuddles strikes a note towards the end of his audition, a string on the guitar breaks, flies up, and cuts one of his eyes in half. Lumpy hires Cuddles on the spot, much to everyone's confusion.

Lumpy's intentions become clear when the band is ready to perform, Cuddles now dressed up like Russell with an eye patch and pirate hat. The band begins playing and everything goes well, Cuddles seeming to have improved his playing ability. As he dances around the stage, however, the cord from his guitar to his amp comes disconnected and lets out some static. He runs over to the controls offstage and begins playing with the lights and audio.

Colored lights begin flashing onstage, causing Handy to suffer a seizure. Sniffles puts a pair of cymbals in Handy's mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue off, but the metal causes Handy to chip his buckteeth. Cuddles turns the flashing lights off and Handy manages to stand up, where he stumbles around, disoriented. Cuddles then briefly turns the power off, which turns off the music and the lights. When the lights come back on, we see Handy has stumbled to the edge of the stage, the cymbals still in his mouth. Sniffles tries to grab him, but Handy falls over the edge and his head is sliced in half by the cymbals.

Angry, Sniffles runs to the controls while Cuddles, now satisfied, runs back to the stage. Sniffles trips over the cord to Cuddles' guitar and flies face first into the controls, where his tongue is caught in a rotating section of the machine where the audio recording tape is. As his tongue is pulled into the machine Sniffles struggles to pull it out, accidentally stepping on a button. This increases the tempo of the music, forcing Lumpy to strum faster.

As Sniffles' tongue reaches its limit, his organs and spinal cord are pulled out of his body. Lumpy, meanwhile, continues strumming quickly, causing his arm to begin wearing down from the friction. Cuddles then jumps on stage, while offstage Sniffles' rotating organs turn up the volume of the amps. Cuddles, not knowing about the volume increase, strums his guitar once. The intense volume flings Cuddles offstage and causes Lumpy's body to burst.

The Mole arrives in the bloodmobile with a cooler, ready to administer some blood to Cuddles. Unfortunately, the IV he uses is the one that has the chair cushioning in it and, despite Cuddles' screams of pain, The Mole continues administering the cushioning. Cuddles body bloats up to the size of a recliner, which The Mole proceeds to sit down and relax on. As the episode ends, the Mole pulls Cuddles' arm which makes his legs stick out like a footstool.

Moral
"He who pays the piper calls the tune!"

Deaths

 * 1) Russell is electrocuted and disintegrates.
 * 2) Handy's head is sliced in half when he falls off the stage with a pair of cymbals in his mouth.
 * 3) Sniffles' organs and spinal cord are pulled out of his body by the recording mechanism.
 * 4) Lumpy's body explodes when Cuddles strums an exceedingly loud note on his guitar.
 * 5) Cuddles' body is filled with chair cushioning, crushing his organs and/or causing him to suffocate.

Goofs

 * 1) When the title appears, there was no leafing sound, although there supposed to be.
 * 2) The directions of Lumpy's antlers change several times.
 * 3) There is inconsistency within auditions in the Happy Tree Band. Russell, whom they're looking to replace, played a four string instrument, indicating he was the bassist. Nonetheless, the band looks to hire a guitar player as a replacement.
 * 4) The mole on The Mole's face changes places several times.
 * 5) Slightly before The Mole finds the right artery, Cuddles has two hands on his right arm.
 * 6) This episode adds some confusion to the currency system of the Happy Tree Friends world. While Nutty uses a single coin to purchase a lollipop, Cuddles is able to use the same amount of money to purchase a brand new guitar.
 * 7) Certain parts of the music can be heard even when nobody is playing that part. For example, drums can be heard in the background while Handy is having a seizure and after he dies.
 * 8) When Handy's head is cut in half, his hard hat falls off but his ears cannot be seen. Given the angle of his head that is (briefly) shown, and the position of his ears in Blind Date, we should be able to see Handy's ears in this episode.
 * 9) When Handy gets killed, his buckteeth go from chipped to normal.
 * 10) Lumpy's dominant playing hand is inconsistent. He appears to be both left and right handed at the same show.

Trivia

 * 1) Parts of the song the band is playing are similar to "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet.
 * 2) When Russel dies, his scream is similar to when he's falling out of the burning building in Fire Escape.
 * 3) This is one of very few instances in the series where a character dies in a cartoonish, rather than gruesome, fashion.
 * 4) This episode introduces the fact that Handy is epileptic, as he suffers a seizure due to the flashing lights. Cuddles, however, doesn't have a reaction to the flashing lights, even though he is later shown to have epilepsy in Seize the Day. It is possible Cuddles didn't suffer a seizure in this episode because he was missing one of his eyes, as obstructing one eye can reduce the risk of suffering an epileptic seizure.
 * 5) Handy dies because he has no hands for Sniffles to grab onto. After this, Sniffles ironically pulls off Handy's trademark frustrated look.
 * 6) This episode may suggest that Cuddles has trypanophobia, as he panics before The Mole collects his blood.
 * 7) Sniffles' death is similar to Giggles' death from Double Whammy Part 1.
 * 8) Sniffles suffered the same death in Tongue in Cheek, but in this episode, his eyes came out.
 * 9) There are no female characters in this episode.