Who's to Flame?

TV Season: 1 Episode: 4.3 Writers: Warren Graff Ken Pontac David Winn Jeff Biancalana Kenn Navarro Director: Kenn Navarro Episode list: TV Season 1 Previous Episode: Wishy Washy Next Episode: Every Litter Bit Hurts "Who's to Flame?" is episode number 4.3 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

Starring Roles

 * Mime

Featuring Roles

 * Cuddles
 * Giggles
 * Petunia
 * Lumpy
 * Toothy
 * Handy
 * Sniffles
 * Disco Bear
 * Russell
 * Lifty and Shifty

Appearance Roles

 * The Mole
 * Pop
 * Cub
 * Flaky
 * Nutty

Plot
As Petunia makes pancakes for Giggles and Mime, she gets a telephone call. As she talks, she doesn't pay attention to the stove, which she leans against. After at a few seconds, her tail catches fire and she runs around, screaming. Giggles reacts quickly, grabs the tablecloth, and attempts to smother the fire. Unfortunately, the tablecloth ignites and Giggles is set on fire as well. Mime desperately tries to call Lumpy at the fire-station, but since he's a mime, he is unable to communicate the disaster. Believing nobody is on the line, Lumpy hangs up, and Mime leaves the house to seek help.

Meanwhile, Cuddles, who works for the fire-brigade, rescues a cat out of a tree, while his fellow firemen, consisting of Toothy, Sniffles, Disco Bear, and The Mole, cheer him on. Mime arrives and despite his best efforts to explain the situation at Petunia's house, the fire-brigade doesn't understand him. Luckily, Cuddles spots the fire from atop the ladder and convinces the fire-brigade to spring into action. Before driving off they fail to put the ladder down, causing Cuddles to lose his balance and fall off the ladder. He is impaled on a picket fence around the tree, while the cat, unharmed, proceeds to play with Cuddles' severed scut (tail).

When the fire-engine arrives at the burning house, Pop and Cub are watching it from the sidewalk. Toothy tries to enter the house by breaking down the front door with an axe, but he accidentally hits Petunia who was about to escape. Sniffles tries to enter the house via a second floor window he reaches using a ladder, but the window explodes as he reaches the top. Sniffles is cut to pieces by glass shards. Cub picks up Sniffles' helmet off the ground, but the ladder falls down and slices Cub to pieces.

The Mole tries to attach the fire hose to a fire hydrant, but instead attaches it to the fire truck's gas tank. Disco Bear, who controls the fire hose, doesn't see this and sprays gasoline on the fire. The fire spreads down the hose and sets other houses on fire. The fire-engine explodes and Flaky is hit in the head by the siren, forcing her brain out of her head. Luckily for the fire-brigade, Handy arrives in his helicopter and extinguishes the fire in one of the houses with water from his helicopter. Needing more water to extinguish the others buildings, Handy flies to a nearby river.

Unfortunately, Handy is unable to press the right button because he has no hands. When he finally succeeds, Russell's garbage boat sails underneath the helicopter and Handy's crane reaches down into Russell's boat. Not knowing this, Handy flies back. Meanwhile, Lifty and Shifty have stolen Pop's wallet from his corpse (he was probably killed by the explosion of the fire-engine), but they argue over who gets to keep the money. Eventually, Lifty knocks Shifty down and takes the entire wallet, but his head is crushed by an engine block that has fallen out of Handy's helicopter. Shifty then takes Pop's wallet, but he is impaled by multiple sharp objects dropped from Handy's helicopter. Shifty falls on his back, pointing the sharp objects upwards, causing a falling Russell to be impaled on them as well. Disco Bear, severely burnt and unable to hold the hose straight, accidentally sets Handy's helicopter on fire, making it spin out of control. Handy is able to activate the ejector seat in time, however this only causes Handy to be sliced to pieces by the rotor blades. His remains fall on the sidewalk below, causing Nutty and The Mole to run for cover.

The Mole accidentally falls in the sewer but survives and starts walking, unknowingly turning a giant ball-valve which releases gas into the entire town. He ignites a match, not knowing that there is a gas-leak, causing the entire town to explode. Mime rides up on his unicycle carrying the kitten from earlier. Mime looks around and sheepishly pretends to walk down an unseen staircase behind some wreckage. The episode ends by showing the frying pan with the 3 burnt pancakes, where it all began.

Moral
"If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!"

Deaths

 * 1) Cuddles is impaled on a fence post.
 * 2) Petunia is accidentally hit in the head with an axe by Toothy.
 * 3) Giggles dies from the fire in the house (death not shown).
 * 4) Sniffles is cut to pieces by the sharp shards of glass of an exploding window.
 * 5) Cub is sliced to bits by Sniffles' ladder.
 * 6) Flaky is hit in the back of the head by the fire truck's klaxon, forcing her brain out through her mouth.
 * 7) Pop is seen dead on the ground, having fire damage on his body. He probably died when the fire truck exploded (death not shown).
 * 8) Lifty's head is crushed by a falling engine block.
 * 9) Shifty is impaled by numerous falling sharp objects. He falls on his back, pointing the objects upwards, and causes a falling Russell to suffer the same fate.
 * 10) Handy is sliced to pieces by the rotors of his helicopter.
 * 11) The Mole, Toothy, and Disco Bear die when the town explodes. Lumpy is rumored to have died, but it depends on how far away the fire station was from the blast radius. Nutty also may have died, but he may have run away after Handy's remains fell to the ground. Seeing as how Mime was able to arrive on the scene, unscratched, shortly after the explosion, it's possible Nutty had enough time to make it to safety.

Goofs

 * 1) The Mole didn't have a featuring pop up, indicating he was an appearing character, even though he was more of a featuring character.
 * 2) Russell's voice can be heard cheering after Cuddles rescues Mittens/Honey from a tree, even though he does not appear until later in the episode.
 * 3) When Mime approaches the fire-brigade for help, he runs from the opposite direction that the fire is in.
 * 4) When Mime tries to explain what happened to Sniffles and Toothy, he stands on the sidewalk. When we see their reaction to his performance, however, their bodies are angled as though they’re facing someone standing in the road.
 * 5) When Handy comes on the scene the first time, one can clearly see him activate the lever to pour out the water.
 * 6) When Handy dumps water on a house, Nutty and The Mole are standing on the sidewalk. The scene then immediately cuts to Nutty and The Mole waving at Handy, though Nutty is now on the grass and The Mole is on the edge of the sidewalk.
 * 7) While on his boat, Russell was standing under a small roof with walls on three sides of him and no garbage behind him. It would have been impossible for Handy to pick both him and some garbage up at the same time.
 * 8) Russell's hook goes from being on his right arm for most of the episode to being on his left arm when he dies.
 * 9) The houses surrounding Petunia’s house change places occasionally.
 * 10) The mole on The Mole's face changes places a few times.
 * 11) Handy continues screaming even after his head is completely sliced by the helicopter blades.
 * 12) Handy's blood is orange when it lands on the sidewalk.
 * 13) When Handy's body parts land on the sidewalk, there are two identical torso parts (both include his arms with the top of the bandages still in tact).
 * 14) Despite crashing, the remains of Handy's helicopter are nowhere to be found.
 * 15) The gas signs that surround The Mole don’t appear until after he lights a match.
 * 16) After Lifty dies, his eye moves to look at Shifty.

Trivia

 * 1) While dialing for help, Mime performs the old gag that he’s forgotten the number to 911.
 * 2) The kitten that the fire-brigade saves from the tree is none other than Mittens/Honey, first seen in Tongue Twister Trouble.
 * 3) The Cursed Idol is among the items that falls out the crane of Handy’s helicopter.
 * 4) This episode features the only instance in the television series, and one of only two instances in the entire series, that Lifty dies before Shifty. The other episode was Milkin' It, when Lifty was impaled by a tree before Shifty was cut in half by and swung around by a windmill.
 * 5) This is one of the few episodes in which all of the featuring and appearing characters die or are presumed dead while the starring character survived.
 * 6) This is one of the most violent episodes and the episode with the second most deaths (behind Class Act). Though there were a couple of other episodes with 16 deaths, this one shows almost every death and most of them are seperate from one another.