Read 'em and Weep

Internet Season: 3

Episode: 55

Production Number: 301

Writers: Ken Pontac

Warren Graff

Kenn Navarro

Director: Kenn Navarro

Episode List: Internet Season 3

Previous Episode: From A to Zoo

Next Episode: Can't Stop Coffin

"Read 'em and Weep" is the first episode of the third season of the Happy Tree Friends internet series.

Starring roles

 * Pop
 * Cub
 * Lumpy
 * The Demon

Featuring roles

 * Toothy
 * Petunia

Plot
Pop and Cub are walking along when they come upon Toothy, who is selling books. Cub takes a fancy to a book featuring a castle on the cover, but Pop, noticing the dollar sign on the table, disagrees. Upon seeing a box with a cent symbol on it, Pop decides to buy Cub a book that resembles an agonized face. Later that night Pop reads the book to Cub, causing clouds to swirl over their house and birds to fall out of the sky. Pop closes the window and turns out the lights, leaving a terrified Cub alone in the darkness. A strange, ominous glow appears under Cub's bed, and when he looks down to see what it is, he is attacked by an unseen force.

The next morning Pop makes breakfast for Cub, who is now green and in a zombie-like state. After refusing to eat his breakfast, Cub's head rotates 360 degrees and Cub vomits a green fluid all over Pop. The doorbell rings and Pop answers the door to see Petunia, dressed as a girl scout, selling cookies. Suddenly, a tentacle wraps itself around Petunia and pulls her offscreen. We now see that Cub has tenacles and a beak coming out of his head. While Petunia clings for dear life on a cabinet under the sink, the monster in Cub's head tears the skin and tail off of Petunia's lower body. She manages to escape into the area beneath the sink, but the tentacles emerge through the pipes and grab her again. The tentacles attempt to drag Petunia through the drain of the sink, crushing her body in the process. When she gets stuck, the tentacles use the garbage disposal to grind up her body, bringing her cries of pain and fear to an end. While the beak begins eating Petunia's mangled remains, a panic-stricken Pop places a phone call.

The doorbell rings again and Pop answers to find Lumpy, a priest/exorcist. He is immediately vomited upon by Cub, who he then tackles. Lumpy struggles with the monster in Cub's head and eventually succeeds in tearing it out. Cub, now his normal color and minus the monster in his head, looks at his body and smiles happily. Unfortunately, Pop, not realizing that Cub has been cured, continuously hits Cub with a shovel until he is a flat, bloody circle. Later, Pop and Lumpy stand at Cub's grave, mourning his death. Before the episode ends, a tentacle comes out of Lumpy's mouth, which he quickly places a hand over.

Moral
"Don't judge a book by it's cover!"

Deaths

 * 1) Numerous birds die after Pop reads the cursed book to Cub.
 * 2) Petunia is pulled through the drain of a sink and is torn apart by the garbage disposal.
 * 3) Cub is hit and flattened by Pop, using a shovel.

Goofs

 * 1) During Toothy's sale, there are three books standing straight up on the left side of the table. Cub picks one of them up, but right before Pop looks over at the dollar symbol, there are again three books standing upright.
 * 2) The positions of the picture frames behind Cub's bed change.
 * 3) Before Lumpy tackles Cub there is no vase on the stand next to Pop, but one appears when we see a close up of Pop panicking.
 * 4) The skin on the lower half of Petunia's body was ripped off before she hides beneath the sink, but the skin is still on one of her legs when she is pulled through the drain.
 * 5) When Pop opens the door, Lumpy's antlers are outside the door. After Cub was sick on him, When he looked down at his green body, his antlers came right through the wall.

Trivia

 * 1) The book that Pop reads to Cub is a parody of the Necronomicon, a fictional book created by H.P Lovecraft.
 * 2) The basic plot and many elements of the episode are a parody of the movie The Exorcist.
 * 3) The events of how Cub was possesed and the appearance of the cursed book seem to draw inspiration from the Evil Dead movies.
 * 4) This episode makes Petunia to be the first character to die in the third internet season.
 * 5) The demon having tentacles could be a reference to one of H.P. Lovecraft's other creations, Cthulhu. However Cthulhu is gigantic, too big to fit inside Cub.
 * 6) Despite numerous instances of Pop causing Cub's death through his lack of attention/competence as a parent, this is the only episode of the series to date where Pop deliberately kills Cub.
 * 7) In the credits, it says Cro-Marmot appears in this episode, and has a voice actor. However, Cro-Marmot was nowhere to be seen, and has no voice.
 * 8) Starting with this episode onwards, the animation is fit to resemble the animation for the TV Series.
 * 9) This episode is one of the only three episodes where a character during his/her death cried due to the degree of pain he/she was suffering. Then other two characters and episodes are Toothy from Eye Candy and Sniffles from Tongue in Cheek.


 * 1) This episode marks one of the most gruesome deaths Petunia has suffered so far, and may be the most painful death in the series.