Tongue in Cheek

TV Season: 1 Episode: 11.2 Writers: Warren Graff Ken Pontac David Winn Jeff Biancalana Kenn Navarro Director: Kenn Navarro Episode list: TV Season 1 Previous Episode: Wingin' It Next Episode: Easy Comb, Easy Go "Tongue in Cheek" is episode number 11.2 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

Starring Roles

 * Sniffles

Appearance Roles

 * Lumpy
 * The Mole

Plot
Sniffles enjoys a picnic in the park, when he is suddenly hit on the head by a stray golf ball. Lumpy, dressed in golf attire and holding a golf club, runs over and apologizes. Sniffles angrily returns Lumpy's ball and turns to find an ant taking some food from his picnic. He runs behind a tree and extends his tongue out, slowly creeping it towards the unsuspecting ant. He touches the ant, who quickly runs away until it finds itself cornered with a cup of hot coffee at its back. Sniffles' tongue pounces and the ant dodges, causing Sniffles to knock over the coffee cup and burn his tongue severely.

Determined, Sniffles rusumes the chase. The ant runs up a tree and walks onto a branch with a single leaf hanging from it. Once more Sniffles corners the ant, only to have it slip away by using the leaf as a parachute and then as a boat when it hits the water. Sniffles' tongue follows the ant, weaving in and out of the water. The ant hits the shore and runs off with Sniffles' tongue in hot persuit, when a golf ball rolls up. The ant trips as it runs for its ant-hill, leaving it vulnerable as Sniffles' tongue pounces in for the kill. The tongue stops short of the ant, however, unable to move forward, allowing the ant to escape, slamming a door on top of the hill.

We find that Lumpy, in trying to play his ball, has stepped on Sniffles' tongue. Sniffles confronts a sheepish Lumpy about this before storming off in defeat. He observes the ant-hill from a distance, discovering they use a secret knock to get inside. He imitates the knock and one of the ants opens a peephole to see Sniffles' finger with a picture of an ant drawn on it. Shrugging, the ants open the door only to immediately have Sniffles hand slam down inside, barely missing them. Unfortunately, the ants stitch his hand and arm to the ground/walls, and begin pulling his fingernails up with a needle. To increase the pain, the ants pour salt on Sniffles' fingers. In his attempts to free himself from the hole, he tears the skin off his hand.

Back at his house, Sniffles has bandaged his hand and completed work on a robotic ant. He places a helmet on his head similar to a helmet the robot wears and begins moving around, the robot imitating his movements. Back at the ant-hill there's another knock on the door. They let the robot in upon seeing it through the peephole, quickly regretting it as it retracts saws, hooks, and a drill from its arms. The robot chases the family, destroying the ant-hill in the process. The robot chases the ants outside, where they run up to Sniffles' house. The robot lunges at them with its hooks, missing and getting the hooks caught in an electrical socket.

The robot gets electrocuted, as does Sniffles, causing both to fall to the ground. One of the ants removes the helmet from the robot and crosses the wires. Sniffles wakes up, the helmet still on his head, to find the ant family inside his house waiting for him. One of the ants puts the helmet on and begins moving. Because the wires were crossed, now Sniffles imitates the ant's movements. The ant makes Sniffles stick numerous razors in an apple and take several bites of it, cutting up Sniffles' mouth. The ant then makes Sniffles stick his tongue in a paper shredder before having him yank it out as it's being cut.

Finally, the ant has Sniffles go outside, nail his tail to the ground, and tie his tongue to a double sided paddle. Sniffles begins crying as the ant has him twist the paddle before letting it go, making it fly upwards in a helicopter effect. Because Sniffles is nailed to the ground, his tongue and organs fly with the oar and out of his body. Later, we see the ants have made a new home out of Sniffles' carcass. Meanwhile, Lumpy, still playing golf, puts on a golf glove and, upon not being able to locate his other glove, picks up and puts on the skin torn from Sniffles' hand earlier. He hits his ball through Sniffles' intestines, which are wrapped around a tree along with his organs and ribcage in a type of makeshift mini golf hole. Lumpy does a fist pump at his successful shot.

Moral
"Don't make a mountain out of an ant-hill!"

Deaths

 * Sniffles' organs are torn from his body.

Goofs

 * 1) Lumpy's antlers change directions several times, sometimes during continuous shots.
 * 2) Despite losing the skin on his left hand, Sniffles' hand is shown to be perfectly fine after he sends his robot into the ant-hill.
 * 3) Sniffles loses the skin on his left hand, yet at the end of the episode Lumpy places the skin over his right hand.

Trivia

 * 1) Sniffles' tongue licking the mother ant with her back to the wall is a reference to the movie Alien.
 * 2) The photo The Mole takes of Sniffles' tongue resembles the Lochness Monster photo.
 * 3) Despite Sniffles' numerous encounters with the ants during the internet series, this is the only Sniffles vs. ants episode of the TV series.
 * 4) This is the only episode of the first season of the TV show to have only one death in it (Handy was the only main character to die in A Change of Heart, but a whale died as well).
 * 5) This is also one of a few episodes to have only the starring character die while the featuring/appearing characters survive.