From A to Zoo

Internet Season: 2 Episode: 54 Production Number: 227 Writers: Warren Graff Ken Pontac David Winn Jeff Biancalana Kenn Navarro Director: Kenn Navarro Episode list: Internet Season 2 Previous Episode: Suck it Up Next Episode: Read 'em and Weep "From A to Zoo" is the first 7-minute episode of the Happy Tree Friends internet series. This is also the last episode of season two of the Happy Tree Friends internet series.

Starring roles

 * Lumpy

Featuring roles

 * Petunia
 * Flaky
 * Cuddles
 * Toothy
 * Sniffles

HTF's Episode Description
This is our first "extra long" episode, coming in at 7 minutes. As we started thinking about how we'd produce shows for the upcoming television series, we had to take a shot at a more complete episode, showcasing more characters and delving into their personalities. We first screened this piece at Comic-Con 2005 to an overwhelming reception. the crowd went nuts! We think it's a great story and the team has had a lot of fun continuing the process for the upcoming series.

Plot
Lumpy the bus driver parks his school bus outside a zoo. Taking attendance, he looks around to see Petunia, Cuddles, Toothy, and Sniffles are excited while Flaky wears her trademark nervous expression. The group enters the zoo, holding hands and singing the Happy Tree Friends tune, and walks up to a sign designating where everything is. While Lumpy ponders what they should look at first, the others scatter and run off to various parts of the zoo. Noticing the kids are gone, Lumpy runs after them.

Cuddles and Toothy are standing at the baboon cage, poking it with a stick and laughing. The two run off when Sniffles approaches, camera in hand. Lumpy catches up to Sniffles who asks Lumpy to take his photo with the baboon. Lumpy has Sniffles back all the way up to the cage, so that his body is pressed up against the bars. When Lumpy takes the photo, the baboon is surprised and enraged by the flash and begins attacking Sniffles.

Lumpy looks around and spots a blowdart gun and two tranquilizer darts in a glass case. Standing next to the case is Petunia, eating an ice cream cone and watching Lumpy as he breaks the glass. Unfortunately, the glass shards fall on Petunia, piercing her face and causing her to scream in pain and stumble around. Lumpy is concerned by this, but quickly turns his attention back to Sniffles upon seeing that he's being torn to pieces by the baboon.

Lumpy aims the blowdart gun and fires a dart. Unfortunately, he misses and hits Petunia in the eye, causing her to stumble and fall into a snakepit. Lumpy quickly loads in the second dart, not realizing he's inserting it backwards. He takes a deep breath and ends up swallowing the dart, making him pass out.

Several hours later, Lumpy wakes up and runs over to the snakepit to save Petunia. She has been swallowed by a snake, and Lumpy jumps down to free her. After a brief struggle, Lumpy winds up getting eaten too. Fortunately, he is able to use his pen to cut the snake open and free himself and Petunia. Unfortunately, the snake had already begun digesting Petunia, as she is smothered in stomach acid. Realizing there's nothing else he can do for her, Lumpy runs off to find the others.

Elsewhere, Toothy stands on all fours while Cuddles stands on his back and peers through a hole in a wooden fence. On the other side of the fence is a rhinoceros which Cuddles pokes with a stick through the hole in the fence. After getting no reaction, Cuddles attaches a knife to the end of the stick and begins poking the rhinoceros again. Still getting no reaction, Cuddles sticks a hot ring through the fence and burns a circle on the rhinoceros' skin, finally getting the animal's attention.

Lumpy runs up to the mischievous duo and Cuddles runs off, giving a mocking laugh. As Lumpy watches Cuddles leave, Toothy asks Lumpy to lift him up so he can see the rhinoceros through the fence. Sighing, Lumpy agrees much to Toothy's delight. While running, Cuddles comes upon a helium tank used for inflating balloons and decides to have some fun. He inhales the helium and begins singing in a high-pitched voice.

Meanwhile, Lumpy hears Flaky scream in the distance. While he turns his attention away, he doesn't notice the sound of approaching footsteps or Toothy's head being impaled by the rhinoceros' horn through the fence. Determined to see what the problem is, Lumpy places a crate under Toothy's feet and runs off, still not aware that Toothy's head has been stabbed. The rhinoceros removes its horn from the fence and Toothy falls down, dead.

Flaky screams in terror as a baby chick cheeps and hops over to her. Lumpy runs over to tell her everything is okay, but he accidentally and unknowingly steps on the chick. This causes Flaky to start crying and screaming even more. Lumpy picks her up and runs off, stepping on and killing multiple chicks as he runs. At one point he slips, crushing numerous chicks and covering both himself and Flaky with blood and the remains of dead chicks.

Cuddles has finally had enough fun playing with the helium and starts to walk off. He stops when he sees the baboon, who has escaped from his cage and now plays with Sniffles' camera. He looks over at Cuddles and gets angry, wanting revenge for the humiliation he suffered earlier. Cuddles turns to run away, but he slams his eye into the nozzle of the helium tank. He is unable to get his eye free, and his head slowly expands as his screams get higher and higher pitched until they stop altogether. Now dead, one of Cuddles' eyes begins to float up as though it were a long balloon.

The baboon runs off as Lumpy approaches, still carrying a traumatized Flaky. He sees the balloons and decides to get one for Flaky. Not watching what he's doing, he grabs Cuddles' inflated eye and makes a balloon animal out of it. He hands it to Flaky who stops crying and smiles. He picks her up and carries her off, but she screams and passes out upon seeing Cuddles' body being dragged at the end of the nerve fibers connected to Cuddles' eye/Flaky's balloon animal.

Back on the bus, an exhausted Lumpy plops down in the driver's seat and looks around, taking attendance again. He's surprised to see a dead Petunia, Cuddles, and Toothy, a traumatized Flaky, and the baboon holding Sniffles' camera and wearing his glasses. Lumpy shrugs and drives off. From outside the bus, we see a flash from the camera and the baboon starts screeching. Before the episode ends, we hear a crash.

Moral
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you!"

Deaths

 * 1) Sniffles is torn to pieces by a baboon.
 * 2) Petunia suffocates on the stomach acid of a snake.
 * 3) The snake that ate Petunia is sliced apart by Lumpy.
 * 4) Toothy's head is impaled by a rhinoceros' horn.
 * 5) Numerous baby chicks are stepped on and crushed by Lumpy.
 * 6) Cuddles' head fills up with helium, supposedly inflating his brain.
 * 7) Flaky, Lumpy, and the baboon may have died after their bus crashed.

Goofs

 * 1) The directions of Lumpy's antlers change multiple times throughout the episode.
 * 2) Sniffles' glasses are broken when he is attacked by the baboon, but the baboon is later seen wearing them while on the bus.
 * 3) In the bus, Lumpy has blood on his chest, but it disappears when he slouches and then reappears when he sits up straight again.
 * 4) When Lumpy is taking Flaky back to the bus, both his antlers are turned upwards.

Triva

 * This is the last time we see the characters with this design. Every episode afterwards, there's a new, improved design that matches the TV series. This animation is now only seen in Happy Tree Friends Breaks.