By The Seat Of Your Pants

By The Seat of Your Pants is an episode of Happy Tree Friends, the twenty-fourth (and final) episode of Internet Season 3, and the 78th episode overall.

HTF Episode Description
Lumpy has Flippy over to watch a swimming competition on T.V. but is caught with his pants down. It’s sink or swim time as Lumpy tries to keep one step ahead of Flippy. Which one of them is going to get caught “underwear”?

Plot
"For Max"

The episode starts off with a TV being turned on. On the screen, it shows Cuddles and Giggles about to compete in a swimming race. Flippy sits on a chair as Lumpy brings a piece of cheese and a potato peeler on a plate. Unfortunately, The Mole fires his starting pistol and causes Flippy to flip out and change into Fliqpy. Grabbing the potato peeler, he slices a piece of skin off Lumpy's rump. Upon realizing the danger he is in, Lumpy tries to escape through a window, which Fliqpy closes on him.

Lumpy manages to free himself, but by skinning his lower torso and legs. He pulls his skin, now resembling a pair of pants, out the window. The wound reveals Fliqpy about to finish the job, so he runs away. Seconds later, a butterfly lands on Fliqpy's hand and reverts him back to Flippy.

Meanwhile, Lumpy tries to put his skin back on and stumbles into a laundromat. He throws his skin into a washer, but it shrinks to the appearance of swim briefs. However, Lumpy sees Disco Bear on TV, about to compete at the swim competition, and gets another idea.

Russell, Cro-Marmot, Disco Bear and Lumpy later appear at the swimming pool for the next event. Flippy is seen sitting with the audience, raising a flag. As Lumpy gets ready to dive, he puts on his goggles, and The Mole fires his pistol which startles Flippy again. After a quick dive, Lumpy surfaces to find Flippy flipped out and turned into Fliqpy, with all of the audience massacred (except for Handy whose legs are cut off).

Swimming to the other end of the pool, Lumpy cringes as Fliqpy pounces. However, Fliqpy bounces off Lumpy's "briefs", and onto a flag pole. Impaled, he painfully tries to climb back up to safety. Frantically trying to get Fliqpy down, Lumpy raises down the flag and ends up killing him. As Lumpy salutes, his skin briefs slide down his legs.

Moral
"Put your pants on one leg at a time."

Deaths

 * 1) Flaky is split in half. (Death not seen)
 * 2) Nutty is drowned. (Death not seen)
 * 3) Toothy and Truffles are beheaded. (Deaths not seen)
 * 4) Giggles is impaled by a stick. (Death not seen)
 * 5) Sniffles' head is cut in half. (Death not seen)
 * 6) An elephant and one or more Generic Tree Friends are also killed by Fliqpy. (Deaths not seen)
 * 7) Fliqpy is impaled on a flag pole and subsequently disemboweled by Lumpy.

Injuries

 * 1) Lumpy's skin from the waist down is torn off.
 * 2) Handy's feet were cut off.

Destruction

 * The following is seen when Lumpy surfaces the pool: a car is seen on it's side, the bleachers are set on fire, a tall flag is bent up, and one of the stairs on the bleachers is broken.

Goofs

 * 1) Lumpy's antlers change directions, sometimes during continuing shots.
 * 2) The TV channel is changed in the beginning, but the TV buttons are not visibly touched and no remote is seen.
 * 3) If Giggles is a competitor, why is she in the audience? (She could have been allowed to join after her race.)
 * 4) David Winn and Aubrey Ankrum are the only voice actors to have their names written in the credits (in the "Voices" section), despite that voices from characters who are not voiced by any of the mentioned voice actors are heard.
 * 5) It would not be possible for Flippy to return to normal by seeing a butterfly, considering he once killed a woodpecker. However, the reason could be that he has more power to control himself.
 * 6) Nutty and Truffles are nowhere to be seen in the audience, but when Lumpy surfaces, Nutty's arm is sticking out of the water and Truffles' severed head can be seen at the poolside. It is possible that one or both of them were inside the car before it crashed.
 * 7) Lumpy does not stain the pool water when he swims.
 * 8) Lumpy does not feel pain upon walking despite the skin of his feet also being ripped off.
 * 9) When Lumpy is shown underwater, Nutty's dead body is nowhere to be seen.
 * 10) When Handy's legs are cut off, his bones are not visible.
 * 11) Lumpy spends only half a second underwater, yet Fliqpy manages to kill the audience, an elephant, a Generic Tree Friend, Nutty, and Truffles. On top of this, Flippy also had to flip out, since he was normal before Lumpy was underwater. This may be another sign that Fliqpy kills quite fast.
 * 12) When Lumpy is about to dive in, Disco Bear's left ear and chest hair are missing (unless the scene took place at an angle).
 * 13) After Flippy flips out and causes the carnage, Sniffles is briefly seen close to him when he was really at the far side of the bench. However, it is possible that Flippy put Sniffles close to him before killing him.
 * 14) Sniffles is seen 'floating' when he is shown (or he was sitting down, but it looked as if he was floating).
 * 15) It is odd that Cro-Marmot participates in the swimming contest, considering several characters are aware of what his block of ice can do in the water.
 * 16) When Fliqpy gets impaled by the flag pole and slides down, a bit of his hand is missing.
 * 17) Disco Bear can be seen in the swimming competition in this episode, despite his inability to swim in See What Develops.
 * 18) Because Lumpy's veins were exposed, he should have felt a sharp pain when entering the water.

Trivia

 * The title of this episode is another way of saying "by the seat of one's pants," which is a figurative way of saying "by sheer luck."
 * This is the first episode of 2013, and the only Season 3 episode to premiere in 2013.
 * The text For Max is seen at the beginning of the episode. Meaning that the episode is dedicated to a person by the name of "Max".
 * According to Kenn Navarro on Twitter, he has said, "It was for a very special fan who wrote in. He and his family knows what it was for."
 * This marks the second time a text is shown before the episode. The first was in We're Scrooged!.
 * This is the first time to show Russell's being topless. It is shown that he lacks a belly marking.
 * It is strange that, this time, Russell took off his shirt despite many other times where he was swimming that he remained fully clothed. However, it is possible that the reason he wasn't wearing his shirt was because this was a speed oriented swimming costume and the extra drag his shirt would have given him would have mattered.
 * The screws and lines on the walls are while Flippy and Lumpy are watching T.V. are the same but in different places as the storyboard.
 * This is the second time that guns have been shown in a Happy Tree Friends episode, in this case a starting pistol. The first time was in Ka-Pow! ' s Operation: Tiger Bomb, although no guns in that episode were fired.
 * Truffles' head is shown on the left side of the pool, after Lumpy dives in the water. This marks his second confirmed death, the first being All In Vein.
 * After Lumpy, this makes Fliqpy the second character to kill Truffles, and his first time doing so.
 * On the storyboard it shows Petunia with Cuddles, instead of Giggles. It is unknown why this change was made.
 * This is the second internet episode Russell and Disco Bear survive. The first for Disco Bear is Stayin' Alive, and the first for Russell is Can't Stop Coffin.
 * This is one of four episodes were Fliqpy is unable to kill Lumpy. The others were Remains to be Seen, Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow, and Double Whammy Part I.
 * This is the first episode since Keepin' it Reel where Fliqpy kills Flaky, nearly ten years.
 * This is the only episode where Lumpy kills Fliqpy without Toothy.
 * Lumpy's injury is similar to Petunia's injury in Read 'em and Weep and a little earlier it was similar to Giggles' injury in Doggone It.
 * This is the only episode to date where all three handicapped main characters survive.
 * The reason for Handy only being injured instead of killed is probably because of the irony now that he hasn't got hands and feet.
 * However, this isn't the first time this happened; It happens first in Class Act.
 * This is the first internet episode Disco Bear has survived since Stayin' Alive, all the way back in season one.
 * This is the second time that Fliqpy injures Lumpy without killing him (the first time being Remains to be Seen).
 * Disco Bear is seen with closed eyes throughout the episode.
 * This is the first time since Sea What I Found that Disco Bear wears something other than his usual clothing.
 * This is the fourth time that Flippy has died while in his flipped-out state.
 * This is the first time in the Internet series, and the second time since Double Whammy, that Flippy has been brought out of his flipped-out state, and also flipped out more than once in a single episode.
 * This is the second time that Russell, Cuddles and Handy survive the episode with Flippy in it, the first being in Double Whammy Part I. Coincidentally, Handy and Russell are the only characters who Fliqpy hasn't killed while being face to face (though he did injure Handy in this episode). He killed them both in Remains to be Seen but everyone died there in a car crash.
 * This is the only Season 3 Internet short where Disco Bear appears without Splendid.
 * This is Disco Bear's third appearance in Season 3. This makes Splendid, Lifty, and Shifty the characters with the least appearances in Season 3.
 * This marks one of the few times when Lumpy kills intentionally. Though here he did it for self defense.
 * Fliqpy being unable to kill Lumpy has become a running gag in the series.
 * Most of the survivors were only killed once by Fliqpy before this episode. Lumpy was killed in Keepin' it Reel, Handy, The Mole, and Russell in Remains to be Seen, and Disco Bear in Double Whammy Part I). The only exceptions are Cro-Marmot and Cuddles - the former has never been killed by Fliqpy and the latter has been killed multiple times.
 * Fliqpy's death is similar to Disco Bear's death in Sea What I Found and Russell's death In Get Whale Soon.
 * After The Mole's second starting pistol, it appears that only Lumpy jumped in the pool, implying that the others were quick enough to notice Flippy flipping out and killing the others and decided to not jump in the pool to run away as the other competitors weren't seen for the rest of the episode.
 * Lumpy was pretty smart in this episode despite his low intelligence. He was able to run away from Fliqpy, and was also able to kill Fliqpy before he could escape.
 * Strangely, nobody seemed shocked that Lumpy was missing skin from the waist down.
 * The Mole, Flippy and Lumpy were the only characters who were seen moving in the episode (apart from some blinking).
 * This is the second time Cuddles survives an episode with Flippy. The first being Double Whammy Part I. But in fact, he along with Toothy were (Debatably) killed in the aforementioned episode's second part.
 * Sniffles' death is similar to Mime's death in See You Later, Elevator.
 * The three characters that died in the previous episode (Handy, Lumpy, and The Mole) all survived this time.
 * Ironically, while not being a main character, Truffles survived his appearance in that episode but died here, meaning the deaths were swapped around.
 * This episode is the first to have its complete storyboard revealed (uploaded to Mondo's website).
 * This is the first episode where Fliqpy kills Sniffles and Nutty without killing Mime as well.
 * This is the only episode from season 3 that Disco Bear appears without Splendid.
 * Flippy is the last character to die in season 3.
 * This is the last episode of Season 3.
 * This is be the first season finale that Flaky dies in. (Debatable, as she may have died along with Lumpy in From A to Zoo)
 * This is the first season finale that doesn't have two parts.
 * This is the second episode where all the deaths took place off-screen. The first was in A Change of Heart. (Debatable)
 * This makes Season 3 the shortest internet season so far, with only 24 episodes. Seasons 1 and 2 had 27 episodes each.
 * According to the comments on YouTube, many people protested against Lumpy because of him killing Flippy, arguably the show's most popular character.