Don't Yank My Chain

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"Don't Yank My Chain" is episode number 2.3 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

Starring Roles

 * Handy
 * The Mole
 * Lumpy

Featuring Roles

 * Lifty and Shifty
 * Pop
 * Cub

Appearance Roles

 * Cuddles
 * Giggles (as a hula girl figurine on Handy's dashboard)

Plot
As a lone car swerves down the highway we go inside to find Handy driving, while The Mole holds a map in the passenger seat. The car's fuel gauge quickly reaches empty and while the duo stops at a gas station to fill up, Lifty and Shifty emerge from the bushes to steal their car. Not long after taking off, they are stopped by Lumpy, a state trooper. The brothers panic at the thought of being arrested, but they come up with a plan upon gazing at Handy and The Mole's luggage.

Lumpy walks up to the car and takes Handy and The Mole's driver's licenses from Shifty, who now wears one of Handy's hard hats while Lifty wears a pair of The Mole's sun glasses and one of his turtlenecks. Lumpy glances into the backseat of the car to see both suitcases open with hard hats, canes and turtlenecks strewn about the car. Handy and The Mole come running up to the car, out of breath, and explain to Lumpy what happened. Lumpy looks at both groups and the licenses several times, trying to decide which group is the rightful owner of the car.

The scene changes to Handy and The Mole, badly beaten up, being locked up in jail, (due to Lumpy's stupidity) their protests going unheeded. Handy sees the keys to the cell and tries to grab them unsuccessfully, only to find that the cell door is unlocked. The two try to run away, but they are pulled back into the room by a heavy ball, attached by a chain to their legs. Later, Lumpy discovers they're gone and sounds the alarm, as Handy and The Mole flee the prison with The Mole carrying the heavy ball in his hands. They rest for a moment at the top of a hill, but The Mole sets down the ball towards the edge of a cliff. The ball rolls forwards, and both are dragged down a sharp, rocky cliff, where they are bruised and cut even further.

The duo land at a tree stump where a sledgehammer and a spike sit. While Handy holds the spike in his teeth above the chain, The Mole raises the sledgehammer above his head. He loses his balance, however, and stumbles back into a well, dragging Handy and the ball along with him. Back at the top of the cliff, Lumpy tracks Handy and The Mole using a bloodhound. The bloodhound gets their scent and takes off down the cliff, dragging Lumpy along behind him.

Meanwhile, Cuddles approaches the well that Handy and The Mole fell into, and begins turning the handle to raise the bucket. When he sees Handy emerge from the well, he gets scared and runs away screaming, allowing the bucket to fall and sending Handy plummeting back into the well. Elsewhere, the bloodhound finds a piece of The Mole's turtleneck that tore off on the sharp rocks. Lumpy blows his nose on the cloth and congratulates the dog.

Handy and The Mole finally make it out of the well and run away as they hear the bloodhound howling in the distance. Cuddles comes back to the well and calls out to whoever may be inside. He almost falls in, however, and clutches to the side of the well for dear life. The bloodhound approaches the well and looks in. Lumpy, not even looking into the well, drops and breaks the bucket on Cuddles' head. Cuddles begins falling and when he reaches the end of the rope, his body is pulled from his head, which remains in the bucket. Lumpy pulls the bucket back up to find Cuddles' head floating in a pool of blood. He then throws it back down the well in disgust.

Handy and The Mole continue running, until they come upon a rowboat docked in a river. They begin rowing away just as Lumpy approaches, shouting after them. Handy finds a hacksaw in a toolbox on the boat, but as The Mole tries to cut the chain, he accidentally cuts the boat in half. The two almost drown from being pulled down by the ball, but they manage to pull themselves up on a log floating in the river.

Handy thinks all is well, until he looks over and sees they are headed for a sawmill. They attempt running away, but a bunched up group of logs blocks their path. Handy tells The Mole to get in the water and leave the ball on the log so when the log goes up the ramp to the saw, the ball will be cut in half. Unfortunately, the ball falls in the water, dragging The Mole down and sending him straight into the headsaw where he silently flails as his head is sawed in half. Handy, realizing he's next, spots the controls and dives at the off button with his head, managing to deactivate the saw. Handy briefly mourns The Mole's death, but he flees again, hearing the bloodhound howling not far off.

Things are incredibly difficult now, as Handy must pull the ball as well as The Mole's body, without any hands to aid in the process. This leads to his leg being cut by the shackle around his ankle. He sees that he's next to a set of railroad tracks and upon hearing a train approaching, he gets an idea. He lays the ball and The Mole's body on one side of the tracks, while lying himself on the other side of the tracks, with the chains running over the middle. When the train comes, however, he gets dragged along by the train because the chain gets caught on a cowcatcher.

Handy gets dragged along the ground and the side of the train, eventually losing his tail from the extreme friction he faces. The train approaches a tunnel and Handy screams in horror just before he slams into the side of the tunnel. Cub, a passenger in the train who was watching Handy from a window, turns around to face Pop, who screams as he sees Handy's eyes over Cub's, acting as a pair of googly eyes.

Up ahead, Handy's car runs out of gas and stops on the railroad tracks, just as the gates come down. Lifty and Shifty shout at each other over the incident before realizing that the train is coming. The train hits the car, leaving a small trail of blood behind it. Back at the tunnel, the ball comes bouncing out along the tracks and bounces off a cliff. Lumpy stands below, still looking for the fugitives, when the ball lands on his head, crushing him to death. As the episode ends, the dog sniffs the undamaged ball.

Moral
"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link!"

Deaths

 * 1) Cuddles is decapitated when his head becomes stuck in a bucket and he free falls down a well.
 * 2) The Mole's head is cut in half by a headsaw.
 * 3) Handy is dragged by a train and slammed against the side of a tunnel.
 * 4) Lifty and Shifty are hit by a train.
 * 5) Lumpy's head is crushed by a heavy metal ball.

Goofs

 * 1) The steering wheel on the car in the opening scene continues to move even though Handy's stumps are clearly not touching it.
 * 2) The keys on the wall to the right of the cell disappear when Lumpy returns.
 * 3) The directions of Lumpy's antlers change numerous times throughout the episode, sometimes in continuous shots.
 * 4) Handy's black eye changes from his right eye to his left eye after he realizes the cell door is open.
 * 5) The leg that Handy's shackle is on changes throughout the episode.
 * 6) The positions of Handy's tools on his toolbelt change several times.
 * 7) The positions of the barn and farm house near the well change several times.
 * 8) The bucket isn't at the end of the rope when Cuddles is turning the handle, but when Handy and The Mole are seen out of the well the bucket is at the end of the rope again.
 * 9) Cuddles' watering can disappears when he runs away from Handy.
 * 10) After The Mole's death, he isn't holding his cane, but he is seen holding it after Handy puts his body alongside the railroad tracks.
 * 11) Handy's toolbelt disappears when he is dragged along by the train (though it may have fallen off, it is more likely his helmet would have fallen off first, which might be another goof).
 * 12) In the shot where the train was going to enter the tunnel, The Mole didn't appear at the side of the train.
 * 13) In the scene where Cub is wearing Handy's eyes, the pacman shape of the eyes are the wrong way round (facing left instead of right).

Trivia

 * 1) This episode stars Handy, The Mole, and Lumpy, who are described as the trio no hands, no eyes, no brain.
 * 2) This is the only episode where three separate characters star in.
 * 3) Handy has a small statuette of a hula dancing Giggles on his dashboard.
 * 4) The flag outside of the prison is a Canadian flag.
 * 5) Handy finding a hacksaw in the boat and The Mole attempting to cut the chain may be a reference to the movie Saw.
 * 6) The concept of two handicapped people chained together near a bladed device may be an additional reference to Saw.
 * 7) The music that plays as Handy dies is the same music that is in the Happy Tree Friends game Fire Escape and Socks to be You.
 * 8) This is the first episode of the first season of the TV series in which Cub survives.
 * 9) This is the first episode in the TV series wherein no girls are featured (although you could consider Giggles' cameo appearance as a bobbling hula girl).
 * 10) When this episode aired along with Party Animal and Ipso Fatso on YouTube, the alternate title for the conglomeration of the segments was named "Lesser of Two Evils." Lumpy, Cuddles, and The Mole appear in all three of these episodes.
 * 11) This is the only episode in the "Happy Tree Friends" television series with three separate star credited characters (Pop and Cub and Lifty and Shifty are always listed together).