Tongue in Cheek

"Tongue in Cheek" is episode number 11.2 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

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 back. Sniffles' tongue pounces and the ant dodges, causing Sniffles to knock over the coffee cup and burn his tongue severely.

Determined, Sniffles resumes 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 mole on shore takes a picture of the chase, the photograph that comes out is Sniffles' toungue in the water. The ant hits the shore and runs off with Sniffles' tongue in hot pursuit, when a golf ball rolls up. The ant trips as it runs for 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. The view finds 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.

Sniffles 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, 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 extends saws, hooks, and a drill from his 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 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 proceed to torture Sniffles in agonizing and gruesome ways, making Sniffles stick numerous razors in an apple and take several bites of it and then making Sniffles stick his tongue in a paper shredder before having him yank it out as it is 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, the view sees that the ants have made a new home out of Sniffles' body. Meanwhile, Lumpy, still playing golf, puts on a golf glove and, upon not being able to locate his other glove, picks up and unknowingly 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 shreds his mouth and his tongue, nails his tail to the ground, ties his trunk to a double-paddle and lets go of the paddle to tear his organs from his body, all while mind-controlled.

Injuries

 * Prior to his death, Sniffles had the skin of his hand ripped off, his mouth cut up, and his tongue shredded.

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.
 * 4) When Lumpy hits the golfball, the ball isn't small enough to fit inside the hole in Sniffles' intestine.
 * 5) Even though Lumpy has an appearance role, he would most likely have a featuring role.

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 the longest and possibly the most torturous death in Happy Tree Friends. Lumpy's death in The Chokes on You is second to this.
 * 6) Sniffles' death is similar to Giggles' death from Double Whammy Part 1.
 * 7) Sniffles later suffers a similar death in In a Jam.
 * 8) This episode is one of five instances where a character cried during his/her death due to the degree of pain. The other four instances are Toothy from Eye Candy, Petunia from Read 'em and Weep, Flaky from Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna be Ya! and Lumpy from The Chokes On You.
 * 9) This is one of the few TV episodes where there are less than five characters.
 * 10) This is the only TV episode where only one character stars alone without any featuring characters.
 * 11) Sniffles' death is the longest in the TV series, the 2nd longest being Lumpy's in Letter Late Than Never.
 * 12) This episode is going to air on YouTube on April 27, 2012 as confirmed on Twitter along with Easy Comb, Easy Go and Wingin' It, and the name for the mix is "Eleventh Hour". Lumpy, Sniffles and The Mole appear in all three of these episodes. Also, The Mole survives (debatably) in all three.
 * 13) Sniffles is indirectly responsible for his death in this episode, although the ants are directly responsible for his death.
 * 14) Nobody dies until 6 minutes throughout the episode.