Happy Tree Friends FAQ

This article sorts and organizes all the questions from the forum Happy tree friends Writer's Questions and Answers in the sites Happytreefriends.com and the new social networking site: social.happytreefriends.com. This is also done under Warren Graff's permission

Notes:


 * 1) Questions about Flippy and Splendid that are related to ka-pow are included in their section in the Happy tree friends characters
 * 2) Questions that aren't related to Happy tree friends/ Ka-pow / Mondo Media will be placed in the writer's section, depending on who answered.

=Mondo Media=

Happy tree friends
1.


 * 1) With "Happy Tree Friends" being such an edgy show have there been attempts by outsiders to censor you guys or even shut you down completely? What justification did they give for it? How did you deal with it?


 * 2) What was your reaction when the show won an award at Annecy Film Festival?

Warren Graff:
 * 1) We have never had somebody from the outside try and shut us down. If we did, I'm sure we would lock ourselves in the Mondo offices and fight them off. It would be like the Alamo, only not in Texas.


 * 2) I thought it was great. Eye Candy is one of my favorite episodes. The French people really are smart when it comes to animation. I think next we should shot for an Oscar.

2.Many shows end before they have a chance to have a solid ending. I know that Happy Tree Friends doesn’t have plot continuity, but have you ever thought about ideas for a final episode of the series, should the bitter time ever arrive? If not, would you like for there to be some sort of special episode at the end of the series, as a way of thanking the fans for all their support through the years?

Warren Graff: There's really not stuff to wrap up, so it would be odd. Happy Trails was left as a cliff hanger on purpose when we thought it was the last show ever. We would like to believe that our fans would appreciate that kind of cruel joke of an ending. Basically, I think if we were to do a last episode we would try to end it with a ton of open questions.

3.Why the change in format then? Certainly Mondo Media makes enough money to hire a few more creative minds to help you guys out, and since you’ve been in the business awhile, I’m sure you know of a few people who would do a good job. I recall reading an interview that claimed the Happy Tree Friends team has shrunk dramatically over the years, though I’ve never really understood why you guys are down to such few people now-a-days.

Ken Pontac: The show had a budget that allowed x amount of money for x amount of resources. That budget allowed for Warren, me, and a specific number of scripts (six or seven) from "outside" writers. Kenn comes with the show, but he was never a full-time writer; he was too busy doing a million other things to sit in the room with Warren and me eight hours a day.

4.Have you grown to truly love Happy Tree Friends, as a show, or is it still nothing more than a job to you? Do you think you’ll be able to easily walk away from the series when its time, or your time working on it, comes to an end?

Ken Pontac: I loved HTF before I worked on it. I wrote Kenn and Rhode a fan letter and ended up working on the show. Working on it was a great experience, one of the best jobs I've ever had.

I've already walked away from the series, as has Warren. Since Warren and I are both hired guns, not Mondo staff members, we're not getting paid to wait around for a second season to get picked up. We might get called in for a day or a week here or there to brainstorm on a short or something, but we need to work on other jobs to pay the rent. Walking away was easy, because I had to, but I'd have preferred to stay.

And, if there's another season, I'll probably be back.

5.How well do you think Happy Tree Friends stands up against other reputable online web-toons, such as www.homestarrunner.com? Have you ever watched any other online web-toons in order to see what they’re like, or do you prefer to just concentrate on Happy Tree Friends?

Warren Graff:I think it stands up real well to all other online webtoons...but I'm bias. You always check out the competition, you want to see what to shot for...or who to leave in the dust.

6.Do you believe that the violence in Happy Tree Friends episodes is the only reason most people watch the series? If so, does that make you feel like your hard work writing a script isn’t appreciated as much, since those people may ignore the humor and plot for the sake of anticipating the deaths?

Warren Graff: I don't know why most people do what they do. I would like to think the hard work on the scripts is why people like the show...even if they don't realize why they like it.

Episodes
1. Has any moment during the writing of an episode made you just burst out laughing?

Warren Graff: It happens all the time. I can't think of any specifics right now, but we probably have those moments with every episode. We are a group of laughers.

2.When you write an episode of Happy Tree Friends, do you try to make it to where you feel the fans will enjoy it, or do you make it out to where you and the other writers enjoy it, and just hope the fans enjoy it as well?

Ken Pontac: First off we try to please ourselves. If we don't feel passionate about it, why should the fans. Then, we look at our idea and decide if it will work for the fans. If it doesn't, we dump it, even if it makes us laugh.

3.Do you ever wish you could animate a scene yourself in order to ensure that what you’ve envisioned for the scene would appear in the episode, or do you have full confidence in the animators to carry out your vision as you want it to be seen?

Warren Graff:

Yes and Yes.

Yes I wish I could do it so it's just like I see it in my mind, and Yes, (since I can't do the first part) I'm glad we have the animators that we do because they do a great job.

Ken Pontac:

Of course I do. I'd love to have complete control over everything so it was just how I imagine it.

That being said, everybody involved brings something to the party that makes the final product better. Plus animation is a pain in the butt, and I don't have the patience for it.

TV Series
1.You guys mentioned that you had to write one script a week for the sake of the TV Series; do you believe that the tight deadlines may have had any negative impacts on the quality of the scripts, and how long do you consider a reasonable deadline to be?

Ken Pontac: Sometimes the deadlines made us turn in a script that could have used some more work. Sometimes a week was all we needed. I'd rather have more people brainstorming and the same amount of time than more time and the same amount of people (Warren, Kenn and me, with the occasional assist from David Ichioka). Back in the day we had as many as seven people in the room brainstorming an episode. Those were heady times!

2.The episode ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ didn’t make much sense to me, so I wanted to ask: how exactly did Giggles get cured? First of all, she busted her head open and her brain was frozen to the mailbox, so why did Sniffles think he could shrink down and cure her, when her injury was obviously external and physical? Secondly, how did she ultimately get cured when nothing was even done to her throughout the episode?

Ken Pontac: I suppose it was likely meant to be a joke of sorts, as her getting cured from such an injury without treatment was likely supposed to be absurd. However, I wanted to ask this question anyway. She had an infection, and Sniffles figured if he could get inside her head and zap the germs she'd recover. He zapped a few germs while he was inside her, but her recovery was mostly based on the fact that we thought it was funny.

3.What process do you take when trying to come up with good titles and morals for the beginning and end of the episode?

Ken Pontac:

I link to various cliche sites, get out my thesaurus, my rhyming dictionary, and open a document.

I figure out what the big themes of the story are (fire, love, airplanes, or whatever) and I write the word down in my document. I look up every cliche for the word fire ("You're fired", "Fire When Ready", etc.) and write them all down. Then I look up every other word for fire ("flame", "burn", etc.) and repeat the process.

At some point I start to goof around with words that rhyme with the words I've found ("flame" to "blame"), and finally come up with "Who's to Flame?"

I love this process, because it forces my brain into a rhythmic zen state that focuses my thoughts like a laser. It's why I like writing lyrics and rhymes.

4.What type of genre do you believe the video game for Happy Tree Friends should be?

Warren Graff: A fun kick-a** one!

Characters
1. The Happy Tree Friends are anthropomorphic creatures, since they behave more like humans than they do their animal counterparts. However, there were a few episodes in the series where the characters have behaved like animals, such as Sniffles and his ant obsession, or when Splendid was trying to harvest acorns in ‘Helping Helps’.

I wanted to ask, do you plan on ever having the characters behave similarly to their animal counterparts in future episodes? I’m not talking about having the characters lose all their anthropomorphic traits, but rather, a subtle reference to the species that they are, such as the aforementioned Splendid scene in ‘Helping Helps’.

Warren Graff: Not really, unless it helps the story. Sniffles eating ants was really just to set up his battles with the ants. In Helping Helps, we needed Splendid doing something so we thought, "Well, squirrels collect nuts, he can do that." Now he does more domestic stuff when he hears a cry for help.

I don't think we know enough about animals to make them actually act like animals. We aren't that smart.

 2. There are many normal animals in the Happy Tree Friends world, despite the fact that the Happy Tree Friends are animals themselves. If you were to write an episode where the characters come across an animal of their same species, how would they react to it, or treat it? I suppose it would differ from character to character, but I’m interested in hearing the answer to this question, as I’ve always been somewhat curious when it comes to regular animals and the Happy Tree Friends.

Warren Graff: Maybe we should look at it this way. Happy Tree Friends are Happy Tree Friends, and animals are animals. It's the same way that people are people and monkeys are monkeys. Even though we evolved from monkeys (sorry creationists) we don't feel overly connected to them. If you saw a monkey on the street you wouldn't stop to talk to one or invite it into your home. You would probably call the police or animal control.

Happy Tree Friends are the next evolution of animals...I can't remember if it's forward or backwards, I always forget. Basically though, all Cuddles sees when he comes up to a bunny is a bunny.

3. Since the Happy Tree Friends are primarily social creatures, do you wish to expand upon their social behavior in future episodes? At the moment, fans merely speculate on who are supposed to be friends, while others have ignored the issue altogether, saying that the characters just appear with other characters for the sake of making the episode come together. I know that each episode will result in many deaths, though I thought I’d ask this, as I’ve noticed that the first season seemed to show a lot of what the Happy Tree Friends do in their spare time, before the Grim Reaper makes his episodic debut.

Warren Graff: There is not set reason that certain characters hang out together. Toothy and Cuddles usually are trouble makers together. Pop and Cub, Lifty and Shifty, that's about it. We will expand on their social behaviors for the sake of the story, but I don't think we will lock it into anything permanate. We are painted into a small enough corner with no talking, no words, limited physical abilities, limited number of characters, etc, that I think limiting each characters social interaction to certain other characters would make the show impossible to write.

Everybody can be friends with everybody.

Ken Pontac: As the show grows, probably so will the relationships. Until they die and the slate is cleaned for the next episode.

4. In the Happy Tree Friends universe, do each of the buildings and locations have a specific place in their “world map”, or does each episode wipe the slate clean and use a completely new setting and environment? You mentioned that there is character continuity, but no plot continuity; I suppose this question is asking whether this is world and environmental continuity.

Ken Pontac: We haven't established geography, and probably never will.

5. Are there any characters you think still need their personality's fleshed out

Ken Pontac: Toothy was the character that we tried to crack and couldn't. All the characters have room to grow, and always will until they stop being interesting. When you cease to grow you begin to die.

6.I read in an old article that Kenn mentioned that he wanted to expand upon the characters’ personalities, but he didn’t want to stray too far from the violent deaths, as he felt that trying to build up too much of a plot, as well as other things, would detract from the series’ purpose, and potentially go against the desires of some of the fans.

So, I wanted to ask you. Are you surprised that so many fans of the series actually seem to care more about the characters than the deaths? Most of the Happy Tree Friends were intended to be ultra-cute and cuddly, a reference to things such as the Care Bears, which they share many similarities towards. However, despite this fact, so many fans are willing to love the characters with an indescribable passion, and they actually wish to know much more about the characters than I believe Kenn realized back then.

Warren Graff: I don't know how old the aritcle was, but it sounds like it was writen back when we were doing shorts. I think Kenn was thinking, since we didn't have a lot of time we should just get to the money shot. We knew fans loved the characters, but we didn't have the time to go into more depth. For the series we gave characters more depth, and it's funny to hear some people complain about it (ex. OCD out of nowhere). I think maybe that comes from people filling in the blanks in their own minds before we had a chance to build up the characters. It's OK though, people get used to it.

Toothy
1.What is it about Toothy that makes him such a hard character to write for? Couldn’t you guys just give him some sort of characteristic to make him easier to write for in future episodes, or if he going to remain ordinary forever? If he does remain ordinary, what’s to say that you guys will ever be able to write a seven minute episode for him?

Warren Graff:Toothy will grow, don't worry. We, like all things we do, don't really like to slap things together that don't work for us. We will find something for Toothy. We just didn't this time around. I don't think any of us are worried about it. I mean seriously, we wrote a 7 min episode of Cro-Marmot...he's just a block of ice!

Splendid
1.Does Splendid have an arch-enemy/ies

Warren Graff: Not that I know of, but you never know. I think competency is his enemy.

Flaky
1. From what I understand, all the Happy Tree Friends girls tend to have eyelashes while the boys do not. I thought this was the physical feature that separated male from female. However, Flaky, being a girl, doesn't have eyelashes. Why? Can it be assumed that she may have grooming issues then? I mean, she does have the dandruff, which may be indicative of a hygiene issue. Please explain.

In the early design phase we created these characters with out really knowing what we would need in the future. We just sort of made them. Rhode and Kenn designed the look and we all sort of hammered out who they were. After awhile we realized we only had 2 girls, both sort of generic. Giggles and Petunia. By generic I mean they didn't have the distinct personalities of say a Lumpy, or Handy, or Mime, etc. Petunia only had the air freashener, and no OCD at that time...that was it.

Warren Graff: We had the idea of a Flaky, a really scared character. We hadn't decided on a gender, and sort of fast tracked her into a girl. During her design phase nobody notice she was made with out eyelashes. We actually didn't notice this till she was in an episode. What do you expect? We were all busy and worked on other Mondo shows besides HTF. Kenn was art director for God and Devil. Rhode designed assits for Thugs on Film. I wrote or Story Edited on 8 shows at any given time. We did a lot. Gorilla animation disguised as corporate.

After the mistake was discovered, we said "opps" and moved on. Kenn decided not to fix it, didn't think it was worth it. He was a punk and decided to fuel the debate whenever anybody brought it up. He likes those kinds of legends in TV shows and movies so he thought it was good for HTF. Now it's just getting old...to me anyway...so I'm going to pop that balloon.

Anyway, that's the story. Do with it as you please.

2.Since it has more-or-less been confirmed that Flaky is a female, is there any reason why Disco Bear never tried to hit on her? Is it because of the dandruff, or does Disco Bear not want to get close to Flaky’s quills, as I’d imagine his ultimate goal is to get very close to the girl he hits on, as seen in ‘Blind Date’, and Flaky’s quills would make it hard for him to do his thing. Of course, the real reason could be that Kenn wants to keep the mystery of Flaky’s gender going, though I wanted to see if you guys had an answer to my question.

Ken Pontac: The reason is that we want to keep the mystery of Flaky’s gender going.

3. Why does Flaky have no ears? How does she hear?

Ken Pontac: Beats me. She was drawn that way when I came aboard. Lumpy has no ears either, which made it a little challenging to depict his deafness in the episode where he loses his hearing (I can never remember the titles of these shows).

Flippy
1. Hey Ken, I have a question. In 'Double Whammy' at the end Flippy seemed to overcome his alter-ego. Will he ever flip out again?

Ken Pontac: I hope so! Otherwise we'll have betrayed the his fans (unless he ends up doing something even better).

Too busy to answer the unanswered questions above right now. Got to get ready for a writing class tonight!

2.Does Flippy actually have any knowledge of military tactics, or is his skill in guerilla warfare merely a by-product of him losing his sanity and flipping out? Also, is Flippy aware of what is going on when he is in flipped-out mode, or does he only come to realization once he regains his composure?

Warren Graff: I'm not inside Flippys head, and I don't want to be. I'll let Flippy answer those questions.

Disco Bear
1.Disco Bear seemed to have the most character development out of all the characters in the first season. Do you intend to further flesh his character out in the second season, if there is one, or do want to give other characters more of a chance to expand upon who they are in the series? Of course, I realize that there’s plenty of room for every character to be expanded upon, but I’m referring to the character that is going to receive the most character development.

Ken Pontac: We have less control over what we write than you think. Disco's probably grown the most, so I imagine we'd try to crack Toothy, Cuddles and a few of the others.

If we can't, there's always a new Lumpy story to write. He's easy!

2.Are you surprised by Disco Bear’s boost of popularity gained over the course of the TV Series? He was often considered the worst character in the old days, though you guys have also admitted that you’ve started to like Disco Bear more as well. Do you expect Disco Bear to stay in his popularity groove, or will people remember the reasons they started hating him in the first place and go back to bashing him regularly?

Warren Graff: We hated Disco Bear so much we made Rhode act out everything DB would do in an episode just to sell us on it. We would still say no, we just wanted to make Rhode sweat. Now he's sort of grown on us and has good character traits. It's probably one of those, "so bad, it's good" type of things. He makes us laugh and that's important. I think he will remain popular...although we could leave him off the show for a bit if we think we over use him.

Ant Family
[ http://forum.happytreefriends.com/showpost.php?p=621810&postcount=241 1.]Do you enjoy working on Sniffles’ episodes that involve the ant family? Also, do you believe Sniffles is a better character when he is in episodes with the ant family, or in episodes that don’t involve the ant family at all?

I like the ants, they are fun to write for. We can really let them do anything...they are very advanced for ants. I like Sniffles both ways. The ants are great, but I don't think they make Sniffles better or worse. Actually, he's kind of a jerk when the ants are around. They aren't hurting anybody, they can't help it if they taste good.

Warren Graff
1. If I may ask, how much do you get paid for your services as a writer on Happy Tree Friends? Many people refuse to disclose such information, though it seems like you guys have one of the best jobs in the world and I was just curious if you received the due amount of payment that you deserve.

Also, if you were asked to come back and write episodes for the second season, but you were told that your pay would be cut by 1/4th its current amount, would you still come back and continue to write episodes for the series?

Warren Graff: I get an old nickel and a moldy piece of bread every two weeks. Actually, I would never tell what I make. That comes from the business side of me that says it's unprofessional.

Probably not.

2.What do you guys do in the downtime, when you’re not pumping out one script a week? I know you’re spending tons of time answering thirty questions a day, but I’m curious as to how your schedule changes when you have more free time on your hands.

Warren Graff:I live for answering questions. Although, if I get a free moment, I sing in a band called U2.

3.How hard is it to do a voice then Mr Graff

Warren Graff: Sometimes it's really easy. Sometimes it's painfully hard...so painful that I can't talk for like 2 days.

There's video of me doing Shard at Work and nearly drowning on one of the DVD's. That doesn't even tell half the story. That was a fun session. That was back in the day when we used to record in one room at Mondo. By one room, I mean everybody was in the same room when we recorded. Jim, Ken, Rhode, and whoever happened to stop by. It was less intimidating that way because everybody was right there.

Now we do it in a real recording studio were we have no business recording our tiny little show. The person doing the voice is now placed in a booth, away from the recording crew. You're all alone. You can only hear the crew talking through your headphones, and that's when they push a button to let you hear. It's VERY intimidating in that booth. Although, you do feel like a rock star at times.

If David Winn was on the boards I would ask him to chime in. He does the voice of Lumpy, and he puts his heart and soul into it. Nobody works harder then he does at a VO. When he comes out of a session, he's sweating and gasping for air. He usually loses about 10lbs a session.

Ken Pontac
1. I was re-watching my HTF podcast on my iPod and in the footage of the 2006 Comic-Con I noticed that you told the interviewer that the episodes are based on real experiences. The examples you gave were when you were 3, you saw your mother on fire and when you were 5, you were attacked by a monkey. I already have heard about your mother on fire, and how it influenced part of "Who's to Flame". I was wondering if you really were attacked by a monkey and if that may have inspired Sniffles death in “A to Zoo"?

Ken Pontac:

I was really attacked by a monkey. See:

http://mt.happytreefriends.com/writersblog/2006/04/dont_feed_the_monkey.html#more

for details.

Everything I write about monkeys has to be colored by that incident. How could it not?

2. Speaking of the blog, are there currently any plans to update it?

Ken Pontac: Nope. I TOTALLY fumbled the ball reporting on ComicCon, but after a point I don't look back and the balls I fumble are left behind.

If we get a second season, the blog will re-start.

3.If you were told that you could make one episode where you could make anything you want to take place, what type of episode would you make? I doubt you can answer this question in full, since if you had a dream episode, you may actually want to try to make it into an episode one day, though feel free to express your wildest ambitions, as I’m sure you guys might have some episode ideas that you know would never get made.

Ken Pontac:Flippy vs. Splendid, The Motion Picture.

4.When you introduce yourself to people, do they tend to recognize you for your work on Happy Tree Friends, or do they tend to recognize you for your work on other shows? I’m not saying everybody is going to know who you are, but what I’m asking is, when they do recognize you, what do they recognize you for?

Ken Pontac: I have spoken at schools in the past, and am widely recognized for HTF. A lot of people are familiar with Gumby, a show I worked on years ago. Those are the two biggies, although various people know my work on all sorts of other shows and a few video games I've been involved with.

5.It’s a shame to see my favorite shows embroiled in such dilemmas, but it is a business, after all. Do you believe that the budget should be increased for future episodes, considering the fact that better episodes allow for more money to be made, and that money, in turn, provides the salaries for those in charge of making the budgets? I know, I know, it boils down to that “never talk about your bosses” belief and I don’t expect you to actually reply to this question, but as a fan of the series, I wish the budget were as big as it could possibly be.

Are there benefits to writing most of the episodes with just one guy helping you out? I assume you and Warren must have bonded quite a lot, and are very good friends now, so does that close friendship actually permit better episodes to get made, since you can bounce ideas back to one another more easily?

Ken Pontac:

Of course I believe the budget should be raised. My salary increase alone (one million dollars an episode) dictates a new financial paradigm.

What a silly question.

And, "bonded"? If I ever see Warren again I'll tear off his head and crap down his neck.

6.What was the first (published) thing you wrote?

Ken Pontac: The first script I wrote for television was a Gumby episode called "Time Out" that was produced in 1987.

7.Have you done scripts, where they all the same size on paper, but once animated are either too short or too long Yes. Generally they were too short until we figured it out.

I've been doing this long enough, though, that I have a feel for how long a script needs to be.

8.What are you currently working on at the moment? I doubt you can go into detail, but I’m always interested in hearing such things.

 Ken Pontac: Things I can talk about that I'm working on:

http://www.nerdcorps.com/2nd_level/3...cts_01_SH.html

And:

http://www.theunsustainables.com/index.php

And my own projects, a children's book and a graphic novel.

9.Have you ever consider doing a voice role in Happy Tree Friends (you might need to create a new character to do so)?

Ken Pontac: I have NO INTEREST in doing a voice. I'll let my dog Whistle do that instead. He's a bigger ham than me.

[ http://forum.happytreefriends.com/showpost.php?p=622525&postcount=280 Warren Graff:] (as Ken Pontac) No, never! Speaking is a suckers game! Call me when they create a character that speaks in Morris Code

[ http://forum.happytreefriends.com/showpost.php?p=622503&postcount=272 10.]Did you let Whistle do the voice of the crazy dog in Doggone It? Just wondering. Nudity and swearing in HTF...somehow that just seems wrong to me.

Ken Pontac: That was ALL WHISTLE!

DVD's
1.

[ http://forum.happytreefriends.com/showpost.php?p=623033&postcount=289 Warren Graff:] I love the DVD extras. I think what Peter did with the extras for the TV series was great. The fake doc. that we did for the 2nd DVD I thought was great, and we had fun doing it. All the commentary is a blast. We really don't plan extras that far in advance, because we don't know the budget. When they say do it, we do it and try to make it informative and funny.