Wingin' It

"Wingin' It" is episode number 11.1 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

HTF Episode Description
Can Flaky overcome her fear of flying in time to land an out-of-control airplane? (Part 1)

Stow your tray table and put your seats in an upright position and find out what color Mime’s parachute is. (Part 2)

Can Flaky overcome the fear of flying? (DVD)

Plot
This episode begins at an airport, where a taxi drops Flaky off, ready for a vacation with her flowery suitcase. Flaky laughs nervously as she arrives. Unfortunately, she has a fear of flying. Just the sight of an airplane makes her vomit. Having second thoughts, Flaky tries to leave. But as she's doing so, Lumpy unknowingly pushes her into the building with a rack of overflowing luggage, leaving Flaky's suitcase behind.

Inside the airport, The Mole, the airport security guard, searches Cro-Marmot, a passenger for any metal items. Lumpy walks through the metal detector, setting it off. The Mole responds to this, but mistakes a soda machine for Lumpy. Lumpy then purchases a soda from the machine, but the tab on the top of the can breaks off, disappointing him. Figuring out a way to open it, he grabs a Bowie knife (no, it didn't come from Flippy) and slices off the top half of the can so he can drink it. The Mole then proceeds to handcuff the vending machine to himself, and because of the machine being heavy, it doesn't move. Believing his "victim" refuses to move, the Mole pulls out his container of pepper spray and sprays at the machine, believing he's still arresting Lumpy.

As the plane gets ready for takeoff, Petunia realizes she drank too much soda and has to go to the bathroom. Flaky watches Mime, a flight attendant, demonstrate the safety procedures of the plane. She takes the manual and sees the dangers and fates of the passengers, including an ocean landing, a shark attack, and Godzilla attacking and eating everyone. In her fright (and while Mime demonstrates vicious chomping), Flaky gets queasy and needs a barf-bag. Unfortunately, Cuddles is using them as puppets, so Flaky rushes to the bathroom.

Meanwhile, as Lumpy works intently at his typewriter, Mime reminds him to stow items away when they're taking off. The plane's clear for takeoff and Sniffles, the pilot, flies them off. Lumpy calls someone on his cell phone, which interferes with the controls of the plane, causing turbulence. As the plane begins shaking, Flaky is thrown all over the bathroom, vomiting all over the place. Lumpy hangs up the phone and the plane stops shaking, much to Sniffles' relief. Petunia, still desperate to use the bathroom, rushes in the instant Flaky leaves. However, her OCD kicks in when she sees Flaky's vomit all over and Petunia tries to get out. She can't do this, however, because Mime parked a food cart right in front of the bathroom door, blocking her in.

As Cuddles takes a nap, Lumpy yawns and decides to lean back in his chair. His seat seems stuck, so Lumpy gives it a hard push. Unfortunately because Cuddles' tray table is down, he is cut in half when Lumpy forces his seat back. Flaky, seeing what happened, calls for service. She tries to tell Mime that Cuddles is dead, but she is so traumatized, she can barely utter any words out clearly. Mime, not understanding anything motions her to stay quiet, thinking that Cuddles is sleeping.

Inside the bathroom, Petunia finishes cleaning Flaky's vomit and flushes the paper towel down the toilet. Her deodorizer gets pulled downwards by the force of the sucking air, but she manages to pull herself back. She goes to the sink to wash her hands, but air begins getting sucked down the sink as well. She's not able to fight it this time and gets sucked through the drain, causing her organs to spill out into the sink before getting sucked down as well.

Lumpy begins using a lot of high tech appliances which let out signals strong enough to interfere with Toothy's TV while he's watching a Godzilla movie. The signals also cause further turbulence, much to Sniffles' annoyance. Sniffles goes into the cabin to tell Lumpy not to use any electronic devices while in flight, but he gets diced by a food cart when the plane tilts forward. Lumpy, seeing Sniffles' fate, takes all five parachutes, kicks open the escape door, and jumps out. Uncontrolled decompression occurs and all the passengers, except Cuddles and Flaky, get sucked out the door.

As Lumpy falls he pulls the cords on each parachute, but since he's not wearing any of the parachutes over both shoulders, he loses all five of them. As Giggles is falling, she manages to grab one of the open parachutes. She believes that she's safe until she gets shredded by the propellers of the plane. As Mime is about to fall to his death, the wind pressure makes his facial skin inflate like a parachute.

Back in the airplane, Flaky has to conquer her fear of flying by landing the plane. Lumpy keeps falling until he lands on his feet and crushes his legs, where he is then crushed by one of his machines. Mime gently floats down and lands on the ground. The wind picks up his skin like a kite and he flies off a cliff and gets caught in some tree branches. Mime has to tear the skin off his face and falls, bumps on the sharp rocks, and tumbles to safety. He's relieved until the landing plane's wheel runs over him.

Flaky still pulls the steering wheel to slow down the plane and it rolls into the ocean. She opens the door, releasing an inflatable chute. As she tries to slide down, her quills pop the chute and she falls in the water. She lands safely in the water and sighs in relief. Suddenly, a shark attacks Flaky and chews her roughly, until a loud roar scares him. The shark spits Flaky out and quickly swims away while Flaky cries in pain and fear. Suddenly, the monster reveals to be Godzilla, and it roars again and Flaky screams in horror as the iris closes in on her.

Moral
"Look before you leap!"

Deaths

 * 1) Cuddles' lower body is sliced off by a tray table when Lumpy pushes his seat back.
 * 2) Petunia gets mangled up when her body gets sucked down the drain in the plane bathroom.
 * 3) Sniffles is dismembered and crushed by a food cart.
 * 4) Pop and Cub fly out the plane's entrance and it is assumed they fall to their deaths or were killed by the airplane when Flaky was piloting it. Judging the fates of other characters, it is possible they did not survive flying out of the plane's entrance. (Debatable and death not seen)
 * 5) Giggles is sliced up by the engines of the plane when the parachute she's riding flies into the propellers.
 * 6) Lumpy falls from a great height and his legs are pushed out of his body. He's then crushed by his filing cabinet.
 * 7) Mime is run over by the plane's landing tires that Flaky is piloting.
 * 8) Flaky is eaten by Godzilla (death not shown). Her death was confirmed by Kenn Navarro.

Goofs

 * 1) Lumpy's antlers change directions numerous times, sometimes during continuous shots.
 * 2) Lumpy actually had more of a starring role.
 * 3) The Mole's mole changes places.
 * 4) Cuddles disappears from his seat twice. Once when Lumpy hangs up his cell phone and once when Lumpy reacts to Sniffles' death.
 * 5) When Lumpy is using his cell phone, the parachutes around the door are gone.
 * 6) When Flaky exits the bathroom, she opened the door without unlocking it.
 * 7) Lumpy disappears from his seat when Flaky calls Mime over about Cuddles' death.
 * 8) Flaky disappears from her seat when Lumpy reacts to Sniffles' death.
 * 9) Lumpy's satellite is located where Giggles should be sitting.
 * 10) As Lumpy falls, he only opens four out of the five parachutes he was holding, but when Giggles was falling, she passed by four open parachutes, and grabs the fifth parachute already opened. The fifth parachute may have opened abruptly.
 * 11) The wings of the plane are fairly close to the front, but at the end, the wings have moved back to the center of the plane.
 * 12) When Mime's head is skinned, the skin of his nose is can be seen on both his exposed face and his loose facial skin.
 * 13) Flaky opens the door and releases the rubber slide when she lands in the water, even though the door was already open when Lumpy kicked it open earlier.
 * 14) It is very unusual that the plane only has one pilot. In order to fly a plane safely, a plane must have at least 2 people (Pilot and First Officer/Copilot) or 3 (Pilot, First Officer/Copilot and a Flight Engineer) in the cockpit.
 * 15) When Cuddles' lower body is sliced by Lumpy and Flaky calls for help, Cuddles' lower body still seems to be under his blanket, even though it had fallen to the floor.
 * 16) In the beginning, at the airport, the plane has a tail wheel. In all following shots, it has a nose wheel instead.
 * 17) While Toothy is watching TV, one of his freckles goes over his mouth for a brief second.
 * 18) When Mime falls and his head is skinned he falls the same height everyone else fell so it should have happened to everyone by the show's logic.

Trivia

 * The title of this episode means to improvise with very little effort.
 * Cuddles, Giggles, Mime, Petunia, Pop, and Lumpy are all featured on the safety sheet Flaky looks at. Seeing as how they're all currently on the plane, alive and well, it would have made more sense to use Generic Tree Friends on the sheet. Although the people making the show could have been trying to save money this way by using the same characters again, seeing as how the TV series got cancelled because of budget problems.
 * The zoom in when Flaky first looks at the plane references numerous Alfred Hitchcock movies.
 * If one notices after Mime's head is run over, one of Mime's eyes can be seen blinking.
 * This episode marks the second time Flaky has inadvertently popped an inflatable safety device with her quills. She previously popped a life raft in Happy Trails Pt. 2: Jumping the Shark.
 * This episode also marks the third time Flaky has narrowly avoided being eaten by a shark, the previous two instances occurring in Happy Trails Pt. 2: Jumping the Shark and Wipe Out.
 * This is one of the few episodes that Cub's death was not caused by Pop's carelessness.
 * Flaky's injury is the same as Petunia's death in the "Swim" option in her own Smoochie.
 * Originally, this episode was going to be named Sky's the Limit, however the creators changed it at the last minute.
 * Petunia's death is similar and may be a reference to the 1988 remake of The Blob where the titular monster gruesomely drags a handyman face first down a sink. Her death is also similar to her later death in Read 'em and Weep.
 * When Lumpy talks on his cellphone, he says "Guess where I'm going...Hawaii!". This suggests that the plane's destination is Hawaii.
 * Petunia's OCD is revisited in this episode since Wishy Washy and Home Is Where the Hurt Is.
 * This episode also shows that no matter where she is, her OCD kicks in, and she forces herself to clean it.
 * Lumpy's use of a laptop in this episode reveal that computers are canon in the Happy Tree Friends world. It's also the first time a computer was used in a regular episode The first instance of a character using a computer was Cuddles in YouTube 101: Subscriptions, but that was an irregular episode.
 * Lumpy's machines include a coffee maker, a printer/copier, a filing cabinet, a microwave, a Kaypro with a satellite, and a big satellite.
 * This episode aired on YouTube on April 27, 2012 as confirmed on Twitter along with Easy Comb, Easy Go and Tongue in Cheek, and the name for the mix is "Eleventh Hour" (which was originally titled "Good and Nice Eleven"). Lumpy, Sniffles and The Mole appear in all three of these episodes. The Mole survives in all three, Lumpy dies once and Sniffles die twice.
 * The plane is a turboprob aircraft, which is unusual today as turbofan aircrafts are much more common today.
 * Also, the plane resembles a Douglas DC-3, an airplane from the 1930's.
 * If Pop broke Cub's fall then this would be the first time Pop dies and Cub survives. This would happen again in A Vicious Cycle and Spare Tire.
 * The way Flaky got scared while she's in the plane is the reference from Final Destination 5, where the character, Sam, wondered about dying in the airplane with Molly. It may also be a reference to Final Destination 1.
 * In the airport, the music is reused in the game Stay On Target.
 * This episode reveals that Flaky has pteromerhanophobia (tair-oh-mur-hahn-oh-fo-bee-ah), which is the fear of flying. Another name for the fear of flying is aerophobia.
 * Giggles' death is similar to one of Cuddles' deaths from Blast from the Past.
 * This is Mime's longest and most painful death to date.
 * If everyone on the plane died, Toothy, Cro-Marmot, and The Mole would be the only survivors.
 * When Mime "told" Lumpy to put his typewriter away, Cuddles shakes his head in disappointment at Lumpy for breaking the rules. A little later when Lumpy is on his phone, Cuddles appears to be listening on his phone conversation.
 * The way Mime's facial skin falls loose from wind pressure is somewhat similar to the second injury Giggles suffered in Better Off Bread.