Banjo Frenzy

Writers: Rhode Montijo

Director: Aubrey Ankrum

Episode list: Irregular episodes

"Banjo Frenzy" is the very first episode of Happy Tree Friends, created in 1999. The animation and writing are fairly primative compared to what the series would later become.

Starring Roles

 * Early version Lumpy

Featuring Roles

 * Early version Cuddles
 * Early version Giggles
 * Early version Toothy

Plot
Lumpy plays the banjo for Cuddles, Giggles, and Toothy, who sit around a campfire. One of the strings on Lumpy's banjo breaks, making him sad. The other three laugh at him, enraging Lumpy. He swings his banjo and decapitates Giggles, causing her head to fall in the fire. He then cuts Cuddles in half down his head and decapitates Toothy. He begins laughing maniacally, when Toothy's eyes open. His severed head bites down on Lumpy's leg, making him scream in pain.

Deaths

 * 1) Giggles and Toothy are decapitated by Lumpy's banjo. (Debatable for Toothy, becuase at the end he manages to bite Lumpy's leg)
 * 2) Cuddles is cut in half vertically by Lumpy's banjo.

Goofs

 * When Lumpy hits Toothy, his decapitated head still has both eyes. When Lumpy begins hacking up Toothy's remains, however, two eyes fly out of the mess. Though Cuddles' body fell behind Toothy, he was split in half vertically, meaning only one of his eyes would have been hit in Lumpy's attack.
 * When this pilot episode aired at happytreefriends.com, the original voice over, audio, and background music sound slightly different.
 * When Lumpy destorys Toothy with his banjo, the green oval on his stomach dissapears.

Trivia

 * 1) The title card says "The Happy Tree Friends Bonanza".
 * 2) The characters in this episode are animated and appear differently than how they are during the regular show. For instance, Giggles is a blue squirrel rather than a pink chipmunk, Lumpy is a dinosaur rather than a moose, Cuddles is the same, but orange, no pink cheeks, and no tuft of hair atop of his head, and Toothy has a black tail instead of a muave tail.
 * 3) Lumpy's personality characteristics in this episode, suddenly going from nice to evil, seem to resemble Flippy's personality. The only difference is that his killing spree was caused by humiliation rather than post-traumatic stress disorder.
 * 4) The music Lumpy plays is "Dueling Banjos" from the movie Deliverance.
 * 5) When Lumpy destroys Toothy with his banjo, an empty soup can flies past his head.
 * 6) In the episode Wrath of Con, Cub wears a mask that resembles Lumpy's head as it appears in this episode. Further, Wrath of Con premiered 10 years after this episode was made.