Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow



"Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow" is episode number 13.1 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

Starring Roles

 * Lumpy

Featuring Roles

 * Cuddles
 * Sniffles
 * The Mole
 * Russell
 * Giggles
 * Flippy

Appearance Roles

 * Handy

Plot
Lumpy and Cuddles play telephone by attaching two tin cans together with strings. Lumpy tries talking to Cuddles several times, but Cuddles keeps telling him to move back. Eventually, Lumpy reaches the end of the string and, upon pulling on it, snaps the line. He next attempts playing telephone by connecting two coffee cups. Unfortunately, Lumpy filled the cups with coffee and Cuddles, not knowing this, scalds himself when he brings the cup up to his ear. Finally, Lumpy hands Cuddles a pepper grinder while taking a barrel for himself. Lumpy yells into the barrel, which sends a soundwave down the line and causes pepper to fly in Cuddles' nose. The ground pepper causes him to sneeze and the force of the sneeze through the barrel knocks Lumpy down. Lumpy sits up in a daze, blood coming out of his ears. Concerned, Cuddles runs over and shouts at Lumpy, but from Lumpy's point of view we can't hear anything.

Lumpy goes to Sniffles, the doctor, for help. Sniffles looks into one of Lumpy's ears, seeing right through to the other side. Sniffles prescribes an ear horn for Lumpy, which helps him hear again. While walking on the street, he comes across The Mole who is playing a trombone for money. Lumpy listens through his ear horn and tries to place a coin in a hat by The Mole, but it rolls out of his hands and into the road.

He runs to retrieve it just as Russell, driving a seafood truck, approaches. He honks his horn, but his warning falls on deaf ears. While screeching to a halt, Russell hits a pothole, flips his truck, hits and kills The Mole, and crashes in a mangled flaming wreck. Lumpy gets his coin and puts it in the hat before noticing the wreck. His ear horn was destroyed and he can't hear Russell's screams for help, so he takes the coin he gave The Mole (as well as the hat) and uses it to call the hospital in a phone booth. Giggles answers the phone, but because Lumpy can't hear, he doesn't respond to her. She hangs up the phone and Lumpy tries dialing again as Russell's truck explodes, sending pieces of him flying at the phone booth.

Lumpy returns home and doesn't realize his security alarm has gone off. He mixes batter in a mixer, oblivious to the numerous appliances in his home that are making noise. He sees the scene of the crash on the evening news and turns up the volume, but he still can't hear the report. He gets an idea and attaches large speakers to his TV, which are so loud they shake the walls of Flippy's home next door. Flippy, meanwhile, is fast asleep, dreaming about riding a unicorn through a beautiful meadow.

On the TV, Handy appears above the wreck in his helicopter to assess the situation. The noise of the helicopter carries over to Flippy's house, invading his dreams. He dreams that the evil version of himself chases down and kills the good version of himself, slicing him up in the blades of his helicopter. He wakes up screaming and immediately flips out. He carries an axe and rings Lumpy's doorbell, but the deaf Lumpy can't hear it. Irritated, Flippy throws rocks at Lumpy's window, trying to draw his attention. He then swings a spiked log through the wall of Lumpy's trailer, narrowly missing Lumpy as he bends down to pick up a carrot slice he dropped. Exhausted, Flippy doesn't notice the backswing of the spiked log and gets hit.

Lumpy leaves his trailer, wearing a party hat and carrying a birthday cake in the basket of his bicycle. Flippy follows Lumpy in his helicopter, trying to slice Lumpy in the blades the same way he did to himself in his dream. As he draws closer, however, he imagines Lumpy turning into the good version of himself laughing and waving hello. Flippy snaps out of his trace and pulls up on the controls, losing control of the helicopter and flying towards Cuddles' house. Cuddles, hearing the helicopter, goes outside and recoils when he sees Flippy's approaching helicopter. It crashes into the side of Cuddles' house, but only one of the blades gets stuck, leaving Cuddles and Flippy unharmed. Flippy jumps down and they laugh nervously about the incident, when the helicopter begins moving. Before they can get out of the way, Cuddles and Flippy are killed by the tail blades of the helicopter. Lumpy arrives at this moment and, seeing what has happened, begins calling for help on a tin can attached to a string. Before the episode ends, he gets a busy signal.

Moral
"Actions speak louder than words"

Deaths

 * 1) The Mole is killed by Russell's truck.
 * 2) Russell dies in an explosion.
 * 3) Flippy and Cuddles are sliced by Flippy's helicopter blades.

Goofs

 * 1) Lumpy's antlers change numerous times throughout the episode, sometimes in continuous shots.
 * 2) The whole right side of Cuddles' head (including his ear) is bandaged, even though he only splashed coffee on his cheek.
 * 3) The Mole's chair is seen on the ground after he dies, but when Lumpy gets his quarter back it is gone.
 * 4) When the Mole dies his blood is brownish colour, but when Lumpy gets his coin its red.
 * 5) The symbol on Flippy’s beret changes places several times.
 * 6) Lumpy makes a carrot cake for Cuddles’ birthday, despite Cuddles’ carrot allergy. This may, however, have been an intentional move by the writers as a sign of Lumpy's stupidity.
 * 7) Cuddles suffered second degree burns when he splashed coffee on his face, requiring him to bandage his injured head. Later that same night, however his bandages are gone and his face has completely healed. It is not possible for a burn to heal that quickly.

Trivia

 * 1) The start of this episode seems to be based on a comic of the same name, from the Third Strike DVD.
 * 2) When Cuddles runs to Lumpy after he gets injured, he shouts Lumpy's name. This is the second instance in the entire series where a character calls another character by their name, the first being in Water Way to Go.
 * 3) Lumpy's injury is similar to Giggles' injury in From Hero to Eternity.
 * 4) Lumpy's trailer is heavily decorated with pictures of cheese and of Lumpy.
 * 5) The bad dream Flippy had was forshadowing his own death.
 * 6) This episode marks the second instance that Flippy resisted his evil side. He does this in Party Animal roughly three times, but he eventually succumbs to his evil side. His actions of going aginst his evil side are repeated in the next two episodes, where he receives therapy for his flip outs in Double Whammy Part 1 and defeats his evil self in Autopsy Turvy/Double Whammy Part 2 (shortly before being killed by a semi-truck).
 * 7) This episode marks one of three instances where Flippy attempts to kill Lumpy and fails (the other two being Remains to be Seen and Double Whammy Part 1).
 * 8) This is the only time Flippy flipped out without killing any characters.
 * 9) This is also the only time Evil Flippy showed a sympathetic emotion, when he begins crying just before returning to normal.
 * 10) This was Kenn Navarro's first time voicing Good Flippy.
 * 11) Because Kenn Navarro voices both Cuddles and Good Flippy, Kenn died twice at the end of the episode.
 * 12) This is the First TV episode that Flippy Dies.
 * 13) This episode will probably eventually air on YouTube along with Double Whammy Part 1 and Autopsy Turvy/Double Whammy Part 2, and the alternate title for the conglomeration of these segments will probably be named "Thirteen Eyes on Me." Lumpy, Flippy, and Cuddles appear in all three of these episodes.