Breaking Wind is an episode of Happy Tree Friends, the twentieth of Internet season 3, and the seventy-fourth overall.
HTF's Episode Description
There’s a bad wind blowing into town and it’s up to Splendid to rise to the occasion!
Plot
Splendid is seen tearing up from reading a book that bears a strong resemblance to the novel Twilight. Suddenly, his TV turns itself on. The TV shows Lumpy, as a newscaster, reporting a tornado in a field. Upset that he has to stop reading, Splendid puts his book down and goes to stop the tornado. Unfortunately, Splendid couldn't help himself and decides to bring the book with him to read later.
At the field, Lumpy continues the forecast while Cuddles, Giggles and Flaky watch on. Suddenly, Lumpy's cameraman; The Mole, Cuddles and Giggles get sucked in, and since Flaky is standing behind a fence, she doesn't get sucked in. Then Lumpy gets sucked in, but he suddenly stops. We see that Splendid had saved him in time. At that moment, Splendid's book gets sucked in. In a hurry, Splendid ties Lumpy's microphone cord around Lumpy, and dashes into the tornado. Unbeknownst to Splendid, the microphone cord wraps itself around one of his legs. When Splendid struggles to pull up, he accidentally squeezes the cord around Lumpy too much, resulting in his body getting completely crushed. Realizing this, Splendid uses his laser vision to cut the cord, and proceeds.
As the book flies around the tornado, the book begins to lose its pages. One of the pages flies onto Splendid's face, rendering his vision. He suddenly flies into Cuddles, splitting him in half. Splendid removes the page from his face, and he begins to read it. Splendid then begins to grab and read the pages that fly next to him. Realizing that he's almost done with the story, Splendid sees that the last page is in heart of the tornado. Thinking for a second, Splendid decides to suck up the tornado. As a result, the tornado begins to shrink in size. This causes Giggles to stop flying around and begins falling down. Giggles calls herself lucky because she landed on some mattresses and pillows. Unfortunately, this causes her to bounce right onto a box of pitchforks. To make matters worse, farming equipment and other sharp objects bounce off the mattresses and impale Giggles, and to top it off, she gets decapitated by a shovel.
Splendid lands on the ground, and swallows the huge gust of air. Splendid then sees the the last page of the book falling towards him. Splendid then begins to read the last page, but before he can do so, his stomach rumbles. As a result, Splendid lets out a huge fart. The gas is so toxic, when it hits Flaky, she is reduced to bone, and Splendid releases so much gas, that it contaminates the whole planet. Toothy runs out of his house, yelling and gagging in terror. But not for long, as a knocked out Handy crashes his truck onto him. Disco Bear then walks onto the screen, having a nosebleed, and gagging from the bad air. As a result, he falls to the floor, unconscious. Petunia, coughing from the bad air, decides to light a match, in hopes to brighten the environment around her. Unfortunately, the gas reacts to the heat, and the whole world is set on fire. Once we zoom in on the planet, everything is all burnt and destroyed.
Splendid emerges from some rubble, with minor burns around him. Realizing he now holds the last page of his story, he excitedly reads the last page, then throws it away with an unsatisfied look.
Moral
"It's an ill wind that blows no good."
Deaths
- Lumpy is crushed by his microphone cord tied around him when Splendid flies. (Debatable, though if he survived that then he was killed by Splendid's gas or the world being set ablaze)
- The Mole is either killed by the tornado, intoxicated by Splendid's gas, or burnt to death.
- Cuddles is sliced in half when Splendid flies through him.
- Giggles is impaled on a set of pitchforks and assorted farming equipment fall on her. She is then decapitated by a shovel.
- Flaky's flesh is burnt to the bone by Splendid's flatulence.
- Toothy is hit by Handy's truck that loses control.
- Handy and Disco Bear are intoxicated by the gas. (Debatable, they just might have been knocked out)
- Every possible kind of living thing was killed because of the fart made by Splendid or when Petunia lit the world on fire with a match. (Debatable, as most of the possible deaths were off-screen, and a few characters could have taken shelter, and many of them are currently unconfirmed.)
Goofs
- When Splendid is reading the book, part of his patagium passes through his arm.
- When Splendid flies off after tying the microphone cord around Lumpy, Flaky is missing from the fence.
- Lumpy's antlers switch places once.
- The creators put Toothy as a featuring character even he only appears in one shot while Lumpy was more of a featuring character.
- When Splendid recovers the pages of his book from the tornado, the second one he grabs, he reads correctly (left to right, and because of the way his eyes move). But the other three pages he collects, he reads them the opposite way (right to left).
- Most real books are printed with information on both sides of the pages, yet Splendid's book only had print on one side of the pages.
- It's unknown where the mattresses and pillows came from.
- It's unknown how Splendid's television turned itself on.
- Broken law of physics: When the debris from the tornado falls after the tornado shrinks, the debris falls faster than Giggles, when she should have fell at the same time as the debris.
Trivia
- The term "breaking wind" means to pass gas/fart. The title is also a reference to the Twilight novel/movie Breaking Dawn.
- Humorously, Splendid is seen reading a book that resembles the Twilight novel.
- This could be classified the deadliest episode ever due to the entire world being caught in an inferno, killing almost everything on the planet, though this is debatable, as Class Act has the highest amount of confirmed deaths in an episode at the moment, while many of the deaths in this episode were off-screen and unconfirmed.
- The Sneak Peek and Teaser is announced in Mondo Shows Website.
- When Splendid heard the news on TV, the music also plays on the title card of the episode See What Develops.
- Despite that this episode was made before All In Vein, the latter was uploaded on YouTube first. This occurs again between Bottled Up Inside and No Time Like the Present.
- This is the first episode that Splendid cries in.
- Truffles can be seen hiding behind the barn when Lumpy floats away.
- A teaser of this was released on the 1st of October, 2012. It shows Splendid watching the news about a striking tornado then he goes off. Meanwhile, Lumpy and the others are sucked up by the tornado.
- This is the second episode to show a tornado, the first is Just Desert.
- This is (Debatably) the only episode that Lammy dies in without it being Lumpy's fault.
- This is the second appearance of both Splendid and Disco Bear in Internet season 3. They last appeared in Wrath of Con, which also coincidentally stars Splendid while the latter made only appearance roles.
- Apparently, Splendid actually is breaking wind in this episode. This is the first episode where a character does this onscreen.
- This is (Debatably) the first episode Splendid kills Flaky without killing Russell and Nutty as well.
- This is the third time that Splendid shows interest more in his items than in his job. The first one was in Better Off Bread, where he was more interested in making sure his bread was properly backed than in saving the day, and the second was in From Hero to Eternity, where saving Giggles and the town clearly played second fiddle to doing his laundry.
- This is one of the few episodes in which all of the featuring and appearing characters die while the starring character survives.
- Flaky's death might be a reference to Sarah Connor's death in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, where she died while holding on to a fence, though in Flaky's case it wasn't caused by an inferno.
- This is the first time that Handy kills Toothy.
- Of all previous episodes where Lumpy dies first (being Milkin' It, Get Whale Soon, and I've Got You Under My Skin), this is the first to feature more than three characters.
- Lumpy's debatable death is similar to Toothy's death in one of the Comics and Nutty's death in A Sight for Sore Eyes.
- Giggles' death is similar to her death in Royal Flush, Cub's death in Chip Off the Ol' Block and Shifty's death in Who's to Flame?.
- Flaky's death is also similar to Lumpy's death in Just Desert, her own death in Boo Do You Think You Are?, and Giggles' death in See What Develops (coincidentally also caused by Splendid).
- Toothy's death is similar to Sniffles' injury in A Sight for Sore Eyes.
- The circumstance of Petunia lighting a match to see through the gas clouds and then reacts with the match with enough strength to kill the entire planet is similar to the Mole's circumstance of lighting a match to see in the dark and then killing the entire town in Who's to Flame?.
- Coincidentally, Petunia had a hand in both of these circumstances.
- When Splendid screams as his book slips out of his hands, he screams exactly like Lumpy does.
- The noise heard when Splendid's TV turns on sounds like Morse code signals.
- It can be assumed that Truffles and the known characters who didn't appear survived the calamity in some way (e.g., Water, shelters, Cro-Marmot's ice block, etc).
- In the Teaser, the music is similar to the music in The Chokes on You.
- This is the only season 3 episode that Disco Bear makes sounds.
- This is the shortest appearance of Toothy, only living for 2 seconds.
- This is Splendid's latest appearance in the series so far.
- Sniffles is the only blue character who doesn't appear. Ironically, he co-starred with Splendid in the latter's previous appearance.