Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm (episode)

Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm (episode)
Episode type	Video game cutscene
Date	June 25, 2008 (video game) June 27, 2008 (Part 1; Atom, YouTube) August 2, 2008 (full episode; YouTube) May 13, 2009 (full episode; Mondo) May 14, 2009 (HD, YouTube)
Character(s)	Nutty Lifty and Shifty Sniffles Cuddles Mole Petunia

Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm or False Alarm is a Happy Tree Friends short for the video game of the same name. The short has two parts, with the latter being viewable after the game's completion. The episode is also available on YouTube for free after the game's release. The episode's theme revolves around video games.

Synopsis

Happy Tree Friends website:

Nutty cleans up his act. Maybe he’s just trading one addiction for another! (Part 1)

Watch how Nutty deals with his new addiction. (Part 2)

The complete episode from the Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm downloadable game. Nutty jumps out of the frying pan and into the fire when he quits his addiction to candy and picks up another habit instead. (full episode)

Plot

Part 1

Nutty receives a video game

Nutty is walking in the street while eating a lollipop. He eventually eats it and frowns as he no longer has candy. Nutty soon notices Lifty & Shifty in trench coats. They offer him a large amount of candy stuffed in the back of a truck. Nutty pays Lifty & Shifty, and the truck soon releases the candy pile, crushing him. He ends up in a hospital where Sniffles operates on Nutty, who has various candy punctured on his torso and is slightly unconscious. Nutty, now bandaged up, is locked behind a safe room for his sugar addiction recovery. Nutty goes through withdrawal but eventually exits the safe room, now sporting a tie and a curly hairstyle. His lazy eye now operates like his regular eye.

Nutty soon walks in the same street as before and meets Lifty & Shifty again, rejecting the offer for candy. They then offer him various video games and game consoles instead. Nutty agrees and pays Lifty & Shifty the money. He soon goes to his house to play his video games, succumbing to a similar addiction to his candy addiction.

Part 2

Nutty steals Cuddles' car

Several days later, Nutty is now sporting video game-related accessories on his body. He also starts growing stubble, likely due to his video game addiction and not exiting his house. Soon, his video game console breaks, causing Nutty to get enraged. He throws his controller out his window and exits the house to see Shifty and various video game devices. Nutty tries to chase after the truck, but it soon drives away from him.

Nutty then notices Cuddles in his car. Cuddles stops when Nutty is in front of him, only for Nutty to steal his car by throwing him out of it. Nutty soon chases after Lifty & Shifty. He then notices The Mole with a shopping cart walking down the road. Nutty tries to avoid hitting him. Petunia, delivering newspapers on her bicycle, gets run over by Nutty. Her intestines splatter the windshield in a rectangle. Nutty soon gets excited and tries to match the intestine with the others by tilting his car with success. Lifty & Shifty then arrive at a construction site. Nutty then smashes "his" car into their truck which mutilates their heads. A flaming barrel that Nutty crashed into lands on top of The Mole, causing him to get stuck. Nutty shortly sees the barrel and gets enthusiastic. He grabs a hammer and smashes it while running to crush the barrel, killing The Mole inside it.

Nutty opens the back of the truck. There, Nutty sees destroyed video game devices which dissatisfy him. Then he sees a candy cane that Lifty and Shifty had in their mouths earlier. Nutty grabs it and starts licking it with his tongue. He then gets excited and starts laughing. His green eye soon starts to drop, reverting to his old lazy eye and, as such, his sugar addiction.

Fates

Nutty kills Petunia

Deaths

• Petunia gets her body split in half when Nutty crashes her with "his" car.
• Lifty & Shifty have their heads mutilated after Nutty crashes "his" car into their truck.

Injuries

• Nutty gets crushed and stabbed by various candies from the truck.
• Cuddles gets thrown out of his car by Nutty.
• Mole gets trapped in a flaming barrel.

Animation errors

Nutty drawn with pie-shaped pupils instead of his original irises.

• When Lifty and Shifty offer Nutty candy, the candy cane on his torso is inverted.
• When Nutty gives Lifty and Shifty his money, the sound of him smacking his lips play, though his expressions show him with a wide mouth.
• In a few frames, a triangle (representing the underside of their jackets) appears under Lifty and Shifty's jackets.
• When Petunia smashes her face on the windshield, her eyeballs are on it. In the next scene, however, her eyeballs are gone.
• Petunia's intestines on "Nutty's" car are missing before hitting Lifty and Shifty.
• A candy cane appears in the truck despite Lifty and Shifty dropping theirs from their mouths before Nutty kills them.
• Nutty sometimes lacks the stubble and eye bags a few times.
• When Nutty notices Mole in the barrel, his pupil changes to a pie-shaped one.
• Mole has tape under his glasses in the barrel despite having standard glasses prior to being stuck in the barrel.
• The candy cane in Nutty's mouth floats when he starts laughing, similar to the mistake of Pop's pipe.

Video game references

Donkey Kong reference

• Parodies of various video game consoles such as the Atari 2600 and a Nintendo Wii are visible when Shifty opens up his jacket.
• Nutty's toaster-styled game console resembles the Nintendo Entertainment System with the "toast" resembling a cartridge.
• Before Nutty chases Lifty and Shifty, he steals Cuddles's car, similar to the Grand Theft Auto series mechanic.
• The scene with Petunia delivering newspapers on her bicycle reference the gameplay of Paperboy.
• When Nutty runs over Petunia with "his" car, her intestines splatter on the windshield. The intestines are similar to the Tetrominos from the Tetris games.
• After Nutty crushes Lifty and Shifty with his car, their heads are mutilated in the same shapes as Pac-Man and a Ghost from Pac-Man. The truck also starts playing its siren, similar to how the Ghosts made similar noises when Pac-Man is under the effects of a Power Pellet.
• The way Nutty kills Mole with a hammer is a reference to the gameplay of Donkey Kong, precisely how Mario destroys barrels with a Hammer.

Trivia

• According to Warren Graff in a forum post, Nutty still enjoys video games, even after restoring his candy addiction.
• Mole's blindness is referenced with him trying to warm his hands with the flaming barrel despite it being behind him.
• Out of all the characters featured in this short, only Nutty and Mole appear in False Alarm's video game portion as the victims that need rescuing. Cuddles appears as the achievement icon for "That's a Wrap".

External links

• The episode on YouTube (HD)