Better Off Bread is an episode of the Happy Tree Friends internet series, the twelfth of the second season, and thirty-ninth overall.
HTF Episode Description
Super Squirrel to the rescue again! Splendid's domestic duties are interrupted so that he can once again save Happy Tree Friends from total disaster. This time, he pulls out a true superhero trick... some of you will recognize the reference. Let us know what you think!
Plot
While listening to his radio in his Acorn Fortress, Splendid happily begins baking bread in his oven.
Elsewhere, Giggles is laughing and frolicking through a flowery meadow. She begins falling, however, as we see that the flowers she was running through impossibly extend over the edge of a high cliff that she hadn't seen.
Splendid's super hearing picks up Giggles' screams, and (with some hesitation) he flies off to rescue her. As Splendid flies upwards to catch the falling Giggles, he accidentally (and unknowingly) breaks her back, leaving her in a catatonic state. Splendid stops after hearing something else cry for help and flies away.
Several seagulls and a baby seal are shown covered in oil, where a nearby tanker has begun leaking oil after running into some rocks. Splendid flies at an increased speed towards the accident, forcing Giggles' eyes to detach from their sockets. After considering for a few seconds, Splendid fixes the hole in the ship by using his laser eyes to weld the hole shut.
Splendid hears another yell. Feeling annoyed, he flies out to investigate. After he flies away the heat from part of the ship he welded shut ignites the oil, burning all of the oil-covered animals to death.
Meanwhile, we see Toothy yelling for help while pointing upwards toward the sky. We find that he's pointing to a meteorite that is headed straight for Earth. Splendid flies past Toothy and prepares to attack the meteorite head on with Giggles still in his arms. As Splendid flies upwards, the skin on Giggles' face begins to peel back, exposing the nerves of her face.
Splendid hits, and destroys, the meteorite. Toothy smiles at the glow of the destroyed meteorite and cheers Splendid upon his return to Earth. Splendid places Giggles down next to Toothy and pats her on the head, unaware the she has died from the ordeal. Toothy waves goodbye and thanks Splendid as he flies away, but Toothy is soon killed from the crash of one of the many small meteorites that have formed due to the destruction of the large meteorite.
Splendid returns home, only to find that his bread is burnt, having been in the oven too long. He gasps and then faces up at the ceiling, screaming in grief and despair over the loss of his bread and flies out of his Acorn Fortress in anger and up into outer space. He begins flying around Earth many times in the opposite direction that Earth is rotating.
This makes the Earth rotate backwards, causing time to go reverse to before the meteorite approached Earth, before the animals were burned by the flaming oil, and before Giggles fell off the cliff. Splendid then flies back to his fortress and opens and closes his oven door to see that he has just put his bread into the oven. Again, he hears Giggles screaming. This time he thinks for a second and decides to turn up the volume on his radio, pretending he doesn't hear Giggles' distress. Ironically, the radio tune last heard is a heroic sound.
Moral
"Time heals all wounds!"
Deaths
- Giggles dies after having her head skinned by Splendid's fast flying. After Splendid turns back time, he ignores her screams as she falls off the cliff to her death. Probably after she fell to her death, she broke all her bones.
- Multiple animals are killed when the heat from Splendid's laser eyes set the oil they are stuck in ablaze. After Splendid turns back time, the animals die from being covered in oil overtime.
- Toothy is killed by one of the many small meteorites that forms after Splendid destroys the large meteorite that is headed for Earth. After Splendid turns back time, Toothy (and possibly many others) more than likely die from getting hit by the large meteorite.
Injuries
- Giggles' spine breaks due to the hard impact of landing in one of Splendid's arms.
- Giggles' eyeballs fall out of their sockets when Splendid flies too fast.
- Several animals are injured in an oil spill.
Survival Rate
- Amount of surviving main characters: 2 (1 including Debatable deaths)
- Amount of dead main characters: 1 (2 including Debatable deaths)
- Total rate: 66.67% (33.33% including Debatable deaths)
Destruction
- There is a immobile leaking oil all over sea animals.
- A meteorite is punched into pieces by Splendid.
Goofs
- Toothy had more of a featuring role.
- Giggles' eyelashes are missing throughout the entire episode.
Giggles without her eyelashes.
- If you look very closely when Giggles was frolicking in the flower field, her right leg was in front every time she jumped.
- When Giggles passes through the flower field (in the first shot before she falls) there is more space in front of her than there is in the second shot when she falls.
- There are several instances of the characters' pupils switching to a circular shape as opposed to their usual pac-man shape.
- When Giggles falls off the cliff. Her eyes don't become pac-man shaped again until time takes her back to when she was running through the flowers.
- Toothy when he points at the meteorite.
- Splendid when he leaves the earth to destroy the large meteor, when he sees his burnt bread, and when he leaves his acorn to enter space to turn time.
- When Splendid flies away, his chef hat and gloves fall off in a slideshow type of way rather than an animation type of way.
- Just before Splendid flies away for Giggles, his mouth appears over his chest for a brief second.
- There doesn't seem to be any water at the oil carrier crash site.
- Splendid is seen with four fingers and a thumb when giving an "OK" sign after sealing the crack on the oil carrier.
- Toothy has normal buckteeth throughout the episode.
- When we first see Toothy, he's pointing at the meteor. When Splendid flies past him, he stops pointing and looks in his direction. But in the next scene (after Splendid flies past Toothy), Toothy is sporting the same pose as when he sees the meteor. One would have to look real hard to see it.
- Giggles loses her ears when she is skinned.
- When Splendid turns back time, his left patagium isn't visible.
