Brake The Cycle is an episode of the Happy Tree Friends internet series, the eighteenth of season three, and seventy-second overall.
Plot
Toothy is fixing his bike when an orange bird flies down and steals one bolt. He notices it is missing but doesn't care. Toothy happily cycles until his bike cycles down a slope. Toothy then slams hard on the brakes, so much that the back of his bike wheel sets on fire. He hits a log and slowly flies through the sky. The bike seat falls off due to the missing bolt and Toothy lands back on the exposed metal where the seat is supposed to be, causing him to scream in pain.
Lumpy, dressed in a daredevil jumpsuit and helmet, gets ready to do a stunt on his motorbike. He pours in a large amount of gasoline, stupidly spilling most of it. He gets ready to do up a ramp and over a gorge. But Toothy speeds by and his flaming bike wheel sets the spilled gasoline ablaze, setting Lumpy and his motorbike on fire.
Toothy flies over the gorge and falls off the bike when he land, severely scratching his face on the tarmac. As his eyes tear up in pain, he discovers, much to his horror, that the pedals of his now destroyed bike is lodged in his intestines. Part of his bike that his intestines are attached to falls off the cliff, causing his intestine to unroll. To prevent the loss of his intestines, Toothy begins pedaling them back in. The orange bird returns again and takes out a bolt holding the intestine in a knot, causing the remaining intestines to fall off the edge. Down below Mime, having a picnic with Cro-Marmot, finishes slicing an apple, when the wheel falls down and slices his head in multiple pieces.
Toothy, having finished enduring his gruesome injury, begins crying when Lumpy, now a burnt skeleton, and his bike flies towards him, crushing his body. The bird flies back to its nest of bolts and puts in the latest one it stole into the nest. An egg hatches, revealing a spanner.
Moral
"Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to keep your balance, you must keep moving."
Blurb
A blurb video was released on July 11, 2013 containing these annotations:
- BlurB!
- Beavers brush their teeth 3 times a day
- Moose go down a slide 3 times a day
- Toothy is very handy
- more so than Handy
- because he has hands
- Fun Fact: Birds like to build their nests out of hard metal objects
- Toothy once finished 12th in the Tour de France
- He was later disqualified for unknown reasons
- Brakes are great for stopping bikes
- Or starting fires
- Slow motion, tool of the lazy director
- Prepare to wince in
- 3
- 2
- 1
- Seeing that it's Lumpy, the fact he's TRYING to pour it in the right hole should be considered a victory
- Fun Fact: This ramp is actually a finished bridge
- built by Handy
- See, we told you he wasn't very handy.
- Didn't see that coming
- Toothy is excellent at flying
- Usually in First Class though
- The Tour de France will disqualify you if you use beaver intestines as a bike chain
- Remember what I said about birds?
- Prepare for ironic death in
- 3
- 2
- 1
- That hurts Cro-Marmot on the inside
- Prepare to be sued by Marvel in
- 3
- 2
- 1
- See, I told you
- Don't understand the wrench though
- Maybe Kenn can explain it
Deaths
- Mime is instantly killed when his head is sliced by Toothy's bike wheel like an apple.
- Lumpy is burnt to death.
- Toothy is crushed by Lumpy's bike.
Injuries
- Toothy's backside is impaled on his seat stick, receives multiple cuts on his face from the fall, and has his intestines pulled out.
- Lumpy is set on fire when the gasoline spilled from filling up his motorcycle fuel tank is ignited by Toothy's flaming bike wheel.
Goofs
- When Lumpy is set on fire, his jumpsuit is shown to have many rips and tears, but when he is a skeleton, the rips and tears are gone,
- In the same scene where Lumpy is a skeleton, his clothes aren't burned away.
- It would be almost impossible for Lumpy to put his helmet on, due to his large antlers.
- In the scene where Toothy was winding his intestines back in, the bike didn't have a wheel. When the bike and part of his inside fall off the climb, the wheel is back.
- The brakes only appeared in the scene where they were necessary to the plot.
- It shouldn't be possible to set rubber bicycle wheels on fire by using hand brakes.
- When Toothy is flying, he is launched in front of his bike. But when the bike lands on ground, Toothy lands on the seat stick.
- You still hear pouring noises when Lumpy nods.
Trivia
- This episode was confirmed by the HTF crew on Facebook. Its name was later revealed by a teaser.
- Toothy is responsible for every death in this episode except for his.
- Like Royal Flush, Mondo Media posted a behind-the-scenes teaser video on happytreefriends.com, but unlike the previous episode, they didn't post a Sneak Peak of this one.
- This is the second time Mime and Cro-Marmot were the only characters with appearance roles in an episode (not counting Truffles). The first episode being In a Jam
- There are no female characters in this episode.
- The moral of this episode is the longest one so far.
- On the storyboard, it was originally Russell who was featured in this episode, but he was later replaced by Lumpy instead.
- Lumpy's suit's design in this episode may have been based on the late Evel Knievel's.
- Lumpy's skeleton being on fire while riding his bike might reference to the famous "Ghost Rider".
- This was mentioned in the Blurb, saying "Get ready to be sued by Marvel," which references that Ghost Rider is property of Marvel.
- This is one of three times where a character has a death/injury involving their crotch. The others are Nutty in his Smoochie and Giggles in Home is Where The Hurt Is.
- Truffles can be seen behind a tree when Lumpy is set on fire.
- This is Toothy's most torturous death since Eye Candy. Coincidentally, birds were involved in both cases (in the previous case, The Woodpecker).
- The YouTube thumbnail spoils Mime's death.
- This is one of six instances where a character cried during his/her death due to the degree of pain. The other five instances are Toothy from Eye Candy, Lumpy in The Chokes on You, Petunia from Read 'em and Weep, Flaky from Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna be Ya! and Sniffles from Tongue in Cheek.
- This is so far the only Season 3 Internet episode that has only one featuring character.
- Toothy is responsible for Lumpy's death and, likewise, Lumpy is also responsible for Toothy's death.
- Toothy is responsible for his and every other death in the episode (along with the bird, which stole some of the tools needed to fix the bike).
- Mime's death is similar to Giggles' death in the HTF Comics #3.
- It is also similar to Cuddles' death in A Hole Lotta Love.
- This is the first episode that Toothy kills as a starring character.
- It is ironic that Mime and Cro-Marmot are together, since none of them speak.
- Ironically, Mime was sliced right after he sliced an apple, and in the same way.
- Since Lumpy spilled the gasoline, he is indirectly responsible for his own death.
- This is one of the few episodes to have a Blurb version.
- Despite Handy not appearing in this episode, the Blurb version mentions him twice.
- This is one of the two episodes that only has one featuring character. The other episode is I've Got You Under My Skin.
- Lumpy's scream when he is set aflame is the same scream he made in Take a Hike when he is chased by The Grizzly Bear.
