Rink Hijinks is an episode of the Happy Tree Friends internet series, the third of the second season, and thirtieth episode overall.
HTF Episode Description
Remember how fun it was to go to roller skating? Flaky tries her luck on the rink and Disco Bear shows off his fancy twirls. Meanwhile, Lumpy ends up in a jam and Cub wins a one-of-a-kind prize at an arcade game.
Plot
The episode starts off at a roller skating rink, where Generic Tree Friends skate along. Moments later, Flaky enters the rink, but she seems to have some trouble with her footing. Flaky nearly falls over, and she hugs the wall for safety. But when a Generic Tree Friend quickly skates past Flaky, she gets all determined, and lets go of the wall. Flaky begins to get the hang of it, but not for long, as Disco Bear skates in and carelessly pushes Flaky aside.
Elsewhere in the rink, Lumpy is seen cleaning the rink with a floor buffer while wearing skis in his underwear. Suddenly, Flaky comes by, and she falls under Lumpy's floor buffer. As Flaky gets sucked in, her body begins rubbing against the floor at a fast speed, and her quills begin to fly all over the place. As Disco Bear skates along, Flaky's quills suddenly come in and puncture Disco Bear all over his face and torso, which kills him. Meanwhile, Lumpy can no longer contain the malfunctioning buffer, and the brushes get cemented to the floor. Because of this, Lumpy is now getting twirled all over the place just before he gets flung away.
At the arcade of the rink, Cub can be seen playing at a claw machine. Suddenly, Lumpy comes in and his body crashes through the machine. As a dazed Lumpy regains consciousness, he notices the claw machine's hook hovering over his body. It comes down, punctures his chest, and pulls out his heart. As Lumpy screams at the loss of his heart, he suddenly passes out and dies with his blood flow cut off. Lumpy's heart falls into the prize slot, and Cub immediately grabs it. At first, Cub seems confused at his "prize," but once it throbs, Cub gets fascinated and hugs it. The iris then closes in on Lumpy's heart, where it throbs once again.
Moral
"What goes around comes around!"
Deaths
- Flaky rolls under a floor buffer and dies after being dragged along the floor at a fast speed.
- Disco Bear is killed when Flaky's quills fly at him and puncture his head and torso multiple times.
- Lumpy has his heart torn out by a claw in a claw machine operated by Cub.
Goofs
- Lumpy's starring page is right side up instead of upside down. Similarly, Flaky's starring page shows her happy instead of nervous. Also, the character's lower halves are outside the background in their starring pages instead of inside and all backgrounds that are used for each character are all the same (since the previous episode and the next episodes up to Just Desert use the characters completely inside the background and have the background matching with the respective character).
- However, this was because the new pop-ups were not fully developed yet.
- Cub is playing a Buddhist monkey game with plastic walls, but when Lumpy is thrown into the game system, it becomes a claw machine with glass walls. (this is fixed on the DVD)
- When Lumpy is thrown into the claw machine, his arms briefly disappear. Similarly, as he struggles and dies, an extra arm appears and his hands disappear several times. (this is fixed on the DVD)
- On the version played on hulu.com, the title is misspelled as "Rink Hijink".
- When Disco Bear bumped Flaky, he was not injured by Flaky's quills.
- Lumpy somehow managed to evade Flaky's quills even though he wasn't moving.
- When Lumpy was thrown in the claw machine, the sound of glass being smashed was heard; however, the sides of the machine were not made out of glass.
- The Generic Tree Friends were absent when Flaky's quills were shot everywhere.
- When Disco Bear was skating, there were no Generic Tree Friends to be seen.
- The claw machine wasn't damaged when Lumpy was thrown in to it. However, when the claw impaled Lumpy, it was.
- There was no display on the claw machine when Cub was operating it.
- It is impossible for the glass that Lumpy smashed his head through to be that shape; the hole should have been bigger as Lumpy's antlers went through the other side.
- At the beginning, the disco ball was active, but the disco ball wasn't active when Disco Bear was skating or when Lumpy was spinning out of control.
- If one pays close attention, when Lumpy was in the claw machine and he had his eyes closed, it looked as if he had no arms.
- When Lumpy's heart got pulled out by Cub, you could see a second heart in Lumpy's pierced chest.
- Cub is more of a featuring character.
- When Lumpy was thrown off the floor buffer, it stopped spinning, but it should have continued spinning if the spinning head is stuck to the floor.
- Cub's beanie usually has two red patches, and two yellow patches. When we first see Cub playing with the claw machine, his beanie has three red patches and three yellow patches.
Quick Shot Moment
When Flaky is seen cowering towards the rink at the beginning of the episode, there's a brief shot of Disco Bear punctured by Flaky's quills. (This quick shot moment spoils Disco Bear's death)
Trivia
- This is the only episode that has a title that isn't based on a pun or saying.
- This episode marks Flaky and Cub's first kills in the series.
- Another sign of Lumpy's stupidity was shown in this episode. He was buffing up the floor while wearing skis and exposed boxer underwear.
- When a Generic Tree Friend skates past Flaky, she gives a determined expression similar to Handy's signature scowl, making this the first of five instances where Handy's growl is done by another character. It is done again by Russell in Get Whale Soon, Pop in Snip Snip Hooray!, Sniffles in In a Jam, and Petunia in I Nub You.
- However, unlike the other characters, Flaky didn't make a disgruntled growl.
- All main characters killed someone in this episode (Disco Bear and Lumpy killed Flaky, Flaky killed Disco Bear, and Cub killed Lumpy).
- Disco Bear's death is similar to The Mole's death in Party Animal. Coincidentally, both of these kills were caused by Flaky.
- Cub is the only survivor in this episode. Also, this is the first episode Cub survives.
- This is the first episode where Cub says something other than babbles, giggles, and sound effects. You can hear him say "Oh hi, Lumpy!" in this episode.
- This episode marks the first time a character died because of Flaky's quills, a type of death that will become very common sometime later.
- This is the first time Disco Bear dies.
- This is the only regular episode where Cub kills someone.
- The pop-ups in this episode are different. As the backgrounds are blue and the character is standing outside their pop up.
- This is due to production still working on the character pop-ups