See What Develops is episode number 8.3 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.
HTF Episode Description
Mole’s fearless reporting is what Editor Lumpy counts on for his front page photo!
Editor Lumpy sends Mole out to get the front page photo he needs. (DVD)
Plot
Lumpy drives haphazardly through town in his news van, causing stacks of newspapers to fly out the back. He enters the office building for The Daily Acorn, the town's newspaper company, and walks up to Splendid who is dressed as his alter ego, a news reporter with a hat, thick glasses, and a tie. Lumpy holds up a newspaper and asks him where the photo for the lead story is, but Splendid simply shrugs. Searching around the office for a photographer, Lumpy witnesses Cuddles heading out down the elevator, The Mole unknowingly replacing a full bottle of water in the water cooler with an empty one, and Sniffles looking through the lens of his camera with great interest. Ultimately, Lumpy yet again makes a rather poor decision by sending the blind Mole as the photographer and a skeptical Splendid to get the latest scoop.
Splendid and The Mole arrive at the grand opening of a supermarket, where Handy hangs a banner. Then Giggles, their very first customer walks out with a bag of groceries and a stick of French bread. Then Mime comes out of nowhere, and he makes balloon sculptures for Giggles, Russell, and Cro-Marmot (Giggles-balloon hat, Russell-sword, and Cro-Marmot-balloon hat). Attempting to take a photo of this, The Mole unknowingly ends up photographing himself, causing Splendid to sigh angrily. Inside the store, The Mole uses a flashbulb to take a photo of Nutty, Disco Bear, and Flaky, the store clerks. Unfortunately, the smoke from the flashbulb sets off the sprinkler system, which shorts out the automatic doors. Outside, The Mole drops a flashbulb, and, upon picking it up, accidentally gets behind a gumball machine. Thinking it's a camera, he turns the crank and releases gumballs. Nutty sees the candy and tries to run outside, but he slams into the malfunctioned automatic doors, whimpering in sadness for not retrieving his treat.
Meanwhile, Mime, still riding on his unicycle, rides it over the gumballs and begins losing his balance. As the gumballs fly out from under the unicycle wheel, gunshot sounds are produced, getting Splendid's attention. He runs to a phone booth to change out of his street clothes, but Cro-Marmot is inside making a call. Mime makes it safely off the gumballs, but The Mole takes his photo, temporarily blinding him from the flash. This causes him to crash into Handy's ladder, knocking off both Handy and his tools. Luckily, Handy manages to use his teeth to grab onto the wire of the sign he hung up, while Mime is forced to start juggling some of Handy's sharp tools that fell from the ladder.
Splendid sees a second phone booth and gets in to change, but he has to stop when he notices Cub is staring in at him. Splendid sheepishly waves back at Cub, waiting for him to turn away. Still juggling the dangerous tools, Mime ends up crashing into an instant photo booth, where, through the four pictures that come out, it is seen that part of Mime's face was sliced off by Handy's tools. The shaved piece of skin is in the shape of a roll of film, and The Mole, who dropped his film, accidentally picks up the bloody roll of skin and places it in his camera. Splendid sees the top part of Handy's mouth is about to break off, so he runs to the instant photo booth to change. Seeing and very nearly vomiting at the repulsive sight of Mime's cut and mutilated body inside the booth, Splendid instead runs into a nearby alley.
Splendid reveals himself.
As he begins undressing, The Mole unknowingly takes Splendid's photo and walks back towards the parking lot. Splendid is torn between whether to help Handy or stop The Mole. He eventually rushes to Handy's aid when the top part of his mouth breaks off and he hurtles toward the ground. Unfortunately, Splendid isn't fast enough and Handy splatters on the pavement. Splendid sees a car pulling out of the parking lot and, assuming The Mole is driving, rushes over to tear the top half of the car off. He sees, however, that Petunia is actually the one driving and he ended up tearing her in half at the waist with only her intestines connecting both halves of her body. He replaces the top of the car and uses his eye lasers to weld the car back together, but Petunia ends up crashing.
Splendid looks over and sees the silhouette of a figure that appears to be The Mole approaching a photo development booth. He flies over and punches and begins to attack the figure, only to discover that it is Giggles, her balloon hat resembling The Mole's photographer's cap, and her "walking stick" is actually the stick of French bread Giggles bought from the new supermarket earlier. Toothy, the clerk in the booth, glares angrily at a sheepish Splendid. Splendid sees The Mole walking back to The Daily Acorn building and rushes off to stop him. The supersonic speed he flies at tears the skin off Giggles' body and disintegrates Toothy's body in the backlash, leaving nothing but his feet. He flies past the supermarket, where Flaky, Disco Bear, and Nutty have drowned in the flood of rising water, shattering the glass windows. The Mole begins taking random photos, including several of Splendid which blinds him from the flash, causing him to fly into a building which quickly collapses.
Splendid sees that The Mole has entered The Daily Acorn building, so he quickly runs up to the office, once more dressed as his alter ego. He finds that he's too late as The Mole gives Lumpy his camera, but luckily, Lumpy only finds the scrap of Mime's flesh inside, making Lumpy shudder, evidently disgusted. Splendid breathes a sigh of relief, but he accidentally freezes Cuddles with his ice breath. Realizing what he did, Splendid attempts to thaw out Cuddles with his laser vision, but he ends up breaking Cuddles into small ice cubes.
Later, in the darkroom, Lumpy develops The Mole's photos, only to find that they are all poorly shot. He picks up Mime's flesh and decides to develop it. Lumpy pulls out one of the photos from a tub of water, and just as the picture of Splendid's identity is about to be revealed, The Mole mistakenly opens the door to the room, letting in light, causing to overexpose the film and also causing the picture to blacken, ruining it, and successfully keeping Splendid's identity safe, much to Lumpy's anger.
Moral
"A picture is worth a thousand words!"
Deaths
- Mime is cut to pieces when he runs into a photo booth while juggling sharp objects.
- Handy falls from a great height to the pavement, where he splatters.
- Petunia is torn in half and then crashes her car.
- Giggles' skin, flesh, and organs disintegrate when Splendid flies away at supersonic speed.
- Toothy is disintegrated/vaporized by the backlash of Splendid's sonic boom.
- Flaky, Disco Bear, and Nutty drown when the supermarket's automatic doors break down, causing water from the sprinklers to flood the store.
- Splendid possibly kills some Generic Tree Friends if they were in the building he crashed into after The Mole temporarily blinded him with camera flashes.
- Cuddles is killed when he is frozen by Splendid's ice breath and broken into ice cubes by his laser vision.
Injuries
- Nutty slams his face on the supermarket's malfunctioning sliding doors in an attempt to reach for the candy outside.
- Splendid hits his body on a phone booth's door because Cro-Marmot was inside.
- The Mole flashes his camera at Mime, making Mime disoriented.
- Handy's upper jaw rips off after he uses his mouth to hold onto a rope to prevent himself from falling.
- Splendid unknowingly rips Petunia in half at the waistline inside her car.
- Splendid attacks Giggles after he mistakes her for The Mole.
- The Mole flashes his camera at Splendid, temporarily blinding and making Splendid disoriented.
- Splendid accidentally flies into a building, making him dizzy.
- Splendid accidentally freezes Cuddles with his ice breath.
Goofs
- Lumpy's antlers change directions several times.
- The purple building next to The Daily Acorn building is not there at the beginning of the episode.
- There are several mistakes with the clock in the Daily Acorn office: First, when Lumpy enters the office at the beginning of the episode, the clock reads 3:00. Second, the clock reads 7:00 when The Mole changes the container on the water dispenser. Lastly, when Splendid re-enters the office near the end of the episode, the clock still reads 7:00.
- The mole on The Mole's face changes places numerous times.
- When Lumpy exits the elevator, Splendid's ears are visible. When he is talking with Lumpy, Splendid's ears are gone. When he is with The Mole, his ears are visible again.
- Several things, such as the gumball machine, change places between the establishing shot of the store and the main action.
- The moment Mime arrives to make balloons, Russell and Cro-Marmot do not have their balloon sword and hat. But after Mime makes Giggles a balloon, they suddenly have their balloon sword and hat.
- The crank on the gumball machine goes from being on the right side to the left side between shots.
- Though the gumballs are outside the window when Nutty looks through the glass, they appear in front of the door when he runs to retrieve them.
- Upon hitting Handy's ladder, Mime stops riding, but as he catches Handy's tools, he is suddenly riding out of control.
- Cuddles' fingers and tuft of hair are blueish (like he has frostbite) before he is frozen.
- The Mole takes Splendid's photo well after Splendid took his glasses off, yet the photo Lumpy is about to look at shows Splendid still holding his glasses.
- When Lumpy is examining the photos The Mole took, one of the pictures displays one of Lumpy's antlers, even though The Mole didn't take a photo of him.
- Petunia and The Mole ride the same car.
- Toothy had his head out of a very high window when the photo development booth was blown away, so his feet should not have remained on the ground.
- When one of the supermarket's windows shatters, Disco Bear and Nutty's bodies are the only ones seen pouring out, unless they cut the scene with Flaky's body pouring out.
- When Handy dies, Mime's corpse does not appear in the photo booth.
- Cuddles does not have a featuring role pop-up. Toothy also has more of a featuring role, but judging by the episodes, the show does not ever use three featuring cards. Russell, Cro-Marmot, and Sniffles have appearances since they appear in 1-3 shots.
- Disco Bear, Nutty, and Flaky drown before the water even touches the ceiling.
- When The Mole puts Mime's flesh in the camera, the slot grows in size.
- When the Mole spills water on the floor, there is a big puddle, but in the next shot when Lumpy looks over to Sniffles, the puddle is gone.
- In this episode, Toothy seems to have realized Splendid's incompetency as a hero, as he got annoyed at Splendid for attacking Giggles when he was previously shown to be a fan in Better Off Bread and Remains to be Seen. In Wrath of Con, however, he is back to being a fan again.
- Splendid's model when zooming past the flooded supermarket is the same one used in Better Off Bread when he carries Giggles to the oil tanker. The only difference is that Giggles has been removed from the model, resulting in Splendid missing a hand.
Splendid's model from Better Off Bread (top) being re-used in this scene.
Trivia
- There are several references to Superman in this episode:
- Splendid's career as a news reporter is a reference to Clark Kent's career as a news reporter when he's not saving the day.
- Splendid's place of employment, The Daily Acorn, is a reference to Superman's place of employment, The Daily Planet. Both buildings house newspapers and both buildings have their titular object on top of the building (e.g. an acorn for The Daily Acorn and a model of Earth for The Daily Planet).
- Splendid having to run into a phone booth (which fails) and having to go to an alleyway to get out of his disguise is similar to how Superman runs into a phone booth to change into his super persona.
- Mime rides his unicycle under Handy's ladder, a superstition that brings bad luck.
- After The Mole takes his picture inside the supermarket, Disco Bear and Flaky shake hands and he actually winks at her. This marks the second time Disco Bear flirts with Flaky, the first being Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya!.
- Splendid is ambidextrous, as he is seen writing with both hands at different times (either that, or a mistake).
- This is one of four episodes starring Splendid where he is not responsible for every death that occurs in the episode. The other episodes are Wrath of Con, From Hero to Eternity, and Mirror Mirror, the first episode of the Splendid's SSSSSuper Squad series of Ka-Pow!.
- The only three characters who do not appear in this episode are Flippy, Lifty, and Shifty.
- When this episode aired along with Blast from the Past and Chew Said a Mouthful on YouTube, the alternate title for the trio of segments was named "Behind the Eight Ball". Lumpy, Toothy, and Giggles appear in all three episodes. Also, Toothy dies in all three, Giggles dies twice, and Lumpy survives in all three.
- Handy's death is similar to Lumpy's death in All Flocked Up.
- This episode hints Splendid might be hemophobic (afraid of blood), as he nearly vomits when he sees Mime's dead body.
- This episode has the the same moral as Keepin' it Reel.
- Cuddles' death is similar to his death in Blast from the Past.
- Despite surviving in most of his appearances so far, this is the only episode of the TV series in which The Mole stars and survives.
- This is Splendid's third and last appearance in the first season of the TV series.
- Mime's death is similar to his death in Brake the Cycle.
- The YouTube thumbnail for Part 2 spoils Handy's injury before death.
- Irony: The Mole takes only one good photo (the one with Splendid and his secret identity), and he is the one who ruins it by opening the door to the dark room, accidentally causing the film to overexpose, blackening it.
- Toothy, despite being a big fan of Splendid, gets annoyed at him when he accidentally beats up Giggles.
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