"Spin Fun Knowin' Ya" is the second episode of the Happy Tree Friends, and being the first in the internet series. This is also the episode that introduces Cuddles, Giggles, and Toothy; three cute and cuddly characters doomed to disaster and Lumpy, who is a moose, known for his stupidity.
HTF Episode Description
Spin Fun Knowin' Ya is the very first Happy Tree Friends episode! This show introduces the core character group and also sets up the theme of "innocent mayhem" that runs throughout the entire series. Lumpy is spinning the gang on a merry-go-round, only to have things spiral out of control. A clip of this show was seen in Jennifer Aniston's movie, "The Good Girl."
Plot
Lumpy takes Cuddles, Giggles, and Toothy to the park, where the kids ride on a merry-go-round. Lumpy spins them at a normal speed, until Cuddles tells Lumpy to spin them faster. Lumpy is only happy to oblige. At first enjoying the fast pace, the group soon realizes they got more than they bargained for. Toothy flies off the merry-go-round and collides into a tree, breaking his back, and planting his teeth into the tree. Giggles is next as the pole she holds onto breaks from the merry-go-round, sending her hurtling towards a chopped piece of wood. She is cut in half and the pole impales her chest.
Cuddles has the strength to hang onto the merry-go-round, but he finally flies off when his hands break away from his arms. His body is sent flying into a nearby plane's active engine, shredding his body to bits.
Finally, Lumpy stops spinning the merry-go-round, exhausted from all the effort. The merry-go-round comes to a stop, and Lumpy sees Cuddles' severed hands still hanging onto one of the bars. Realizing what he had done to the children, he walks away, pretending not to notice. The episode ends with the camera looking at Cuddles' severed hands, where they slide down the bar as Lumpy leaves the scene.
Moral
"Don't forget to floss!"
Popcorn Video (Blurb)
The Popcorn video of Spin Fun Knowin' Ya contains these annotations:
- Special Pop Corn Video!
- Hide and seek is the number eight cause of accidental deaths among small animals
- Falling from trees is number four
- The number one cause of death is...
- Bullets coming out of guns at very high speed!
- Cuddles likes to wear bunny slippers
- Toothy has had tail enlargement surgery
- Lumpy is thinking about candy!
- The North American beaver can't fly...
- ...or go through trees!
- 80% of children hug playground equipment for dear life
- This stunt took 23 takes!
- Cuddles' thumbs are backward
- No They're NOT!
- Heavy breathing in...
- 3
- 2
- 1
- Panting!
- Rabbit's feet are considered good luck!
- Cuddles has gone on to star in a series of straight-to-video Ninja movies called "Paws Of Fury". Toothy is currently wanted in 7 states for impersonating a dentist. He was last seen in Ohio. Giggles has written a tell-all autobiography called "Tears Behind the Giggles". Lumpy went on to sponsor a bill in the Senate banning the parking of commercial planes near playgrounds. To this day 5 lives have been saved.
- 6 Lives
Deaths
- Toothy flies off the merry-go-round and slams into a tree, breaking his bones and back. (debatable)
- Giggles flies into a chopped piece of wood, cutting her in half. She is then impaled by the merry-go-round's detatched bar.
- Cuddles flies off the merry-go-round and into a plane's engine, shredding him to bits.
Commentary
In the First Blood DVD a series of commentaries ran through out the episodes.
Rhode: Welcome to the Happy Tree Friends commentary! My name's Rhode Montijo with, um... I'll let everyone introduce themselves.
Kenn: Rhode Montijo: Director, Kenn Navarro: Animation Director,
Aubrey: Aubrey Ankrum, I just came up with the... the... half of the idea, early early on. Not much really, just kinda hanging out. Hi!
Warren: Uh...Warren Graff, writer
Jason: Jason Sadler, I'm one of the animators
Lippy: And 'Lippy', big fan.
Kenn: Well, Lippy does a voice.
Jim: Jim Lively, sound engineer.
Rhode: Woo! (claps)
(Everyone joins in)
Aubrey: So this is the first episode we animated.
Warren: And actually, I did the voice of Toothy, Warren Graff here speaking, and uh, we just thought, just thought we'd make each death kind of, you know, be bigger than the last one so, oop, (refering to Giggles death as it happens on screen)see? That's just a little bit bigger than running into a tree.
Rhode: This was the initial episode that kicked it off for us, the, this is the one that we pitched as the, the main one and we got, the pilot and we got the rest of the episodes to come from it.
Aubrey: The rest is history and now we're soaking in fat cash.
Jim: (making a sound effect as Cuddles' hands slide off the bar)
Lippy: We're broadcasting from a golden island. I am covered in gold.
Warren: So, um,
Lippy: And ladies.
Warren: (Continuing on) Each episode started off with a very happy, um, um, moment I guess and ended with a nice message for the kids. (Said as the moral shows up) (Continues into the next episode)
Goofs
- In the beginning of the episode, Cuddles has white cheeks, but they later become pink. (Fixed in the classics remastered version)
- Also, in the beginning of the episode, Giggles does not show any buckteeth when her mouth is closed, but that changes soon after.
- The backs of everyone's ears have holes.
- When Giggles died, her buckteeth aren't visible.
- Even though Cuddles' hands are torn off by the force of the merry-go-round's spinning, severed hands fly out the back of the airplane engine.
- Giggles flew away with one of the merry-go-round's poles, but when Lumpy stops, all four poles are present.
- Lumpy's antlers change directions at the end.
- Cuddles' hands aren't visible until the merry-go-round comes to a complete stop.
- When Toothy breaks his back, he loses the two hairs atop of his head.
- When Cuddles' hands are shown gripping the bar at the end, they are facing the wrong way.
- If Cuddles and Toothy were outstretched like they were, they should have hit Lumpy, but they didn't.
- In the beginning, whenever Giggles is shown from the back, her left ear appears to turn purple.
- When Toothy hits the tree, his tail goes missing.
- When Giggles was about to hit the tree stump, Giggles' eye, ear, bow, and nose is missing.
- When Giggles gets impaled by the merry-go-round bar her body outline color was yellow.
- At first, it was unknown why there was a plane in the park in this episode. But in Blast from the Past, it was revealed that Sniffles parked it there. It may not be canon, though, prior to the concept of time-traveling.
Quick Shot Moment
When Lumpy continues to spin the merry-go-round after everybody flies off of it, there's a brief shot of Giggles holding onto the merry-go-round before she flies off.
Trivia
Comparison between the original (left) and the remake (right).
- This is the only episode where Giggles does not have a light pink streak on her head. Despite this, she appears this way during the intro of every first season episode she stars in.
- There's a deleted scene at the ending where Lumpy was walking away on the road and got ran over by a truck.
- This is the only episode where Toothy has two hairs on his head. Despite this, he appears this way during the intro of every first season episode he stars in.
- A clip of this episode appeared in the Jennifer Aniston movie The Good Girl.
- In September 2006, Cold Hard Flash named this the second most influential flash animation of all time, only behind the JibJab flash, This Land.
- This episode was recreated at the end of Blast from the Past. There are numerous differences between this episode and the scene in Blast from the Past including:
- In this episode, Giggles doesn't have the diamond mark on her head, Toothy has two stray hairs atop his head, and Cuddles' cheeks are white at the beginning. These are fixed in Blast from the Past.
- In this episode, Cuddles, Giggles, and Toothy have their mitten hands throughout the episode. In the future episode, their fingers can be seen in numerous instances.
- In this episode, only Cuddles laughs and tells Lumpy to go faster. In the future episode, he, Giggles, and Toothy all laugh as they tell Lumpy to push them faster.
- In the future episode, Toothy flinches after Lumpy begins pushing them faster, whereas he doesn't do that in this episode.
- In the future episode Toothy's expression changes before he flies off the merry-go-round, whereas in this episode it doesn't change until after he flies off.
- When Toothy flies off the merry-go-round in this episode, he flies in a different direction than he does in Blast from the Past.
- In this episode, when Toothy hits the tree his blood splatters in a design pattern. In Blast From the Past, his blood is splattered more spaced out.
- In this episode, the pole that Giggles holds onto is solid when it breaks off. In the future episode, when it breaks off, it is hollow.
- In this episode, Giggles is cut completely in half by the stump. In the future episode, her spinal cord connects the two pieces of her body.
- In this episode, one cannot see Giggles' teeth when she is cut in half, but they are present in the future episode.
- In this episode, chunks of Cuddles' body can be seen coming out of the airplane's engine. In the future episode, only his blood flies out the back.
- Before Toothy's death, he holds the merry-go-round with two hands. However, in Blast from the Past, he holds the merry-go-round with one hand.
- Despite being the first official episode of Happy Tree Friends, an unreleased (at the time) episode named Banjo Frenzy was produced a year prior. The designs of characters (e.g., color, species, etc.) and animation is different from the regular series, as in Banjo Frenzy Giggles is a blue squirrel and Lumpy is a dinosaur.
- Lumpy is responsible for every death in this episode. But in Blast from the Past, it is revealed that Sniffles was partially responsible.
- A cellphone game called Spin Fun is made based on this episode.
- Cuddles and Lumpy were both responsible for the deaths. Cuddles told Lumpy to go faster which caused the characters deaths (including his).
- This is the first episode to be remastered in HD, for reasons other than Blurbs.
- The same merry-go-round reappeared in the episode All Work and No Play, but it was destroyed.
- This episode is the most referenced in the series.
- On the Third Strike DVD, there's a bonus feature called Vision-O-Rama. This bonus feature lets you watch this episode from a different character's point-of-view (see the gallery below). Those include:
- Lumpy: the video will be shown upside-down.
- Nutty: the video will be seen all distorted and shaky.
- Russell: only one half of the screen will be shown.
- The Mole: the screen will be solid black.
- Cro-Marmot: the video is shown all blurry and has a light blue tint.
- The annotation at the end of the Popcorn Video (fictionally) explains what happened to the characters at the end of the episode. Cuddles' part pokes fun at him as a rabbit, Toothy's part pokes fun at his enormous teeth (and maybe possible reference to Nuttin' but the Tooth), Giggles' part references how happy and giggly she appears to be, and Lumpy's part references what had just happened to Cuddles in the episode.
Vision-O-Rama
