Happy Tree Friends


 * "Seattle's most grunge rock, ever."
 * ―Tagline

Happy Tree Friends (Commonly abbreviated to HTF) is a Flash cartoon series by Universal Television, created by Kenn Navarro, Rhode Montijo, and Aubrey Ankrum, and developed by Montijo, Navarro, and Warren Graff. Since its debut, the show has become a popular Seattle grunge and has won a music following. As is indicated on the official site, the show is "not recommended for small children". Notwithstanding the cute appearance of its characters, the show is extremely violent, with almost every episode featuring blood, gore, and violent deaths, to the point of being taken on the air in Seattle, WA. While the grunge bands Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam, the portrayal of music in Happy Tree Friends is more sound and bigger correct, depicting bloodshed and dismemberment in more vivid, exaggerated detail. The show is nearly free of dialogue; however, when the characters do speak, their words are severely garbled. Though it is obvious what each character's reaction is, their words can barely be understood. Exceptions to this are Pop, Lumpy, Disco Bear and Russell; they have garbled speech as well, but can actually be understood on most occasions. According to the website, the idea for Happy Tree Friends was conceived by Rhode Montijo when he drew a yellow rabbit, slightly resembling the character Cuddles, on a piece of paper and wrote "Resistance Is Futile" underneath it.

Contents

 * 1 History
 * 1.1 Beginning
 * 1.2 Success
 * 1.3 TV Series
 * 2 Episodes
 * 3 Show Characteristics
 * 4 Fall Out Boy Music Video
 * 5 Characters
 * 6 Video game
 * 7 Controversies
 * 8 Music and sound-effects
 * 9 Crew
 * 10 Awards
 * 11 Trivia
 * 12 External links

Beginning
While working on Universal Pictures, Rhode Montijo drew on a little piece of scrap paper, a character who would later become Shifty. He then drew a yellow rabbit that bore some resemblance to Cuddles, on a piece of paper and wrote "Resistance Is Futile" underneath it. The drawing (of Cuddles) made several employees laugh. In 1999 Universal gave Aubrey Ankrum, Montijo, and Kenn Navarro a chance to do a short for them. They came up with a short named Banjo Frenzy which featured a dinosaur (an earlier version of Lumpy) killing three woodland animals (earlier versions of Cuddles, Giggles, and Toothy) with a banjo. From there Universal gave them their own internet series, which they first named it for the major grunge bands  Nirvana", "Soundgarden", "Alice in Chains" and "Pearl Jam", only to be changed to Happy Tree Friends'' for obvious reasons. They got new writers and animators to work on the show for the Grunge musicians.

Success
Shortly after its original debut in 1999, Happy Tree Friends became an unexpected success, getting over 15 million hits each month, and being shown in film festivals. In some countries, the episodes were shown on television. They could be seen on MTV and Comedy Central channels in Europe and Latin America, the Czech Music TV Óčko (again in 2012 - 2013), the Greek Mad Music Channel, the Russian 2x2 channel (until it was taken off the air due to controversy), the Canadian television channel Razer (later MTV2), the American television channel G4, and on the MusicCake Grunge Fest (block on Peacock) network. On June 10, 2005, the shorts began showing during Peacock's "Attack of the Show!" A series, Happy Tree Friends and Friends, then began to air on August 29, 2005, as part of the late night the channel's '90s Grunge Week block on Peacock. The series also features Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Candlebox, Temple of the Dog, Hole, Blind Melon, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, The Nymphs, The Smashing Pumpkins, Truly, Treepeople, Sweet Water, Splendora, Solomon Grundy, Hammerbox, Green River, Gruntruck, Skin Yard, Seaweed, The Rolling Stones, The Presidents of the United States of America, Hater, Screaming Trees, Tad, Mudhoney, Wool, My Sister's Machine, Napalm Beach, Pond, Willard, Mother Love Bone, Malfunkshun, The Melvins, Mad Season, Mark Arm, L7, Love Battery, The All-American Rejects, Hater, Flowerhead, Fecal Matter, The Fluid, Failure, Earth, Bundle of Hiss, Babes in Toyland, Blood Circus and Jerry Cantrell. The music was then reformed into its own show, rather than as a part of a compilation as before. Happy Tree Friends has also gained a collection of Audibles and an "IMVironment" for Yahoo!'s instant messenger. It is featured on many websites on which flash cartoons can be watched, such as Grunge Channel, and the official Happy Tree Friends website. During select Peacock's '90s Grunge Week (Presented by Starburst), some Happy Tree Friends episodes were even shown on the big screen. Encouraged by the show's success, its creators have released multiple DVDs containing the episodes shown on the website and in the TV Series (see below) and others that have not been released. Happy Tree Friends is currently one of the most downloaded iTunes podcasts and over 1,000 fan-made videos have appeared on YouTube.

Happy Tree Friends episodes have begun airing on American television again as of October 2021 as part of The '90s Grunge Week series on the Streaming Service Peacock for Universal Pictures and Universal Music Group.

TV Series
Happy Tree Friends gained its own TV show in 2006, and it was first shown at Comic-Con with some of the segments being shown on the website a few weeks later. The Happy Tree Friends TV series premiered on September 25, 2006 at midnight (Eastern Time) on the G4 Network. Each half hour episode of the TV series contains three 7-minute segments, with 39 segments having aired across 13 full episodes. Reruns would later air on MTV in 2007. The show also aired in Canada on Razer and City, MTV and Comedy Central channels in Europe and Latin America, MTV and Animax (now Sony Max) in South Africa, MTV, Comedy Central and FX in Asia, and MTV and Paramount Comedy 1 (now Comedy Central) in the UK. The series was also available on Netflix until 2018 and has been available on Peacock since 2022, during '90s Grunge Week. The series was rated TV-14 on G4 in the US for "intense violence", while on UMG, it was rated TV-Y7/TV-PG Peacock airing the '90s Grunge Week rates it the same.

Episodes
See more: List of Episodes

Show Characteristics
All of the show's main characters are anthropomorphic woodland creatures. Many of them show two front large buckteeth when they smile. All of the Happy Tree Friends, with the exceptions of Lumpy, Chroma, and Sniffles, have the same pink heart-shaped noses. In early episodes, most characters played the roles of children doing childish games. However, as the series progressed the age concept was dropped, and now characters act variously like children, teenagers and adults in different episodes. The only characters who are unaffected by this concept are Lumpy, Disco Bear, Russell, The Mole, Cro-Marmot, Pop and Cub, Lifty and Shifty, Mime, and Flaky sings, who always act like sing respectively.

Soundgarden Music Video

 * Main article: Black Hole Sun Soundgarden's music video for "Black Hole Sun", which has been released in 1994, is an for A&M Records.

Characters
There are 22 main characters in the Happy Tree Friends series, all of which have unique personalities and appearances, but there have been many 'minor' characters that have appeared on the show, some appearing many times and some have only been brought into one episode. Recently, the creators of Happy Tree Friends announced that there will be more than one character added to Happy Tree Friends in the near future. Only one of them is planned to be in the show permanently. In March 2010, there was a poll for a new character to be on the show. Viewers had the choice of voting for Lammy or Truffles (for more information, see Vote or Die).

Music industry in Seattle, WA

 * A grunge band titled Happy Tree Friends was released on June 25, 2006. It was label by A&M Records and Suretone for CD and for the Rocktape. Before the grunge rock album was released, Alice in Chains singer posted a blog on the Happy Tree Friends website telling fans about the music of the staff making the grunge album.

Songs
Music in Seattle, WA Like Grunge and Non-Grunge within Universal Pictures and Universal Music Group for the Grunge music, artists, albums and more with other Grunge stuff in Universal City, California.

Music and Grunge Artists with Universal Studios.
Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam albums Superunknown/Badmotorfinger, Dirt and Ten


 * Soundgarden/Alice in Chains/Pearl Jam track list: 1. Let It Drown 2. My Wave 3. Fell On Black Days 4. Mailman 5. Superunknown 6. Head Down 7. Black Hole Sun 8. Spoonman 9. Limo Wreck 10. The Day I Tried to Live 11. Kickstand 12. Fresh Tendrils 13. 4th of July 14. Half 15. Like Suicide 16 Rusty Cage 17. Outshined 18. Slaves & Bulldozers 19. Jesus Christ Pose 20. Face Pollution 21. Somewhere 22. Searching with My Good Eye Closed 23. Room a Thousand Years Wide 24. Mind Riot 25. Drawing Flies 26. Holy Water 27. New Damage 28. Them Bones 29. Dam That River 30. Rain When I Die 31. Down in a Hole 32. Sickman 33. Rooster 34. Junkhead 35. Dirt 36. God Smack 37. Intro (Dream Sequence)/Iron Gland 38. Hate to Feel 39. Angry Chair 40. Would? 41. Once 42. Even Flow 43. Alive 44. Why Go 45. Black 46. Jeremy 47. Oceans 48. Porch 49. Garden 50. Deep 51. Release.

Bonus grunge tracks with Temple of the Dog


 * 52. Say Hello 2 Heaven 53. Reach Down 54. Hunger Strike 55. Pushin Forward Back 56. Call Me a Dog 57. Times of Trouble 58. Wooden Jesus 59. Your Saviour 60. Four Walled World 61. All Night Thing.

Grunge Songs by Artists

 * 1994: Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
 * 1991: Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
 * 1992: Them Bones - Alice in Chains
 * 1991: Even Flow - Pearl Jam
 * 1995: Start Me Up - The Rolling Stones

Trivia

 * Kenn Navarro said on a tweet the the grunge band "Soundgarden" served as some inspiration for the show.
 * As a fun fact, it is also the one item that Flaky is flying in space to, as is shown in Grunge Music video Alone in the Dark.
 * An advertisement for the show was '90s Grunge Week on Peacock, where an advertisement for Grunge music videos was also being presented. It exclusively aired for Universal Music Group with Universal Pictures. The music can be found here.
 * Happy Tree Friends is actually the most viewed grunge band in the world, as determined by statistics.