Happy Tree Friends



""Cute, Cuddly, and Horribly Wrong""

- The show's tagline

Happy Tree Friends (1999-present) is a series of web-based (and later televised) animated shorts. It is one of the most prominent among series in wide circulation that Crosses the Line Twice, since it's designed to horrify and gross out people to such extremes that we laugh. The series is about the misadventures of a gang of Ridiculously Cute Critters who live in a bright, happy, Sick Sad World bent on making them suffer as much as possible before the sweet release of death takes away the pain.

After you pick up your jaw from the floor, you'll be laughing your guts out (not literally, though the show does do that a few times) -- and subsequently lose all faith in humanity and compassion for your fellow man in the process. It doesn't help that the Sickeningly Sweet characters and setting so perfectly emulate a number of the most annoying children's shows ever (they even have Care Bears-esque hearts for noses!) or that the poor critters are endlessly resurrected between episodes to die in new ways that even Kenny would wince at.

This show has a Character Sheet.

The series also has a really popular Fanon anime version.

This show provides grisly examples of:


 * Alliteration: The alliterative sentences for characters in starring images for the 3rd season. It was even lampshaded in the Wrath of Con Blurb. "'Wrath' was the first episode ever to be entirely developed in HD...and intentively initiated illiterated illustrations into the titles!"
 * As of Camp Pokeneyeout, the only characters who don't have a starring sentence yet are Giggles, Flaky, Nutty, Mime and Cro-Marmot.
 * Adults Are Useless: Very much so in Pop's case. As well-meaning as he is, his lack of attention and ineptitude often leads to his son's death (and occasionally his own). Lumpy also falls under this banner in episodes such as "From A To Zoo", and when Giggles' Mom shows up for the first (and possibly last) time, she doesn't notice when her daughter's head is replaced with an acorn... or that it falls off, squirting blood everywhere.
 * Exclusively Evil: Well not always, but whenever you see birds in this show you should probably start running. Particularly the man-eating ducks.
 * Amazing Technicolor Wildlife
 * Ambidextrous Sprite: The Mole's mole, Lumpy's inverted antler, Russell's hook hand and eye patch, and Nutty's lazy eye tend to change from side to side, often in contiguous shots. This is done so often that it almost seems intentional.
 * Ambiguous Gender: In the show, Flaky's gender is never directly stated and has led to some confusion; Word of God is inconsistent on the subject. Jokes about her gender confusion are sometimes slipped into the show because one of the writers, Kenn Nevarro, finds it hilarious to watch people argue over it.
 * Amusing Injuries: Played straight or subverted, depending on how realistically the injury is depicted.
 * And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Each episode ends with a lesson, cheerful thought, or general admonition like "Don't forget to brush your teeth!". Sometimes this has absolutely no relation to the episode. The worse ones are when it does.
 * Anyone Can Die: Taken Up to Eleven several times.
 * Art Evolution: The character designs were refined over time, becoming less stiff and a little "cuter." For instance, the characters' buck teeth are rounder, and Sniffles' snout has gotten shorter. The animation has also gotten smoother over time, and the deaths have become more graphically detailed.
 * Now with a comparison!
 * Art Style Dissonance: If all you saw were the characters and backgrounds, you'd never in a million years guess the show's true premise.
 * Artifact of Death: A cursed idol which appears in several episodes, most notably Treasure These Idol Moments.
 * Aside Glance: Whenever Handy's lack of hands inconveniences him, he glares into the camera.
 * Ax Crazy: Flippy.
 * Quite why he's so utterly insane under his outgoing if nervous exterior was explored in the short 'Operation Tiger Bomb'. Let's just say it cemented Flippy's status as the most batshit crazy character in the series.
 * Badass: Flippy. Also, Lumpy gets a few moments where he goes from bumbling to badass. In Doggone It he takes on a giant squid... with a mousetrap. And wins. Unfortunately for him and all involved the level in badass doesn't last. He gets another moment of badass in the halloween episode "Read 'Em and Weep" when he takes on a demonic Cub... though infection by The Corruption is hinted at at the end.
 * Banana Peel: Hilariously subverted in "Ipso Fatso." Lumpy notices he's about to step on one, and lifts his foot over it... only to see that the floor also has nails, a snake, spikes, a frayed cord and lava in various places.
 * Then he falls over anyway... back outside and onto a bike, breaking his spine.
 * Battle Cry: Evil Flippy, or Fliqpy, has a genuinely alarming one.
 * Beat Still My Heart: Lumpy's heart after Cub rips it out at the end of "Rink Hijinks".
 * Be Careful What You Wish For: The premise(and the moral) of As You Wish.
 * Behind the Black: Cro-Marmot can only move when off camera.
 * Similarly, Handy (who has no hands) will do things off camera like shovel snow and build an entire house, but once he's on screen he can't do any of the same.
 * The Mole is able to eat things off camera with his mouth covered all the time.
 * Berserk Button: Don't do anything that reminds Flippy of the war. Which happens to be a lot. It's a berserk minefield!
 * Nor should you ruin a library or kill the Buddhist Monkey's plant.
 * Hilariously subverted in "Without A Hitch", where Flaky is hugely paranoid that Flippy will go insane and kill her (with three imagined deaths being displayed), when in fact he doesn't do anything bad at all... Consequently, she stabs him in the eye and he gets run over by a truck...
 * Beware the Nice Ones: Flippy is normally one of the nicest characters on the show, but once you remind him of the war ...
 * Also, Lammy and Mr. Pickles. Though she may seem very nice (and she is!) she is schizophrenic and will kill you without meaning to whenever "Mr. Pickles is trying to kill you".
 * Flaky is generally kind, if cautious. In "Without A Hitch", not only did Flippy not flip out. She flipped out for fear of him killing her and stabbed him, which led to him getting run over by a truck!
 * Big No: Splendid when he discovers his bread is burnt in Better Off Bread.
 * Bizarrchitecture: The episode where everybody builds Giggles a new house. Because of scrambled blueprints, it ends up being a total funhouse slaughterhouse.
 * Blatant Lies: The episode description for Happy Trails Part 1: "Is this really the end of the indestructible Happy Tree Friends?"
 * Blow Gun: In one short, Lumpy attempts to sedate a animal mauling one of the "children", but accidentally sucks the dart in when taking his breath.
 * A Bloody Mess: Occurs in "Flippin' Burgers" where Giggles gets ketchup splattered on her and Flippy mistakes it for blood, causing him to flip out. Promptly inverted later in the episode, when Flippy dips a fry in Cuddles's blood.
 * Body Horror: Every. Single. Episode. One that stands out is Cub in Read 'em and Weep.
 * Bolivian Army Ending: Subverted by accident. "Happy Trails, part 1" was supposed to be this. At the time they thought it would be the last ever episode of Happy Tree Friends, and at the end of the episode, the bus falls off of the cliff, with the words 'to be continued'. However, they ended up creating more episodes, the first of which was a part 2 resolving the cliffhanger.
 * Boom! Headshot!
 * Bloodier and Gorier
 * Bloody Hilarious: To those who enjoy that kind of thing.
 * Bumbling Dad: Pop, in a world which pities no mistakes, or some seemingly safe decisions. If he's distracted by something, you can bet the results for Cub will be fatal.
 * By Wall That Is Holey: Subverted in A Hole Lotta Love. Cuddles looks like he's about to be saved this way, but the frame of the window cuts him apart. Played straight with Mime, though.
 * Caption Humor: The Blurb version is all about this.
 * Carnivore Confusion: Flippy has eaten Mime's remains, and has drunk Cuddles's and Shifty's blood. This seems akin to cannibalism until you realize that Flippy is a bear, and the other three are a deer, a rabbit, and a raccoon respectively; suddenly, the issue becomes that much more complicated.
 * Casanova Wannabe: Disco Bear.
 * Censor Box: Lumpy gets one in the "Just Desert" Blurb reading: "Blurb placed for your protection!"
 * Comedic Sociopathy: Plenty of it. The characters' disregard for one another's safety is astonishing, though they might just be too dim to realize what they're doing to each other, seeing as they react with plenty enough horror when confronted with another dead character.
 * Cosmic Plaything: Any character in any situation is likely to be this. Often, they survive incredible things only to die from a throwaway detail anyway. See also: Diabolus Ex Machina, Everything Trying to Kill You
 * The Chew Toy: Everyone.
 * Chekhov's Gun: This is one of those shows where if you see some innocuous item or event early on, chances are it'll come back at the very last second to kill the last character who's still alive.
 * That said, some characters definitely get the short end of the stick more than others. The likes of Splendid, Cro-Marmot and Flippy rarely ever die or even get seriously injured, and to a lesser extent Pop, The Mole and Lumpy die much less often than most other characters. Meanwhile the likes of Petunia, Sniffles, Lifty, Shifty and Cub suffer more than their fair share of the most cringe-inducing, sadistic deaths in the series.
 * Crap Saccharine World: The world looks sweet and cuddly and so friendly that you can't imagine anything possibly dying in it... making it all the more hilarious when the inevitable bloody slaughter begins.
 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: See Badass above.
 * Dead Baby Comedy: Literally, if Cub's involved.
 * Deadly Rotary Fan: Cuddles' death in "Party Animal".
 * Death as Comedy: In buckets. Then several more buckets.
 * Death Is Cheap: And how. By the end of the episode, at least one character (often more) will be dead or otherwise horrifically injured (e.g reduced to a burnt and bloodied mush after being set on fire and having it stamped out), yet you can guarantee that they'll be perfectly alive and well by the next episode. Several of the main characters on the show have died over forty times in total.
 * Deliberately Monochrome: Without a Hitch.
 * Diabolus Ex Machina: Almost every episode.
 * Most blatantly, "Swelter Skelter" where the deaths barely try to make sense. Nutty is tripped and his head breaks open like an egg. And how else can frozen fire that turns back into fire when melted be explained?
 * Rule of funny.
 * Disaster Dominoes: A character will be injured, they or others will panic, this panic will lead to a worse injury or death, leading to a wider panic which tends to kill off those left standing.
 * Disco Dan: Disco Bear.
 * Disintegrator Ray: In an episode where characters are competing for the brightest Christmas tree, one goes a little too far, cause some folks who are exposed to the light to catch fire, and another to completely vanish, complete with charred outline on the fence behind him, a la Hiroshima bomb.
 * The Ditz: Lumpy.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: The new character, Lammy is sweet and innocent. Until you think about the fact that her best friend is a pickle that makes her do evil things.
 * The Door Slams You: Frequently and with gruesome consequences.
 * Double Subversion: An example occurs in "Home Is Where the Hurt Is". Handy looks like he's about to pierce his foot on a nail, but moves his foot away from it... just in time to knock the board loose and drive the nail through his skull.
 * Another case with nails (from "The Wrong Side of the Tracks"): Sniffles finds a rusty nail, gets disappointed, and throws it away. You'd think that Mime would get stung with it... only for the nail to pop Mime's balloon. Then Lumpy reacts to the sound by turning around so fast that the nails on the plank he's carrying get stuck on Mime's backhead, killing him. A nail did kill him after all!
 * Drives Like Crazy: The Mole. Justified because he is blind.
 * Driven to Suicide: Petunia in "Wishy Washy".
 * a popular interpretation is that she was trying to clean the dirt off her and tried the potato peeler since she had nothing else in her kitchen drawer that she hadn't tried yet.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: The very first episode from 1999, "Banjo Frenzy," has little resemblance to the series other than gory deaths. Most notably, Lumpy is a dinosaur with a personality not unlike Flippy; Giggles is blue instead of pink; and the art style is almost nothing like seen in the actual series.
 * Everybody Lives: Five episodes have no deaths or injuries (Intimate Spotlight", "Deck the Halls", "We Wish You", Vote or Die and Oh Xmas Tree'').
 * Everything's Better with Penguins: Flippy has tea with three pink penguins in his hypnotism-induced "happy place."
 * Everything's Worse with Bears: Flippy plays with it, and when it's worse, that's an understatement.
 * The actual wild bear that mauls Lumpy in Take a Hike.
 * Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: The sharks that frequently show up in beach episodes or episodes involving the ocean.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Whoo boy. The scenery, the antics of the other characters, the wildlife... particularly the wildlife...
 * Evil Sounds Deep: Flippy's voice becomes deeper and more ominous whenever his Super-Powered Evil Side takes over.
 * Expy: Flippy is based on John Rambo. Heck, the first time he shows up ("Hide and Seek"), all his kills are shout-outs to Rambo's kills.
 * Splendid is essentially the squirrel version of Superman.
 * Lumpy looks so much like Bullwinkle, one of his antlers had to be inverted so he didn't look too much like him.
 * A particularly obscure one is Sniffles, who (when hunting ants) might be based on the aardvark from The Ant and the Aardvark shorts by the same guys as The Pink Panther shorts.
 * Eye Scream: "Eyes Cold Lemonade". And how.
 * Also the music video they did for Fall Out Boy's "Carpal Tunnel of Love." Dude gets stung in the eye by a bee. Then it happens again.
 * "Eye Candy". And how. Especially in the brief scene where we get to see the world from Toothy's POV.
 * Another example: both Toothy and Nutty get parts of their eyes sliced off by a rogue paper airplane in "Sight for Sore Eyes" and again, the show briefly cuts to their points of view (Toothy's being half forward, half backward, and Nutty's with big red spots in the middle). Russell averts the trope twice in the same episode: first, when Lumpy tries to examine his eyes with a dirty glove, and again when Russell puts in his contact lens with his hook hand.
 * In "Easy Comb, Easy Go", Disco Bear pulls a hair out of his eye, slices the front parts off of them, AND has a huge mass of hair grow out of them... which he then tries to shave off.
 * In Disco Bears All, guess what part of the body Disco Bear gets pepper sprayed to?
 * A Bit of a Pickle includes Lammy getting taser wires straight to the left eye. Yeah.
 * There's one in "We're Scrooged" where Lumpy gets a top's tip in his eye. Soon the top begins to drill into his eye.
 * In the episode "Without a Hitch", Flippy gets stabbed in the eyes. Then we get to see the world through his messed up POV.
 * Fan Art: A lot in anime style, here.
 * Fantasy Gun Control: There are no guns that fire real bullets anywhere in the series (the only time when a gun shows up, in Concrete Solution, it shoots nails). The writers' reason? "Too easy."
 * Finagle's Law: The only way of explaining some of the accidents. In one episode, Flaky manages to overcome her fear of flying, and heroically lands an out of control plane... before a shark promptly chomps her. Then he spits her out... and then Godzilla kills her.
 * Fingore: Sniffles in "Tongue in Cheek", when he gets his hand sewn to the ground and one of his fingernails torn off AND salt on the exposed wound. Oh, God...
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Hero: Cuddles
 * The Lancer: Toothy
 * The Smart Guy/Fifth Ranger: Sniffles
 * The Big Guy: Lumpy
 * The Chick: Giggles
 * Flying Brick: Splendid
 * Fractured Fairy Tale: Dunce Upon A Time, which parodies Jack and the Beanstalk.
 * Furry Confusion: The episode "Take A Hike" has a grizzly bear slice Nutty in pieces and maul Lumpy to death. There are four anthropomorphic bear characters in the main cast (though none of them appeared in that episode).
 * Gang of Critters
 * Good Versus Good: Splendid vs. Splendont
 * Gorn
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Some deaths, although they often show the corpses anyway.
 * Gosh Hornet: Bees are occasionally a cause of death.
 * Green Rocks: Splendid's weakness is Kryptonut.
 * Groin Attack: A rare female example in one of the most painful-looking deaths in the series. Giggles slides down an incredibly long banister with nails sticking out of the top. She's groin-ground completely in half. Then there's Nutty in his Party Smoochie, where a yoyo trick ends up hitting him in the crotch, grinding until the friction sets him on fire, and he ends up burnt to death.
 * It's implied that the killer Turtle from Letter Late Than Never bites Lumpy in his lower areas too, given how he has plaster over both his crotch and behind in that episode.
 * Gross-Out Show: Though it's more focused on gory details than the usual Toilet Humour.
 * Grotesque Cute: Evil Flippy.
 * Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Flippy, Pop, Lammy, Mime, and The Mole all wear only jackets/sweaters. Averted for Disco Bear, Russell and Truffles, however, since they both wear full sets of clothing.
 * Heat Wave: Swelter Skelter is a ludicrously exaggerated example. At the beginning of that episode, Giggles slides down a metal slide... only for her skin to melt off her butt and continue frying on the slide.
 * Helium Speech: Cuddles in "A to Zoo". This being Happy Tree Friends, he later impales his eyeball on the nozzle and inflates his other one.
 * Here We Go Again: A few episodes end this way.
 * Heroic Comedic Sociopath: There's a reason Flippy is one of the more popular characters.
 * Splendid seems more than willing to get people killed while going after crooks.
 * Hope Spot: A lot of these happen. Notably, Flaky in "Mime to Five," after falling off of Cuddles' outstretched intestines and rebounding back up from a trampoline, visibly sighs in relief just in time to get bisected by Cuddles' intestine as she comes back up.
 * Human Cannonball: Cuddles in Mime to Five. It doesn't end well due to Toothy misinterpreting Mime's instructions, and therefore putting in two barrels of gunpowder instead of two scoops.
 * Idiot Hero: Splendid. And how!
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Pretty much every episode title is one of these, and sometimes the moral at the end is too.
 * Inexplicably Tailless: Giggles, type 1.
 * Infant Immortality: Subverted whenever Pop And Cub are shown. Pop actually survives far more often than Cub, though that might be due more to his neglectful parenting.
 * It Was His Sled: Invoked in the blurb version of "Blind Date" after a Running Gag of "Same [insert object here] that Orson Welles used in Citizen Kane."
 * Jerkass: Lumpy (See Below)
 * Karma Houdini: Lumpy, quite frequently. He's the most common "last man standing" of the cast, even at times when he's the cause of it all (although it only happens when it's unintentional).
 * Karmic Death: Lumpy (when portrayed as a villain), Lifty and Shifty.
 * Flippy in Remains to be Seen.
 * Splendid in Gems the Breaks.
 * Kill'Em All: Every character, excluding Buddhist Monkey, Panda Mom and Giggles' Mom, has died at least once. The latter has only had a role in ONE episode each so far...
 * Kill the Cutie
 * Killer Rabbit: The ducks in Mime to Five, a puppy (and, as it is later revealed, several dozen more) in Doggone It, and the turtle in Letter Late Than Never.
 * Lampshade Hanging: The "Blurb" versions.
 * Le Film Artistique
 * Ludicrous Gibs: Oh yes.
 * Made of Iron: Cro-Marmot, Flippy and Splendid seem to be able to survive situations and wounds that would kill a normal tree friend, making their deaths among the more gruesome ones in the show.
 * Made of Plasticine: Somehow, tripping on a staircase is all it takes for Cuddles to be sliced in thirds.
 * Pop once sliced his son's scalp open with an electric hair trimmer.
 * If you're one of the Friends, you'd want to think twice about being near an outward-opening door. Mole actually is killed by an opening door in "Home Is Where The Hurt Is".
 * It gets turned Up to Eleven with Nutty in "Swelter Skelter" and Sniffles in "Moppin' Up". Nutty gets tripped by Shifty and Sniffles trips in a pool of cleaning liquid. Their brains crack out of their heads. That's it.
 * It pretty much depends on what makes for a more hilarious death. Apparently, a Christmas cookie is both soft enough to crumble into pieces upon hitting the floor and hard enough to carve through Shifty's ribcage.
 * Mandatory Twist Ending: In almost every episode at least one character dies horribly. Only a handful of episodes contain no deaths and in those, except for the five mentioned above, at least one character suffers grievous bodily harm.
 * The Many Deaths of You: And how.
 * Meaningful Name: Everybody has one.
 * Medium Awareness: The last segment of "Blast from the Past" re-creates the first official sketch, "Spin Fun Knowing Ya" (in which three of the characters die after being flung off a merry-go-round). Just before Cuddles flies off in this re-creation, he screams "Oh my God! I'm gonna die! Not this old death again!"
 * Mind Screw: "Double Whammy".
 * "A Bit of a Pickle".
 * "Without A Hitch".
 * "Blast From the Past".
 * Mood Whiplash: Most episodes. They often end with a lingering shot of a scene of carnage, or a dead character, then a quick cut to the happy, bouncy theme music and colorful credits.
 * Neat Freak: Petunia, particularly in the TV series.
 * Negative Continuity
 * Never Trust a Hair Tonic: Disco-Bear dunks his head in hair tonic after burning his afro. His hair grows back...but in his eyes. Cue Eye Scream when he cuts his eyes off with a razor as he tries to remove the hair from his eyes.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: The whole show is frequently marketed as an adorable kids' show about fluffy bunnies. Trailers are generally made out of the only thirty seconds of each episode that don't involve somebody getting gutted.
 * Non Sequitur: The aesops, sometimes.
 * Non-Standard Character Design: Lumpy.
 * Noodle Incident: In the episode "A Change of Heart," an already dead and mangled Handy is shown in a pilot's outfit next to a dead and rather mutilated orca whale in the middle of a soccer field. No explanation is given (which, to be honest, may be for the better).
 * Off-Model:
 * The animators tend to forget that Toothy's buck teeth have a gap between them, instead drawing them like the other characters' buck teeth.
 * Perhaps the most Egregious is a scene in "Flippin' Burgers" where Cuddles' arms are attached to his cheeks for a couple seconds. How do you make a mistake like that?
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The only time Flippy ever kills Lumpy, it happens off screen.
 * Oh Crap: For when death is imminent and the characters are well aware of it. Handy in particular gets an epic one in "Don't Yank My Chain."
 * The One Who Wears Shoes: Cuddles and Disco Bear.
 * One Steve Limit: Played straight so far, and we already have at least 25 named characters now. In addition to all of the differently named 20 main characters, there's also others such as Lammy, Truffles, Mr. Pickles, Sneaky, Splendont, and a few others.
 * Only Sane Man: Flaky. Considering that, in the world of HTF, pretty much everything can and will kill you, Flaky is right to be scared all the time.
 * Pie-Eyed
 * Precision F-Strike: Lumpy gets one in Doggone It.
 * Flippy, too, in Autopsy Turvy.
 * Punny Name: Toothy, Lumpy, Nutty, Flippy, Handy, Flaky, Lammy, Lifty and Shifty.
 * Reality Ensues: Anytime someone is killed by something that would do the exact same thing in real life.
 * Several episodes feature comical devices or fantastic vehicles, such as the Driller with a bubble porthole in Hole Lotta Love. You'd expect the driller to dig a hole around the entirety of the vehicle, but it only digs a hole big enough for the body to go through, which unfortunately destroys the porthole and crushes Mole's head.
 * Record Needle Scratch: Occurs in this Christmas short and in "Ipso Fatso" when Disco Bear realizes he's fat.
 * Red Shirt: Sniffles and Mime become this figuratively and literally in Something Fishy.
 * Reed Richards Is Useless: Sniffles, resident book worm and inventor, creates some rather useful inventions. Most of his creations backfire when being used by idiots. Although he sometimes tends to come up with incredibly overcomplicated solutions to simple problems, like building a Drill Tank to rescue Cub from a well, despite the fact that a longer rope would have just as, if not more effective. Of course, he isn't immune to the Idiot Ball, despite his intelligence. Sometimes borders on Science-Related Memetic Disorder.
 * Refuge in Audacity
 * Rouge Angles of Satin: In the opening credits of Swelter Skelter, "Starring" is spelled "Staring".
 * Rule of Funny: The main explanation for some of the less logical deaths.
 * Sadist Show: How else can you describe it? Enjoyment essentially comes from watching a group of hapless woodland critters horribly burn, maim and torture themselves and each other.
 * Screams Like a Little Girl: Several characters. Funnily enough both Splendid and good Flippy.
 * Seldom-Seen Species: Anteater, porcupine, and marmot.
 * Self-Deprecation: In the "blurb" version of "We're Scrooged!", during a scene where Cuddles is playing with a robot, the blurb reads, "in the future, this robot will write better jokes than us!"
 * Serial Escalation: Much of the gore, naturally, but the worst case is when Lumpy created such a huge display of lights for Christmas, that he not only set several characters on fire, but even The Mole had to shield his eyes.
 * Serious Business: Class Act is the subject of a great deal of debate in the fandom. Major points of dispute include whether or not Toothy was responsible for, and whether or not died in the explosion.
 * Shell Shocked Senior: Flippy, who even has "triggers" that set him off. It's heavily implied that he fought in The Vietnam War, and things that remind him of the war (fireworks or someone spilling ketchup on themselves, for example) trigger flashbacks easily.
 * Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Almost every episode, although some prominent examples are the depressingly hard to watch "Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna be Ya", where Flaky goes those a lot self-imposed pain just to survive, and "Double Whammy" wherein Flippy goes through a lot of trouble and has an epic battle with his demons, finally overcoming his PTSD...just in time to get roadkilled by a chicken truck.
 * Shout-Out: Double Whammy is probably a huge reference to Fight Club.
 * Blatant one to The Shining in the episode "Aw Shucks!" Lumpy is trying to get a crow out of his house, and the crow seeks refuge in his bathroom. Cue Lumpy (with ax in hand) breaking through the door, complete with a Simlish "Heeerrrreee's Lumpy!"
 * Sneeze of Doom: Giggles has one in the Valentine's Day smoochie that blows her brains out the back of her head.
 * Speaking Simlish: They do speak English, it's just almost always rendered barely intelligible. Many times, you can make out actual words, without the consonants (see Medium Awareness above for one example).
 * Nutty is an exception; most of the time, he just laughs madly or says "Ooooh!" The only time he speaks is in "As You Wish."
 * Special Edition Title: The Theme Tune was done in minor key on a Halloween episode.
 * Spoof Aesop
 * Status Quo Is God: Despite the number of times that the main characters have been killed and the horrific ways in which this occurs, they'll always be alive and well by the next episode.
 * Stepford Smiler: Flippy is Type C.
 * Subverted Kids Show: Given the hate mail the producers have received from angry parents, probably one of the most effective in this regard.
 * Sugar Apocalypse: Happens routinely. One of the Christmas episodes has half of the forest critters die when the school they were watching a Christmas play in burns down. The other half dies when the school explodes.
 * Sugar Bowl: Their tree town is very pretty and happy, a first world forest nation as it were. Pity it goes down in flames every fifth episode.
 * Super-Powered Evil Side: Flippy and his alternate personality.
 * Team Dad: Lumpy usually fills the "adult" roles in many episodes, playing chaperones, drivers and whatnot. Too bad for the other Tree Friends in his care.
 * The Character Died With Her: Sort of. Ellen Connell, the voice of Giggles, Petunia, and Cub, died in a tragic incident in 2009.
 * Theme Tune Cameo: The cast sings part of it in "A to Zoo."
 * This also happens in "Happy Trails, part 1" and "Take a Hike"
 * They Killed Kenny: Entire cast. Except for Cro-Marmot, Flippy, and Splendid, who rarely ever die in the series.
 * Throwing the Distraction: Sniffles throws a rock to escape The Crack in "Idol Curiosity".
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Mime is seen eating peanuts in several episodes (though he dies by choking on one in "Happy Trails"), and Lifty and Shifty are seen stealing meat several times. Just before they become meat.
 * Unexplained Recovery: The characters die in every episode and inexplicably come back to life in the next.
 * Vague Age: Used to the creators' advantage to depict characters as either children or adults, depending on the episode (Lumpy, Disco Bear, Flippy, Pop and Cub are excluded from this).
 * Visual Pun: The Mole has a mole on his face.
 * Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Used a lot, most notably in the episode "Gems the Breaks".
 * Its younger, more sensitive brother appears too, in the form of letting the camera stay focused on where the character's upper body was before it went down.
 * Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: The episode "Whose Line Is It Anyway" is spelled "Who's Line Is It Anyway" on the title card.
 * Wham! Episode: The ending of the aptly titled Double Whammy, where  Then Autopsy-Turvy,
 * Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: While Flaky is a coward in general, she seems especially terrified of baby chicks for some reason. Though one can't blame her after the episode where she accidentally kills a chick, and a bird snatches her up and uses her corpse for a new nest.
 * The Wiki Rule: Here.
 * Wingding Eyes: Lumpy gets the dollar sign variation in "We're Scrooged!" three times. On the third iteration, a dollar sign also appears on his tongue. Lampshaded in the "Blurb" version, where the blurb reads, "$ eyes is a sign of serious illness."
 * Petunia gets the heart variation in "I Nub You."
 * Mime gets the dollar sign variation in "Mime to Five," followed promptly by unicycles (he'd been wanting to raise money for one all episode).
 * Yawn and Reach: The Mole does this to Lumpy in "Blind Date". Again, lampshaded in the Blurb version.
 * Nutty imagines doing this to the gumball machine he's dating in "Sucker for Love."