Happy Tree Friends: Season 1, Volume 1 – DVD Review

DVD Reviews, Reviews


Available at Amazon.com

Directed by
Rhode Montijo
Kenn Navarro

Cast:
Warren Graff …. Various Voices


The Show:

Even though sex and violence is probably at an all time high on TV, one area in particular seems to have been forced to tone down their content more than any other; cartoons. Classic animation series such as Looney Tunes and others have been virtually run off our Television screens because of their violent content, and most of the current animation running on television is pretty tame to say the least. Then again, there’s Happy Tree Friends.

For those that don’t know, Happy Tree Friends began as a series of animated internet shorts where the cutest, cuddliest animals ever, such as Lumpy the moose, Splendid, the Superhero squirrel, and the Father and Son team Pop and Cub, were killed and eviscerated in the worst ways possible. The shorts got so popular, that cable channel G4 even gave the Friends TV time for their shorts and the first volume of those is now on DVD. Happy Tree Friends: Season 1, Volume 1 covers the show’s first nine episodes, and for those that were worried if the TV versions of these segments would be toned down; worry not. The show’s creators are as sick and twisted as ever.

Take for instance, the first episode, “The Wrong Side of the Tracks”, in which Lumpy runs an amusement park. When a rollercoaster mishap has the HTF’s flying all over the place, you get a number of different ways to horribly maim and kill characters like Handy and Sniffles. Cutting a character in half or disemboweling a cute raccoon is definitely not beyond these guys.

What makes the situations even more effective is that there’s no dialogue in these shorts. All the animals make little cute animal noises until they’re screaming for their lives, such as when Cub is caught in a garbage disposal in “And the Kitchen Sink”. For the uninitiated, Happy Tree Friends could definitely catch people off guard, and I’d hate to think what could happen if a parent accidentally bought this for their kids.

It is difficult to say that the violence doesn’t get a bit tiresome, as after a while you just start to get numb to it. Making the matter worse is the fact that the show can be perfectly clever and even inspired when it’s not being over the top. A running gag in the segment “Party Animal” has Lumpy desperately trying to avoid disaster by not stepping on a banana peel and the number of objects obstructing his path becomes hilarious in its ridiculousness.

It just seems that each of these creators is vastly talented, and instead of really funny bits, all episodes simply devolve into a myriad of blood and gore. The shock moments can be clever, but after you’ve seen 27 animated decapitations, you’ve seen them all. This is not to say that Happy Tree Friends: Season 1, Volume 1 doesn’t have its moments, its just that there would probably be more of them if the gross out factor was pulled back a bit in favor of real comedy.


The DVD:

The Video
BCI does a bang up job with this print as the picture is pretty superb. The show is presented in Fullscreen in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

The Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is also nice and doesn’t seem to have any problems.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Featurette, Commentary, Storyboards.

Audio Commentary — This track runs throughout all nine episodes on the disc and is actually pretty funny as the show’s creators pick out some of the goofs and little jokes we may have missed.

Featurette – This Featurette is in four sections, The Process, Splitting Hares, How Far Is Too Far? and Cubes. Each section is about 1-3 minutes long and it makes it look like the guys are having a lot of fun, but doesn’t really have a lot to say otherwise.

Storyboards

The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for Happy Tree Friends: Season 1, Volume 1
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE MOVIE

5.5
THE VIDEO

8
THE AUDIO

8
THE EXTRAS

4.5
REPLAY VALUE

6
OVERALL
5.5
(NOT AN AVERAGE)

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.