Happy Tree Friends


Happy Tree Friends is an American adult animated web series created by Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo and Kenn Navarro, and developed by Montijo, Navarro and Warren Graff for Mondo Media. The show has achieved a cult following on YouTube.
The series features cartoon anthropomorphic forest animals, in premises akin to children's shows, who are suddenly subjected to extreme graphic violence. Each episode revolves around the characters enduring accidental or deliberately inflicted pain or mutilation.

Characters and cast

While working on Mondo Media, Rhode Montijo drew on a piece of scrap paper a character who would later become Shifty. He then drew on a spreadsheet poster a yellow rabbit that bore some resemblance to Cuddles and wrote "Resistance is futile" underneath it. Rhode hung the drawing up in his workstation so other people could see his idea, and eventually the idea was pitched to and accepted by the Mondo Media executives. In 1999, Mondo gave Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode 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 killing three woodland animals, a squirrel, a rabbit and a beaver with a banjo. From there, Mondo gave them their own Internet series, which they named Happy Tree Friends.
After its internet debut in 1999, Happy Tree Friends became an unexpected success, getting over 15 million hits each month along with screenings at film festivals.
Mondo Media CEO John Evershed attributes the success of the series to animator Kenn Navarro. "He had a clear vision for that show and he's just a brilliant animator. He has created something that is pretty universal. I envision kids watching Happy Tree Friends 20 or 30 years from now the same way that they watch Tom and Jerry now. So really it's Kenn Navarro."
In 2014, after the episode "Dream Job" was released, Mondo Media announced plans to produce a feature film based on the series, but in 2016, Kenn Navarro tweeted that he was unaware of work being done on a film, but that his team were "in talk to do more shorts". Later, when a fan asked Kenn Navarro about the film, he replied: ""a treatment that and the writers did was all the work for the movie"
In December 2016, Mondo Media released five all-new episodes for purchase online. Bundled as a set named "Happy Tree Friends: Still Alive", the episodes came with some additional bonus material such as background designs, animated storyboards, the animation process, and a writer's session video. Upon purchase, the buyer was allowed to download the DRM free video files to their own computer. In January 2017, Kenn Navarro tweeted "As I understand, sales were ok but fell below what was expected."

Episodes

Television series

The television series was first shown at Comic-Con 2006 and some of the episodes were shown on the website a few weeks prior to the show's television premiere. The TV series would premiere on September 25, 2006 at midnight on G4's late-night block, Barbed Wire Biscuit. The web series also aired on the network's animation anthology series; Happy Tree Friends and Friends and G4's Late Night Peepshow.
The Canadian channel Razer aired the show in syndication with then-sibling television network Citytv. Internationally, the series was broadcast on MTV in Europe and Latin America, and Animax in South Africa.

In other media

's 2007 music video for their song "The Carpal Tunnel of Love" was directed by Kenn Navarro and stars characters from the series. The band members also make a cameo as animated characters.
A video game titled was released on June 25, 2008. It was developed by Stainless Games and Sega for Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360 and the PC. There was also an iOS game titled Happy Tree Friends: Deadeye Derby released in 2014.

Spin-offs

A spin-off series called Ka-Pow! aired in September 2008. It is anthology of action-oriented stories starring The Mole, Flippy, Splendid, and Buddhist Monkey. A total of six episodes have been produced.
In 2014, Kenn Navarro created D_Void, a show similar to Happy Tree Friends. So far only 2 episodes have been produced.

Awards