Too Much Scream Time
| Too Much Scream Time | |
| |
| Episode type | Promotional video Video game cutscene |
| Date | September 27, 2023 |
| Character(s) | Pop (starring role) Cub (starring role) Lumpy (featuring role) Handy Cuddles Giggles Disco Bear Truffles |
"Too Much Scream Time" is an episode of the Happy Tree Friends internet series and a collaboration with The Crackpet Show video game developed by Vixa Games and published by Ravenage Games. It is a tie-in episode for the Happy Tree Friends Edition downloadable content for the game. It is fourth tie-in episode for a video game after "False Alarm" with the eponymous game, "Buns of Steal" with Run & Bun, and "Camp Pokeneyeout" with Deadeye Derby. This short, however, is the only one to be a collaboration with a third party instead of related to a Mondo Studios video game. "Too Much Scream Time" is one of the Happy Tree Friends videos to feature guest characters in the animation. The show already featured the Fall Out Boy in "The Carpal Tunnel of Love" and Really Good Unicornius, who is a contest submission from Oliver Age 24, in "Pet Peeve". This episode, alongside the DLC, was first announced via a trailer published by MondoMedia on August 17, 2023 after the channel gradually teased with Community posts in the weeks prior starting mid-July 2023. The teasers began with a post saying "Happy Tree Friends", then followed by "are going to..." with a teaser image attached a week after, then a 9-second video titled "Come back..." on July 28, 2023, then finally an 8-second video titled "really soon" on August 3, 2023. "Too Much Scream Time" is the first Happy Tree Friends episode to be published in the 2020s and is the first episode after seven years since the original release of "In Over Your Hedge" back in 2016. This is also the first Happy Tree Friends episode to be streamed through YouTube Premiere first before it is available on demand.
A brief snippet of this short can be viewed in The Crackpet Show if the player has Happy Tree Friends Edition installed and if it is their first time booting up the DLC. This episode is also aired via Steam broadcast on The Crackpet Show's store page.
Description[edit]
Get The Crackpet Show: Happy Tree Friends Edition now: https://thecrackpetshow.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/happytreefriendsgame
Happy Tree Friends ARE BACK! Too Much Scream Time features guest characters from The Crackpet Show, an action-packed rogue-lite shoot’em-up about mutated animals that fight in a bizarre TV show.
Embrace the iconic cruelty and humor of the legendary cartoon with your favorite characters playable in The Crackpet Show: Happy Tree Friends Edition!
Dive into the bizarre show solo or with your friends via couch co-op and spread mayhem with tons of guns and perks.[1]
Plot[edit]
Pop and Cub are walking at a mall when Pop suddenly needs to go to the restroom after just one bite of a burrito. He sees a display TV showing The Crackpet Show characters, so he places Cub down in front of it while he is going to the restroom. At the public restroom, Handy is entering a stall while Lumpy is cleaning a sink. Pop enters the furthest stall. By then, the TV no longer shows innocent imagery as it shows a brief The Crackpet Show cutscene where the Mega Toad swipes at two crackpets challenging it. This makes Cub highly intrigued. Pop later leaves the public restroom and is then shocked to see Cub watching the crackpets being killed, quickly dragging him away. Meanwhile, Lumpy enters Pop's stall and is disgusted by the state of the toilet.
Pop lets Cub play with a ball this time. His stomach rumbles again, so he leaves. Cub turns his head toward the direction of the mall corridor and once again sees the display TV showing Crackpet footage. In that footage, Bunny shoots an entire group of audience members, enticing Cub to try that too. He picks up a bow and arrow set when Pop comes back. Pop is then shocked again at the sight of him going to fire the arrow. Pop snatches the arrow and feels how sharp the point is before he notices Lumpy passing by, carrying a toolbox. His toolbox includes a toilet plunger, which Pop swaps with the arrow without being seen. He then allows Cub to use the plunger in place of the arrow, assuming it wouldn't be dangerous.
Lumpy returns to the dirty stall and takes out the arrow. He is confused, but starts work anyway, plunging the arrow into the toilet. Handy is still using the toilet at the adjacent stall, dropping the newspaper he apparently managed to hold. But once his lack of hands is fully shown, he is unable to grab the toilet paper. The arrow ends up going through his toilet, piercing through him from bottom to top. Lumpy continues to "plunge" without knowing what is really happening. When he manages to pull out an eyeball with some optic nerve tangled around the arrow, he screams in horror.
While Pop is eating his burrito, Cub starts aiming with the bow. He is going for the box of crackpet dolls, but when he fires, Cuddles happens to pass by and his head ends up impaled by the plunger handle while its suction cup is detached and stuck on the side of his head. Giggles is admiring Disco Bear's new hairstyle when the ricocheting plunger handle hits a button in front of the barber shop, causing the roll-down door to close and cut Disco Bear in half. The plunger handle eventually impales Pop's head, sending bits of his brain into his burrito before Pop himself falls backwards. Lumpy picks up the burrito and leaves happily with it. Back at the display TV, Cub's hat is left in front of the TV and Cub himself is shown to be inside the TV looking at The Crackpet Show footage in awe before he disappears and footage from the Happy Tree Friends Edition is played to advertise it. Lumpy has finished the entire burrito by then, but his stomach then starts to rumble.
Moral[edit]
"Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded."
Fates[edit]
Deaths[edit]
- Bunny, Sharky, and Cowie are shown being killed by the Mega Toad.
- In the next piece of gameplay footage, it shows Bunny killing at least three of the crazy penguins. Bunny then goes to kill the audience.
- Handy is killed by an arrow through his body while he is on a toilet. This was caused due to Lumpy using it to "plunge" the toilet.
- Cub shoots a plunger out of his bow which impales Cuddles' head.
- Disco Bear is cut in half by a closed roll-down door.
- Pop's head is impaled by the plunger handle.
Survival rate[edit]
- Amount of surviving main characters: 2
- Amount of dead main characters: 4
- Total rate: 33.33333333333%
The Crackpet Show references[edit]
- At the beginning, the TV displays dancing crackpets, featuring the characters, Cowie, Goat, Bunny, Panda, Piggy, and Rusty.
- Cowie and Sharky appear on the sides of the display TV and as dolls.
- Cub is watching a snippet of The Crackpet Show intro where two crackpets are facing Mega Toad.
- Cub's way to copy the TV show has him fire a plunger. The Mark Gun is a weapon in The Crackpet Show that involves firing a plunger, albeit not via bow like what Cub did.
- Promotional footage of both The Crackpet Show and the Happy Tree Friends Edition DLC are displayed on the TV both to entice Cub and to advertise the game.
Staff[edit]
- Main article: List of Too Much Scream Time staff
Rhode Montijo and Kenn Navarro created the episode while Brendan Burch was the executive producer. Ravenage Games and Vixa Games are also mentioned in the credits.
Storyboard[edit]
The storyboard for "Too Much Scream Time" is presented in an animatic format. This was first shown partially as an 18-second clip on Warren Graff's X post posted on October 13, 2023.
On March 11, 2024, the full version of the animatic was published on YouTube as a "Members only" video, which requires the viewer to subscribe to MondoMedia's channel membership to access. Unlike the post on X, the animatic is shown in widescreen format and with the watermark "PROPERTY OF MONDOMEDIA/SIX POINT HARNESS 2023" overlaid on the top. The video's description is as follows:
Where do Happy Tree Friends episodes come from? Well, when a Pop episode and a Mom episode love each other so much, they get together and create... storyboards! The storyboards then get timed to sound and grow up to become an animatic! The animatic team then goes through layout, animation and finally move out and only call you on major holidays! Ain't life grand?
Trivia[edit]
- Truffles makes a cameo during the scene where Cub sees footage of The Crackpet Show for a second time. He appears on the right side in the second room from Cub's perspective.
- Comically, once Disco Bear dies, his eyes move to watch Giggles screaming.
- "Too Much Scream Time" is one of the few episodes where Pop dies but Cub survives.
External links[edit]
- The announcement trailer on YouTube
- The episode on YouTube
- Brief animatic of the episode by Warren Graff