Happy Tree Friends: Winter Break (2004)

Walk, do not run, to see the rating on the left side of this title page. TV-MA means Happy Tree Friends is for mature audiences, not kiddos 10 or under. (I won't let my youngest watch it till he is 15.) That said, Happy Tree Friends is an acquired taste. You will like this Flash animation show only if you enjoy the favorite cartoon show of Bart and Lisa Simpson, The Itchy and Scratchy Show, or other postmodern hits like It's Happy Bunny, 30-Second Bunnies, Shin-chan, Super Milk Chan, Robot Chicken, or any other animated show on Adult Swim. (Conversely, if you have never watched Adult Swim or any of these cartoons, then run, do not walk, in the other direction because you will hate Happy Tree Friends. Do not pass Go, do not write a complaining review.) Happy Tree Friends is populated with cutesy, cooing characters that get bloodily punctured, flattened, incinerated, or gorily eviscerated in every episode. Winter Break presents six cartoons that I found ironically hilarious: Stealing the Spotlight (Lumpy the Moose competes to produce the biggest display of holiday lights), Tongue Twister Trouble (Sniffles the Anteater gets tongue frozen to pond), Out on a Limb (Lumpy chops down a holiday tree but relives 127 Hours), Snow What? That's What (Snuggles and Cro-Marmot engage in snow mayhem), Ski Ya Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya (Flaky the Porcupine has a tortuous encounter with a ski slope), and A Class Act (Lumpy directs a disastrous holiday production) interspersed with six animated holiday card vignettes: Kringle Bells (deer kicks head), Frosty Kringle (Lumpy skis through Frosty and over kids), Kringle Feast (never trust Lumpy with a gas stove), Kringle Karol (carolers meet mayhem), Kringle Presents (electric train kills baby), and Kringle Tree (never trust Lumpy with an ax). 4.5 stars.