In a Jam

In a Jam is episode number 12.2 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.
==HTF Episode Description==
Rock, roll and death for Russell means Cuddles gets to audition for Lumpy’s band!
Cuddles auditions for Lumpy's band. (DVD)
==Plot==
Cuddles has just finished decorating his bedroom with Happy Tree Band memorabilia when an alarm clock featuring Lumpy rings. With that, Cuddles turns on his TV and watches a performance by the band, which consists of Lumpy, Handy, and Russell. During the performance, however, Russell accidentally knocks a glass of water over on his amp, which electrocutes and disintegrates him into ashes.
Sniffles, the band's manager, posts flyers around the city announcing auditions for a new band member to replace Russell. Cuddles comes across one and becomes excited at the thought of becoming a rock star. He goes to the music store and tells Mime, the clerk, that he wants to buy the six-stringed guitar in the window. However, Cuddles realizes he has no money and cannot complete the transaction.
Cuddles sadly walks down the street, when he comes across Nutty, who is holding a coin and has a bandage wrapped around one of his arms. Cuddles asks Nutty where he got the money, and Nutty points him to a bloodmobile parked on the side of the road. Cuddles enters and tells The Mole, who works in the mobile, that he would like to donate some blood. At first, The Mole misses Cuddles' arm with the needle (much to the latter's relief), stabbing the chair and unknowingly filling the IV with chair cushioning. When The Mole readies a second blood pack, however, he hits Cuddles' arm. Unfortunately, it takes him many tries to find a vein as he stabs Cuddles' arm numerous times, moves the needle around in his arm, and even breaks a needle. Eventually, The Mole gets it right and a crying Cuddles sadly watches his blood flow into the IV pack. 
Cuddles later leaves the bloodmobile, woozy from his blood loss. He notices, however, that The Mole gave him a button that broke off from his lab coat instead of a coin. Cuddles goes back into the mobile to explain the mix-up to The Mole, who has begun sewing a coin on his lab coat where the button should be. Misunderstanding Cuddles' remark, The Mole gestures Cuddles back inside to donate more blood.
After donating again, Cuddles is sickly pale and low on blood. Nevertheless, he is happy when he finally receives his money.
At the auditions Cuddles runs in, hugging his new guitar, to stand in line behind Nutty. Nutty pulls out a flute-shaped lollipop and plays some notes on it before eating it, laughing, and jittering off. Next, Cro-Marmot wows the band by playing a flawless guitar riff. Cuddles is called on next and he walks to the center of the stage. Although initially impressed by his stage presence, the band cringes when Cuddles begins playing random, mismatching notes. As Cuddles strikes a note towards the end of his audition, a string on the guitar suddenly breaks, flies up, and cuts his right eye in half. Lumpy hires Cuddles on the spot, much to Handy, Sniffles, and Cuddles' confusion. 
Lumpy's intentions become clear when the band is ready to perform, as Cuddles is now dressed up like Russell with an eye patch and pirate hat. The band begins playing and everything goes well, and Cuddles seems to have improved his playing ability. As he dances around the stage, however, the cord from his guitar to his amp gets disconnected and lets out some static. He plugs it back in but soon realizes that his guitar is no longer playing. He runs offstage over to the controls of the machine and begins playing with the lights and audio.
One of the switches on the control panel turns on colored lights that begin flashing on stage, confusing Sniffles and causing Handy to have a seizure. Seeing Handy shaking on the floor, Sniffles puts a pair of cymbals in Handy's mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue off, but the metal causes Handy to chip his buckteeth. Cuddles turns the flashing lights off and Handy manages to stand up, dizzy and disoriented. 
As Handy begins stumbling around, Cuddles briefly turns the power off, which turns off the music and the lights. When the lights and music comes back on, we see Handy has stumbled to the edge of the stage, the cymbals still in his mouth and he loses his balance. Sniffles tries to grab him, but without a hand to grab, Handy falls over the edge. When he falls to the ground, his head is sliced in half by the cymbals. 
Angry, Sniffles storms over to the controls while Cuddles runs back to the stage. Sniffles trips over the cord to Cuddles' guitar and flies face-first into the controls, where his tongue is caught in the recording reel of the machine where the audio recording tape is. As his tongue is pulled into the machine, Sniffles struggles to pull it out, and he accidentally steps on a button which increases the tempo of the music, forcing Lumpy to strum his guitar faster.
As Sniffles' tongue reaches its limit, his organs and spinal cord are slowly pulled out of his body as he lets out cries of pain. Lumpy, meanwhile, continues strumming rapidly, causing his arm to begin wearing down from the friction until it is nothing but a nub, much to his shock. Cuddles then jumps on stage, while offstage Sniffles' rotating organs hit a knob, turning up the volume of the speakers. Cuddles, not knowing about the volume increase, strums his guitar. The intense volume flings Cuddles offstage and causes Lumpy's body to burst.
The Mole arrives in the bloodmobile with a cooler, ready to administer some blood to Cuddles. Unfortunately, the IV he used is the one that has chair cushioning in it, and The Mole does not hear Cuddles' screams. Cuddles' body bloats up to the size of a recliner, which The Mole sits down and relaxes on. Right before the episode ends, The Mole pulls Cuddles' arm which makes his legs stick out like a footstool.
=== Moral===
"He who pays the Piper calls the tune"
==Deaths ==
#Russell is electrocuted and disintegrated after accidentally spilling water on his amp.
#Handy's head is sliced at jawline when he falls off the stage with a pair of cymbals in his mouth.
#Sniffles' organs and spinal cord are pulled out of his body by the recording mechanism.
#Lumpy explodes when Cuddles strums an exceedingly loud note on his guitar.
#Cuddles' body is filled with chair cushioning, crushing his organs and/or suffocating him.
==Injuries==
#When Cuddles was trying to donate blood, The Mole stuck the extraction needle in the wrong places on his arm, making his arm bleed profusely.
#Cuddles gets one of his eyes sliced in half from a broken guitar string.
#During a seizure, Handy chips his teeth when Sniffles sticks cymbals in his mouth.
#Sniffles flies face first on the control panel when he trips on Cuddles' guitar cable.
#Lumpy strums his guitar so fast, his right arm wears down to a nub due to the extreme friction.
#The intense volume from the speaker causes Cuddles' ears to bleed.
==Survival Rate==
*Amount of surviving main characters: 4
*Amount of dead main characters: 5
*Total. 44.44%
==Destruction ==
#Russell ruins an amp and guitar when he spills water on it.
#Russell's shirt, hat, pants, and eyepatch disintegrate.
#The Mole injects a needle into a chair.
#One of the strings on Cuddles' guitar break.
==Goofs==
#When the title appears, there is no leafing sound like in other episodes.
#There is a picture of Lumpy singing in Cuddles' bedroom even though he plays lead guitar. It is possible that Lumpy took the role of the singer before playing lead guitar.
# There is audible rhythm guitar in the original lineup with Russell, despite the fact that Lumpy is the only guitarist, and there is audible bass guitar in the new lineup with Cuddles, despite the fact that Cuddles is not the bassist.
# When Cuddles imagines himself as Russell's replacement on the wanted poster, his philtrum partly overlaps his nose.
#The mole on The Mole's face changes places several times.
#The Mole should not have been able to stitch a coin to his coat, since coins have no holes.
#For the second wide shot of Cuddles getting stabbed, he has two hands.
# When Cuddles is done with his second donation, he is low on blood, but after he buys the guitar, he looks perfectly fine. It could be likely that sufficient time had passed for Cuddles to recover, although the episode appears to have occurred on the same day.
#This episode adds some confusion to the currency system of the Happy Tree Friends world. While Nutty uses a single coin to purchase a lollipop, Cuddles is able to use the same amount of money to purchase a brand new guitar. However, Cuddles could have done something about the other coin, the one The Mole mistook for a button, or earned more money in other ways. It is also possible that Nutty bought other candies as well and just ate them before the audition.
#The directions of Lumpy's antlers change several times.
# There is inconsistency within auditions in the Happy Tree Band. Russell, whom they are looking to replace, played a four string instrument, indicating he was the bassist. Nonetheless, the band looks to hire a guitar (or flute) player as a replacement. Given that Lumpy appears to be the main auditioner, however, this may be a sign of his usual stupidity.
#Cro-Marmot plays a highly difficult guitar riff. However, his instrument has only four tuning knobs, which is more consistent with a bass guitar.
#Certain parts of the music can be heard even when nobody is playing that part. For example, drums can be heard in the background while Handy is having a seizure and after he dies. However, this may actually indicate that the Happy Tree Band uses pre-recorded music made before a previous band member died and Handy took their spot, which would explain how Handy is seemingly able to play the drums without the need for hands or drumsticks. It would also explain why Lumpy allowed Cuddles to join the band despite his poor playing ability.
#Cuddles' eye patch covers his right eye. This was briefly swapped when he noticed his guitar was making static noises.
# Before Handy dies, he is shown to fall off the stage on his back, but instead when he falls, he falls on his face.
#When Sniffles places the cymbals in Handy's mouth, Handy chips his buckteeth. But when he dies, his chipped buckteeth return to normal.
#Also when Handy dies, his ears are invisible.
#Sniffles' headphones disappear when he smashes into the control panel, although it is possible they fell off.
#When Sniffles' organs are being ripped from his mouth, his intestines were pulled out before his brain.
#Sniffles' intestines were right behind his tongue when it is pulled out, although it is possible the front part is the esophagus, but then no stomach is connected to it.
#Sniffles' organs should not have been able to turn the volume up, as the dials to the volume were nowhere near the record reel his organs were stuck in.
#Even though The Mole took blood out of his arm, when Cuddles looks at the button The Mole gave him, the bandage is on his wrist.
#When Cuddles switches the power off, Lumpy does not seem to question the lights or the music turned off, as he is still "playing" his guitar as if nothing happened. However, he does notice when Sniffles speeds up the song, and strums faster to match it.
#Lumpy makes a stupid face after Handy dies, which means that he probably did not notice the loud cymbals crashing to the floor, either.
#When Lumpy's fingers are sliced by the guitar strings, his blood is orange.
#When Sniffles dies, his blood is red, but when Sniffles' organs turn up the volume his blood is orange.
#When Cuddles is blasted away, his hat stays on his head. (Debatable, as his ears may have kept the hat on)
#Before Lumpy's death, blood is seen on the ground. But when he dies, the blood disappears.
#When Lumpy explodes, one of his eyes has a pac-man-shaped pupil.
#When Lumpy dies, his brain is too big to fit inside his head.
#The blood that dripped down Cuddles' face disappears after Lumpy dies.
#After Cuddles is blown off the stage from the intense volume of the speakers, he is seen lying in a pool of blood even though he is not bleeding.
#When Cuddles is almost completely stuffed with cushioning, he still has his hat and eye patch, yet when he is recliner-shaped, those two items have vanished.
Category:TV Episodes
Category:Episodes
Category:No Females
Category:Regular Episodes
Category:Twelfth Night
Category:Episodes Starring Cuddles
Category:2006 Episodes
Category:Episodes With No Debatable Deaths
Category:Single-Character Torture Episodes
Category:Job Episodes
Category:Episodes written by Mark Zaslove
Category:Episodes written by Kenn Navarro
Category:Episodes written by Warren Graff
Category:Episodes written by Ken Pontac
Category:Episodes directed by Kenn Navarro
Category:Large-Cast Episodes