- "Time heals all wounds!"
Airdate: April 20, 2003
"Better Off Bread" is the twelfth episode of the second (internet) season of Happy Tree Friends.
Splendid is baking some bread when the carefree Giggles suddenly falls off a cliff during her frolic. Hearing her scream, he flies out from his headquarters to help. However, catching Giggles only results in breaking her back. More cries for help are heard, prompting Splendid to fly to another place. His breakneck speed causes Giggles's eyes to pop out from their sockets. It turns out that a tanker has crashed into a large rock, spilling oil into the ocean where the poor animals end up stuck. Splendid approaches the tanker and, after thinking for a bit, welds the hole on the ship. Another cry for help is heard, making him feel annoyed, but he flies off regardless. The welding he did, however, results in a fire that immediately burns everything covered in oil, including the poor animals. At another place, Toothy is pointing to the sky, where a huge meteor is falling straight to where he is standing. Splendid swoops in to save the day, still carrying Giggles. In outer space, her head's skin ends up being peeled off. Splendid successfully destroys the meteor. He is greeted by the cheering Toothy upon return, leaving the disfigured Giggles with the beaver before flying back home. However, it turns out that the meteorite ended up shattered into smaller ones that shower the place, with one of them killing Toothy. Back at Splendid's headquarters, he is shocked to see that his bread is burnt from being in the oven for too long. After a scream of frustration, Splendid flies back into outer space and proceeds to turn back time by flying around the Earth at high speeds opposite of its rotation direction. Everything, including all the deaths, becomes undone by the process. As soon as time has finished going back to right after Splendid putting his bread in the oven, he hears Giggles's scream once again, but instead of helping, he turns up his radio's volume to cover up the scream.
"Better Off Bread" contains examples of:
- Big "NO!": Splendid's Comical Overreacting towards his burnt bread.
- Brick Joke: The radio is the first thing seen in this episode, providing some background noise for Splendid. At the end of the episode, he ends up turning up the volume to block out any screams for help.
- Catch a Falling Star: Subverted. Catching someone mid-fall at high speeds and carrying them unprotected at an even faster speed does have consequences, high-temperature welding does not play well with oil, and breaking down a huge meteorite entering the atmosphere only ends with its fragments still falling down as potential hazards.
- Comical Overreacting: Splendid, after finding out that his bread is burnt, ends up screaming a Big "NO!". Cue him turning back time.
- Contrived Coincidence: Within a short timeframe after Splendid puts his bread in the oven, he has to take care of: Giggles falling off a cliff, sea animals covered in oil from a crashed tanker, and a Flaming Meteor.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:
- Giggles has the skin on her head peeled off from Splendid's high-speed flight.
- Toothy's head is caved in by a meteorite fragment.
- Disturbed Doves: When Splendid does a Big "NO!" due to burning his bread, there is a cut to outside his base as a flock of birds take flight from the trees underneath it.
- Eye Beams: Used to weld the tanker's hole. The resulting heat ends up killing the animals.
- Eye Scream: One of the many things Giggles goes through before she dies is her eyes being forced out of their sockets due to the speed Splendid's flying at.
- Facial Horror: Giggles's peeled-off face.
- Flaming Meteor: One of the disasters.
- Hope Spot: Pretty much all of Splendid's attempts to save the day before he gives up.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Averted with Splendid catching the falling Giggles mid-air, which results in her broken back.
- Not So Innocent Whistling: Splendid does this as he turns up his radio's volume at the end of the episode.
- Pun-Based Title: A pun of Better Off Dead.
- Recycled Soundtrack: The music that plays during Giggles's death is reused from "Havin' a Ball", specifically during Pop's death.
- Reset Button: Done by Splendid... for the sake of his bread.
- Shout-Out:
- As mentioned on Pun-Based Title, this episode's title is a pun of Better Off Dead.
- Splendid, the Superman expy, turns back time by spinning the Earth backwards.
- Sickening "Crunch!": Giggles's injury when Splendid catches her mid-air.
- Skyward Scream: Splendid screams a Big "NO!" at the heavens when the bread he was baking ends up burnt due to him being busy with superheroics.
- Spin the Earth Backwards: How Splendid turns back time. See Shout-Out above.
- Super-Senses: Deconstructed. Thanks to Splendid being able to hear cries for help from a long distance, he soon sees his job as bothersome to the point that he cannot do any non-superhero activities properly.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Due to time being reset, Giggles may well die twice in this episode. It's implied that the sea animals and Toothy die twice as well.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Splendid survives this episode.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Toothy does not react at all to Splendid placing the (dead) disfigured Giggles near him.
- We Are Not Going Through That Again: After turning back time, Splendid outright refuses to help Giggles (and by extension, everyone else) by turning up his radio's volume just so nothing wrong can happen to his bread again.
