- "Don't breathe under water!"
Airdate: February 11, 2000
"Water You Wading For" is the sixth episode of the first (internet) season of Happy Tree Friends.
The episode begins with a happy Cuddles, who cannonballs into a lake. After swimming for a bit, he asks his porcupine friend, Flaky, to join him. However, the porcupine points out the "no swimming" sign, which is outright ignored by the bunny. Soon, piranhas attack Cuddles, a pair of sea lions play with him as if he were a ball, an alligator bites down on him, and then finally, a whale crushes what is left of him. All while the highly cautious porcupine is unable to properly help him. It ends with Flaky laughing nervously after using a life preserver on Cuddles's pool of blood.
"Water You Wading For" contains the following:
- Bait-and-Switch: Flaky's first attempt to help Cuddles is to reach out to him using a stick. The next shot shows her doing so from behind a tree located far away from the lake, rendering her effort pointless.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: As the iris closes in on the nervously-laughing Flaky, her eyes shift to look at the audience.
- Characterisation Click Moment: Cuddles's Too Dumb to Live personality and general rebellious streak first gets established in this episode.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: After suffering from brutal injuries, what is left of Cuddles ends up being crushed by a whale.
- Death by Looking Up: Cuddles's death is preceded by him looking up at a whale about to crush him.
- Debut Queue: Flaky makes her debut here.
- Downer Ending: In the end, Flaky fails to save Cuddles.
- Establishing Character Moment: Flaky's highly cautious personality, as well as her nervous laugh.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: The seemingly innocent lake that Flaky and Cuddles visit, which only has a "no swimming" sign as warning, turns out to be home to piranhas, sea lions, an alligator, and even a whale, all of which will immediately attack anyone who dares enter it.
- Green Gators: The alligator that tries to eat Cuddles after he dives into the lake is the classic cartoony bright green with darker green ridges.
- Injured Self-Drag: After getting mangled by piranhas, sea lions, and an alligator, Cuddles, now missing his entire lower body among other things, manages to escape the lake and pulls himself away from it. Unfortunately, it does little to save him, as he's promptly body slammed and crushed by a whale.
- Misplaced Wildlife: We see piranhas, sea lions, alligators, and a whale, all in a lake, purely for Rule of Funny.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: The alligator who bites down on Cuddles gets him in its mouth in one bite, taking a good bit of the shore with it. Cuddles manages to escape, but not without losing his entire lower body off screen.
- Palate Propping: Cuddles holds open the jaws of an alligator that tries to eat him. He's evidently unsuccessful, considering he's crawling onto the shore with his lower body missing the next time the camera cuts to him.
- Piranha Problem: Cuddles's Trauma Conga Line starts with a school of piranhas attacking him moments after he jumps in the water. They're kind enough to only rough him up, however, leaving him alive for the sea lions, alligator, and whale that also inhabit the lake to finish him off.
- Pun-Based Title: A nautical take on the phrase "What are you waiting for?", since it's about the characters visiting a lake.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Cuddles dies.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Flaky survives.
- Too Dumb to Live: Cuddles ignores a "no swimming" sign in a show where people have gotten killed doing safer things than that. Subsequently, he's savaged and eventually killed by the various wild animals that live in the lake.
- Trauma Conga Line: Cuddles gets attacked by piranhas, played with by sea lions like a ball, attacked by an alligator, then crushed by a whale.
- Updated Re-release: One of the early episodes to be part of "Classics Remastered" releases, which rerelease early HTF episodes in HD.
