For a couple of years now, Mondo Mini Shows have been creating and releasing grotesque little funny animal cartoons called Happy Tree Friends on their website. Once a cult following started developing around this little two minute vignettes of violence, they wised up and started releasing the episodes on DVD with some interesting extra features, so that friends of the cult series can enjoy the episodes any time they want and without the aid of a computer.

So what exactly are the Happy Tree Friends? Think cutsey kids cartoons gone horribly, horribly wrong. The closest and most obvious influence would be the Itchy And Scratchy segments from TV's The Simpsons but Happy Tree Friends makes the gleeful violence of that show look like a walk in the park. The kills in this show are more inventive, more disgusting, and a whole lot more violent. Sometimes they actually border on disturbing, but if you sense of humor is sick enough, there's not disputing that these malicious little bastards are damn funny. Just don't be showing them to your three year old.

Sure, sometimes it gets a little repetitive and the theme song will start to drive you crazy after the second or maybe the third time you've heard it, but the repetition and redundancy is part of the show's charm. We know that the characters are going to get killed off and we know it's going to be ugly, but the fun lies in how it happens and how the creators will come up with new and inventive ways to gross us out and make us laugh at the same time.

Now that the series has taken off (with merchandise available at your local Hot Topic in the mall…..blech!), the time would seem right for Mondo Mini Shows to launch the Happy Tree Friends – Third Strike, an all new compilation of cartoons featuring a few that haven't been seen before online and a pair that are exclusive to this DVD and are seen here for the first time ever.

The episode line up on this DVD is as follows (and yes, there is a 'play all' option):

Milkin' It

Out of Sight, Out of Mime

Class Act

The Way You Make Me Wheel

Better Off Bread

I Get a Trick out of You

Shard at Work

Water Way to Go

Out on a Limb

Keeping It Reel

A Hard Act to Swallow

Let It Slide

Icy You

Hello Dolly

Dino-Sore Days (bonus episode featuring Buddhist Monkey)

Books of Fury (bonus episode featuring Cro-Marmot)

Video:

The fullframe 1.33.1 image retains the original aspect ratio of the cartoons as they were shown on the internet. Visual quality is pretty good – the colors are bright and vibrant, especially the reds used to often in the kill scenes. There is some edge enhancement and a bit of mild shimmering in a couple of spots but there's nothing in the way of print damage or mpeg compression to note.