The late ninety's saw a lot of Flash animation cartoons popping up on the web.  Originally used for on-line games, creators quickly discovered that Flash could be used to make short movies right on your home PC.  Some of the early experiments were artful and tried to tell a story and push the limits of the media (Broken Saints for example), but most of them were attempts at humor.  I say 'attempts' because a lot of them failed to be either funny or entertaining. If you were willing to search long enough, however you could discover some laugh-out-loud shorts that really delivered the goods.  One of the best of these is Happy Tree Friends which has previously been released on three separate DVDs.  (Here are DVDTalk's reviews of the individual volumes: First Blood, Second Serving, Third Strike.)  These three disc have now been released in one package, and in a move that will surely piss off fans who have supported the show since the beginning, there are some special features added that can't be found on the previous releases.
 

This is going to end badly...

It's almost impossible to review Happy Tree Friends without mentioning Itchy and Scratchy, the cartoon show-within-a-show on The Simpsons.  That's because Happy Tree Friends is basically Itchy and Scratchy with different characters (who, granted, are a little more cute which makes the mayhem all the more amusing.)  Each episode, which runs 1-2 minutes, has some cute woodland creatures playing, working, or relaxing, when disaster strikes.  Arms are severed, bodies are burnt,
eyes gouged out, torso impaled.  All in the most humorous ways possible, of course.

The simplest task can easily end in blood and gore.   Pushing a playground merry-go-round, Lumpy the blue moose pushes just a little too fast causing the cute bunnies and chipmunks to go flying off.  They splatter on trees or have their arms ripped off by the centrifugal force.  (Okay, okay, I know centrifugal force doesn't really exist...still you get the idea.)
 

Disco music can be hazardous to your health.

This is a REALLY funny show, if taken in small doses.  When you sit down and watch a whole disc the humor doesn't hold up as well.  This show is pretty much a one trick pony, and though it is very inventive and creative in the way it mutilates the small innocent creatures, it pretty much boils down to the same thing time after time.

Having said that, this would be a great disc to show at a gathering of a bunch of friends (who don't mind excessive violence that is.)  You'll all laugh at the extravagant lengths the creators go to so that their furry friends can die painful deaths.  They are very creative.

The episodes included are:

Disc One - First Blood: (Note: If you select the Play All feature on this disc, the opening and closing credits paly for each episode, which gets a little boring after a while.  Luckily you can chapter skip past them.)

Spin Fun Knowin' You
House Warming
Helping Helps
Crazy Ant-ics
Havin' a Ball
Water You Waiting For
Nuttin' Wrong with Candy
Wheelin' and Dealin'
Pitchin' Impossible
Stayin' Alive
Treasure These Idol Moments
Chip Off the Ol' Block
Nuttin' but the Tooth
Hide and Seek

Disc Two - Second Serving: (Note: On this disc, and the third one, the Play All feature skips the credits on the episodes.)

Boo Do You Think You Are
Mime and Mime Again
You're Baking Me Crazy
Tongue Twister
Meat Me for Lunch
Sweet Ride
It's a Snap
Off the Hook
Spare Me
Snow What
This Is Your Knife
Happy Trails
Happy Trails 2
Eye Candy
Rink Hijinks
Flippin' Burgers
Get Whale Soon
Snip Snip Hooray
Eyes Cold Lemonade

Disc Three - Third Strike:

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)

Bonus Episodes new to this boxed set (all on disc three):

Remains to be Seen
Blind Date
From A to Zoo
Suck it Up
Mole in the City

One complaint I had with this set is the menus.  They are quite cumbersome and it takes a long time to switch from one icon to the next.  The third disc is the worst though.  On that one you have a choice between the going to the original release, Third Strike, or the bonus episodes.  Once you have selected either of those, you can't get back to the first menu to select the other option.

These three DVDs come in a nice fold-out book enclosed in a slipcase.  There is a booklet included that reproduces the original inserts that came with the single disc versions of the show, as well as ads for Happy Tree Friends merchandise.

Audio:

The first disc has a stereo soundtrack, but the remaining two boasts  5.1 sound.  All three discs had clear and crisp sound, but the 5.1 discs were especially entertaining.  They had a lot of screams and sound effects coming from the rear, and this worked nicely.

Video:

The fullframe video looks better than the shows web-based origins would lead you to believe.  The lines are tight and the colors bright.  There aren't any digital defects either.  A very nice looking set of shows.

Extras:

There's an excellent number of extras included with these discs.  Each volume has a selection of Smootchies, a virtual pet type game where you can feed or play with a different character using your remote.  Any selection you make however leads to death and pain. (Tee-hee.)

All three discs also have a Story Board to Episode Comparison.  A double screen image that has both the storyboard and the finished show while the creators provide a commentary track.  They go through all the shows in the volume.  this way.  This is one of those party atmosphere commentary tracks where the participants joke and laugh a lot, but any information that they actually convey seems to be accidental.
 
Disc One:

Original Formula: The first show in the series.  Only half a minute long including the credits, but it's funny.

Collect Them All: Character "trading cards." Not very impressive.

Special Prize Inside: A bonus episode:  Whose Line Is It Anyway

Pop Corn Video: Like MTV's Pop-Up Video, this has information pop up on the screen during the first episode.

Assembly Required: a collection of early character design sketches with a running commentary by the creators.  Like the commentary this had the guys joking around a lot, but I found this more entertaining.  It runs about 35 minutes.

Disc Two:

Holiday Kringles: six 30-second mini-episodes.

Under the Skin of Happy Tree Friends: a six minute origin of the show told through stock footage...some pretty funny stuff, and maybe even the grain of truth.

Buddhist Monkey Episode: Enter the Monkey: A Kung-Fu movie done Happy Tree Friends style.  Runs about 2 ½ minutes and it's pretty funny.

Character Interview: an interview with the frozen caveman from Snow What. *yawn*.

Sing-Along: a karaoke version of the theme song.  The fact that the theme doesn't have any words make this even more funny.

Sound FX Commentary: The people who make those gruesome sounds examine the episode eye-candy and explain how they did it all.

Disc Three:

Get into Advertising: A series of commercials for the show.

Sound FX Commentary: This was really informative.  A 4-minute reel of film where you see the Foley artists creating the sounds that go into the show.

Vision-O-Rama: Where you can see an episode through the eyes of a character.  This was pretty lame really.

Draw Toothy: A selection of fan art

Follow the Yellow Rabbit: When a yellow rabbit appears during an episode, highlight it and you'll be taken to some bonus material: rough sketches, animation tests etc.

Genuine Comic Strips: Four comics based on the Happy Tree Friends characters.

Final Thoughts:

This show is outrageously funny, but only if you have a sick and twisted sense of humor.  If anything, this show seemed to get more creative as it went along, coming up with more unusual and outrageous mayhem.  The only real caveat is that the show gets a little repetitive if you watch it all in one sitting.  Viewing a couple a day keeps the humor feeling more fresh.  This set is also a great deal when compared with buying the original volumes separately.  Of course, they do loose points for including extra material in this compilation that's not available separately.  That really screws over the fans who supported the show all along.  Having said that, this set gets a high Recommendation.