The Hungry Duckling

The Hungry Duckling is an irregular fan episode of Happy Tree Friends.

Starring Roles

 * The Duckling

Featuring Roles

 * The Duckling's mother
 * Handy
 * Hatchy

Appearances

 * The Duckling's siblings
 * Toad
 * Robo Star
 * Pop (possibly)

Plot
Near the pond, a duck is sitting on her eggs, waiting for them to hatch. Suddenly, the eggs bounced a little, surprising her. The duck stands up then jumps out from her nest. The eggs, which are seven in total, hatch. The mother duck feels happy and quacks at her children.

The scene changes to the mother duck walking to the water, followed by her children. It's a swimming lesson. While some ducklings have trouble swimming, the mother duck seems to be eager to help them. After they reached the land across the pond, the mother duck spots a worm. While the ducklings are busy playing with each other, the mother duck runs for the worm.

Suddenly, one of the ducklings' stomach growled. When the mother duck comes back with a worm in her bill, she's surprised that all but one of her children are nothing but bones and blood, causing her to drop the worm she caught earlier. Thinking that a predator ate them, she decided to protect the last duckling she owns.

The scene changes to the mother duck's nest at night. She's sleeping, along with her only duckling. The duckling suddenly wakes up and walks to the pond on his own. When he's swimming, he sees a goldfish, which swims upwards to the duckling. When it reached the surface, however, the duckling quickly catches the fish and eats it without problem.

In the morning, the mother duck wakes up only to find her duckling not in her nest. Suddenly, she quacks in horror as she sees him devouring a dead cat near her nest. She slowly comes closer to her duckling, fearing that he will devour her as well. She then nervously quacks, as if she's asking him. The duckling, however, just quacks happily. Fearing for the worst, the mother duck can't do anything but leave her home. After the duckling finished his meal, he is confused because her mother is missing. He quacks and quacks, but her mother doesn't return. With a tear in his eyes, he walks to the forest, hoping to find her.

The lonely duckling is walking through the forest when he hears a sound. He peeks through the tall grass. Handy is shown working on Hatchy's home, a birdhouse. Thinking that the duckling can make friends on his way, he comes up to Hatchy. Hatchy, feeling happy, grabs and hugs the duckling. Meanwhile, Handy is having problems on grabbing the paint brush, then gets frustrated. He then gets shocked by a scream. Handy jumps down and sees that the duckling has devoured Hatchy, leaving only his bones, blood, and feathers. Handy almost vomits when the duckling is shown slurping Hatchy's intestines, the only internal organ left. When Handy runs away, he's quickly interrupted by the duck, who suddenly stands on his path. The duckling's stomach growls again, so Handy, fearing that the duckling will attack him, runs to the other direction, only to trip on his toolbox. The duckling then grabs Handy's tail with his bill. Handy can't do anything but scream in agony as the duckling devours him, starting from his tail to his head. After the duckling is done, he's shown under Handy's hat, then comes out.

The scene changes to show a shot of his bloody trail. As it pans, corpses can be seen, showing an owl, a hedgehog tree friend, some skeleton, and some other bloody remains. The duckling is shown holding a cookie in his bill, which he eats. He then meets Robo Star, who actually looks scary to him, causing him to run away through the darker sections of the forest. Robo Star becomes disappointed and walks away sadly.

After the duckling goes out from the forest, he sees a cottage. When he gets closer, he sees a silhouette that looks like his mother from its window. The duckling is too small to reach the window, so he comes in through a hole at the bottom of the door. After a little silence, screams of agony can be heard.

The duckling, now almost completely soaked in blood, managed to reach the table where his mother would be. However, the silhouette is revealed to be a duck-shaped moneybox. Despite this, the duckling feels happy and hugs his "mother".

Deaths

 * The duckling's siblings, a cat, Hatchy, Handy, an owl, Toad, the cottage's owner, and many other living creatures are devoured by the duckling.

Trivia

 * The dead hedgehog tree friend is actually Toad, as shown from his purple color.
 * Handy is the only canon character (as in tree friends) to appear.
 * Handy's death is similar to Lumpy's death in Letter Late Than Never.
 * The episode's title is a pun of The Ugly Duckling.
 * Also, both stories have a duckling character who ends up being lonely, but gets a happy ending in the end. The difference is that the duckling in The Ugly Duckling is actually a baby swan, while the duckling in the episode is indeed a baby duck.
 * The cottage owner might be Pop, as the screams resemble Pop's scream. If that's the case, this is one of the few episodes where Pop appears without Cub.
 * This is one of the irregular episodes to have a narration. However, the narrator merely narates the story, not interacting or giving tips to the characters.
 * The style used in this episode resembles the one in Ski Patrol, but instead of a grainy feel shown in old videos, this episode has the paper-ish feel much like the one shown in early HTF episodes.
 * Human skull or skeleton can be seen multiple times in this episode.
 * Despite having tree friends in this episode, the duckling holds a major role more than any other character.