Happy Tree Friends is pretty much your standard kids' animation show with cuddly animals walking upright and smiling happily in the sunshine.

That is, before the dismembering begins.

"It's an endless pool of bloody mishaps," describes Kenn Navarro, co-creator of Happy Tree Friends, a short online mini-show distributed by Mondo Media (The God and Devil Show, Thugs on Film) that has recently branched out into a second DVD collection of episodes, Happy Tree Friends: Second Serving. The episodes, which tend to run about thirty seconds long, almost always end with each character suffering a particularly gruesome, graphic demise.

Navarro and co-creator Rhode Montijo count Looney Tunes, South Park and The Simpsons among their influences, particularly The Itchy and Scratchy Show in regards to the latter.

The distinction between the two, Montijo pointed out, is that while Itchy and Scratchy are constantly trying to kill each other, the Tree Friends usually die through absurd twists of fate -- such as getting shocked by electrical appliances or eaten by sharks. The exception to this rule is Flippy, the bipolar squirrel war veteran who has been known to take out his aggression on other animals.

Navarro said the show stays fresh because of the creative brainstorming sessions.

"Sometimes everybody has great ideas. It all comes together. It just flows out of us like honey," he said.

Montijo further described the process.

"It's such a secret formula that we don't even know what it is," he joked. "We try to keep it under a minute ... we take all the crazy gore out."

Part of the formula for Happy Tree Friends involves ending each episode with a non sequitur truth - such as "Brush your teeth" or "Buckle up."

"We always balance the gore with a nice moral message," Montijo said about the platitudes.

Although Navarro and Montijo said the show is targeted towards anyone who can appreciate the show's morbid sense of humor, Christina Chavez, associate producer of Tree Friends and marketing director of Mondo Media, said that it is marketed primarily towards 18-to 24-year-olds, the college demographic.

The show is not intended for children under 15, but people of all age enjoy it, Navarro said.

"My brother's nine and he loves the show," he said, reasoning that whether or not young children should watch the violent show "depends on how stable the kid is."

But, Montijo said this may still affect their well-being.

"Of course he likes to cut himself now," Montijo said jokingly.

Ultimately, the show's creators do not want their audiences to have the illusion that their artistic aims are anything loftier than comedy.

"The show doesn't have a moral message," Navarro said. "At the end of the day, it's funny. It's like watching someone slip on a banana ... Kind of jacked-up, but it's funny."