At first glance, “Happy Tree Friends: Winter Break” looks like animated fun for the whole family, then deceives audiences while offering Internet-illiterate animation lovers a chance to see these flash cartoons on a holiday DVD compilation.

Animators Rhode Montijo and Kenn Navarro avoid giving away many hints about the nature of the cartoon shorts on the cover or even by the look of the characters themselves, except for the tiny “CV” rating for cartoon violence on the bottom right corner.

The name “Happy Tree Friends,” as well as the characters’ appearances, misleadingly speaks to younger audiences, although the primary target for the animated shorts is adults.

“Happy Tree Friends” is one in a line of animated flash cartoons that has hit it big on the Internet, enough so that Mondo Media felt the need to adapt them from www.happytreefriends.com and Comcast’s G4 video game channel and offer them on DVD. The shock and awe factor that brought the show attention on the Internet may be too much for more general audiences offline. It’s not a stretch to think a parent or child could grab the DVD off the shelf and overlook the small rating label.

Claiming to be the next big thing after “South Park” and using comparisons to “Ren and Stimpy” and “Tom and Jerry,” “Happy Tree Friends” sets viewers up for disappointment.

Each animated short on the DVD is filled with simply-drawn, cute, colorful, happy woodland creatures who ultimately meet their gory doom.

The soundtrack playing in the background of the shorts is nothing but the repetitive, high-pitched “la, la, la” of the annoying characters, serving as another mask to hide the true, mature nature of the compilation. The characters don’t speak; the only time a sound is muttered by them is when they belt out a blood-curdling scream or some other uncomfortable moan.

Characters, such as a soft, yellow bunny named Cuddles, a loveable, blue moose named Lumpy and a silly squirrel with a sweet tooth named Nutty, are made to look cute and cuddly.

It’s a sunny winter day in the home of the Happy Tree Friends, when all of a sudden Lumpy is trapped in a desperate situation and forced to gnaw off his own leg, spilling blood and sawing through his own bone, only to find out he chewed through the wrong limb.

The gore is shocking and inappropriate. The characters are badly developed, due to their limited screen time. Because the episodes are so short, they lack any interesting plot besides the untimely massacre of the characters featured.

In one episode, Pop, an irresponsible papa bear, drops a bucket on his son’s head while hanging Christmas lights. When Pop realizes the difficulty in removing the nails from poor Cub’s head, he decides to try his luck nailing them in further.

This particular episode speaks to problem social issues such as child neglect and abuse, but in an entirely inappropriate and unintelligent way.

The 28-minute-long compilation of animated one-minute shorts aired on MTV International and MTV2 last year. Oct. 4 will be the fourth release of the “Happy Tree Friends” on DVD.

“Happy Tree Friends: Winter Break” is not worth the $9.99 stores will be asking for. The Web site contains more than enough of the demented cartoons, and it’s free.