Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
British web series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
British web series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (DHMIS) is a British musical horror comedy web series created by Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling. The series is notable for its blending of surrealism and morbid humour with horror and musical elements. Its production is diverse, combining puppetry, live action, and styles of animation including stop motion, traditional animation, flash animation, clay animation, and computer animation. The original series consisted of 6 short episodes released from 29 July 2011 to 19 June 2016 on YouTube.[1] A follow-up television series was released in 2022 on All 4 and Channel 4.[2]
| Don't Hug Me I'm Scared | |
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Teaser poster of the sixth episode | |
| Also known as | DHMIS |
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| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
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| Running time | 3–8 minutes |
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| Original release | |
| Network | YouTube |
| Release | 29 July 2011 – 19 June 2016 |
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| Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (TV series) | |
In the series, each episode starts like a typical children's series, consisting of anthropomorphic puppets akin to those featured in Sesame Street or The Muppets. The series parodies and satirises these TV programmes by contrasting its childlike, colourful environment and its inhabitants against disturbing themes; each episode features a surreal plot twist in the climax, including psychedelic content and imagery involving graphic violence, dark humour, existentialism, and psychological horror.
The six episodes of the web series explore and discuss basic subjects typical of preschool education, namely creativity, time, love, technology, diet, and dreams, while the television series touches on jobs, death, family, friendship, transport, and electricity. The web series received widespread critical acclaim for its story, production design, psychological horror, humour, hidden themes, lore, and characters. The television series was met with similar acclaim.
Each episode revolves around three characters: a yellow childlike humanoid with blue hair and overalls, an anthropomorphic green mallard duck[lower-alpha 1] with a tweed jacket, and a red humanoid with a mop-like head. Their names are never explicitly stated in the series but are often referred to as Yellow Guy, Duck and Red Guy respectively. The characters never refer to each other by name, but by pronouns. Yellow Guy's father, Roy, also occasionally appears.[3] An episode typically goes with the three main characters meeting one or several anthropomorphic characters, who begin a musical number related to a basic concept of day-to-day life with an upbeat melody, similar to that of a Sesame Street segment. As each song progresses, it becomes apparent that its moral or message is nonsensical and self-contradicting, and that the "teacher" character has ulterior, sinister motives. The climax of each episode is typically a plot twist involving escalating psychological horror which culminates into gore and graphic violence. Later in the series, the characters begin questioning the nature of their reality and the bizarre messages of the teachers.
Becky Sloan, Joseph Pelling and Baker Terry met while studying Fine Art and Animation at Kingston University, where they started THIS IS IT Collective with some friends.[4][5] They produced the first episode of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared[lower-alpha 2] in their free time with no budget. When they started on the project they imagined making it into a series, but initially dropped the idea after finishing the first episode. After the short film gained popularity, they decided to revisit that idea.[6] Channel 4's Random Acts commissioned the second episode. The show attracted mainstream commissioners; however, Sloan and Pelling turned these offers down because they "wanted to keep it fairly odd" and "have the freedom to do exactly what we wanted".[3]
In May 2014, Sloan and Pelling announced that they would start a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to make four or more additional episodes, one every three months, starting in September 2014. They uploaded low-quality camera footage of the characters being taken hostage and held for ransom. A 12-year-old American boy tried to use hacked credit card information to donate £35,000 to the campaign, but he was caught and those funds were thrown out.[7] Their Kickstarter goal of £96,000 was reached on 19 June 2014, and in total £104,935 was raised. YouTuber TomSka became an executive producer on the series after donating £5,000 to the Kickstarter.[8]
In January 2016, Sloan and Pelling collaborated with Lazy Oaf to release a line of clothing based on the characters and themes of the show.[9]
On 19 June 2017, a year after the release of episode 6, Sloan hinted towards additional work into the Don't Hug Me I'm Scared series.[10][non-primary source needed] A teaser trailer titled "Wakey Wakey..." was released on the channel on 13 September 2018, teasing a television show made in a collaboration between Blink Industries, Conaco, and Super Deluxe. The 30-second video gained over two million views within 24 hours of its release and peaked at No. 1 on YouTube's Trending list.[11][12] Details of the plot were released on 3 December 2018 in advance of a 2019 Sundance Film Festival screening of the pilot.[13] The pilot episode ran at 23 minutes, and it appeared in the "Indie Episodic Program 1" alongside other short films.[14]
On 7 July 2020, it was announced that the series had been picked up by Channel 4.[15] The series wrapped up filming by September 2021,[16] and it was expected to be originally released[17][18][19] streaming on All 4 on 12 September 2022.[20][21] However, the series was postponed because of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.[22][23] On 16 September 2022, it was announced that the series would be releasing on 23 September 2022 on All 4 and premiered 30 September 2022 on Channel 4.[24][25]
All episodes were written by Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling, with Baker Terry co-writing each episode starting with "Time". "Time" is co-written by Hugo Donkin.
| No. | Title | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Creativity" | 29 July 2011 | |
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The group of three are sitting in a kitchen. A singing sketchbook opens, singing about being creative. They do child-like activities, such as imagining clouds as different shapes, and judging colours. Many of Yellow Guy's ideas are told to be non-creative by the sketchbook. The climax is an exaggerated description of creativity, where the three do deranged acts such as baking a cake with internal organs or covering hearts in glitter, with shaky camera shots and frantic music. The video ends with everyone sitting at the table, everything restored to normal. The sketchbook tells them to "never be creative again" before shutting herself closed. The credits show a black liquid resembling oil spilling out the kitchen's mouse hole, with a saxophone being played out of tune.[26] Note: This episode was uploaded under the title "Don't Hug me I'm Scared". | |||
| 2 | "Time" | 8 January 2014 | |
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The main characters are waiting for their TV show to begin. A talking clock named Tony comes alive to teach the characters about time. During his song, the characters constantly question time and its reality, annoying Tony. He accelerates time during the climax, causing the characters to age rapidly. Yellow Guy's hair grows long as blood spills out his eyes and various orifices. Duck's flesh falls off his hand and his eyeball falls out its socket. Red Guy's hair grows long, turning a sickly grey as various parts of his skin fall out. The decomposing is revealed to be part of a television show they were watching, with Tony telling them "everyone runs out of time" as the TV returns to static. The credits display maggots multiplying on Yellow Guy's hair. This episode also introduces Yellow Guy's father, Roy. | |||
| 3 | "Love" | 31 October 2014 | |
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The group is sitting at a picnic, where Duck kills a yellow butterfly, upsetting Yellow Guy. This causes him to run away into a tree where a butterfly named Shrignold sings to him about love with his friends, including that true love is kept for one's "special one." After an unrelated story about "Michael, the loneliest boy in town", the episode takes a dark turn, after revealing they worship a statue named Malcolm, who they feed gravel. The cult explains Yellow Guy must lose his memories and name to submit to Malcolm. Just before completing the ritual, Yellow Guy wakes up in the same tree, confused and alienated. Red Guy and Duck find him, offering him their last boiled egg as an apology. A disgusting caterpillar-like creature resembling Shrignold pops out of the egg, calling Yellow Guy "father" before being promptly squashed by Duck. The credits show a man immolating Malcolm in a bonfire as upbeat music plays.[27] | |||
| 4 | "Computers" | 1 April 2015 | |
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The characters are playing a board game. Stumped by a question, they wish to learn more about the world. A talking globe named Gilbert nearly comes to their aid, until a singing computer named Colin cuts him off. Colin sings about how clever he is, and asks the group many questions in the style of a computer setup, annoying Red Guy, who slams his hand on Colin's keyboard, telling him to "shut up". This enrages Colin, which causes the screen to corrupt and flash glitched versions of the characters. The characters are transported to the "Digital World", where Colin shows them the three main activities they can do: looking at various charts, "Digital Style", and "Digital Dancing". These three activities are repeated rapidly until a room is filled with corrupted and distorted dancing clones of Yellow Guy, Duck and Colin. Red Guy attempts to escape the room he is in, but gets taken to a room containing a film crew in spandex suits filming a crude replica of the first episode. Red Guy says "Wait, wha-" before his head explodes into glitter abruptly at the sound of a clapperboard.[28] | |||
| 5 | "Health" | 14 October 2015 | |
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Red Guy is absent, and though Yellow Guy and Duck seem to be aware of a change, they cannot clarify what it is. Anthropomorphic food start to sing about being healthy, but deliver bizarre and nonsensical advice. The song is interrupted by the telephone ringing, and when Duck picks it up, he awakens laying in a dark hospital room. Back in the kitchen, Duck becomes annoyed by the food characters and eventually runs off set, knocking the camera over and briefly showing Red Guy and Roy peeking over the set. He awakens in the aforementioned dark room, where an anthropomorphic can disembowels him and eats his organs. Yellow Guy hallucinates Duck and Red Guy inside spaghetti he is being forced to eat. At the end of the video, he is bloated with blood and feathers covering his mouth, apparently having eaten Duck's organs. The telephone rings once again, then the credits roll, showing Red Guy walking away from a telephone box with a coat, scarf and suitcase.[29] Note: The creators claim that a phone number printed on the telephone box in this video was being called within seconds of the episode's release, which at first they would answer and pretend to be characters from the show.[3] | |||
| 6 | "Dreams" | 19 June 2016 | |
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Yellow Guy is crying in bed, because his friends have disappeared over the course of the previous episodes. A lamp comes to sing about dreams, much to Yellow Guy's pleas to stop. The lamp drags him into an animated sequence, which ends with Yellow Guy drowning in oil. It then abruptly cuts to Red Guy in an office, with other workers looking similar to him. He fantasises about a file coming alive and singing a song, which leaves his colleagues unimpressed. At a bar, he performs the Creativity song from the first episode on stage, but is booed by the audience. The microphone and boombox turn into puppets and Red Guy is suddenly transported to a dark empty room. He finds a control panel with monitors recording Yellow Guy being mentally tortured by the lamp. Using the panel, he frantically transforms the lamp into several teachers from previous episodes, as well as teachers that have not been seen yet. Roy suddenly taps Red Guy from behind with a massively elongated arm. Red Guy runs away, finding a massive plug. Seeing Yellow Guy being mentally tortured by the different teachers, he pulls the plug saying a line from the third episode, "I wonder what will happen." Once he does, it cuts to the three sitting at a table, but recoloured to their favourite colour mentioned in the first episode. A similar sketchbook from the first episode starts singing about creativity, but is cut off as the episode ends. The credits simply show a black screen with smoke, and Roy can be seen in the top right.[30] | |||
In a faux interview, Sloan and Pelling jokingly described the plot as "three best friends who go on a journey to find a magic pirate ship and save the day".[31]
A student writer for Nouse compared the appeal of the first episode to themes in Gothic literature, arguing that they are both "tapping into the same cultural fear of a violent subconscious hiding beneath the façade of normality".[32] In The Wesleyan Argus, another student writer called the series a "fine example of the era of esotericism" and noted that, "There is a building meta-commentary on the relationships between viewer, perception, creator, participant, and art (and perhaps death) that began with the first episode, but what that commentary is trying to say is not yet entirely clear. However, there is an absolute sense that the series is building toward a culmination."[33]
The series received widespread critical acclaim. Scott Beggs listed the original short film as number 8 on his list of the 11 best short films of 2011.[34] Carolina Mardones listed the first episode as number 7 in her top ten short films of 2011.[35] It was included as part of a cinema event in Banksy's Dismaland.[36][37] In April 2016, the main characters of the series were featured on the cover of the magazine Printed Pages, along with an "interview" of the three main characters written by the magazine's editor.[38][39] All six episodes were included in the September 2016 festival XOXO.[40]
Drew Grant of The Observer described the series as "mind-melting".[41] Freelance writer Benjamin Hiorns observed that "it's not the subject matter that makes these films so strangely alluring, it's the strikingly imaginative set and character design and the underlying Britishness of it all".[42] Joe Blevins of The A.V. Club praised the show's "sense-to-nonsense ratio" and its production values.[43] Samantha Joy of TenEighty praised the sixth episode of the series, writing that it "creates a provocative end to a pretty dark narrative about content creation".[44]
Like the web series, the television series received critical acclaim. Toussaint Egan of Polygon states, "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared could be described as the demented British half-cousin of Sesame Street and the heir apparent to Wonder Showzen, albeit less politically charged than the latter and more focused on taking a sledgehammer to the standard of children's educational television".[45]
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared has been named as one of the best TV shows of 2022 by several publications. The Telegraph ranked it at number 20, saying it was "unlucky not to be (in the top 10)".[46] The Guardian ranked it at number 31, calling it "clever, bleak, charming, grotesque and funny".[47] Radio Times ranked it at number 42, praising its "creepy and mysterious spin on vintage children's television, brought vividly to life through inventive crafts and puppetry".[48]
The series was nominated for Best Scripted Comedy Show at the 2023 National Comedy Awards.[49][50] The series won the British Academy Television Craft Award for Best Production Design at the 2023 British Academy Television Craft Awards.[51]
Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling are British graphic designers, artists and animators. Their advertising runs through commercial productions.[52] The duo have worked as part of the THIS IS IT Collective.[53]
Their content consists of videos, graphic design art, animation, music, and working with real-life materials to resemble things in the real world as art.[54] They won multiple awards, including the 2012 SXSW Midnight Shorts Award,[55][56] and the 2016 ADC Young Guns award.[57]
They co-wrote and did puppeteer work for Cartoon Network's The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Puppets" (season five, episode 36). Sloan and Baker Terry provided voices of Grady, Frank, and Howdy (the three puppets featured in the episode, who trap the main characters Gumball and Darwin in their world). This episode features a song where the puppets sing about never-ending fun to Darwin with toned-down disturbing content similar to the Don't Hug Me I'm Scared series in theme. A series of shorts based on the episode followed, titled Waiting for Gumball, made by the same team as the original TV episode.[citation needed]
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