Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
Official poster
Genre	Horror Black comedy Satire Musical Surreal comedy Horror comedy
Created by	Becky Sloan Joseph Pelling
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	5
Production company(s)	Blink Industries
Release
Original network	YouTube
Original release	July 29, 2011 – present
External links
Website

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (often abbreviated to DHMIS) is a British web series of shorts, created by Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling since 2011. It was originally released through the artists' website, later being uploaded on other platforms like YouTube.

Each episode is made to appear like a typical children's television program, consisting of singing and talking puppets similar to those of Sesame Street, but eventually takes a dark turn, usually involving gore. The series parodies children's television shows by ironically juxtaposing puppetry and musical numbers against psychedelic content and disturbing imagery. Five episodes have so far been released on the subjects of creativity, time, love, technology and nutrition. A sixth episode is planned to be released.

Plot

Each episode revolves around Yellow Guy, Red Guy, and Duck Guy 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 nursery rhyme. As the song progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that the episode's "teacher" character is subtly trying to condition the main characters to share their own opinions and beliefs about the subject, to humorous effect. The climax of each episode usually involves a shock element with heavy use of gore imagery.

The first episode features a sketchbook teaching the main characters about creativity. The sketchbook tells the puppets to do childlike activities such as writing out colours using sticks, cloudspotting and to "listen to your heart and brain". Throughout the episode the sketchbook makes the puppets believe his opinion like telling them "Green is not a creative colour". This results in a violent and exaggerated depiction of creativity by the puppets, who begin dancing frantically and doing intense things such as writing the word DEATH and covering a heart in glitter as well as carving cakes made from unidentifiable viscera. The video ends with everything seemingly restored to normal and the sketchbook asking everyone to "never be creative again".

The second video features Tony; a Talking Clock who sings about the concept of time and how it relates to daily life. Tony Clock explains how time is used to "measure the day" and how all things change over time. This message is exaggerated near the end of the episode with the rate of time increased dramatically while the puppets bodies are shown to age rapidly. Red guy's hair starts to grow long, duck guy's feathers start falling off and yellow guy starts to bleed from his ear, he then looks up and his face starts "deflating" along with the other puppets. The events are apparently revealed to be a television programme being watched by the three friends. It has been revealed that the show the puppets were watching was an episode of the series Craigs Big Day which is a series also made by Becky and Joe.

The third episode features Shrignold, a butterfly that sings about the concept of love. He takes Yellow Guy to a cult that he belongs to, as the song lights upon who is an acceptable partner for love. He introduces him to Malcolm, the 'King of Love', as the leader of the cult. The video ends with the yellow puppet waking up where he started, implying that it was all a dream.

The fourth episode features Colin, a singing computer who introduces the puppets to concepts around personal computing. The main characters are sucked into the 'Digital World' and while Duck Guy and Yellow Guy enjoy this world, Red Guy attempts to escape it. As Red Guy tries to escape by going into another room, both a camera and two film-makers in spandex suits are seen filming a poorly constructed version of the three friends' meetings, and then the confused Red Guy's head explodes.

The fifth episode features a can, a human-sized Steak, a loaf of bread, and a refrigerator, all singing about the concept of healthy food. As the song progresses, typical knowledge of what constitutes a balanced diet is forgone as the song becomes increasingly nonsensical. Throughout the episode a red telephone rings which Duck Guy answers and briefly wakes up an operating room. He then goes back to sleep and the scene transitions back to the song. Duck Guy begins to sense that there is something wrong and fully wakes up in the operating room and finds a large can harvesting his organs. Yellow Guy continues following the song and becomes fat and bloated from eating cans of meat which are apparently from Duck Guy's body. The end credits show Red Guy dressed in a coat and scarf, walking away from a phone booth carrying a suitcase, suggesting that he was the one responsible for the series of phone calls. A mobile phone number is seen in the video. The creators claim that this number was ringing within seconds of the episode's released, which at first they would answer and pretend to be different characters from the show.

The sixth episode is planned to air on 19 June 2016.

Characters

• Yellow Guy — One of the three main characters. Represented as a child because he is easily distracted by everything. He wears blue overalls and has long blue hair. He seems to be the least intelligent, often making grammatical errors in his dialogue. He is most likely the youngest, as he seems to be only a fraction of his father's height.
• Red Guy — One of the three main characters, who's portrayed by a person in a costume, rather than with the use of a puppet. Represented as the teenager, because he is often sarcastic and moody, and in the fifth episode when he is pictured walking away, it looks like he has come out and is going into adulthood. He seems most intelligent of the three, because he is the first to question the "teachers". He speaks in a very monotonous voice and shows very little emotion to the odd occurrences he and his friends experience. He was thought to have died at the end of the fourth episode but actually escaped into the real world and tries to contact his friends.
• Duck Guy — One of the three main characters. He seems to be one of the most intelligent of the three, or at least a realist, challenging Yellow Guy's imagination, rejecting metaphors and questioning the existence of time. He dies in episode 5 from his organs being stolen by a cans of food and his remains are eaten by yellow guy.
• Sketchbook — Educates the puppets in creativity. It seems to be the most stoic of the teachers, as its tone of voice barely changes to fit its stern actions of authority. Voiced by series co-creator Becky Sloan.
• Tony the Talking Clock — Educates the puppets about time. His tone of voice shows anger and annoyance with the puppets when they start to have a discussion about when time began, when it will end, and even if it actually exists at all.
• Shrignold — A talking "Love Bug" who teaches the Yellow Guy about love in the third installment. He is by far the least aggressive teacher, which is befitting to the theme of his episode. So far, he is the first and only teacher who is based on an animal, rather than an anthropomorphic household or food object.
• Colin — A talking computer who teaches the puppets about technology in the fourth episode. He is by far the most invasive and easily angered teacher, as shown when he violently flails his arms and screams when the Red Guy touches him. He seems to be the least mature teacher, and often makes grammatical errors in a similar manner to Yellow Guy. This could possibly represent how new technology is compared to the concepts of creativity, time and love. Voiced by series co-writer Baker Terry.
• Roy — Yellow Guy's father. He first appears in the second episode and makes cameos in the following episodes.
• Malcolm — The "king of love" who Shrignold and his friends worship and feed gravel. He later makes a cameo as a small ornament on the puppets' mantle in the fourth episode.
• Gilbert the Globe - A globe who was teased by Becky Sloan as the teacher of episode 4, a role which was taken by Colin.
• Fridge — Introduced in episode 5. So far, this character has no given name.
• Steak — Introduced in episode 5, this character has no given name as well. He is one of the main teachers in episode 5. He seems to be one of the most awkward teachers, as he nervously laughs throughout the episode.
• Can — Can appears to be the Steak's assistant, and, like the Steak, appeared in episode 5 without a given name. She has a green label on her body, with green "leaves" sticking out of her lid and mouth.
• Bread Boy — First appears in the fifth episode. He provides musical accompaniment to Steak and Can by "drumming" on jars of peanut butter and jelly with eating utensils.
• Money Man — The man seen holding the characters hostage in the Kickstarter campaign.

Production

Sloan and Pelling met while studying at college and worked on the first episode of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 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 expand it into a series. Channel 4's Random Acts commissioned the second episode. The show soon attracted mainstream commissioners, but Sloan and Pelling turned them down because they "wanted to keep it fairly odd" and "have the freedom to do exactly what we wanted."

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. Their Kickstarter goal of £96,000 was reached on 19 June 2014.

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. In April, 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.

Reception

The original short film became a viral hit and the series grew to become a cult phenomenon. The first five episodes have amassed over 73 million views on YouTube. Scott Beggs listed the original short film as number 8 on his list of the 11 best short films of 2011. Carolina Mardones listed the first episode as number 7 in her top ten short films of 2011. It was also included in as part of a cinema event in Banksy's Dismaland.

Drew Grant of the Observer wrote that the series episodes are "horrifying nightmarish absolutely beautiful" and "mind-melting". 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."

Themes

Pelling, when asked about how the film came about, said that the purpose was "how not to teach something" and "how an abstract concept like creativity is kind of stupid when people try to teach it in a limited way that [they] do". In addition, he comments on how the video is open for interpretation, and how, when different people reach different conclusions about the video, they may all be valid in their own right.

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 facade of normality." 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."

Creators

Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling are British graphic designers, artists and animators. Their advertising runs through commercial productions. The duo have worked as part of the THIS IS IT Collective.

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. They have won multiple awards, including the 2012 SXSW Midnight Shorts Award.

External links

• Official YouTube channel
• Becky and Joe's website