Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

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 elements of psychological horror and musicals. Its production is also notable for diversity, 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]

For the television series, see Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (TV series).

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
Official poster teasing the sixth episode
Genre
Created by
  • Becky Sloan
  • Joseph Pelling
Written by
  • Becky Sloan
  • Joseph Pelling
  • Hugo Donkin (2014)
  • Baker Terry (2014–)
Directed by
  • Becky Sloan
  • Joseph Pelling
Voices of
  • Baker Terry
  • Joseph Pelling
  • Becky Sloan
Composers
  • Joseph Pelling
  • Charlie Pelling (2016–)
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes6
Production
Executive producers
  • Becky Sloan
  • Joseph Pelling
  • James Stevenson Bretton
Producers
  • Benjamin Lole
  • Hugo Donkin
Cinematography
  • Max Halstead (2014–15)
  • Edward Tucker (2014–)
Running time
  • 3–8 minutes
Production companies
Release
Original networkYouTube
Original release29 July 2011 (2011-07-29) –
19 June 2016 (2016-06-19)
Related
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 acclaim for its story, production design, psychological horror, humour, hidden themes, lore, and characters, and is regarded by many as one of the greatest web series of all time. The television series was met with similar acclaim.

Premise

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 only ever refer to each other with pronouns, never by name. 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.

Production

Sloan, Pelling and Baker Terry met while studying Fine Art and Animation respectively 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 soon 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]

Television series

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] A teaser trailer titled "Wakey Wakey..." was released on the channel on 13 September 2018, teasing a new 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 24 May 2022, the trailer was made private on the official YouTube channel.

On 7 July 2020, it was officially 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 exclusively on All 4 on 12 September 2022.[20][21] However, the series was delayed slightly 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]

Episodes

All episodes were written by Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling, with Baker Terry co-writing each episode starting with "Time". "Time" is also co-written by Hugo Donkin.

No.TitleOriginal release date
1"Creativity"29 July 2011 (2011-07-29)

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 (2014-01-08)
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 (2014-10-31)
The group is sitting at a picnic, where Duck kills a 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 (2015-04-01)
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 (2015-10-14)

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 (2016-06-19)
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. He wakes up, where the lamp transforms his mattress into oil. It 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]

Themes

In a faux interview, Becky and Joe 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]

Cast
  • Baker Terry as Yellow Guy, Duck, Tony the Talking Clock, Shrignold, Steak and Lamp
  • Becky Sloan as Sketchbook and Spinach Can
  • Joseph Pelling as Red Guy and Colin the Computer

Cameos

Reception

Web series

The series as a whole has 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 also 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 of DHMIS 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]

Television series

Like the web series, the television series has also 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]

Creators

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 have won multiple awards, including the 2012 SXSW Midnight Shorts Award,[55][56] and the 2016 ADC Young Guns award.[57]

They have also co-written 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.

See also

Notes
  1. In the second episode of the Channel 4 series, entitled "Death", Duck claims he is a "talking crow-like thing".
  2. The official YouTube channel for the series is called "Don't Hug Me .I'm [sic] Scared".

References
  1. Sloan, Becky; Pelling, Joseph (3 March 2014). "Awards. Festivals. Talks". Becky & Joe's Art.
  2. Guide, British Comedy. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared - C4 Sitcom". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  3. Coldwell, Will (27 January 2016). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: the puppets who sing, dance and eat raw meat". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  4. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared press pack interview with Becky Sloan, Joe Pelling and Baker Terry | Channel 4".
  5. Matt Mansfield (6 January 2014). "Becky&Joe are this week's Dazed Visionaries". Dazed. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  6. Boult, Adam (26 October 2015). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: Interview with creators Becky & Joe". Metro News. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  7. DiGangi, Christine (25 June 2014). "12-Year-Old Used Stolen Credit Cards to Fund Puppet Show". Credit.com. Archived from the original on 30 August 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  8. "TomSka pledges £5K to Don't Hug Me I'm Scared series".
  9. Shin, Nara (18 January 2016). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared + Lazy Oaf". Cool Hunting. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  10. Becky Sloan [@becky.sloan] (19 June 2017). "It's June 19th!! Big DHMIS news coming in the FUTURE...🎉📺🔍👀 #DHMIS #donthugmeimscared". Archived from the original on 25 October 2022. Retrieved 25 October 2022 – via Instagram.
  11. Cooper, Gael Fashingbauer (14 September 2018). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is making new episodes". CNET. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
  12. Sloan, Becky [@becky.sloan] (13 September 2018). "Wakey Wakey..." www.instagram.com. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
  13. "2019 Sundance Film Festival: Indie Episodic, Shorts and Special Events Announced". Sundance Institute. 3 December 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
  14. "don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared-08fc1516-a01a-45c6-912f-22995f07b722". sundance.org. Archived from the original on 10 November 2021. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  15. "Latest Young Audiences Content Fund production slate announced". British Film Institute. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  16. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared on Instagram: "Life’s a laugh when you are making a TV show with the BEST TEAM EVER đ&#x;Ž‰đ&#x;'€đ&#x;ŽŹđ&#x;Ž‰ 3 months of filming done‌.woo! #dhmis"". Instagram.com. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
  17. "FLY". YouTube.
  18. "Our show that we have been working on for a hundred years will be on channel 4 in September!". Twitter. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  19. "The Long-Awaited Don't Hug Me I'm Scared TV Series Will Debut This September". The Gamer. 19 June 2022. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  20. Pelling, Joe (5 September 2022). "6 eps out on the 12th on @All4". Twitter. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  21. Channel 4 (5 September 2022). "Six brand new episodes of the hit web series 'Don't Hug Me I'm Scared' will be available to stream exclusively on All 4 from Sept 12th 👀 #DHMIS". Twitter. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  22. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: your guide to the cult webseries making the jump to TV". Nationalworld. 9 September 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  23. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared - All 4". Archived from the original on 9 September 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  24. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared on Instagram: "Update! New DHMIS available on All4 from Friday 23rd September & on Channel 4 from Friday 30th September 11.05pm … 📺👀 #dhmis #donthugmeimscared"". Instagram. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  25. "Joe Pelling on Instagram: "NEW AIR DATE. All eps on all4 from Friday 23rd September & on Channel 4 from Friday 30th 11.05pm."". Instagram. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  26. "Don't Hug me I'm Scared". YouTube. 29 July 2011. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  27. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3". YouTube. 31 October 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  28. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 4". YouTube. 31 March 2015. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  29. "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 5". YouTube. 14 October 2015. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  30. Don't Hug Me .I'm Scared (19 June 2016). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 6". YouTube. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  31. Gilbert, Jan (1 May 2012). "Directors of Short Films at Sundance London". Sundance London. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  32. Licht, Jordan (22 October 2013). "When YouTube gets dark". Nouse. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  33. McGhee, Will (22 October 2015). "'Don't Hug Me I'm Scared' Melds Comedy with Horror". The Wesleyan Argus. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  34. Beggs, Scott (30 December 2011). "Year in Review: The 11 Best Short Films of 2011". Film School Rejects. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  35. Mardones, Carolina (3 March 2012). "Seleccionan los 10 mejores cortometrajes de 2011". biobiochile.cl (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  36. Jobson, Christopher (20 August 2015). "Welcome to Dismaland: A First Look at Banksy's New Art Exhibition Housed Inside a Dystopian Theme Park [Updated 8/22]". Colossal. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  37. "Watch: Banksy Dismaland Previ ew & Short Film Program". Slashfilm. 26 August 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  38. "Printed Pages, s/s 2016". magCulture. 26 April 2016. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  39. Pritchard, Owen (3 May 2016). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared – an exclusive interview with Duck, Red Guy and Yellow Guy". It's Nice That. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  40. "Our favorite discoveries from the internet's best festival". The Verge. 11 September 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  41. Grant, Drew (3 February 2015). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: This Series Will Break Your Brain and It Will Be Magic". Observer. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  42. Hiorns, Benjamin (16 October 2015). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared by Becky & Joe launches to solve world problems". Creativepool. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  43. Blevins, Joe (7 July 2016). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared has been baffling the internet for five years now". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  44. Joy, Samantha (27 July 2016). "Five of the Best: YouTube Animations". TenEighty. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  45. Egan, Toussaint (23 September 2022). "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is suddenly back in wonderful, chaotic form". Polygon. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  46. Bennion, Chris (16 December 2022). "The best TV shows of 2022 – and the worst". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  47. "The 50 best TV shows of 2022". The Guardian. 21 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  48. Jeffery, Morgan. "Best TV shows of the year 2022, 50-41: The Crown, Wednesday and more". Radio Times. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  49. Bennett, Steve. "Channel 4's National Comedy Awards to return". www.chortle.co.uk. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  50. "Winners crowned at The National Comedy Awards for Stand Up To Cancer | Channel 4". www.channel4.com. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  51. "2023 Television Craft Production Design | BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved 21 May 2023.
  52. "Becky & Joe". Blinkink. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  53. "About – This Is It Collective". cargocollective.com. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  54. "Project Focus: Becky & Joe for Tame Impala". YCN. Archived from the original on 13 February 2013. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  55. "FAME". BECKY AND JOE'S ART. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  56. "SXSW Film 2012 Award Winners". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  57. "Art Directors Club Announces 2016 ADC Young Guns Winners". Animation World Network. 14 September 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
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