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Don't Hug Me I'm Scared[a] (often abbreviated as DHMIS) is a British web and television series created by Becky Sloan, Joe Pelling, and Baker Terry. The series is notable for its blending of surreal comedy and black comedy with psychological horror and comedy horror, as well as incorporating musicals. Its production is also notable for diversity, combining puppetry, live action, and other different 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.[2] A follow-up television series was released in 2022 on All 4 and Channel 4.[3]
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 typically found in preschool, namely creativity, time, love, technology, diet, and dreams, while the television series touched 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.
Each episode revolves around three characters: a yellow childlike humanoid with blue hair and overalls, an anthropomorphic green mallard duck[b] with a tweed jacket, and a red humanoid with a mop-like head. They have no names explicitly stated within 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.[4] 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 typically involves a plot twist involving the addition of escalating psychological horror, which then 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.
Sloan, Terry and Pelling met while studying Fine Art and Animation respectively at Kingston University, where they started THIS IS IT Collective with some friends.[5][6] They produced 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 revisit that idea.[7] 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".[4]
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.[8] 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.[9]
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.[10]
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.[11][non-primary source needed] 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.[12][13] Details of the plot were released on 3 December 2018 in advance of a 2019 Sundance Film Festival screening of the pilot.[14] The pilot episode ran at 23 minutes, and it appeared in the "Indie Episodic Program 1" alongside other short films.[15] 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.[16] The series wrapped up filming by September 2021,[17] and it was expected to be originally released[18][19][20] streaming exclusively on All 4 on 12 September 2022.[21][22] However, the series was delayed slightly because of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.[23][24] 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.[25][26]
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.
overall
No. in
series
Title
Original release date
1
1
"Creativity"
29 July 2011
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.[27]
Note: This episode was uploaded under the title "Don't Hug me I'm Scared".
2
2
"Time"
8 January 2014
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
3
"Love"
31 October 2014
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. A disgusting caterpillar-like creature 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. [28]
4
4
"Computers"
1 April 2015
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 flashes glitched versions of the characters. The characters are then transported to the "Digital World", fascinating Duck and Yellow Guy, while Red Guy is disinterested. Colin shows them the three main activities of the digital world: 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. [29]
5
5
"Health"
14 October 2015
Red Guy is absent, however Yellow Guy and Duck seem to be aware of a change, but cannot clarify what it is. Anthropomorphic food starts to sing about being healthy, but delivering bizarre and self-contradictory 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 is annoyed by the food and runs off set, knocking the camera over and briefly showing Red Guy and Roy peeking over the set. He awakens in the same dark room, where a 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, having eaten Duck's organs. The telephone rings once again, where the credits show Red Guy walking away from a telephone box with a coat, scarf and suitcase.[30]
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.[4]
6
6
"Dreams"
19 June 2016
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 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 tortured by the 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. [31]
A long-form TV pilot was produced in 2018 with Super Deluxe, Conaco and Blink Industries.[32] The pilot premiered at 2019 Sundance Film Festival, appearing in the "Indie Episodic Program 1" alongside other short films.[33][34] The idea, which involved "current affairs", was later scrapped,[35] and the trailer was removed from the YouTube channel.[36][37] The setting, which Sloan attributed some roots to South Park, did not have "the timelessness and claustrophobia of the originals."[35]
No.
overall
No. in
series
Title [38]
Original release date
7
1
"Pilot"
Unaired
Roommates Red Guy, Yellow Guy, and Duck live simple and repetitive lives in the complacent colourful community of Clayhill. When the town's mayor disappears, everything descends into chaos.
All episodes for this series are co-written by Sam Campbell.
No.
overall
No. in
series
Title [39]
Original release date
8
1
"Jobs"
30 September 2022
Having nothing on their daily schedule, Duck and Yellow Guy try to find something to do, much to Red Guy's dismay. A talking briefcase informs them about the concept of jobs, suggesting several that they could do before transporting them to a "bits and parts" factory, where Red Guy stumbles into becoming upper management and Yellow Guy fits right in with his coworkers. Duck continually tries to leave, but is first fired by Red Guy and then brainwashed into loving his job by a monstrous dog called the Carehound. However, when he comes back to work, he finds that everyone is now 40 years older and having a retirement party for Yellow Guy. After Duck throws Yellow Guy's retirement card into a machine and inadvertently causes Yellow Guy's hand to be caught and crushed in the machine, the talking briefcase returns and finishes his song, transporting the three back to their house and restoring them to their old selves as they express confusion about everything that has happened. The briefcase rewards them for their work with a coin, which lands directly in Duck's eye.[39]
9
2
"Death"
30 September 2022
Duck reads in the newspaper that he is dead because he forgot to drink water, and when his heart falls out of his body, it summons a talking coffin who helps the friends organise a funeral for him. However, Duck annoys the coffin while buried underground, and Red Guy attempts to build a new friend to replace him, though Yellow Guy refuses to accept them. Red Guy slowly moulds a talking blob of clay into an exact replica of Duck, but Yellow Guy returns to the burial site and digs up the old Duck to bring him back. The group briefly tries to start a new show with the two Ducks before one of them abruptly kills the other with a shovel, stating that there being four of them "doesn't work".[39]
10
3
"Family"
7 October 2022
The three friends have trouble opening a "family pack" of snacks, prompting a pair of twins to arrive and start teaching them about the concept of families. They bring the friends to their house, introducing them to their grotesquely misshapen father, brother, and grandmother, but when they reject Duck from their family, he falls back into the friends' original house. Red Guy meets the twins' "family tree", who takes most of his blood to help him find his family, but when Red Guy actually meets his family, they reject him for being too expressive. Yellow Guy is kidnapped and dressed as the twins' mother, who reveal they only wanted to complete their family to get a family discount on a food delivery. However, Yellow Guy's father Roy arrives, devouring the entire family while allowing Yellow Guy to escape. The three friends decide that blood relations are unimportant to being a family before realising there are only two snacks in the family pack.[39]
11
4
"Friendship"
7 October 2022
The three friends attempt to go online for their annual "computer day", but Yellow Guy cannot remember the password, prompting his friends to insult him. A worm named Warren arrives to scold them and teach them about what true friendship is. After finally remembering the password, the trio check their emails, but Yellow Guy gets disappointed when he sees that he received none. Yellow Guy then retreats into his own mind to hang out with his "brain friends", but Warren enters his mind and bores Yellow Guy's imaginary friends into either leaving or killing themselves. In the real world, Yellow Guy is slowly melting as Red Guy and Duck find information online about their friend's affliction; when they realize that the problem could be caused by "a worm in his brain", Duck shoves a needle into Yellow Guy's ear, killing a grotesquely misshapen Warren. The three friends make up before Yellow Guy breaks their new computer, prompting a fight between them all that lasts throughout the episode credits.[39]
12
5
"Transport"
14 October 2022
Red Guy is bored by Duck and Yellow Guy taking inventory of everything in the house and wants to go on a trip. An elderly Choo Choo Train arrives to teach the three about transport in an animated sequence, transforming into various vehicles, but dies while in the form of a car. Red Guy, desperate to leave, manages to get the car started, resuscitating the Choo Choo Train and crashing through the wall of their house. Yellow Guy, Duck, and even the car's satnav keep trying to direct Red Guy back home, but he only presses onward down the road, eventually causing the cheery and colourful world around them to glitch into a desolate wasteland. The three friends sit around a fire in the wasteland before Yellow Guy appears to hear a woman's voice claiming "...the journey always ends up back at home" and the episode abruptly cuts to a live-action person's hand gently pushing a model of the car back to a model of the friends' house.[39]
13
6
"Electricity"
14 October 2022
Red Guy and Duck attempt to shred an electricity bill before a robot called Electracey climbs out of their electrical box to teach them about electricity. Yellow Guy reveals that, like her, he is powered by batteries, and Duck swaps Yellow Guy's old faulty batteries for Electracey's fresh ones, making her dim-witted and him both smart and self-aware. Yellow Guy leaves to go upstairs and investigate their teachers' appearance, first finding increasingly larger versions of Red Guy and Duck alongside several teachers, before finding an old live-action woman named Lesley surrounded by props from previous episodes and a diorama of the house. She gives Yellow Guy a book that supposedly contains all the answers he seeks. Meanwhile, Red Guy and Duck use too much electricity and cause a blackout, getting lost and finding dead versions of all of their previous teachers, before Yellow Guy returns with the book. Before he can show them anything, Duck swaps his batteries back with Electracey's, restoring the power to the house, but causing Yellow Guy to lose his newfound intelligence and forget all that he found upstairs. He puts the book through Duck's shredder as Duck and Red Guy cheer him on, none the wiser.
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".[40]
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".[41] 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."[42]
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[edit]
TomSka as Magnet
Kellen Goff as Shovel
Baker Terry as Yellow Guy, Duck, Key, Mayor Pigface, Security Thing, Policeman, Big Ian, and Fizzy Milk
Joseph Pelling as Red Guy
Becky Sloan as Mrs. Grenald, Mud Man, and Ladder
Baker Terry as Yellow Guy, Duck, Briefcase, Andy, Duncan, Bin, Lucky Mo, Family Tree, Roy Gribbleston, Warren The Eagle, Yumpherdinker, Dr. Bushman, Choo Choo Train, Tony the Talking Clock, Steak, Big Duck and Bigger Duck
Joseph Pelling as Red Guy, Colin the Computer, Brain Friends Theme Singer, Brain Friends Announcer, Big Red Guy and Bigger Red Guy
Becky Sloan as Unemployed Brendon, Stain Edwards, Grolton's Chicken Family Tub Discount Commericial Announcer, Brain Friends Theme Singer, First Tooth, The Lump and Electracey
Vivienne Soan as Lesley
Leila Navabi as Claire
Amy Gledhill as Wet Floor Sign
Kath Hughes as Printer
Phil Wang as Vending Machine
Jen Ives as Free Vending Machine
Chris Cantrill as Safety Video Announcer
Lolly Adefope as Lift and Mrs. Grelch
Charlie Perkins as Jenny
Kevin Eldon as Coffin
Sue Eves as Brain Friends Theme Singer (uncredited)
George Fouracres as Lamp, Grolton and Hovris
Sam Campbell as ID Card and Apple
Katy Wix as Tissue Box
Freya Parker as Grandma and Bread
James Stevenson Bretton as Lily and Todney
Liam Williams as Market Man
Emma Sidi as Bubble Bath Memory
Kiell Smith-Bynoe as Saturdavid
Johnny White Really-Really as Shy Imaginary Older Brother
Charlie Pelling as Brain Friends Theme Singer
Chris Hayward as Instructional Tape Announcer
Katie Kvinge as GPS
Jimmy Slim as Time Child
Jamie Demetriou as Safe
Michael Stranney as Mirror
Beattie Hartley as Experimented Creature
Jason Forbes as Boundary Hand
Natasha Hodgson as Rock
Nathan Foad as Toilet
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.[43] Carolina Mardones listed the first episode as number 7 in her top ten short films of 2011.[44] It was also included as part of a cinema event in Banksy's Dismaland.[45][46] 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.[47][48] All six episodes of DHMIS were included in the September 2016 festival XOXO.[49]
Drew Grant of The Observer described the series as "mind-melting".[50] 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".[51] Joe Blevins of The A.V. Club praised the show's "sense-to-nonsense ratio" and its production values.[52] 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".[53]
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.. albeit less politically charged than the latter and more focused on taking a sledgehammer to the standard of children's educational television".[54]
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)".[55] The Guardian ranked it at number 31, calling it "clever, bleak, charming, grotesque and funny".[56] 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".[57]
The series was nominated for Best Scripted Comedy Show at the 2023 National Comedy Awards.[58][59]
Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling are British graphic designers, artists and animators. Their advertising runs through commercial productions.[60] The duo have worked as part of the THIS IS IT Collective.[61]
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.[62] They have won multiple awards, including the 2012 SXSW Midnight Shorts Award,[63][64] and the 2016 ADC Young Guns award.[65]
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.
^ The official YouTube channel for the series is called Don't Hug Me .I'm Scared with a full stop before I'm.
^ In the second episode of the Channel 4 series, entitled "Death", Duck claims he is a "talking crow-like thing".
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