The Beauty Of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
YouTube's greatest work of art
I watch YouTube too much.
While other people do smart, normal things like watch TV shows with substantial budgets, big-name actors and a cohesive plot line, I waste most of my free time watching short clips that range from funny commentary to compilations of Gordon Ramsay getting angry about food.
There are plenty of good things about YouTube, first and foremost is that it is an easy way to kill 10 minutes whenever I want, and secondly because there is always something new to watch if I look hard enough. There are also some terrific creators on the site, my current favorites being Drew Gooden (not the basketball player) and whatever the hell Jon Bois is working on.
But Drew and Jon are not who I’m here to talk about. They may be my favorite YouTubers to watch now, but my absolute favorite thing to ever come from this dreaded site started about 11 years ago.
That would be Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, and as they announced a triumphant return this fall, it is time that I talk about these absolute masterpieces.
Since releasing the first DHMIS video in July 2011, creators Joseph Pelling and Rebecca Sloan have, aside from some teasers here and there, made six videos. None of those videos last more than eight minutes, with a combined runtime of 32:40 across the entire series.
The last full-length DHMIS video came out six years ago, meaning that the channel was good for about one video per year on average, and my goodness did they make it count every single time.
I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t watched these videos to take a half hour and see them for yourself. Fair warning: If you watch these at work, you will look like a crazy person.
*Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared 1-6 Playlist Link*
Episode Summaries
For those who haven’t seen, buckle up as I try to explain why you’re looking at these three fine gentlemen above.
DHMIS centers around three primary characters: Red Guy, Yellow Guy and The Duck. The videos are each set up like a children’s show, where there’s a specific important topic (Creativity, Time, Love, Computers, Food, Dreams) that gets discussed in mostly song form. At some point in each video, though, the songs go off the rails in some truly dark, horrifying ways.
It often starts slow, like in the first DHMIS where the Sketchbook covers Yellow Guy’s painting in all black while the music completely cuts out.
Eventually, the climax of the first episode is when the three leads all get “Too Creative,” leading to a shift in the song, the spelling out of DEATH, putting glitter on a real heart and an extremely off-putting meat pie.
I will not go frame-by-frame for all six of these videos (we’d be here awhile), I just needed to for at least one to try to make anything I say from here on out make sense to those who have not seen this psychotic masterpieces.
The first one is the most simplistic, and from there the show dives deeper and gets darker. The same fun start, creepy build, horrifying payoff is mostly followed by the remaining episodes, but things start to get much more complex as this series started to show its hand.
I think this first episode is excellent, but it’s not why I think this is the best thing to ever exist on YouTube. No, that came with how a seemingly simple “scare people with what seems like kid’s content” concept turned into so, so much more.
Episode 2 is about Time. Story wise, this only slightly progresses things, but it’s a new setting and improved props and visuals. Same can be said about the third, which has the best song of the bunch, but also has a less jarring payoff than the others (I’ll get back to it).
By Episode 4, the story of these characters, and this world, really start coming together. This is the Computer episode, and I really recommend you watch this one because I can only explain so much. The show is more “off-script” here, by that I mean the Red Guy, Yellow Guy and Duck seem even less aware of what is going on. The Computer comes in out of complete surprise, the Red Guy challenges him very early on, and the chaos immediately ensues.
Like the three episodes before it, the leads are all sucked into talk about the central topic, but this conclusion is vastly different. While the computer tries his best to coax the characters into his endless discussion about what you can do online, the Red Guy isn’t having it and he leaves the show, ending with his head popping into confetti.
When DHMIS 5 begins, the Red Guy is absent. It is the other two left to deal with a remarkably confusing talk about healthy foods. The song is cut off abruptly multiple times by a phone call, answered by the Duck, which takes him out of the set and into a hospital bed.
While the Yellow Guy still remains invested in the song, the Duck wants out, only for the reveal at the end to be that his body is being made into a can of duck food that is then eaten by the Yellow Guy. (I won’t put that image in here, it’s gross, but my god what a reveal it is). The end credits show that it was the Red Guy making these calls.
Finally, we get DHMIS 6. This one is barely a song, as the Yellow Guy, now alone, immediately is in terror and misses his friends. Much of the episode instead follows the Red Guy, out in the real world. There is a lot here to digest, but we find out that Red Guy knows Roy, Yellow Guy’s father who had shown up in every episode since the second. Roy appears to be the one behind this show, and it is up to Red Guy to literally pull the plug to save the Yellow Guy from being tortured any longer.
The episode ends with three guys back at the table from DHMIS 1, this time in different colors, the colors that they all said were their favorites in that first episode.
Fueling My Obsession
I go through all that to emphasize my point that SO MUCH is going on in these videos. There is still an infinite amount of shit that I did not touch on, like all the recurring props, what each of these characters may symbolize, what the show’s themes are, why June 19th is so important, etc., etc., etc.
My recommendation is to go to YouTube and watch other people’s interpretations if you want more answers. My favorite one is probably the two-parter that The Film Theorists did on it.
Because the show’s creators took their time in making the episodes, each one is packed to the brim with little easter eggs, nods and themes that connect everything together seamlessly. Watch these all in succession and you can see how our three leads progress (or completely lose their damn minds) in a very believable way.
There is not a single theory I could hear about these videos that I wouldn’t believe considering how much time and effort went into making them. The shows creators seem to agree.
And this is the focal point of why I absolutely adore Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. It’s a clever idea with masterful execution. They are videos that I can watch over and over again and think of something new to talk about. I have watched numerous theories on what it could all mean, and they all mostly make sense if you dig deep enough.
While preparing for this video, I had a (small) revelation that I think holds for DHMIS 3. The song’s dark side to the Love concept has less of a scary ending. The Yellow Guy gets told all these stories about love, how to love and why to love, only to find that he has to pray to a stone God named Malcolm to even have a chance at love. This is a clear shot at religion being a form of a cult, and the Yellow Guy snaps out of it to come back to his friends that love him.
I think that it is intentionally meant to not be over-the-top scary. The scary part of it all is how easily the Yellow Guy could have been seduced into joining this cult, and anything more obvious would have scared him away sooner. It’s small, but I feel like this is what they were going for.
Along with everything that makes the storylines so captivating, I absolutely love the use of puppets combined with animation, and some guys just straight up in suits. It’s a terrific blend of styles that keeps you on your toes.
This is a series that begs for deep analysis, that craves lunatics like me pausing and zooming to see all the little details. Roy is in each episode after the second one, but mostly as extremely subtle cameos, either hiding in the shadows (see the right side of the picture above) or in shots so fast you would never notice with the naked eye, like when he is on the roof of the set in episode 5.
It’s all so calculated and brilliant, and it comes in the package of easy-to-watch YouTube videos that are making a commentary on the danger’s of manipulative children’s content. I can’t get enough of it.
What’s Next
And now, we will get six more episodes in September. Well, the United Kingdom will. DHMIS is moving onto UK’s Channel 4 for its next set of episodes. They announced it with this teaser, following up on a teaser titled “Wakey Wakey” that was released and deleted three years ago.
What do these mean as far as what these episodes will be about? Hell if I know.
What I do know is that my ass will be getting a VPN and will be there to watch these. The creators held out on moving to TV for years, instead getting money through GoFundMe to maintain their creative vision. I have to imagine they only make a move like this if they were allowed to do what they want.
No matter what, though, it will never tarnish the legacy of the original DHMIS series. These six episodes are perfection, and I can always go back to them if I feel like having my brain melt while watching some deeply demented shit.
The world sucks these days. A lot of YouTube sucks these days. Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared never fell into the traps of churning out half-baked content. These videos were as real to a creative vision as they could possibly be, and the result was 32:40 of true, true art.
I’ll gladly get scared shitless by puppets any time if it means seeing something this wonderful.
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