Research: Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared

I had already known beforehand about this series so I will give a brief description this time.

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is a web series of short films made by Rebecca Sloan and Joseph Pelling. Showing the dark, strange surreal adventures of 3 puppet characters as they learn important lessons about life.

The format is much more visibly accurate to an old educational TV show for children than something like This is my house. Not every episode starts out creepy from the get-go, luring us into a false sense of security. It’s not just straight forward horror all the time, as they are only enforced by the teaching characters who become somewhat antagonistic.

Almost every character in the series is a puppet/animation or costume and majority of props and sets are rounded and soft to remain consistent with the style. That is until the moments when the comfy fake world is offset by realistic organs, dark shadows, awkward pauses and gore.

Something is clearly not right with this world and some of the characters even know it, its just that there is barely anywhere to escape the madness.

The main thing that interests me though is use of the various effects and animation styles. Puppetry first, hand drawn second, CGI and stop motion.

I did make a clear statement on how I wanted to use practical effects in my proposal, but maybe spicing it up would make it more visually interesting and save up on much needed assets.

One great thing about the shorts as well is the blend of humour with surreal horror. Sometimes there are passive aggressive lyrics in each of the songs, which eventually evolve into nightmarish foreshadowing of what’s to come later on.

There is also a strong satirical message being delivered in the series about how we let TV educate our children. TV can be biased as any other medium can. Don’t let it force these messages into their heads and help them learn for themselves.