Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
Tags: insanity

Plot synopsis:
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 each song progresses, it becomes apparent that its moral or message is nonsensical or self-contradicting, and that the "teacher" character has ulterior or sinister motives. The climax of each episode typically involves a shock element with use of graphic violence, and sometimes other coercive or warped themes.
=== Episode 1 ===
The first episode begins in a kitchen where the main cast is eating breakfast. A singing sketchbook teaches the main characters to "get creative", singing about childlike activities. The climax of the episode is an exaggerated depiction of 'creativity' in which the puppets dance increasingly erratically and engage in deranged acts like covering a heart in glitter and serving a cake made from viscera, complete with shaky camera shots and increasingly frantic music. The video ends with everything seemingly restored to normal and the sketchbook telling the puppets to "never be creative again".
=== Episode 2 ===
A talking clock, Tony, sings about time. The protagonists question the reality of time, to Tony's annoyance. Tony then accelerates the passage of time, rapidly aging the cast and causing them to decay alive. Red guy becomes old and his fur turns grey, while duck guy and yellow guy begin to rot alive, with duck guy's eye falling out. The events are revealed to be part of a television programme watched by the three friends, although the end implies the rotting was real due to duck guy's eyeball being visible by the television. Also, yellow guy's hair is visible during the end credits, with maggots appearing to multiply on it. This episode introduces Yellow Guy's father, Roy.
=== Episode 3 ===
At a picnic with Yellow Guy and Red Guy, Duck Guy kills a butterfly. Yellow Guy, distressed, flees to a tree and is found by a butterfly, Shrignold. He and his friends sing about love, saying that true love is kept for one's 'special one'. After a brief anecdote featuring 'Michael, the loneliest boy in town', Shrignold then introduces Yellow Guy to Malcolm, the 'King of Love', and the leader of a cult whom they worship by feeding gravel to him. The plot takes a sinister turn when the cult explains that he must lose his memories and name. The video ends with Yellow Guy waking up where he started, and his friends bringing him an egg which splits, revealing a maggot-like creature who calls Yellow Guy "father" and is promptly squashed by Duck Guy.
=== Episode 4 ===
The protagonists are playing a board game. They express their desire to learn about the World, and a globe named Gilbert comes to life. He prepares to sing to them, but Colin, a talking computer, randomly begins to sing about how clever he is, cutting Gilbert off. Throughout the song, Red Guy expresses frustration at his questions not being answered and promptly slams Colin's keyboard. This enrages Colin and makes him take the characters to the 'Digital World'. Colin sings about the "Three Main Activities of the Digital World" – viewing different graphs, Digital Style, and Digital Dancing. These are repeated until a room becomes populated with distorted dancing clones of Colin, Yellow Guy and Duck Guy. Red Guy escapes only to find a film crew wearing spandex suits apparently filming a crude replica of the first episode. A crewman snaps a clapperboard, whereupon Red Guy's head suddenly explodes into glitter.
=== Episode 5 ===
The other two main characters seem unable to understand that Red Guy is missing, although they are aware that something has changed. Various characters led by a steak gives increasingly bizarre and self-contradictory advice about eating habits in song. The song is stopped twice by the telephone ringing. Duck Guy answers the telephone, but does not respond to what he hears on the line. Eventually, he becomes irritated and runs off-set, knocking over the camera. He wakes up in an operating room to find a large tin can eating his organs. Yellow Guy continues following the song and becomes bloated from eating cans of meat labeled with Duck Guy's picture. During the credits sequence, Red Guy is seen dressed in a coat and scarf, walking away from a phone booth carrying a suitcase, revealing he was the one calling throughout the episode. The creators claim that a phone number printed on the phone booth 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.
=== Episode 6 ===
Yellow Guy is in bed, crying because he misses his friends. As he tries to go to sleep, a lamp who sings about dreams appears. Despite Yellow Guy's protests, the Lamp drags him along for an animated sequence that ends with him having a dream about drowning in oil. Yellow Guy then wakes to see the Lamp transform his mattress into oil. Red Guy wakes in an office with multiple other red people wearing clothing. He starts to sing a song about an office file, but his colleagues are not impressed. Later, at a bar, he performs the Creativity song from episode 1. The crowd starts booing. Red Guy notices Roy in the crowd. The microphone and boombox turn into teacher-puppets and he is transported to a dark black room. Red Guy follows the sound of the dream song to a machine with monitors showing Yellow Guy. Red Guy presses buttons that transform the lamp into other characters including Tony and Colin. Roy taps Red Guy on the shoulder with a massively elongated arm. Seeing Yellow Guy becoming gaunt from his ordeal, Red Guy disconnects the machine's power supply. The scene cuts to a reshoot of episode 1 with the protagonists recoloured. The calendar turns from 19 to 20 June. A sketchbook starts singing the same song from the first instalment but is cut off as the episode ends.

Review: A strong start.
This is the first episode in a six episode series of short films don't hug me im scared.
This was a really strong opening for a YouTube series this kind of story telling and design can be seen on television, yeah it's that good but do not show that to your kids.
This show is not for kids because it's a horror spoof on children's TV programs.
And I have to say that it's worth your time..
Really great spoof on children's programming.
Three non-threatening puppets sit around a table while a singing notebook encourages them to be creative.
This is the simple idea here and it is laid out to be a very convincing children's television show as the notebook sings about imagination and creativity in a very generic way.
This song is catchy but also has some really great lines and moments – "green is not a creative color" being my favorite because it made me laugh and also reminds us that generally trying to "teach" creativity will just need to reinforce bounds rather than encourage freedom.The notebook gets what it wants as the three characters start to explore whatever comes to their imaginations, leading to some disturbing images and situations which very quickly take the cheerful little short out of the world of kids TV and into the dark world that lies inside.
It is very cleverly done because it is funny, spot on as a satire and really well made.
I see that the film has 12 million views on YouTube and, although I had never heard of it, I am not surprised that it struck a chord..
First episode from a provocative serie, it is far to be a comfortable animation.
It reminds "Sesame Street" and this is the first piece of its eccentricity.
It is an eulogy of creativity but its tools are far for children.
It propose the happiness as rule but, in same measure, a bizarre cake.
Sure, it is an Youtube experiment.
Nice.
And bizarre..
And bizarre..
Very weird.
"Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" is a British award-winning 3-minute cartoon by Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan.
It is usually never a good sign if the filmmakers appears as voice actors themselves, but I guess here they did a fine job.
Early on, I wasn't yet sure if this film is a parody or really takes itself seriously, but the longer it goes the more obvious it becomes that it is all just a spoof.
So it's nothing your children (or you) really need to see.
There are a couple sequels here, but this first one here lacked the creativity to really make me interested in these.
The song was kinda catchy though and probably the highlight from the whole thing.
The rest of the watch was definitely pretty awkward, but neither funny nor entertaining I have to say.
Not recommended..
Just Cringe!.
This looks like a weird ripoff from the Muppets.
It is just hard to explain.
When one of the characters was putting gold glitter on a heart I just freaked out and wondered if this meant anything.
I'm ready to watch the next one!
It is weird and but it isn't that bad!