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 horror and musical elements. Its production is diverse, 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. A follow-up television series was released in 2022 on All 4 and Channel 4.
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 critical acclaim for its story, production design, psychological horror, humour, hidden themes, lore, and characters. The television series was met with similar acclaim.
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