History WebVideo / DontHugMeImScared

** Dream Lamp can't sing and the creators know it. His song also seems to consist of nothing but [[BrokenRecord "You can have a dream about XYX, or you can have a dream about YXY..."]] (and never anything rhyming as the two dream-ideas) ad infinitum once the first few lines are over.

** The Love Cult tells Yellow Guy "The Story of Michael", which ends with the eponymous character being forced to live alone in a cave because everyone in town shuns him for being ugly. At the end Shrignold tells Yellow Guy the supposed [[AnAesop Aesop]] of the story:

** In Episode 6, Duck sings an entire solo song about his shredder, which later turns out to be a critical tool in the TV series finale, as [[spoiler:Yellow Guy gleefully uses it to shred Lesley's book]].

---->''Duck:''' No... [[RageBreakingPoint ENOUGH!]] ''[[AndIMustScream I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE!]]''"

** In Episode 6, Duck sings an entire solo song about his shredder, which later [[spoiler:turns out to be a critical tool as Yellow Guy gleefully uses it to shred Lesley's book]].

* CentralTheme: Each episode revolves around a theme taught by its teacher.
** 1 revolves around Creativity
** 2 is about Time
** 3 discusses "Love"
** 4 (which is titled computers) talks about Technology
** 5 is about Health/Nutrition
** Subverted in 6, which is initially about Dreams but then goes [[spoiler:Meta]].

** 4 talks about Technology

* CentralTheme: Each installment features a theme that the episode revolves around.

** Subverted in 6, which is initially about Dreams [[spoiler:but then goes Meta.]]
* CerebusRetcon: 6 manages to pull this on one of the sillier gags in "Time." [[spoiler:Yellow Guy's [[NonSequitur friendship with his dad]] [[AbusiveParents is a one-way street]].]]

** In an attempt to turn off the computer in "Computers", Red Guy follows the cord and winds up in the "outside world". While it's not clear if the cord in "Dreams" is supposed to be the same cord he followed before, [[spoiler:he nevertheless finally unplugs it]].

* CheatedAngle: Parodied with the Carehound's design. In his illustrated picture in the elevator, both his eyes are visible despite facing sideways, similar to the character designs of WesternAnimation/PeppaPig. However, once Duck sees him in the flesh, [[spoiler:it is revealed that he actually has four eyes in total, two on each side of his face]]

** Episode 3: Yellow Guy [[spoiler:[[AllJustADream wakes up from his dream of the cult]]]] and is discovered by his friends, who have been looking all over for him. Just as they offer him the last boiled egg from their picnic to cheer him up, [[spoiler:[[OrWasItADream a bloody caterpillar]] [[SurpriseCreepy emerges from the egg]], shouting "Father!" Duck [[BookEnds smashes it with his flyswatter]].]]

* SurpriseCreepy: The entirety of the DHMIS series is mostly on trope.
** The first [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_HReR_McQ "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared"]] starts out innocently enough, with a talking sketchbook encouraging ''Series/SesameStreet''-style puppets to get creative to a catchy song. By the end... well, let's just say that they [[NightmareFuelStationAttendant take it a bit too far]].
-->"Now let's all agree to never be creative again!"
** The second video starts normal enough, the puppets are waiting to watch their favourite show, Tony shows up and things start out like the usually would in a kids show, this time about... well, time. Cue [[spoiler: the main puppets [[RapidAging rapidly aging to death]]]] near the end of the video.
** The group in the third video go from happy-go-lucky friends trying to show Yellow Guy platonic love [[spoiler:to a cult that's trying to get Yellow Guy to join so he can find his feminine "special one". They also feed a giant stone monster they call their king and wear suits with mineral-made hearts and golden rings.]]
** Colin in the fourth video. [[spoiler:When Red Guy gets angry at Colin and slams his hand down on the keyboard, Colin shrieks and the puppets are glitched into an acid trip-like segment where everything is flashing and glitching all over the place. Things are back to normal for a while, but that doesn't last for long.]]
** There was an interview with the cast-members, in-character, and for the most part they gave off amusing or non-sequitur responses, until the last question, in which they ask Roy what his thoughts are.
--->"My silly boy has allowed his eyes to grow arrogant and rude, for this I will take him on a trip to punish land."
** 5 also does this to a lesser extent, it start of with a "song" on health (well, the bands nonsensical version of it, anyway), but the creepiness comes in much earlier and keeps building on it.
** 6 Averts this, it's creepy and strange all the way through.

'''Sketchbook''': Whoa there, friend; you might need to slow down! ''[[SurpriseCreepy (black sludge slides down the painting as all music cuts out)]]''

''Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'' (stylized ''Don't Hug Me .I'm Scared'') is a six-part British [[SurrealHorror surreal]] [[BlackComedy black]] [[HorrorComedy horror comedy]] PuppetShow web series created by [[Creator/BeckyAndJoe Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling]], originally released through Website/YouTube between 2011 and 2016.

The show details the lives of the plainly named Red Guy, Duck and Yellow Guy as they find their routine interrupted by highly varied, increasingly demented teachers. Initially, the draw of the show was the shock of the [[SurpriseCreepy sudden]] [[MoodWhiplash switch]] from an upbeat, cutesy {{edutainment}} show to a {{horror}} show that occurred at the end of the first episode, but later episodes were forced to rely less on shock value, and as a result they angle more towards {{existential|Horror}}, {{psychological|Horror}} and {{surreal horror}} with a smidge of NothingIsScarier and a touch of SurrealHumor.

The first episode was supposed to be a stand-alone short film, but after it went viral, a second episode was quickly produced. Past that, all of the episodes were funded thanks to a Website/{{Kickstarter}} campaign, which creatively advertised the project by literally holding the three main characters hostage. The sixth episode, released on [[ArcNumber June 19]], 2016, seemed to represent an end to the series.

* StrawHypocrite: All of the teachers so far.

* {{Mockumentary}}: True to the surreal tone of the series, the official "Behind the Scenes" featurette on the DVD is this. At first look it more-or-less appears like pretty much every other self-congratulatory "Behind the Scenes" mini-dokumentary transparently meant to [[SellingTheShow sell the show]], but on closer inspection the interview with creators Becky and Joe that features throughout the video, has them doing nothing but spouting MeaninglessMeaningfulWords, at that is best only tangentially related to what actually happens in the series, and telling BlatantLies about the series' premise, such as claiming that it is about "three best friends who go on a journey to find a magic pirate ship and save the day." Alongside this, there is constantly repeating footage and background music, and an additional interview with voice actor Baker Terrald (actually series co-writer Baker Terry) describing his experiences with voicing several characters, none of which ever appear on the series.

* {{Mockumentary}}: True to the surreal tone of the series, the official "Behind the Scenes" featurette is this. At first look it more-or-less appears like pretty much every other self-congratulatory "Behind the Scenes" mini-dokumentary transparently meant to [[SellingTheShow sell the show]], but on closer inspection the interview with creators Becky and Joe that features throughout the video, has them doing nothing but spouting MeaninglessMeaningfulWords, at that is best only tangentially related to what actually happens in the series, and telling BlatantLies about the series' premise, such as claiming that it is about "three best friends who go on a journey to find a magic pirate ship and save the day." Alongside this, there is constantly repeating footage and background music, and an additional interview with voice actor Baker Terrald (actually series co-writer Baker Terry) describing his experiences with voicing several characters, none of which ever appear on the series.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Considering the weirdness of the series, you'd be surprised to learn that "aspic" from "Health" is a real food. It's a clear and gelatinous ingredient made from meat stock which is eaten on its own, or used to season and preserve meat in pies, mostly those of the pork variety.

The first episode was supposed to be a stand-alone short film, but after going viral, a second episode was quickly produced. Past that, all of the episodes were funded thanks to a Website/{{Kickstarter}} campaign, which creatively advertised the project by literally holding the three main characters hostage. The sixth episode, released on [[ArcNumber June 19]], 2016, seemed to represent an end to the series.

However, a trailer released on September 13th, 2018 made clear that the puppets' journey [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkFpNVxzhTs is not quite over yet]]. A while after, a 23-minute episode of the show was shown at Sundance, with the puppets finding themselves in a new setting known as Clayhill. In July 2020, it was officially confirmed that this pilot episode has led to the series being picked up as a television show airing on British network Channel 4. Though no official statement to the effect has been made, it has been widely suspected that the production of the series had been delayed due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. In September 2021, it was announced that the filming of the first season had wrapped. On [[ArcNumber June 19]], 2022, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrtrzIWfGYw a teaser]] confirming a September 2022 release for the Channel 4 series was uploaded. It premiered on September 23, 2022 (with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZN2BC8Z48U another trailer here]]). Tropes pretaining to the TV series can be found [[Series/DontHugMeImScared here]].

* CriticalResearchFailure: There are several in-universe examples. These are used to highlight the KnowNothingKnowItAll nature of the teachers. Examples include:
** The Food Band's food chart claim cigarettes and gel are food.
** The Lamb Chop claims the human body has a cat flap. At one point, the Band also claim oranges (and other "show-offy" foods) are bad for you.
** One of the teachers in the sixth episode claims the "planets live inside the moon".
** Colin claims computers are just "buttons and wires" ignoring the other components of computer such as computer chips, the casing and so on.

** [[invoked]]Takes on a new intensity with the [[spoiler:unused teachers']] songs in Episode 6. We only hear snippets of their songs, but each sounds even more repetitive and less coherent than the Food Band's, the singing ranges from vaguely tonal to making Dream Lamp sound like Music/FreddieMercury by comparison, one of them claims "[[CriticalResearchFailure planets live inside the moon]]", and the [[spoiler: Saxophone]] proclaims in his song that he will "[[NonSequitur teach you how to buy a canoe]]", something obviously completely unrelated to him.

* TheReveal: Season 2 explains what's actually going on: [[spoiler:The series takes place in the mind of a deranged mental patient who thinks she's still a little girl playing dollies.]]

--->'''Tony''': Let's go on a journey, a journey through time! A time that's changing all the time, it's time to go to TIME!

--->'''Red Guy''': Now that we have eaten the chicken, I don't know what to do.\\
'''Duck''': Maybe we should look for our friend. Isn't that what friends do?

--->'''Lamp''': You can have a dream about losing your friends! Or you can have a dream about burning your friends!
--->'''Space Guy''': Planets live inside the moon! A rocket ship can go to space, a rocket ship can go to the moon!

The show details the lives of the plainly named Red Guy, Duck and Yellow Guy as they find their routine interrupted by highly varied, increasingly demented teachers. Initially, the draw of the show was the shock of the [[SurpriseCreepy sudden]] [[MoodWhiplash switch]] from an upbeat, cutesy {{edutainment}} show to a {{horror}} show that occurred at the end of the first episode, but later episodes were forced to rely less on shock value, and as a result they angle more towards {{existential|Horror}}, {{psychological|Horror}} and {{surreal horror}} with a smidge of NothingIsScarier and has a creepy touch of SurrealHumor.

* HalfIdenticalTwins: Lily and Todney.

** In season 2, the lyrics of the opening theme:
-->There's three of us. There's three of us. Look closely you will see.\\
There's three of us. Just three of us. There's him and you and me.\\
And every day we all hang out to find out what we talk about.\\
There's three of us. There's three of us. Us three.
'''Yellow Guy''': How do you get that idea?\\
'''Sketchbook''': I just try to think creatively.