Episode 1 is possibly about the media telling children to act and think a certain way and not get too creative. In an ironic twist, many people thought that This Is It was trying to say something similar: Be creative, but not too creative, or you'll go psycho.
Some people have interpreted "Jobs" as an allegory for the working experience. Red Guy is supposed to represent a boss who doesn't want to do anything, Yellow Guy is supposed to represent the worker that complies with everything, and what we see happen to Duck is just a representation for what a good amount of underpaid workers experience daily.
Alternatively, Duck Guy is also thought to represent the demographic of older people trying to re-enter the workforce and struggling to fit in.
The Memories song until Yellow Guy goes to dig up Duck is a good depiction of the grieving process, and that even though the ones we love may be gone they still live on in our hearts.
Was Sketchbook completely evil and manipulating the puppets to prevent them from being creative and intended for their Sanity Slippage to occur, or a misguided teacher with a strange view on creativity that was actually horrified by the Sanity Slippage?
Is Duck really afraid of insects, or was he suspecting Shrignold to be another teacher who would have ruined his chicken picnic?
Episode 6 raises more than a few questions about Roy—some may argue that it confirms that he's the true villain of the series, but as Yellow Guy starts to get more traumatized he starts to look more like his father, suggesting that something traumatic happened to make Roy the way he is now. This raises the very real possibility that Roy appearing to Red Guy may not have been a threat but instead trying to convince him to save Yellow Guy. The one snare to this interpretation would be an official interview with the characters released a month before the sixth installment in which Roy said this: "My silly boy has allowed his eyes to grow arrogant and rude, for this I will take him on a trip to punish land."
Another possible interpretation (brought up here) makes a case for Roy being a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who set up the lessons because he's just as messed up by the conditioning of the media as the students are.
Of course, it's also possible that Red Guy's messing with the machine had caused it to break down- the teachers continued to rapidly change and glitch even when Red was no longer at the control panel- and Roy was simply having Red Guy hard reset the machine to fix the issue... and continue the program from the beginning, as the Here We Go Again! nature of the ending suggests.
MatPat'stake on the series, which has gotten a lot of play in the fandom, reads the "Red Guy in reality" scenes from Episode 6 as a flashback providing the backstory of the "show" that the three puppets are on. According to this reading, Red Guy is the show's creator and Roy represents his sponsor, who put the show on the air only to corrupt it withhis own agenda. Accepting this theory changes Red Guy from a bored, passive victim to a passionate and creative individual trapped in a Deal with the Devil, who inadvertently authored the misery of his two friends.
This theory paints some aspects of the series in a bit of a different light. Long story short, it suggests that the entire series is an allegory for growing up, and it's Red Guy eventually letting go of childish things to finally become an adult (with Roy actually being the Big Good in a sense, arguing, in the end, he was trying to metaphorically reach out to Red Guy, and was pointing at the plug so Red Guy could "pull the plug" on clinging on to his childhood, and grow up). This opens up a new can of worms as to whether Roy was real or not in any way given his appearance at the bar Red Guy was performing at, and if he's possibly the real Yellow Guy all grown up who was simply cast as Yellow Guy's father in the dream world.
One fan theorizes that the Healthy Band was slapped together by Roy at the last minute because they just desperately needed to impede Yellow Guy and Duck's independent thought as quickly as possible. The rather wonky designs of the Band and their very slapdash song are used as evidence for this.
In the TV series, the final scene of Season 1. Does Yellow Guy shred the paper because the removal of his batteries reduced him back to his previously established dumb self? Or is he still cognizant enough to understand what the book holds inside, and is willing to sacrifice it just so he can have his old friends back? Or does he realize that whatever is in the book may be too awful for the three of them to bear?
What are Lesley's motivations, and how much control does she have over the friends and their house? Is she completely omnipotent, and Yellow's intelligence/return to stupidity was planned on her part for some reason? Or was she tying up loose ends by sending Yellow back to the notoriously selfish Duck, ensuring the book of forbidden knowledge got shredded by the re-dumbed down Yellow?
Did Lesley create the teachers, or is she just a very powerful one herself? She's the most realistic person in the series and exerts control over the house via her model, but the stitches in her face and the stairs leading up from her room suggest that something or someone else created her in a similar way.
Is Briefcase really the younger brother of Unemployed Brendon? Or is he just stroking his ego by blatantly lying about his age? The theme of the episode is doing a job you hate for the sake of money versus taking a risk and doing a job you're genuinely passionate about, and Briefcase might be using his brother's dreams of being a writer to boost his ego and call his brother a loser for following his dream.
When Roy shows up at the end of "Family", is he enacting a Villainous Rescue for his son, or is he just there because he's hungry and saving his son is an unexpected side effect? Also, while he's definitely there to eat, does he eat the family, or just tear them apart so he can get their bucket of fried chicken all to himself?
The reason Warren calls himself an eagle. Does he truly believe he is an eagle? Or is he just trying to distance himself of his actual species out of self-disgust or because people wouldn't take him seriously otherwise? It's also possible he changed his name to evade the law for whatever he did in his last job, especially since he himself disclaims his current use of "Ok, Stop!" branding and technology is unauthorized and thus illegal.
Warren's character in general: tragic, sympathetic figure who simply lacks self-esteem and has No Social Skills or an egotistical manipulative Attention Whore with delusional ideas about what friendship means?
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.
"Goodbye", the beautifully melancholic ambient music that plays in the background as Red Guy descends his office stairs.
The first and sixth episodes' ending credits both end with an insane-sounding saxophone/clarinet solo that sounds like something off an album by David Bowie or Radiohead.
The opening to the TV series is an adorable and upbeat music-box theme with an unnerving and calming feeling mashed into one. It makes you feel that aside from the usual blood, gore and dollops of Surreal Horror, the puppets’ world underneath Lesley's control is gonna be a bit more easy to live with now.
"We Gotta Get Things Ready" is an upbeat and dissonant tune that got used for a teaser before the show came out. It almost makes you forget that they're preparing for a funeral.
We're Going Forward, the road trip song of the fifth episode of the TV series is fun and catchy.
The "Electricity" song in the sixth episode of the TV series deserves a special mention, complete with an epic instrumental outro courtesy of Electracey, Red Guy, and Duck.
Base-Breaking Character: The Brain Friends are rather divisive characters. Half of the fanbase likes them for being some of the only genuinely nice characters in the entire series, while the other half finds their designs to be too saccharine and accuse them of bringing "Friendship"'s pacing to a crawl. The only Brain Friend who doesn't have a noticeable hatedom is Shy Imaginary Older Brother, mainly due to him being less focused on and reviving an old idea from the cancelled original TV series.
The "fish everywhere" scene in the second. Particularly the point where a fish bone and blood inexplicably appears in Duck's glass of milk, which is never commented on and doesn't appear to have any symbolic significance. Though considering the state of the other two fish present, and that he's stabbing them with a fork, it's likely he was just messily eating them.
The "Time Child" scene in "Transport" is completely disconnected from the lesson they were supposed to learn in the episode and is bizarre and outlandish even by the standards of the series. Tropes Aren't Bad however, as many view the scene as absolutely hilarious.
Time Child:[grooving to techno] TIME CHILD! [single frame dancing] THE TIME CHILD! [more single frame dancing] HEY GUYS, DRINK THIS SPACE ALCOHOL AND COME WITH ME TO THE 6TH DIMENSION!
The Urinal in "Jobs" randomly jumping off the wall for a smoke break during Yellow Guy's monologue (with the scene actually changing to it away from Yellow Guy), having a support line phone call, then returning back to its spot. No context is ever given for what that was about.
As shown below, anthropomorphic fanart of Tony and Sketchbook has skyrocketed since the release of DHMIS2. Their most popular depictions show Sketchbook as a young woman in a frilly dress or artist's overalls and Tony as a young man in a suit. Others prefer to show them as a less traditional romantic couple, with variations on gender, sexuality, and occasionally body type. Ugly conflicts have arisen over this.
The gopher/dog thing in "Love" menacingly telling Yellow Guy to pet him harder in a hilariously dark menacing tone.
Yes, Yellow Guy's arm getting shredded off in "Jobs" is terrifiying. Yes, the co-workers treating it like a party and Red Guy trying to fix it by firing him makes it hilarious.
The trio violently fighting at the end of "Friendship" would be horrifying and depressing... if it weren't for the facts that 1) we have Red Guy and Yellow Guy, who when it was just the webseries we thought were calm and cutely innocent respectively, screaming and threatening each other in a way that makes it hilarious as it's just thrown out there, and 2) it just goes on and escalates offscreen as the credits roll with us hearing a random pig squealing, a machine gun, and what could very well be Red Guy pulling out a freaking chainsaw.
Red Guy is mostly headcanoned as autistic thanks to his monotone voice, inability to express his feelings (alexithymia is a common symptom of autism) or understand the feelings of others, and tendency to say whatever is on his mind, even if it might be hurtful.
Yellow Guy, thanks to being the ManchildCloud Cuckoo Lander, is often headcanoned as someone who is autistic, has ADHD or both. Worth noting that "Electricity" shows that his ditzy behavior is a result of bad batteries in him. That said, even after getting better batteries, he still shows traits of neurodivergence, like hyperfocusing on certain topics.
Warren the "eagle" is also thought by some people to be autistic because of his lack of social tact and other behaviors, like laughing when he's offended.
While somewhat justifiable with Sketchbook (they're more of an oblivious, hypocritical jerkass than downright evil), Tony as portrayed by the fandom certainly seems to lack his canon counterpart's power hunger and sadism. The villains of the later videos are much more repugnant and malicious and thus escape this treatment, although Colin the computer enjoys a Love to Hate status in the fandom.
This has become more common now that the TV series actually shows Tony and Colin being on seemingly friendly terms with the protagonists.
Also, Roy. While there is a good case to be built for him being as much a victim of the media as the main characters, this doesn't automatically absolve him of his villainy, namely perpetuating the dangerous aspects of the media and creating more victims of it.
Theories positioning the character as Good All Along also tend to pop up frequently, which has a bit more credibility to it given the revelations in the TV series, but still doesn't hold much water given the only canonical line of dialogue he really has doesn't paint him in a very positive light.
A sizable chunk of the fandom portrays all the "teacher" antagonists as sympathetic, with Roy's control being more or less responsible for the results of their "lessons". In such imaginings, one or more of the teachers will often be cast as a protective parentor guardian to the main characters.
Warren the Eagle is viewed by some of the fandom as a misunderstood Jerk with a Heart of Gold who just needed friends to make him a better person. A lot of them also point out how he rather accurately called out Red Guy and Duck for bullying Yellow Guy, something that only gets worse in future episodes. On the other hand, he's also a transparently hypocritical Jerkass who immediately drives out the first social group that was actually willing to give him a shot (the Brain Friends).
Ever since his debut in Episode 2, Tony the Talking Clock has become a very popular villain, and even a Draco in Leather Pants (see above).
Gilbert the Globe has become this after Becky teased at his existence before Episode 4 came out. Many fans were disappointed that he didn't actually get more than a few seconds of screentime.
Out of all the Unused Teachers in DHMIS 6, the Saxophone is by far the most popular, if not just because of his cool design and his memeticNon Sequitur.
Grolton and Hovris quickly gained a lot of fans, not only for the unique concept of being a Show Within a Show, but also for being a cheeky parody of Wallace & Gromit. Fans also got a kick out of the Running Gag of Yellow Guy thinking Hovris is the man and Grolton is the dog, when it's the other way around.
Time Child from "Transportation" for his random and humorous non-sequitur, interesting design, and his awesome theme song.
Electracey the Meter from "Electricity" is also well liked by fans due to her being one of the kindest and non villainous or mean teachers and the only one of them in the TV series to survive in the end.
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: One idea of the TV series suggests that it is actually about Gnosticism. According to Gnosticism, an imposter god created the physical world and deliberately made their creation mindless until they were granted hidden knowledge by higher beings. In the TV series, Lesley appears to have a bit of control over the puppets and their world, and appears to want to keep the Yellow Guy and the others in the dark about their existence. In that sense, Becky and Joe would be the true gods who exist several stairs past the attic.
The 40-year Time Skip that happens in Episode 1 of the TV series has been ripe for much fan theories, including Yellow Guy and Red Guy's lives outside of the workplace, and the life Yellow Guy ended up leading with Claire and Janet.
For the various teachers we see in Episode 6 of the webseries as Red Guy messes with the machine, how would their lessons have gone and what would have happened?
Meanwhile, the three main puppets are often referred to by fans as Harry (Red Guy), Robin (Duck), and Manny (Yellow Guy).
Before Shrignold's name was confirmed by the creators, fans often called him "Benny" (since it has the same first letter as "butterfly") or "Pesky Bee" (or just "Pesky").
The same happened with Colin. Before his name was confirmed, people called him "Clever" or "Computery Guy" (in reference to certain lines from his song).
Fans have taken to calling Red Guy "Alfred" or "Fred" after a misheard line of dialogue spoken by the microphone in "Dreams" ("Don't stop now, friend"). "Drew" or "Dreads" are also common names, both of which are based off of the one syllable of his name he's able to get out before Colin interrupts him in "Computers".
"Birdman" or "Green Guy" for Duck before his species was confirmed. Even "Duck Guy" might not be canon; the actor who played his hologram form in "Computers" referred to him as such on Instagram, but subsequent official material has simply used "Duck".
"French Fry Child" for Yellow Guy.
Due to a goofy spelling of "Day" on a Valentine's Day post from Becky that featured the Yellow Guy and the Special One, people have also taken a liking to calling Yellow Guy "Doi".
The three main puppets are collectively known as the "Traffic Light Trio" due to their colors.
"Larry" for the Lamp.
The cut of meat in "Health" is frequently called "Steak Guy", even though he is a lamb chop.
While Word of God states that Sketchbook's gender is "paper", most fans see Sketchbook as female and have even given them the name "Paige". The three main characters also have more traditional fanon names ("Manny" for Yellow Guy, "Harry" for Red Guy, and "Robin" for Duck), which are usually used for fanmade humanized versions of them.
First Installment Wins: The first episode is by far the most iconic and most viewed video of the series. The second one is also famous for introducing Tony the Talking Clock. Later episodes have less views due to developing more of a continuous story arc, making them harder to understand if you haven't seen the previous episodes.
Friendly Fandoms: Fans of the series naturally latched on to Welcome Home (Clown Illustrations), as both series feature a puppet show that isn't all what it seems to be on the surface. Even comparisons have been made between Wally Darling and Yellow Guy, since both are yellow puppets with blue hair.
Harsher in Hindsight: A lot of moments in the first four videos feel this way if you know that Duck is going to be kidnapped and eaten. He spells out "DEATH" during the creative montage in "Creativity", his aging is the goriest out of the trio's in "Time", he's eating raw chicken in "Love", and in "Computers", he gives his home address to a total stranger, and his reflection in the digital world at one point looks like it's decaying and makes the sound of a carrion crow.
He Really Can Act: Joe Pelling, who since the beginning has been voicing Red Guy in an almost unchanging comedic monotone, surprised a few people in "Transport" when Red Guy starts desperately yelling at Choo Choo about how he doesn't want to go back to the house where he and his friends are constantly going through torture, as his performance sounds genuinely panicked and fed up with everything.
Ho Yay: During the blackout on Episode 6 of the TV series, Red Guy laments that he can't look at Duck's face anymore and confesses that he likes looking at him. Duck replies saying that he likes looking at Red Guy too.
The death of Duck was predicted on our very own WMG page a bit before "Health" came out.
Roy being behind everything was also predicted long before "Dreams" came out.
A few fans also predicted that the puppets were trapped in a simulation before it was revealed in the series.
It Was His Sled: Nowadays, there are fewer people watching Don't Hug Me I'm Scared for the first time not knowing that it's a Subverted Kids' Show. This Is It didn't make it a twist in the later episodes, instead realizing that the viewers would expect it and including scary elements without making it seem like a surprise. Likewise, the show instead focuses on being a Black Comedy and post-modern Mind Screw story.
Red Guy is the most rude of the trio in the web series, but he also seems to be the most aware of them being trapped in the nightmare world. He manages to escape in "Computers", only to fail to get his friends out, and in the TV series he has a panic attack trying to escape the house.
Warren the Eagle is an overbearing, inconsiderate jerk who doesn't even realize it, but he is genuinely lonely and wants to make friends. When the main trio start calling him ugly and weird looking, it really gets under his skin, implying that this has happened before.
LGBT Fanbase: The show is rather popular with LGBT audiences, since the criticism of children's media resonates deeply with older LGBT fans; "Love" in particular was seen as a thrashing of homophobic religion. In the TV series, Duck and Red Guy also tend to bicker like a married couple and even share a tender moment in "Electricity".
The series is left intentionally ambiguous and open-ended for fans to debate and theorize what its meaning really is. Becky and Joe even confirm this somewhat in an interview by saying that all the fan theories are correct. Despite this, there's a subset of fans that treats the "media theory" as if it's the only correct way to interpret the show.
More minor example: many fans now use "X is not a creative color" to condemn media they feel is uncreative. However, in context, Sketchbook is wrong; the protagonists are being plenty creative, and she is stifling them according to arbitrary standards, meaning that this is not a good way to critique uncreative media.
Stain Edwards, the Forever Boy. While at first being an unintelligible abomination, he quickly develops into a Cheerful Child with an optimistic worldview who desperately wants to befriend Yellow Guy and Red Guy. It also helps that he has a wonderful singing voice and is by far the most "normal" character personality-wise.
Electracey tends to be viewed in this light more than the other teachers. It likely has to do with her genuinely sweet and non-malicious personality, as well as her endearing voice, song, and design.
Roy is revealed to have crossed this throughout the entire series in "Dreams", doing it by creating a Lotus-Eater Machine to torture the trio, his son included, using teachers that slowly rot them alive, trap them in a digital world, trick one of them into eating the other, and start drowning them in oil.
Sketchbook's singing. Any of the teachers' singing counts too, from Tony’s smooth voice, to Shrignold's soft soothing one, to Colin's finely auto tuned one. Except maybe the Healthy Band in 5, and most definitely the Lamp in 6.
A lot of people admitted to finding Red Guy's voice really pleasant to listen to because of how deep yet smooth and calm it is, especially his singing in "Memories" and "Worm in Your Brain". Even his sudden yelling is seen as endearing to many.
The glittered heart and organ cake in "Creativity".
"Time":
The dead fish, especially a close-up of Duck stabbing it with a fork and then Yellow Guy showing the bloody remains on his tray.
Everybody rotting alive.
The episode's end credits sequence, which depicts Yellow Guy's hair with actual live maggots crawling around through it.
"Love":
The bloody raw chickens and eggs. Thankfully, you don't actually get to see the characters eating them.
As well as the maggot that cracks out of the egg and gets squashed.
The Giant Can eating Duck's intestines in "Health", as well as Duck's mutilated remains at the end of the episode.
The TV series really ramps this up. Special mentions include Yellow Guy's welt, Yellow Guy losing his hand in the parts machine, Duck pissing himself in his coffin, the Family tearing into their chicken dinner, and worst of all, the Family Tree sucking up as much of Red Guy's blood as it can and the acid sequence that results.
And that's just half of the episodes from the TV series. Other honorable mentions go to Warren's grotesque final form, Choo Choo's oily drink which he constantly vomits and leaks when he is sick, and Yellow Guy's rotten meat-covered batteries.
The main ships are Fluffybird (Red Guy/Duck), Digital Time (Colin/Tony) and possibly Paper Can (Sketchbook/Spinach Can).
Padding: The main criticism of the 4th episode "Friendship." Many criticize it for basically being a pointless Filler episode of the worst variety; too many scenes of nothing but the characters talking, scenes dragging on for too long, and overall the slow pacing in general. Even the Brain Friends segment, while being interesting in concept, is botched by the slow pacing, taking up far too much of the episode, and again being filled with little but characters just rambling on and on.
Play-Along Meme: Whenever somebody refers to Warren as a "worm", there tends to be someone who jumps in and corrects them that he's an eagle, thank you very much.
Portmanteau Couple Name: "Padlock" for Sketchbook/Tony, which has gained popularity on sites like Tumblr, is a pun on Sketchbook's Fan Nickname of "Notepad" and the word "Clock" on Tony's part.
Most of the "teachers" seem to represent a different form of harm that adult authority figures can inflict on the children they have power over and who patronize them if they refuse to submit to it. While Sketchbook stifling Yellow Guy's creativity by punishing him for making art "the wrong way" and the Healthy Band chastisizing Duck Guy by putting a subtle pressure on him before the infamous gory part following his breakdown are clear examples, Shrignold is more malicious: while they're not as graphically violent as the others (except if you believe in the rape theory), they're a cult leader who employ love bombing to gain followers, and like many love bombers, the line is vague between an interested scam and a sincere but twisted belief that love can solve anything.
Warren the Eagle, the teacher for "Friendship". Unlike the fantastical sources of horror that a lot of the teachers provide, Warren represents something far more down-to-earth: an incredibly annoying and needy friend who has no regard for anybody else in his life but refuses to leave you alone.
Ron the Death Eater: In an odd contrast to the Draco in Leather Pants examples cited above, it's increasingly common for both Tony and Sketchbook to be depicted as full-on psychopaths rather than the just mildly creepy and morally ambiguous characters they are in canon (at least when they aren't being shipped together—and sometimes even when they are).
Saved by the Fans: Literally! The premise of the Kickstarter was that the puppets from the shorts were being held hostage, and if the Kickstarter for the series wasn't successfully funded, they would have been Killed Off for Real. (Un)Fortunately, it was!
Ships That Pass in the Night: Sketchbook/Tony is getting pretty popular despite the fact that they only appear in two videos, separately, with Sketchbook only making a brief, non-speaking cameo in the second one where the latter was introduced.
Lesley and Roy never interact, but their mutual status as powerful beings of unspecified horror with a connection to Yellow Guy makes them a popular ship nonetheless.
In "TIME", when the wind blows Red Guy's head fur, the performer's chin and beard can be seen underneath.
In the fourth episode, right as Red's head explodes, the balloon full of glitter they used to accomplish this effect can very briefly be seen.
In DHMIS 6, during the scene of the Document switching over to the Traffic Light, while every prior transition is indicated by a pink flash, there's none to be seen in this one.
Spiritual Successor: Of Wonder Showzen, to the point where some fans were hopeful that Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared was a pilot for a reboot of the series (the two are completely unrelated). As MTV2 has changed its format dramatically since showing Wonder Showzen, it's unlikely that the show will ever be revived. This will probably be the closest thing the fans get.
Stoic Woobie: Red Guy, by virtue of the fact that he's the show's Only Sane Man, is extremely pitiable. From the outset, he always puts his friends' needs first, but only does so in vain as they get swept up in a "lesson" of the day, causing his friends severe psychological trauma. Come "Computers", and he manages to find a way out of the simulation and into the real world, but ends up leaving his friends behind as a result. He spends the entirety of "Health" trying to call them in order to help them escape, but this ends up resulting in Duck being murdered, and he ends up being unsuccessful in trying to free them. "Dreams" shows Red Guy feeling nostalgic for his time in the nightmare world, if only because he misses his friends, causing him to be outcast by the world filled with emotionless people like him, and once he sees for himself what's become of his friends, he tries once and for all to end their suffering by pulling the plug on the simulation. Red Guy never once complains or raises his voice towards any of the disturbing occurrences surrounding him, and yet he ultimately lives a sad, empathetic life.
Duck's song about his shredder has a very similar rhythm to the chorus of "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit.
Sweet Dreams Fuel: Besides Duck's one line of Black Comedy and the Aesop being undone by the ensuing brawl, "Worm in Your Brain" is a surprisingly heartwarming song about not letting your insecurities get the best of you.
The three puppets are: a yellow humanoid with overalls and a mullet cut, a duck with a suit, and a Cthulhumanoid with spaghetti as a face and dull eyes. For some reason, they manage to be attaching.
Some teachers count as well: Shrignold may have a funny face, they're also a butterfly; Colin manages to be cute despite having square features; and even the Spinach Can's dorky looks have this effect too.
Warren from the TV show. He is deliberately designed to be a Gonk with blemishes covering his body, bulging eyes and messy teeth and the main trio + Colin make multiple insults about his appearance. Despite that, there are some fans out there who think he is oddly endearing, thanks to his pathetic and tragic existence and a somewhat cute voice; even the aformentioned eyes and teeth are seen as more cute than anything to some. That said, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who finds his true form"cute" in any way.
Unconventional Learning Experience: Tony's line "The past is far behind us, the future doesn't exist," has a much less sinister meaning on closer examination—it basically means to live in the moment. It also means that you shouldn't worry about the things you did in the past. If it didn't hurt anyone, then you no longer need to worry about it.
Warren the Eagle is intended to be a Hate Sink and a hypocriticalJerkass who only talks about himself, but one might feel a little sorry for him considering that all he truly wants is to have friends he can hang out with, even if he admittedly goes too far with it. And despite being extremely insensitive towards the trio, it can come across as him being ignorant than out of any sort of malice. It doesn't help that the trio's insults about his appearance genuinely upsets him and can feel rather unwarranted.
The twins and their family, despite being creepy kidnappers, can come across as a bit more sympathetic with the implications that they're living in poverty and have nobody to take care of them since their mother died or otherwise left the picture. Their father clearly can't provide for them since he has the appearance and mentality of a small child, hence their desperate plan to get Yellow Guy to be their "new" mother so they can take advantage of Grolton's family discount. The way they ravenously devour the meal once it arrives definitely seems to indicate this is the first time in a long time that they've had a decent family dinner.
Unpopular Popular Character: Warren the Eagle is a pathetic worm (despite his insistence that he is an eagle) who has no friends, easily the least-respected teacher the trio meets, is ruthlessly mocked and made fun of by almost everyone, and his character design is pure Gonk. Despite that, fans love him for those same reasons, as he stood out as the most hilarious teacher who does not go Out of Focus like most of the other teachers in the TV series.
Viewer Species Confusion: Some people mistook Duck for a crow. The fact that he refers himself as a "talking crow-like thing" in one of the Couch Gags in the TV series, as much as it fits with the series' nature, could also be a reference to this.
Yellow Guy, the youngest and dimmest of the three puppets, who's always being picked on by the antagonists. It's especially bad in "Creativity", as Yellow Guy seems to be the puppet who's most interested in "getting creative", only to be shot down by Sketchbook any time he tries. It gets even worse in "Health", where he's fed his best friend's organs. He just sits there, in revelation that both of his best friends are now gone. And now he's there. All alone...
By the time "Dreams" comes along, he's very miserable about losing his friends, and once the Lamp comes to life, he immediately dismisses it, only to get dragged into a song about dreams despite his pleas, and by the time Red Guy gets a hold of the controls to try to save him, he inadvertently winds up switching the Lamp from familiar teachers, to Duck, to new teachers with Yellow Guy having to endure a seemingly endless nightmare which eventually would have made him slowly decay into what his father looks like had Red guy not pulled the plug.
Tony is getting this treatment from the fandom in light of the Kickstarter videos (as is Roy, to a certain extent).
Michael in the third video, whose story reveals that he was ostracised by the other villagers and went to live on his own underground. To make things worse, his tale is being used by cultists in order to justify their crazy ways. To be even more depressed, see the Fridge page on it.
Duck by "Health". "Computers" hints that he's aware that the videos are linked, and "Health" fully establishes this by him being terrified during the entire video, knowing that something horrible is about to happen, which eventually gets to the point of him pleading for it all to stop right before he gets his organs eaten and killed.
In the TV series, the Old Train is shown to be very ill while singing his song and even struggles to get through saying not to worry about it when asked if he's okay, but he winds up passing out seemingly dead before the song can finish.
) makes a case for Roy being a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who set up the lessons because he's just as messed up by the conditioning of the media as the students are.