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Trivia / Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

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  • Acting for Two:
    • Baker Terry voices not only Yellow Guy and Duck, but also many of the teachers (Tony the Clock, Shrignold, Lamb Chop, Lamp, Briefcase, etc.).
    • Joe Pelling voices both Red Guy and Colin the Computer.
  • Creator Backlash: Becky and Joe were ultimately unhappy with how the original pilot episode for the TV series turned out, believing it to be too much of an Author Tract and noting the rather lukewarm reception it got when screened at the Sundance Film Festival. As such, the "Wakey Wakey" trailer was delisted from the YouTube channel, and the pilot was scrapped and reworked from scratch, resulting in the finalized TV series that actually aired on television. "Transport" even includes an implicit Take That! at the pilot, saying that Clayhill, the location where the pilot took place, disappeared from existence without a trace.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices:
    • While most inanimate objects are ambiguous in their gender, the TV series' Unemployed Brendan, whose name is masculine, is voiced by co-creator Becky Sloan.
    • James Stevenson Bretton voices Lily like he voices her brother Todney.
  • Defictionalization:
  • Distanced from Current Events: The TV series was meant to premiere on September 12, 2022, but was later rescheduled to premiere eleven days later on account of Elizabeth II's death.
  • In Memoriam: "Computers" was dedicated to Julie Crosbie.
  • Irony As He Is Cast: Joe Pelling, musician and co-creator of the show, provides the soundtracks for each episode. The character he voices, Red Guy (and his many brethren) never sings on key and is revealed to be a Dreadful Musician in "Dreams". Downplayed in that Red Guy does sing with more inflection and passion in the actual TV show proper.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: The TV pilot was only shown at a film festival, and has yet to resurface in full. At a panel that one of the show’s producers attended, when the producer was asked if the pilot would ever be released to the public, he responded “Maybe someday, but Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling don’t want to [release it] at the moment”, confirming its status as being disowned by the creators.
  • Meaningful Release Date: The finale of the web series was released on, you guessed it, June 19th. The same goes for the release date trailer for the TV series, which dropped on the same day in 2022.
  • Missing Episode:
    • "Help #3", in which the Money Man puts bloody pieces of the puppets into a manila bag to promote the Kickstarter, has been removed from the DHMIS Channel on Youtube. However, it has been uploaded on Youtube by another user, albeit with added subtitles for a different language.
      • It can be seen, in its entirety, HERE.
    • The Kickstarter video has also been removed from Youtube, though is still viewable on the Kickstarter itself.
    • The "Wakey Wakey" teaser was privated soon after the release of the "Fly" trailer.
  • No Budget: The first episode of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared was done in Becky and Joe's spare time, and it shows, with the puppets looking more primitive and the short taking place mostly in one room. This stopped being the case with later installments, with "Time" commissioned by Channel 4, and the rest of the series being made with donated Kickstarter money.
  • Release Date Change: The series premiere of the TV series was pushed back to September 23, 2022, from its original date of September 12.
  • Serendipity Writes the Plot: In "Dreams", Colin appears only in his digital form and not as a puppet. This was because his puppet was damaged during the scene just before he takes the puppets to his digital world in his episode. This also explains why he was given a new model when he reappeared in "Friendship".
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: Briefcase's song about finding a job actually sounds very similar to the chorus of "Country House" by Blur
  • Teasing Creator: In "Computers", the puppets are asked by Colin what their names are and where they live. Duck answers "my house" and Red Guy gets interrupted just before he can say his name. Similarly, in “Friendship”, when the guys can’t can’t remember the password to their computer, they try their own names but when the camera pans over to the keyboard as Red Guy types, none of the keys are letters. And, in “Death”, Duck’s gravestone says “David” on it, but it’s revealed that that isn’t Duck’s name, it’s the gravestone’s.
  • Trolling Creator: The creators deliberately left out the prop of Choo Choo's car form in the wild and persuaded fans to find it in exchange for a prize. When one fan found it, co-creator Becky Sloan responded with "Congratulations! Your account is now blocked". She unblocked the account 10 minutes later and asked the fan to contact her for their prize, which turned out to be Red Guy's mask.
  • Uncredited Role: As of Series 1 of the TV series, the people behind the voices of the Monster Cans and the Fizzy Milk Jug have never been confirmed.
  • Unspecified Role Credit: The TV series lists the voice actors, but not the specific characters they have voiced.
  • What Could Have Been: After the second episode's success, there were some "mainstream" commissioners who were interested in helping produce more episodes of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. Becky and Joe turned them down, on the basis that they wanted to do the series with complete creative control. They eventually did end up producing a TV series version with a mainstream commissioner, but only after full control was guaranteed.

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