Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared: Wakey Wakey Plot Synopsis

Hello all! First of all, I would like to clarify that I took no videos or photos of the show itself. I have immense respect for the crew and their work. If you are going to the third showing, please also respect the crew and other filmmakers in this way.

!SPOILERS BELOW!

So here’s what happened from what I can remember off the top of my head. It was the second showing out of five. Some details may be off by a bit, but for the most part here’s the gist:

The episode opens with the door to the house with the colorful background (seen in the Wakey Wakey trailer), it appears to be all of the previous YouTube episodes playing at high speed. This serves as somewhat of an intro to the episode. The camera pans in on the door and it opens

The door opens to Yellow guy singing! He steps outside of the door and continues to sing (the song is Wakey Wakey!) It’s also his birthday! The ribbon he wears says “38 TODAY”.

They live in a community called Clay Hill, and have been there all their lives.

Duck opens the door and continues to sing, followed by Red. They announce that they sing the Wakey Wakey song every morning when they leave their funny house (followed by a cut to the house, which smiles)

We meet some neighbors: Big Ian (the puppet wearing the red and yellow striped shirt), and various other ones who I can’t remember. One baked pies that Red didn’t want Yellow to eat .. bc they were filled with guts per the usual. Others included a geometric blue thing, a policeman, and a ladder. Becky mentioned she made the ladder puppet because they had nothing on hand to say the lines for that character. (Source to be uploaded)

We continue on to the mayor’s office to keep the song going. But he won’t open the door! After a few prompts by the townsfolk we’ve met, Duck opens the door. Then the scene from the trailer unfolds.

Duck explores the office which is in shambles. There’s a miniature statue of Malcom here, notably. He finds the key on the floor and picks it up.

As Duck pockets the key, a title appears on screen: DON’T HUG ME, IM SCARED. The title cuts to the trio sitting at home, wondering what to do about the missing mayor Pigface.

Again, this was a scene shown in the trailer. The three argue briefly, Duck fantasizes about the bowling ball before removing the key from his pocket.

The key grows a face, then grows in size to become the character we’ve seen in the first trailer (I was right!!). He introduces himself as The Key To The City. The key goes on to sing a bit about the dangers of not having a mayor. He uses the word security quite a lot in this segment.

quite a lot in this segment. The key’s song is animated. Stylistically it resembles Steamboat Willie. Again, we saw a brief bit of it in the first trailer. He warns about strangers breaking into town and causing minor hassles. He also makes a few characters wet themselves (yellow, the policeman) and convinces Duck that there is a genuine threat to the town.

THE ONLY MENTION OF ROY I COULD FIND WAS DURING THIS SONG! The key mentions locking up valuables during his song. One valuable (it looked like a book?) has the word ROY on it and is shown for a very brief amount of time before it is locked into a chest.

Red interrupts the song (we return to puppets as animation) and mentions that there are some footprints leaving the town. They are the mayor’s footprints (they say ‘MAYOR’ on them) and he thinks they should investigate rather than worry. Instead, the townspeople and the Key decide to make Duck the mayor to avoid strangers in their town. Duck is immediately donned with a top hat that has an ‘M’ on it.

Key outfits Duck into the mayor’s office, and continues to warn him about the threats of strangers to the town’s security. Yellow also tags along here and brings up concerns about his birthday celebration. ( edit: the puppy in the acid did happen. Key deems yellow’s present as a threat to safety and swats it out of his hands into a convenient vat of acid )

) Yes, Duck fantasizes about the bowling ball here again. Let me spell this scene out clearly. While indicative of a penis joke, what is used as such is a very simple white flesh colored tube between his legs with what looked like a googly eye on the end. He pushes it back away and continues on with his mayoral duties. ( Mun note: this joke probably went over the heads of any younger audience members. It was very quick, and a very, very crude representation as opposed to something anatomically correct. This is all I have to say on the matter )

) The Key alerts Duck to the presence of strangers and has Duck look out the window with a telescope to a postbox. Pauline, or Paula the postbox ( mun note: I couldn’t quite make out which ) is reported by Duck to have lived in town all her life. Key denies this, takes the telescope while Duck isn’t looking and draws a face and something along the lines of a speech bubble saying “IM BAD” to fool Duck when he looks through the telescope again. He falls for it, and is further convinced that strangers are trying to break into the town.

) is reported by Duck to have lived in town all her life. Key denies this, takes the telescope while Duck isn’t looking and draws a face and something along the lines of a speech bubble saying “IM BAD” to fool Duck when he looks through the telescope again. He falls for it, and is further convinced that strangers are trying to break into the town. We cut to Red, looking for the Mayor in the woods. This was briefly shown in the first trailer. He comes across a fancy leather driving glove on a branch and mentions that it must belong to the mayor. Instead, a pile of mud, leaves, and sticks that the glove was on mentions that it is the owner. It calls itself a tree, and starts to sing. Red interrupts it several times and asks where the mayor went. It directs him and he goes on his way.

We cut to Yellow, who is sad that he cannot celebrate his birthday due to the mayor’s absence and Duck’s paranoia. He’s approached by the Milk Jug shown in a few promotionals. The Milk Jug takes about a 30 second rip on a vape with a yin yang ☯️ symbol on it and Yellow announces that he wants to be cool like him.

The Milk Jug gives him a jar of Fizzy Milk (boiled beef flavor) and it turns Yellow punk as he drinks it. (The character with pink hair is Yellow Guy after he turns punk). He defaces a poster of Duck promoting security with “THE MAYOR IS RUDE”. The Milk character then worries about vandalism and says he would rather be punk by drinking fizzy milk.

Mun note: I can’t remember the exact chronological order of events from here. Apologies if anything ends up being out of order…)

Duck implements a surveillance system in the homes of the residents. It is shown in the trailer as the object with the drill. It is introduced via informercial ( mun note: the informercial was really, really funny ), and the townspeople seem apprehensive.

), and the townspeople seem apprehensive. After being plugged into the surveillance network via cables running into his hat/head, Duck sees Yellow’s graffiti and is very upset that he was called rude. The Key also fabricates accounts of the townspeople saying mean things along the lines of “the mayor’s voice smells bad” and “the mayor should not touch the bowling ball” which infuriate Duck.

The surveillance system then extends a drill (again, seen in the trailer) that bores into the head of townspeople. They then become brainwashed to repeat what Duck says.

We cut again to Red, who finds Mayor Pigface in the woods with a few “friends” he’s constructed out of wood. They’re logs with faces drawn on them. He invites Red to have some soup, which looks like muddy water with leaves in it, and mentions that he is no longer the mayor and much prefers the woods.

Red argues this (and I know this is a strong word to describe this, but he did get rather fed up!) and mentions that “none of this is real”

After saying so, the camera cuts to a shot of Red in a real forest, nothing is made of felted objects. He looks around and makes a brief exclamation of confusion. There’s someone standing in the distance with what looked like a paper mâché head looking at him.

This shot ends quickly. Red looks around as Mayor Pigface continues to describe his life in the woods. Red ends up convincing him to go back to town by mentioning the Key that Duck found. Mayor Pigface says that that key is not the key to the city, and instead produces a golden key out of his pocket. This, he says, is the true key to the city.

Red and Mayor Pigface then rush back to town, and are met with the shot of the town taken over as shown in the trailer. The tower in town has been covered in screens and cameras, the gates to the town are closed with an angry looking lock. Mayor Pigface laments that they are too late, and are attempted to be brainwashed by a surveillance camera via drills. The two try to fight back.

The shot cuts to Yellow, who has entered the Mayor’s office. It is packed with a lot of surveillance equipment/computers/miscellaneous technology. This was another shot shown in the trailer. Notably, the Key has grown quite large and towers above Duck. His face is covered in what looks like circuit board motifs?

Yellow is approached by the Milk Jar who tries to dissuade him from attempting to disrupt duck’s brainwashing. Yellow does not listen and pushes the Milk Jug into some of the machinery.

This causes some milk to spill and disrupts Duck’s brainwashing. There is a montage of milk destroying his surveillance equipment and townspeople being freed. ( mun note: It is glorious and disgusting )

) The montage ends with Red and Mayor Pigface at the front gate, watching as the surveillance equipment breaks, and the key holding the gate closed breaks in two.

We then cut to a shot back at the house. Duck is just waking up and is a bit disoriented. He apologizes for what happened when he was mayor and Mayor Pigface responds by showing him the true key to the town. It also grows a face and briefly mentions the importance of free thought. The key that Duck found is actually named Mean Steve, as mentioned by the Mayor. ( edit: there’s a chance I could have heard this incorrectly. Please wait for confirmation to be absolutely sure. Regardless, it’s a hilarious name )

) The townspeople are also at the house, celebrating Yellow’s birthday. His ribbon now says “48 TODAY”

He opens his present, which is a bottle of Fizzy Milk. The townspeople mention how much they love Fizzy Milk and reference several other ridiculous boiled flavors. Red, Yellow, and Duck do not seem to understand the craze.

The final shot of the short is Duck watching a bottle of Fizzy Milk roll off the coffee table. This was shown in the first trailer. It falls to the floor, and breaks into tiny shards of green glass. This was the final shot in the episode!

REFERENCES / EASTER EGGS

There were some easter eggs, though not many that I was able to catch from one showing. Listed is everything that I noticed from previous episodes.