Still from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. (Picture: beckyandjoes.com)

You’ll know about it if you’ve seen Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. It’s not something you forget in a hurry.

The first episode of DHMIS appeared online in 2011. A spoof of educational children’s TV shows, it featured a singing notebook dispensing advice on how to be more creative to some bemused puppets.

However, the cheerful sounding set-up takes a sinister turn halfway through and, without giving too much away, the Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared universe is a dark, dark place. It’s often disturbing and certainly not for kids.

It’s also really funny.




The fifth installment in the Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared series was released earlier this month, so we got in touch with creators Becky Sloan & Joseph Pelling to find out a little more about them and their work.

– How did you two come to work together?

BECKY: We met at University where I studied Fine Art and Joe did animation and we ended up getting a studio together with our friends after we graduated. I think we decided to start working together more and more since we shared the same sense of humour and were very bored with our day jobs. The first episode of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was something we did in our free time; now it’s sort of taken over.

– Could you give a brief introduction to Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared 5, for anyone who’s new to your work?

JOE: Well, its a puppet show but with a fun educational message! In the fifth installment the characters learn all about the food groups, and how to stay healthy by eating simple plain foods like white sauce and aspic. They also eat each other.

– When you were making the first DHMIS, did you anticipate that it was going to be the first in a series?

JOE: Sort of. When we made the first episode we did talk about making a bunch of them with each episode focusing on a different subject. But making it by ourselves with no budget was pretty exhausting so we dropped the idea of doing any more. It wasn’t until the film picked up some success at festivals and took off online that we came back to the idea of developing the show into a series.

The making of DHMIS5 (Photo: beckyandjoes.com)

– Could you tell us a bit about the process of making them? How long has each episode taken to produce?

BECKY: It always begins with us having a egg buffet and then we start to brainstorm ideas and draft out a script. We write with our friend Baker Terry and between us we all do the voices of the cartoons so we can start recording the song early on and see if it works. Each episode takes between 3-5 months to make and A LOT of felt and or-gans. Luckily we work with an amazing production company called Blink Industries and a creative team that put up with the smell of raw meat to make the show, we really couldn’t do it without them!



– How many more episodes are there going to be?

BECKY: At least one more. Episode six will finish off this series and then we might do some more but we also might not, we just can’t decide.

– Are you likely to be making more music videos after your promos for Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra?

JOE: Yes, we’d love to make another music video at some point. The videos we have made in the past have always been very fun and creatively rewarding projects and we’ve sort of moved into making more narrative work with DHMIS but we’re always open to working with another band on a promo, if they’ll have us.

The making of DHMIS5 (Photo: beckyandjoes.com)

– If you each had to pick one music video as your favourite of all time, which would it be?

JOE: I can never really answer this question as there are so many good ones, but I never get tired of Spike Jonze’s dancing in his video for Praise You.

BECKY: This is a tough one; I guess the music video that always pops into my head is Peter Gabriel – Sledge Hammer because I remember seeing it when i was young and thinking it was done with magic.

– DHMIS has a healthy online fandom – have you read any of the fan theories about the series? If so, have any interpretations taken you by surprise?

BECKY: We have read a lot of theories online about what it all means and they are all correct.


– We understand there are some people out there with Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared tattoos. What’s the best fan tribute you’ve seen?

BECKY: I think people getting a DHMIS tattoo is the biggest tribute I’ve seen! That really made my day. I am always so impressed with how CrEaTivE our fans are – making costumes, club remixes of the songs, humanising the characters and making them have ‘romances’ with each other… which is a little odd.

Also when we were doing our kickstarter campaign a kid made a false account and pledged £40,000 using credit card details he found on some dodgy website. Thats was insane! It put us over our target and I almost had a heart attack when I saw it. Then we realised this was a bit of a problem and it wasn’t so fun. Nice to think that a kid would do that to save some puppets!

So me and my sister got these tattoo's during the weekend. Mine is the yellow guy. @BeckyBocka @japelling pic.twitter.com/gXojUeFry1 — Dylan Chilton (@DilChilton) May 11, 2015

– It’s probably fair to say that DHMIS won’t be to everybody’s tastes. Have you had any negative responses?

JOE: Most people are pretty nice to us about it, either that or politely confused. But occasionaly someone will tell us that we’ve traumatised their child after they showed them an episode thinking it was a conventional kids show, which always makes me chuckle. We also get a lot of people just asking ‘why have you made this? and what is this for?’ which is probably the worst response for us.

– When DHMIS reaches a conclusion, what’s next for you?


JOE: We don’t really know. We’re very keen to try making something longer, but we’ve also talked a lot about making something like a musical. Or maybe its back to the call centre for me?

BECKY: MUSICAL! ….or maybe it’s back to waitressing?

Further reading

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