The disturbing adventures aren’t over just yet
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared writers Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling, who created the series alongside Baker Terry, have revealed that they actually had to ‘reign in’ some of the ‘grim scenes’, as gory as the show may be.
For those who may not be familiar, the Channel 4 series originally came to life back in 2011, when the first episode of DHMIS hit YouTube and quickly became a phenomenon.
The sinister parody of children’s educational TV shows featured a singing notebook teaching some puppets how to be more creative, giving us the iconic line: ‘Green is not a creative colour.’
Since then, we’ve come a long way, but the dark humor has remained the same.
There’s talking briefcases, flashbacks, petrol-guzzling come-to-life cars, being buried alive, and mysterious (while often deeply dark) messages on friendship, depression and death.
The series, amusing yet wildly disturbing at the same time, has gained popularity since hitting Channel 4, despite the unsettling scenes.
Baker (L), Becky and Joe (R) created the phenomenon (Picture: Ray Burmiston/Channel 4)
Red Guy, Yellow Guy And Duck first hit screens in 2011
But, as Becky and Joe admitted, they actually had to ‘reign it in’.
Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, Joe shared: ‘I guess there’s some stuff which – where sometimes [after] we even shoot it – we’re like, “This is too grim or too bleak.”
‘And it feels like unnecessary shock humor that doesn’t feel relevant to the story, or it feels like it’s deliberately pushing people’s buttons, and we’re not really interested in doing that.
‘The shock needs to feel integral to the story.’
Becky recalled one sketch which involved the characters cooking a shepherd’s pie, in the episode titled Death.
‘We dressed the set to look like they’d made a mess but the set ended up looking like it was covered in fake meat and blood splats and stuff.
‘We’d just gotten carried away with making it really gory but then it just looked like there had been a massacre on the set, like a murder.
‘We were like, “That’s not really what the gag is here,” so we had to remove all the raw meat and blood and just reign it in a bit.’
The series features episodes on Death, Friendship and even Electricity
The gore had to be reigned in
She added: ‘We’re constantly questioning stuff on set and making decisions about [whether] this is the right way to go on this scene or this shot.
‘Sometimes you need more gore because it’s not shocking enough, and sometimes it’s about reigning it in.’
Becky added that it was less about going for a ‘horror film’ trope, and more about ‘an unsettling feeling that you can’t quite put your finger on.’
There’s ‘unfinished business’!
The puppets are a parody of children’s TV shows
When asked if they had plans for a second season or future episodes, Joe admitted that while at the moment, ‘we’re in between thinking about it,’ there were definitely ideas in the works.
‘I don’t think this would be the end,’ he added, continuing: ‘If we didn’t do a second series, we’d probably find something else to do with these characters.
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‘There’s a lot of fun to be had with him.’
Becky quipped: ‘Unfinished business!
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is available to watch on All 4.
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Some scenes were considered ‘too bleak or too grim’.
