Cult Hit 'Don't Hug Me I’m Scared' Launches TV Series

Created by Blinkink’s Becky & Joe alongside long-time collaborator Baker Terry, and following on from the cult web phenomenon, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared the TV series has finally arrived. We rejoin Red Guy, Yellow Guy and Duck as they jump between funny, catchy singalongs, folk horror frenzies and existential wormholes across six half hour episodes. The series was developed and produced by long form division Blink Industries.

In each episode our friends embark on a journey of self discovery to learn about life, death, transport and everything in between. With longer runtimes, this new evolution of the enormously loved YouTube series sees the trio’s characters deeply explored, with new big life questions to answer.

It’s been a long road for the show’s creators. Bewildered by the attempts to teach 'creativity' at art school, Becky & Joe conceived a puppeteered musical centred around three characters and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was born. The original DHMIS YouTube episode - released in 2011 - caught Blink's attention and the company signed the duo to the roster. In the following years, Blink produced five more standalone episodes of DHMIS with Becky & Joe whilst also making TV commercials for brands like Trolli and St John’s Ambulance; music videos for bands like Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, as well as an episode of Cartoon Network’s The Amazing Adventures of Gumball.

As DHMIS has grown, the team has too. Becky, Joe and Baker continue to voice the majority of the characters and British comedians including Kevin Eldon, Jamie Demetriou, Lolly Adefope and Phil Wang join the gang to voice new characters. Sam Campbell - winner of this year’s Comedy Award at Edinburgh Fringe - and Natasha Hodgson were brought on board as series writers. Whilst Megan Ganz (of Community and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame) was our story editor.

What makes the Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared TV series extra special is the insane level of creativity the Blink team brought to the series which spans live-action, puppetry, stop motion, 2D animation and CG animation. Blinkink directors, Sam Gainsborough and Raman Djafari also lent a helping hand in this mixed media tour de force. Huge congratulations to the whole team for their amazing work and dedication over the last 2 years!

On the series, co-creator Joe Pelling had this to say: “Many many many people said we could not achieve anything with our lives. But we have made this TV show with the funny puppets now and I think that is enough to prove them all very wrong. Channel 4 have even told us they plan to remove all other shows from their platform because they like ours so much and our show will have special elite adverts at the break with luxury products for millionaires!”