What's your favorite idea? Mine is being creative!

July 29, 2022 11:31 PM

[warning: some viewers may find disturbing, but not be able to turn away. See Wikipedia article for more.] Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared is coming to Channel 4 (UK) some time in September 2022. Teaser: FLY! Pesky Twitter.
posted by not_on_display (14 comments total)

Green is not a creative color!
posted by boilermonster at 11:58 PM on July 29, 2022 [7 favorites]

The first Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is one of the few times I've seen going dark for the punchline as the perfect creative move rather than because the creator couldn't think of a punchline. (In large part it's because going dark isn't the punchline.) I haven't actually watched any others, in case the follow-ups just lean into 'dark = funny'.

Seeing that teaser, and seeing that it got picked up by Channel 4, was genuinely surprising. I have no idea how this thing fits into a broadcast television show.
posted by Merus at 1:19 AM on July 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Looks like it's June 19th again.
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 2:01 AM on July 30, 2022 [3 favorites]

What a fantastically creative group of people. I've loved everything they've done.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:15 AM on July 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

When I watched these at XOXO, I was struck by how the creators seemed tremendously pleased with themselves for making something edgy. Several people walked out of the showing.
posted by scruss at 6:13 AM on July 30, 2022

Maybe it made their teeth go grey!
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:42 AM on July 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

The previous episodes of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared have been posted to Metafilter before, the first one in 2011. So, this has been 11 years in the making.
posted by JHarris at 7:53 AM on July 30, 2022

somehow I missed these over the last ten years of MetaFilter, now I've watched them all in one sitting and I have to go wash my brain now

(until the water turns brown)
posted by daisystomper at 8:42 AM on July 30, 2022 [2 favorites]

I thought we all agreed to never be creative again.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:04 PM on July 30, 2022 [6 favorites]

>I haven't actually watched any others, in case the follow-ups just lean into 'dark = funny'.

It's been a while since I've watched them, but my impression is that they do not. My worry was that the additional ones were trying to follow something that should have been left as a one-off, but I ended up thinking they were all very good, with hardly any welcome-wearing-out at all.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 3:33 PM on July 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

God, 2011? We were so young.

Given all that's happened since then I think my tolerance for Unbearable Sadness+ Body Horror using kid show tropes may have gone down by a lot.
posted by emjaybee at 10:42 PM on July 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Flashbacks to any of a number of Wonder Showzen episodes.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:32 AM on July 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

It very much sounds like this belongs in the same playlist as The Shivering Truth, which I believe was recently not renewed after 2 seasons.
posted by neuracnu at 9:34 AM on July 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

When I watched these at XOXO, I was struck by how the creators seemed tremendously pleased with themselves for making something edgy. Several people walked out of the showing.

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is practically textbook not for everyone material, but this makes me think your interpretation of their ostensible goals in making these differs from mine quite a lot. When I watched these at XOXO I found them bracing and revelatory, and the creators humble and unmistakably quite fuckin anxious about being on stage, not at all what I would have described as 'pleased with themselves for making something edgy'.

Me, I'd have to go pretty far down the edgy for edgy's sake list, well past Happy Tree Friends and their endless ilk, before leveling that charge at something that felt as uncomfortably but personally resonant as Sloan and Pelling's work does in ways that are hard to put to words. That is to say, I think there's infinite ways to be "edgy" that require a hell of a lot less effort than what they do with DHMIS if edgy were their creative lodestar. So that's why this take feels kinda reductive.

I also walked into and out of any number of presentations throughout XOXO for a variety of reasons, including realizing something was not my particular cup of tea, which is fine! You know, let a thousand flowers bloom! There's a lot of interesting and challenging stuff I personally can't get any traction with for one reason or another but I'm glad folks are out there making it--if I liked every single thing I saw at XOXO I'd be mad at the organizers for their lack of ambition.
posted by churl at 5:34 PM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]