2. Don’t Hug Me I’m
Scared (DHMIS)
• Context: Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is a web series created by Becky Sloan, Joe Pelling
and Baker Terry which is about three puppets in their house that get taught life lessons
by anthropomorphic objects and other sentient/intelligent beings, but this is all a cover
for morbid humor. DHMIS was made on YouTube in 2011 and consisted of six episodes
until 2016 when the creators ended it, they then sold out to an American company and
made a piolet for a new series called Wakey-Wakey in 2018 but they gave up on the
idea because it wasn’t like the original, they then sold out to Channel 4 in 2022 and
released a new series faithful to the original in late September.
• Style: On the surface, DHMIS looks like a friendly puppet show for kids that educates
them on life lessons in the most subtle way possible, its shown like this by having
everything made from confutable fabric with bright colours and all the characters have
the level intelligence of a 5-year-old, all of this is to look like a friendly style to kids.
Under the surface DHMIS is humor for adults with the show being dark and twisted
with everything turning into real world gritty things when the premise gets dark, the
puppets turn scary and a twisted event will happen like a child full of magnets would
get decapitated with a shovel, this makes the style turn into morbid humor.
• Techniques: The show is made very bright with everything in friendly bright colours,
but then everything would go dark and gritty when it goes into its dark themes. The
camera angles are straight most of the time, but when it goes into its dark themes it
likes to make the screen glitch and the camera work goes fast and shaky.
• How it links to my project: It links to my project in very slim ways by being a web-series
like how I plan to make my project a web-series. Also, it’s educational side which
covers dark subjects links to my project because my whole project will be educational
and covers dark subjects at times.
• Why I’ve looked at this: I’ve looked at this because this is one of the webs series I look
at frequently after I discovered it from looking at another YouTuber. Because I looked
at this frequently and saw it as a web-series that loosely links to my project idea that’s
why I decided to look at it again for this project.
• What I’ve learned from it: I’ve learned that you can have a deeper meaning hidden
under something completely different. The dark themes of this show hidden under
neath a children's learning cartoon has taught me to put the dark subjects of history
underneath the simple teaching part of my project idea.
Source: Don't Hug Me .I'm Scared - YouTube
3. Smosh
• Context: Smosh is a comedy web-series that follows the two founders/friends Ian
Hickox and Anthony Padilla doing random skits. They set up a website in the early
2000s to share funny videos with their friends, but then they posted a random video
on YouTube in 2005 which inspired them to make a full channel on YouTube, but from
2007 to 2008 their videos were too old and from 2009 to early 2014 they had a
golden age of making funny videos, but then they sold out to a company in late 2013
which caused them to slowly grow bad and doomed to fail even after the company
they sold out to went out of business, Anthony left because bringing in permanent
actors caused it to truly go down hill and now Ian is still trying to keep it going but is
just prolonging its misery.
• Style: Smosh always had a low budget in its early age and golden age with its style
just being two friends doing wakey stuff with simple effects and props but the
atmosphere from its humor made it truly warming and enjoyable. When they sold
out, their budget got bigger adding better props and better effects but at the cost of
the humor having to be more censored and cut down which just made everything
poring and pointless.
• Techniques: In the old days of Smosh everything was filmed with a handheld camera
which cause it to shake a lot and look amateur with simple digital effects on screen.
But in their doomed future the camera is held still with big budget digital effects, but
everything lacks any semblance of joy from the golden age.
• How it links to my project: This links to my project by being a web series like my
project and its low budget from the early days of their videos like how my project will
be. It also links to my project by being comedic which is how my project will end up
like every other project I made.
• Why I’ve looked at this: Smosh was a frequent channel I used to watch (sadly not in
their golden age) because this was a web-series I decided to look at this again for my
project. I only looked at the golden age of Smosh for this project because it contained
the best parts of a web-series to help me with this project.
• What I’ve learned from it: I’ve learned that ammeter filmmaking can still be
successful from the golden age of Smosh, and that humor is a part of film that can
make it successful. I’ll be fine with using my ammeter film making to film this project
but still try to make it professional like Smosh did and I’ll implement comedy into my
film because that can make my project more successful (but it’ll probably by an
unintentional comedy any way.
Source: Smosh - YouTube
4. South Park
• Context: Created by Trey Baker and Matt Stone in 1997, South
Park is a popular web-series even though I never properly
watched it and when I did it made me an insomniac for 13 hours
(at night) because I watch 9 2-hour episodes of one guys
playthrough on it and I massively regrated it because it was full of
nothing but filth. Its just a simple adult cartoon series that grew
into a franchise filled with adult humor with morbid and erotic
imagery.
• Style: South Park is always cheaply animated with simple
animations where you can see the frames thanks to their sloppy
editing. The style itself is bright colours where even little kids
swear all the time (mostly to do with balls).
• How it links to my project: This abomination links to my project in
a slim way which is simply that it’s a web-series. I suppose it also
links to my project by having adult themes because my project is
talking about historical figures in horrible adult times.
• Why I’ve looked at this: I looked at this because it’s a popular web
series, and the first time I watched it was because I just came
across it, but I massively regret it. I did learn that cheapness
works from this even in animation and to avoid adult stuff at all
costs, this has influenced my project to put in cheap animation
because even if its cheap, it works. Source: N/A (I’m not going to subject you to the insomniac hellscape I was)
5. Epic NPC Man
• Context: Epic NPC Man is a New Zealand comedy web-series that makes short skits on
videogame logic, it was founded by Rowan Betjeman and his channel Viv Le Dirt League
(founded in 2011), the series started in 2016 and it’s still going on! Everything’s styled like a
videogame with health bars and question marks above people's heads to get players attention
for a quest.
• Techniques: The camera is always held straight but sometimes has the perspective of a player
which makes it shaky and can’t hold still, its straight angles are to show the clear and smooth
graphics of a videogame. All the actors behave like none player characters (NPCs) to add to
the setting of everything being a videogame by acting as quest givers with limited intelligence
and some are smarter than others (some are even sentient in the skit series).
• How it links to my project: This links to my project because it’s a web-series but also because
it’s set in a low budget past setting (except for the costumes and massive cast). Everything's
set in a fantasy world (world stuck in the medieval times with magic and fairytale creatures)
this links to my project idea because I plan to have it set in the past to see the historical
forgotten hero's.
• Why I’ve looked at this: I only discovered this web series a few weeks ago thanks to the video
‘How Speed Running looks to NPCs’ popping up on my recommended but I looked at over
hundred episodes of these. I looked at this because it is to do with the thing I do frequently in
life; play videogames, because it turned out good, I thought that this would make a good
example for inspiration on my project.
• What I’ve learned from it: I’ve learned, that with the right camera work and acting I can create
the setting I want to create for my Forgotten Heroes piolet that lasts 3 to 5 minutes long. This
influences me to use camera work and acting to portray the Victorian historical setting I want
to make for my piolet featuring John Snow.
Source: When players skip an NPC's dialogue -
YouTube
8. • Research summary: I’ve learned that web-
series can be a range of things from
animation to comedy spoofs, they all link to
my project in slim or big ways which gave
me a lot of key things that I was able to
learn from. I learned from DHMIS that you
can hide a deeper meaning behind
something that can be completely opposite
to the thing on the surface. I learned from
all the research topics that humor is an
important part of entertainment because it
makes entertainment more enjoyable by
spreading happiness (through laughter). I’ve
learned from: Smosh, South Park and Epic
NPC Man that even if something is low
budget it can still succeed by having a good
story, bearable affects and proper camera
work. I learned from TerminalMontage and
South Park that animation adds to the
camera work of something because it can
make the screen more appealing to look at
or can add to the story or camera work.
9. • Bibliography:
• ‘Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared’ (2011).
Channel 4. 21st July
• ‘Epic NPC Man’ (2016). YouTube. 30th
May
• ‘Smosh’ (2005). Smosh.com. 19th
November
• ‘South Park’ (1997). Paramount Plus.
13th August
• ‘TerminalMontage’ (2009). YouTube.
28th May
