Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is a TV show where three character, Yellow Guy, Red Guy, and Duck; learn about educational topics from different characters. The show is presented like a kids show but takes dark and disturbing turns in order to satirize the topics that the characters are learning about. In the first episode, the three main characters learn about jobs from a talking briefcase before being dropped into a factory producing bits and parts.
Yellow Guy goes to a conveyor belt, makes a part, and is told “good job teammate” by one of the workers. This is then contrasted with Duck failing to make a part and his work being grinded into dust. After his work is destroyed, Duck says “hey, my thing that I did.” The show parodies how jobs treat their workers by rewarding Yellow Guy for successfully making a part and then destroying the thing that Duck made. Duck is proud of what he made but it is destroyed because it’s not what the company wants. Duck’s work being destroyed shows how companies don’t care about people and only value employees based on their worth to the company.
Meanwhile, Red Guy answers a phone and is told that he is upper management despite having no qualifications. While the other characters eat lunch from a vending machine, Red Guy is given a salmon with diamonds. The hyperbole of Red Guy getting a salmon with real diamonds shows how much unnecessary wealth higher ups in companies have. And, when Red Guy asks if you can eat diamonds, his assistant says that they’ll get something else and throws the food on the floor. The show employs situational irony by subverting what the audience thinks will happen with the food in order to further the idea that higher ups have more wealth than they need. While the other characters can only afford lunch from a vending machine, Red Guy gets extravagant food which is thrown away if he doesn’t like it.
Then, Duck watches a video which parodies training videos used by companies. In the video, it says “health and safety is important to us in our own special way.” Instead of claiming that the company will prevent accidents from happening like the audience expects, the video says that “at some point, we will have an accident. And that’s a promise. Because we feel that only a freak accident helps us appreciate all the times we’re not being burned in a grease fire or mangled in a piece of machinery.” In the video, situational irony is used to show that companies don’t actually care about their employees safety.
And after working at the factory, the briefcase comes back and throws the characters a coin which stabs Duck’s eye. Again, situational irony is used to show that after doing all their work, the thing that is meant to be a reward only hurts them.