On July 29, 2011, a short film titled Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was uploaded to YouTube. It would become a viral hit, partially as a prank, as it was a super violent parody of family-friendly entertainment like Sesame Street.
At 4:00 a.m. on October 28, 2024, a short film titled Too Many Cooks aired on Adult Swim. It would become a viral hit, partially as a prank, as it was a super violent parody of family-friend entertainment like Full House.
Buddy shares a lot of DNA with both of these shorts. However, despite being a parody of shows aimed at preschoolers like Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is, it shares much more with Too Many Cooks. The most obvious parallel is that Casper Kelly, who wrote and directed Buddy, also created Too Many Cooks.
But there’s more to it than that. Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared has been praised for being thematically rich, both in its original short and in its numerous sequels. Too Many Cooks, by contrast, is mostly notable for its commitment to absurdity than any strong meaning (though there is certainly commentary if you dig deep enough). Buddy might not even have that layer of depth. Buddy is a surface-level horror film utilizing the bits and pieces collected from different forms of viral horror that it is imitating – not just Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared and Too Many Cooks, but also Petscop, Amanda the Adventurer, Catastrophe Crow, and a myriad of properties covered on the Game Theory and Film Theory YouTube channels.