Llamas with Hats

"Llamas with Hats" is a black comedy adult animated web series produced by FilmCow, an independent company created by Jason Steele after the success of his viral short film Charlie the Unicorn. The first episode was released in 2009, with twelve episodes total. The first video introduces Carl and Paul, two llamas who share an apartment, and focuses on Paul's reaction to Carl's murder of a human. It became progressively darker as time went on, with the twelfth (and initially final) episode culminating in Carl's suicide some time after Paul has died. A thirteenth and final episode was released in 2024, serving as an epilogue.

Llamas with Hats
Written by	Jason Steele
Directed by	Jason Steele
Starring	Chris Alex and Jason Steele
Music by	Jason Steele
No. of episodes	13
Production
Producer	Jason Steele
Production company	FilmCow
Original release
Release	February 19, 2009 (2009-02-19) – September 28, 2024 (2024-09-28)

Characters

Carl, voiced by Chris Alex, is a grey llama who wears a green hat. In episode 4, he describes himself as "a dangerous sociopath with a long history of violence".

Paul, voiced by Jason Steele, is a beige llama who wears a red hat with a flower on it.

Plot

The first video opens with Paul confronting Carl over the dead human body he has discovered in their living room. Paul questions Carl and discovers that he ate the dead man's hands after murdering him. Carl's actions escalate with each episode. In the second, Carl murders several people on a cruise ship before eventually causing its destruction with no survivors, as he disabled all the other lifeboats. The third has Carl destroy an unnamed South American country's government and gather the bodies of orphans to construct a "meat dragon". In the fourth, Carl destroys the city in which he and Paul live with a nuclear weapon and ties the citizens' faces to balloons, which rain down from the sky, allegedly as a surprise for Paul's birthday. The fifth opens with Carl detailing a seemingly harmless day, only to reveal he has created a rift in the fabric of the universe from which he may harvest millions of severed baby hands. Paul is not as horrified by this as he was by Carl's previous atrocities, citing that he was "expecting worse". In the sixth, Paul decides to move out after getting sick of Carl, who has completed the meat dragon mentioned in episode three. In the seventh, Carl makes a mask of Paul, trying and failing to replace him with a sheep which he puts the mask on. In the eighth, Carl visits Paul's apartment in an attempt to reconcile, sending him an "apology piano" and "swan piano". He talks to himself while mimicking Paul, alternating between his and Paul's voice. Episodes nine through eleven show Carl's further mental decay, hallucinating that the Paul mask became possessed, and later getting deluded that the mask was Paul, which convinces Carl (who was, in reality, convincing himself) to "finish [his] work", leading to the destruction of all life on Earth. In episode 12, Carl discovers Paul's remains, following his death sometime between episodes eight and twelve. With his delusions ceased, and no purpose left, Carl tearfully commits suicide by jumping from a bridge, while screaming his name in an imitation of Paul's voice.

Production

Steele recorded the audio for the series using Amadeus Pro and edited it all together in Final Cut Pro. Adobe Flash was used to draw individual characters, while Adobe Photoshop was used to draw the backgrounds for the series. The program Magpie Pro 2 was used for lip syncing, and the series itself was animated in Adobe After Effects.

Llamas with Hats was initially envisioned to be a five-part series, with the finale culminating in Carl blowing up the Earth. However, many fans correctly predicted this, and Steele was "embarrassed [his] plan for the series was that predictable" and scrapped this original idea. Steele's inspiration for the series' tonal shift was because "The only way for Carl to continue surprising people was for him to actually do something surprising." Steele clarified that, despite the darker premise, episodes five to twelve were "all still a comedy. You may not find it funny and I'm sure a lot of people won't. But imagine talking with a friend and they mention Llamas with Hats. They haven't seen any of the episodes beyond the fourth. Now explain to them what happens in the series after that."

Steele, when interviewed with E.O. Wilson for Good Alice's Handbook of Midwifery, stated that The Residents tonal-poem cover of the Robert Johnson song, "Dirty Gumbo", was used as his artistic muse during the early creative process.

Reception

Writing for The Irish Times, Donald Clarke called it a "superb series of absurd snippets".

PopDust wrote, ""Happy Tree Friends" and "Llamas With Hats" won't live up to the decades-long sensation of The Simpsons or even the progressive wit of more recent adult cartoons like Big Mouth. But, with too much time on our hands right now, it's been fun to reminisce on bygone Internet trends that defined so much of our youth—gory animals among them. "

In 2023 LADbible recalled that the series "quickly became an internet classic, gaining a cult following among teenage Millennials." and stated it could "only really be described as a zoological acid trip".

In popular culture

The American television series The Good Wife made reference to the series in the episode "Killer Song," which aired on March 29, 2011. The series has received over 120 million views on YouTube.

Storybook

A storybook called, "Llamas with Hats: Babies" was released in August 2019, nearly 4 years after the finale was released on YouTube.

External links

• Opinion piece about a potential reboot (2018) at TVOvermind
• Interview with Jason Steele at LADbible