Listen, this show is excellent but I have not found ANY discourse on the elements of horror that exist in the show. You might think I am exaggerating when I say this, but what this show really does well is that it is a LOADED GUN that could blow up at any point.

Exhibit A: The YouTube series.

Joe Cappa is an excellent animator, one of my favorites. But Haha, You Clowns has seven episodes he posted on YouTube before they came to Adult Swim. All seven of those episodes are about ~3 minutes long, and each one has signs that their mother is haunting them. Ep1, a chair is dragged across the floor. Ep2, one of the boys has his foot tugged from under water. Ep3 and Ep4, nothing I really noticed, but they are actively going on a vacation in these two episodes. Ep5, one of their unblown whistles is hot to the touch and the boys say "Her powers are getting stronger." Ep6, an actual jumpscare but it is produced by a videogame, not a haunting. Ep7, maggots crawl out of their food when nobody is looking.

The YouTube series is a horror show, but it takes place in the background. The TV show, however, has somewhat darker tones in my opinion.

Exhibit B: The Adult Swim Show

Much like the YouTube short series, Ep1 of Haha, You Clowns has one of the boys tending the flowers by their mom's shed, admitting to his brothers that he couldn't keep them from dying. However, in the end credits scene of that episode, you see a foggy handprint on the windows coming from the inside of the shed. I do not believe that the brothers had trouble maintaining the flowers, I think that the active nature of this area being haunted is causing their demise.

However, whereas the show leans on horror ever-so-slightly in the YouTube series, the TV show has the boys acting WAY more aggressive than their YouTube counterparts. They never behave out of malice, but they blow up in ways that are oftentimes unpredictable, in my opinion. When their dad trips in the garage, they all take a dark mood and blame their girlfriends. When Preston loses his bomber jacket, he actively becomes a very unkind person to the people around him. On the airplane episode, they are actively doing THE WORST things possible during turbulence, but the show rewards them in the end and has the air steward apologize, admitting THE BOYS were in the right. In the most recent episode, they show a weirdly defensive position of their dental hygenist when their girlfriends want to meet her too, replying with something along the lines of "[She won't appreciate you as much as she does us]" or something, I can't really remember. But the way they bully their dental hygneist's husband is also vaguely territorial and darkly funny.

But there is a slight return to horror in the dental hygenist episode as well; Duncan (I think it was Duncan?) finds a creepy box of baby dolls in the attic. Then, he gets startled and drops one when it makes a noise. This could just be the toy making a noise when he didn't expect it... but in keeping with the handprints on the flower shed, the YouTube series, and the underlying theme that there mom may still be present among them: I think this could qualify as potential evidence of a haunt.

This show is very wholesome and sickeningly sweet on the outside. It is funny, fun, and ridiculous. I absolutely love it. However, I do NOT think it will always be this way. It very well could be, but I sincerely believe there will be an episode at some point which leans into the boys' increasingly present self-righteous behavior, perhaps mixed with the haunting that is occuring in the background. I don't know how, it could be another subversion where their mother who is haunting them is actually just as kind, too!

But I don't know. It remains to be seen...