Peter Hair is Uncle Shortbread’s unsettling, hilarious and oddly poignant tale of hair loss

When the London-based filmmaking duo Uncle Shortbread (also known as Arthur Studholme and Cosmo Wellings) were in their twenties, the modern issue of premature balding was on their minds – or more so their heads. “One night, I was genuinely thinking about how it was a technical possibility I’d be clean bald within the year, and I assume as a subconscious way of coping with that thought, my brain offered up the idea that perhaps all my hairs were simply little guys, longing for freedom,” says Arthur. “I was actually being selfish for wanting them to stay.”

For many men these days, hair transplants and “hairline-lowering” surgeries have become more of a talking point. The days of the balding leading man are over (thank you for your service Bruce Willis), but in Peter Hair, Uncle Shortbread’s short film for Adult Swim, the leading man is a strand of hair itself. Set inside of the HR office on a man called Tim’s scalp, Peter Hair wants to quit his job as one of the last frontline hairs, but it doesn’t come without confronting his menacing manager, also known as the “head of hair”, who is determined to make sure Tim’s head stays warm. What started as a live action comedy concept turned into animation – and that’s when Blink Industries reached out and helped the duo pitch to the Adult Swim Smalls programme.

The hilarious short encapsulates the awful prospect of handing in your notice at work, but expands on the concept with relatable world-building and often creepy animation that has become a signature aspect of Adult Swim’s programming. “We used Adobe Animate and the majority of the film is frame by frame cell animation (the big zoom out of the scalp and rotation around Tim, the shot of Peter taking off and his face flapping in the wind for example) and then rigs elsewhere for the simpler stuff,” shares Arthur. “Working with Adult Swim was a dream – they really let us do our thing. The only major thing was actually legal – we had to remove Peter’s pubic hair for broadcast.”

Inspired by UK sketch comedy shows such as Big Train, Bang Bang It’s Reeves and Mortimer and Limmy’s Show as well as Adult Swim shows like the popular Smiling Friends, the short film channels the outright silliness and social commentary of those influences as well recalling those gross close-up moments in SpongeBob or Ren & Stimpy – but it didn’t start out so gross. The unsettling vibe made way for “little nuggets of comedy” that could be inserted here and there, such as the sound of Peter’s neck twisting or secretary Margaret’s crunchy old fingers. “I suppose we were concerned that a cute hair resigning in this universe might end up being a bit twee and toothless so our natural reaction was to make all the characters as off-putting, scary or gross as possible as a way of balancing that out,” says Arthur. Peter even has protruding nipples that shake when he ends up rocketing away for a post-scalp life.

The short is handsomely and carefully animated, filled with brilliant little details like idle hairs playing cards or head lice barking like little dogs. Even Peter has his own chest hair. But what really counts is the strangely poignant story, creating a spectacle out of the miniature drama of losing just a single hair, a feeling that men and women alike can relate to. Perhaps others fearing of their hair loss can imagine a Peter Hair not abandoning them, but setting course for a life of new possibilities instead.