Squim is a minor character in Smiling Friends. He appears in the titular episode "Squim Returns."
He was proclaimed as the first ever Smiling Friend, now retired, only being summoned with a whistle to fill in when another Smiling Friend is absent from work, technically making him yet another fifth smiling friend.
Appearance[]
Squim appears to be a yellow ball with limbs attached to his body and three black strands of hair at the top of his head. He wears white rubber gloves on his hands, red buckled shoes with seafoam greens sole and a navy blue bowtie on his chest.As well a pair of blue eyes that makes neurotic facial expressions similar to the Eek from Eek! The Cat. He talks with a hyperactive and high-pitched British accent.
As a soul, Squim is fully blue and pallid as a result of being shot by police, he also is seen in a wheelchair quipped with a IV drip needle.
Role in episode[]
According to Mr. Boss, Squim is the very first Smiling Friend he has hired to help someone smile. Mr. Boss summons him using a whistle, since Charlie called in sick, and Pim's job requiring more than one person. Squim and Pim travel down to the sewers via manhole, where they find two former best friends, a rat and a maggot, having a domestic dispute over who owns a large pile of garbage. They hurl insults towards one another from separate sides of the platform until Squim bursts into dance, encouraging them to be positive. This somehow works and the two become best friends again.
Afterwards, Squim and Pim celebrate by going out for ice cream. While waiting in line at the Ice Cream shop, Squim freestyles about how much he loves waiting in line, stating "I love waiting in line, it's my favourite time". Pim expresses how much he appreciates Squim's positive attitude in comparison to Charlie's, and how he hopes he and Squim will be able to do more jobs together in the future.
The owner of the shop, Mr. Ice Cream, greets the two and asks Pim to introduce his new friend. After Squim compliments the shop and then copiously licks the 4th wall's camera lens and the glass display of the ice cream case, Mr. Ice Cream comments on how he and his deceased wife, Phyllis, opened the ice cream shop thirty years prior. Pim compliments Phyllis before Squim expresses some disapproval at how negative Mr. Ice Cream is being, before doing the "Squim dance" and making various hip thrusting moves into the air. This insensitive act brings Mr. Ice Cream to tears, and prompts Pim to tell Squim to stop, before eventually having to pull him physically out of the parlour.
Pim tries to tell Squim that there is a time and place for enthusiasm, lest it present as insensitive, and he should calm down on all the positivity. He tries to tell Squim that his actions were inappropriate. Squim seems to understand for a brief second, before saying "I just wasn't being positive enough", bounding down the street and harassing other citizens. He "helps" a couple by handing the woman a bouquet and making the man jealous, wheeling an elderly man in a wheelchair in front of a passing bus, and jumping on top of a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk.
Squim then sees the police officers surrounding Charlie, who stands not far from the Smiling Friends building, and does the "Squim dance" before a crowd of police officers with their guns drawn. He dances erratically before one police officer proclaims "He's doing the Squim dance, shoot him!". They shoot him until he faceplants to the ground, before his soul leaves his body and is also shot by the police officers, falling back down.
At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Squim's soul is still alive, and ended up being in a wheelchair following a 14 hour surgery to recover from the gunshot wounds. He then says "hello" to both Charlie and Pim in the hospital room, sounding weak and far less enthusiastic than before he was shot.
Trivia[]
- Squim was designed by character artist Kosperry in late 2024, who has previously drawn fanart of the Smiling Friends cast in his artstyle.[2]
- Squim has passed through numerous designs before the final result, ranging from a hunchback frog with a mullet to a gerbil-like creature with buckled striped pants, a rat with a cowboy hat and a rooster.
- He looks similar to the Smiling Friends Building, which could have been designed after him.
- He also resembles PAC-MAN.
- Squim's mention of retiring in 2001, combined with his behavior in the episode, may be a joke implying he was retired due to being too positive in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
- Squim saying he was the first Smiling Friend was a lie (or possibly just contradicted in-universe) because as shown in "The Glep Ep", Glep was the first Smiling Friend. However, in "Mole Man", Mr. Boss implies that he does not consider Glep and Allan as Smiling Friends. It’s also possible Glep is also considered a co-founder of the organization. However, in the episode Squim Returns, Mr Boss does actually specify that Squim is the first smiling friend he "ever hired" , rather than the first Smiling Friend overall which could make Glep the first ever Smiling Friend and Co-founder, while Squim is the first ever person hired as a smiling friend by the company as an employee, making them both the first smiling friend in their own right.