Mystery Skulls Animated — Fan art of Lewis hugging Vivi while both hold his glowing heart

Mystery Skulls Animated

2014viral videoclassic

Published September 7, 2026

Mystery Skulls Animated is a series of fan-turned-official animated music videos made by animator Ben Mangum (Mystery Ben) for the songs of indie pop musician Luis Dubuc, aka Mystery Skulls. Starting with the October 2014 clip for Ghost, the videos launched a huge Tumblr and DeviantART fandom built around Lewis the Skeleton and the Mystery Incorporated-styled ghost-hunting crew.

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Overview

Mystery Skulls Animated is a trio of independently produced animated music videos set to songs by Luis Dubuc's electronica project Mystery Skulls, animated by Ben Mangum under the alias Mystery Ben3. The visual style borrows heavily from Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo, right down to a Mystery Machine-style van, then mixes in sci-fi robotic elements and neon-lit ghost hunting1.

The trilogy is made up of Ghost (2014), Freaking Out (2016) and Hellbent (2018), each landing roughly two years apart and each following the same core cast of characters as the story of Lewis the Skeleton and his former friends unfolds2. The look, the recurring band of characters, and the ambiguous heartbreak-and-revenge plot are what turned a music video into a full fandom rather than a one-off animation.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source) / Tumblr / DeviantART (fandom spread)
Creator
Ben Mangum
Date
2014

The project grew out of an earlier viral hit. In May 2012, Ben Mangum uploaded The Turntable Turnabout, a fan animation of Ace Attorney characters Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth dancing to the Mystery Skulls track Money4. Luis Dubuc noticed the clip, sent Mangum a thank-you shirt, and later met him in person to talk about a possible official collaboration5.

In December 2013, Dubuc commissioned Mangum to make an animated video for the single Ghost5. A separate live-action video directed by Josh Thomas premiered through Vice's Thump channel in early 2014, but Dubuc kept the animated version in production. Mangum eventually pulled in collaborators Isaiah Kim and Blake Hudson and pushed to finish the clip in time for the release of the debut album Forever, uploading Mystery Skulls Animated: Ghost to YouTube on October 26, 20146.

How It Spread

The Ghost video moved fast. Within a week of its upload it drew more than 750,000 views and over 25,000 likes on YouTube3. BuzzBands LA highlighted it on October 30, 2014, praising the way the animators fused Mystery Incorporated visuals with sci-fi elements synced to Dubuc's beats1. Coverage on Kotaku and a Reddit submission to r/animation pushed it further past the music-blog circuit3.

The fandom quickly outgrew the video itself. The skeleton character was officially named Lewis, and DeviantART filled up with hundreds of sketches, cosplay photos and plush toys built around him, with fans nicknaming him 'Bara Skeleton' for his broad-shouldered design3. Tumblr became the other hub, with tag pages dedicated to Mystery Skulls Ghost art and Dubuc taking part in a Tumblr music Q&A on November 6, 2014 to answer questions about the video's reception3.

Mangum followed up with the second installment, Freaking Out, on April 15, 2016, which pulled roughly 300,000 views in its first two days3. The third video, Hellbent, featuring vocals from Snowblood, dropped on October 13, 2018 and picked up more than 475,000 views and 85,000 likes within 17 hours3. Fellow animator Marisol 'yuramec' Aranda later made a widely shared animatic for the Mystery Skulls song Magic that has since passed 7.1 million YouTube views3.

Frequently Asked Questions