The Annoying Orange

The Annoying Orange

The Annoying Orange current logo
Genre Comedy
Joke
Humour
Suspense
Pun
Off-color humor
Created by Dane Boedigheimer
Written by Spencer Grove
Dane Boedigheimer
Robert Jennings
Directed by Robert Jennings
Kevin Brueck
Voices of Dane "Daneboe" Boedigheimer
Robert "Bobjenz" Jennings
Kevin Brueck
Aaron Massey
Justine "iJustine" Ezarik
Kevin "Nalts" Nalty
Various guest stars
Composer(s) Dane Boedigheimer
The Convictions
Emma Kenny
Event Banditt
Kevin McLeod
iLife Sound Effects
Country of origin California, United States
Language(s) English
No. of seasons 4
No. of episodes 115 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Aaron Massey
Kevin Nalty
Producer(s) Kevin Brueck
Running time 1-6 minutes
Production company(s) Gagfilms
Roman-5 Studios
10th Cross Entertainment
Wicked Awesome Films
Distributor Google
Broadcast
Original channel YouTube
Original airing October 9, 2009–present
External links
Website

The Annoying Orange is an American comedy web series created by Dane Boedigheimer in 2009. It stars an anthropomorphic orange named The Annoying Orange (often simply referred to as "orange") who annoys fruits, vegetables and other objects in each episode by telling rude puns and jokes. Due to the popularity of the show, despite its negative response, The Annoying Orange has also become the subject of a TV series, a video game, toys, shirts, costumes and other accessories.

Contents

Plot

The show is centered on an anthropomorphic orange named The Annoying Orange.

Orange resides on a kitchen counter, which he shares with his best friend Pear, a Bartlett pear, also voiced by Boedigheimer. Other fruits on the counter include Passion, a female passionfruit played by Justine Ezarik, a grapefruit, a tiny apple known as Midget Apple, a small marshmallow, and an elderly lemon named Grandpa Lemon. Most episodes consist of Orange heckling other characters, the latter of which often become annoyed and meet a sudden and gruesome end, usually by evisceration with a chef's knife (although the implements used to cut them up range from a blender to a toy pinwheel). Comically, Orange tries to warn them about it before it happens, by blurting out the weapon-in-use, such as "Knife!"[1]

Orange has several recurring mannerisms. He often begins an episode by stating "Hey, (name of character)!" until they get frustrated enough to respond, and often refers to said character as a play on the object's name or appearance. He uses various tactics annoys people, usually by telling rude and offensive jokes, burping, and making childish noises with his tongue. Orange has a braying laugh as annoying as his voice, and he often tells the objects he annoys, "You're an apple!" if he does not like them.

Characters

Main

Recurring

Production and history

Dane Boedigheimer had been doing many talking food videos for his channel and other sites such as JibJab before the Annoying Orange. Dane said in an interview that the idea was a combination of how many talking food videos, puns and special effects he came up with and did before.[3]

The original video was originally meant to be the only Annoying Orange video on YouTube.[4] However, since many viewers liked the character, a few more Annoying Orange videos were released on his channel daneboe.[1][5] Following the success of the series, he created a channel dedicated to The Annoying Orange under the name realannoyingorange on January 11, 2010.

New episodes of The Annoying Orange are released on a weekly basis, with a few exceptions. The episodes are released every Friday on realannoyingorange's YouTube channel.[1]

To animate the characters, Boedigheimer superimposes the voice actor's eyes and mouth onto the object they are playing. For instance, Boedigheimer uses his own eyes and mouth to play both Orange and Pear (although Orange's mouth has been slightly modified, so that it has a distinctive orange tint to it, while the color of Pear's mouth is unadjusted) and does the same for all guest actors who voice the animated characters.[4]

Since Boedigheimer isn't a very good writer,[3] Boedigheimer's partner and friend, Spencer Grove, writes the plot of the episodes.[4]

In the early episodes, Dane Boedigheimer played Orange and all the fruits and vegetables, but this has since changed to include at least one guest actor/YouTuber in each episode. These have included Robert Jennings/bobjenz who played Grapefruit, Ginger, and Liam the Leprechaun (which spun off into his own series), Justine Ezarik/iJustine (which led to her becoming a recurring cast member), Lucas Cruikshank, Take180's Evan Ferrante, and Weezer. Two crossovers were created as the result of guest appearances.

On June 24, 2010, Boedigheimer guest-starred as Orange in Lucas Cruikshank's Fred Goes Grocery Shopping! Cruikshank soon returned the favor by playing Fred Figglehorn in the episode Annoying Orange vs. FRED!!!'. In August 20, 2010, Ferrante appeared as the leader of a race of broccoli aliens in the episode Close Encounters of the Annoying Kind one day after Boedigheimer appeared in Ferrante's Take180 series "Not Tom Cruise" as Orange. Three of Weezer's members appeared as objects on a party platter in Wazzup 3: Bonsai Tree, with lead singer Rivers Cuomo appearing as the title object. The appearance was part of Weezer's promotion of their album Hurley, where they took to several YouTube channels including daneboe and Fred to promote the record.

In December 17, 2010, in honor of his website Openfilm, actor James Caan appeared as a jalapeño pepper in Jalapeño.

Reception

On August 13, 2010, the series' YouTube channel received 1 million subscribers. The series was rated as the most viewed web series of February and March 2010 by Mashable, with over 52 million views.[6][7] On April 26, 2010, the series had over 108 million views on YouTube.[1][8][9] As of June 2011, the channel is ranked as the eighth most subscribed and 30th most viewed, with more than 2,000,000 subscribers.[10][11]

Despite the show's popularity, it has received some negative response. Liz Shannon Miller stated the show to be "annoying for many reasons."[12] In the web series column Pass the Mustard, Ned Hepburn called the show "pure, pure unfunny highly concentrated, in droplet form, just purely nonsensical riffing from an Annoying Orange." Ned said in Conclusion "the Annoying Orange series is one of the few that I had a physically bad reaction to. It was horrible."[13] 411mania.com called the show "idiotic" and "creepy as hell"[14] while Geoffrey A. Fowler called it "third grade humor".[1]

Merchandise

Since late 2011, The Collective has produced many accessories, toys and clothing with toymaker The Bridge Direct and clothing retailers such as JCPenney, Shopko and rue21.[15] On November 10, 2011 GeekDad announced to began a give away for an Annoying Orange T-shirt from JCPenney and a toy from Toys R Us. GeekDad started taking entries through Friday at 11:59 PM.[16]

In December 2011, The Collective announced a partnership with costume manufacturer Rubie’s Costume Company to produce children and adult Halloween costumes and accessories featuring characters such as Orange, Pear and Midget Apple from the web series.[17]

Games

A video game developed by Bottle Rocket Apps[18] named Kitchen Carnage was released for the iPod Touch and iPhone on April 7, 2011. The game was later released in HD for the iPad on May 6, 2011[19] and for Android devices on October 14, 2011.[20] Players throw various produce items across the kitchen at a series of blenders and other kitchen utensils.

TV series

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Geoffrey A. Fowler (April 26, 2010). "Now Playing on a Computer Near You: A Fruit With an Obnoxious Streak". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703404004575198410669579950.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_tech#articleTabs%3Darticle. Retrieved April 28, 2010. 
  2. ^ ""leprechaun" Youtube Channel.". Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/leprechaun. Retrieved November 29, 2011. 
  3. ^ a b The Annoying Orange Wants Nathan Fillion!. Interview with Dana Ward. October 27, 2011. 
  4. ^ a b c Dane Boedigheimer (March 8, 2011). Daneboe Exposed #5: Annoying Orange Exposed. Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGETqrLGm7Y. 
  5. ^ Brown, Damon (June 28, 2010). "How 'Annoying Orange' is taking over the world". CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/06/25/annoying.orange.taking.over/?fbid=BGdt6Q0BIQx. Retrieved June 28, 2010. 
  6. ^ Samuel Axon (March 5, 2010). "The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, February 2010". Mashable. http://mashable.com/2010/03/05/top-10-web-series-february/. Retrieved April 28, 2010. 
  7. ^ Samuel Axon (April 8, 2010). "The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, March 2010". Mashable. http://mashable.com/2010/04/08/top-10-web-series-march/. Retrieved April 28, 2010. 
  8. ^ "Annoying Orange a certified YouTube citrus smash for Dane Boedigheimer". News Limited. April 27, 2010. http://www.news.com.au/technology/annoying-orange-a-certified-youtube-citrus-smash-for-dane-boedigheimer/story-e6frfro0-1225858639419. Retrieved April 28, 2010. 
  9. ^ Chantal Martineau (April 26, 2010). "Annoying Orange Seeks to Irritate a Wider Audience via Television". The Village Voice. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/04/annoying_orange.php. Retrieved April 28, 2010. 
  10. ^ "Channels". Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/members?s=mv&t=m&g=0&c=0&p=4. Retrieved December 20, 2011. 
  11. ^ "realannoyingorange Channel". Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=realannoyingorange. Retrieved December 20, 2011. 
  12. ^ Shannon Miller, Liz (May 10, 2010). "No. 1 Web Series Annoying Orange is Annoying for Many Reasons". Online Video News. http://gigaom.com/video/no-1-web-series-annoying-orange-is-annoying-for-many-reasons/. Retrieved November 25, 2011. 
  13. ^ Hepburn, Ned (March 10, 2010). "‘Annoying Orange’, ‘Wiener’, ‘The Basement’, ‘Copy & Pastry’ Try to Pass The Mustard". Tubefilter News. http://news.tubefilter.tv/2010/03/10/annoying-orange-wiener-the-basement-copy-pastry-try-to-pass-the-mustard/. Retrieved November 25, 2011. 
  14. ^ Diaz, Porfirio (November 22, 2011). "Movies/TV's 3R’s 11.22.11: Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, Twilight, Ricky Gervais, More". 411mania.com. http://www.411mania.com/movies/columns/211594/Movies-TV%5C%5Cs-3Rs-11.22.11:-Dark-Knight-Rises,-The-Amazing-Spider-Man,-Twilight,-Ricky-Gervais,-More.htm. Retrieved November 27, 2011. 
  15. ^ Cohen, Joshua (December 16, 2011). "‘Annoying Orange’ Toys and Tees in Toys "R" Us and JCPenney". tubefittler news. http://news.tubefilter.tv/2011/12/16/annoying-orange-toys-r-us-t-shirts/. Retrieved December 21, 2011. 
  16. ^ Cranford Teague, Jason (November 10, 2011). "Hey! Hey! It’s Annoying Orange — Exclusive Preview & Giveaway!". Wired. http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/11/annoying-orange/. Retrieved November 27, 2011. 
  17. ^ Dickson, Jeremy (December 6, 2011). "Annoying Orange rolls into Halloween gear". Kidscreen. http://kidscreen.com/2011/12/06/annoying-orange-rolls-into-halloween-gear/. Retrieved December 28, 2011. 
  18. ^ "The Annoying Orange: Kitchen Carnage". Bottle Rocket Apps. http://www.bottlerocketapps.com/apps/annoying-orange. Retrieved December 11, 2011. 
  19. ^ Annoying Orange: Kitchen Carnage for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad on the iTunes Store
  20. ^ Annoying Orange: Kitchen Carnage: Appstore for Android

External links

Achievements
Preceded by
MysteryGuitarMan
Most Subscribed Channel on YouTube
Ranked 8th as of April 2011
Succeeded by
collegehumor