Toby Turner

Toby Joe Turner (born March 3, 1985), also known by his stage name Tobuscus, is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, musician, and internet personality. Originally from Niceville, Florida, he is currently based in Los Angeles, California, and is best known for his YouTube videos as well as a number of television and film roles. As of April 27, 2015, Turner has a total of over 15.2 million subscribers and over 3.3 billion video views over his three YouTube channels.^[1][2][3]

Early life

Turner was born in Mississippi and grew up in Niceville, Florida.^[4] He attended the University of Florida, and having an interest in film-making, graduated with a degree in telecommunication production.^[5] Toby's mother later took out a loan and bought him a camera, an act he appreciated helped begin his YouTube career.^[6]

Career

Internet videos

Toby Turner first joined YouTube on May 14, 2006, when he created a channel under the name of "Tobuscus".^[1] The first video that remains on the channel is a sketch based on the 2006 film Click entitled "What I'd do with the Remote from Click".^[7] One of Turner's most popular early videos is "Don't Tase Me, Bro!", a remixed recording of the University of Florida Taser incident in which his classmate Andrew Meyer was stunned with a taser gun by a police officer.^[8] Interviewed about the video by MTV, Turner explained that, after watching the clip, "as soon as [he] heard [Andrew] yelling, [he] knew it would fit in a hip-hop song", and that he "wanted to give [Andrew] the profits" from sales of related merchandise.^[8] The "Tobuscus" channel has since continued to focus on comedic skits and animated sketches. Turner's "Literal Trailers" series is one of his most popular, earning him mainstream recognition from CBS News, who described his rendition of the Dead Island trailer as "amazing" and "hilarious",^[9] and Wired, who praised the Iron Man 3 video.^[10]

Having begun his video-making career in Niceville, Turner moved to Los Angeles, California in 2008.^[11] In April 2009 he began using his "TobyTurner" channel for daily unedited vlogs dubbed "lazy vlogs", and for each vlog for the first few years gave away a free "Tobuscus"-branded t-shirt to a lucky viewer.^[2] Later in July 2010 Toby registered his fourth (third in use) YouTube channel under the name "TobyGames",^[3] designating it for a new series of comedic Let's Play videos. The channel has featured playthrough videos of numerous games since its inception, including the long-running Minecraft and Happy Wheels series. On numerous occasions, Toby has used the phrase "Toby sucks at *video game title*" in the title to express his opinion that he often has a lack of skill when playing video games.^[12]

As of April 27, 2015, the Tobuscus channel has over 6.2 million subscribers and 1.1 billion video views,^[1] the TobyTurner channel has over 2 million subscribers and 345 million video views,^[2] and the TobyGames channel has over 6.9 million subscribers and 1.9 billion video views.^[3] In July, 2013, Turner signed with YouTube multi-channel network Maker Studios.^[13]

Collaborations

Turner performing with Jack Douglass at VidCon 2012.

In addition to producing his own original content over three channels, Turner has worked together with a wide range of other YouTube personalities on various projects. In 2009 he performed a guitar collaboration with Joe Penna (MysteryGuitarMan) using two separate videos played simultaneously;^[14][15] in 2010 he made an appearance on the fifth episode of The Annoying Orange, titled "A Cheesy Episode";^[16] in early 2011 he worked with iJustine on a number of Little Big Planet 2 Let's Play videos;^[17] since 2011 he has worked on many projects with Jack Douglass, including parody "Tobjackscus",^[18] sketch "Dubstep Tobuscus",^[19] and music videos "Take Off Your Clothes (Like Scarlett Johansson)",^[20] "Razors in Your Apple (On Halloween)",^[21] and "The Valentine's Day Song";^[22] and in 2012 he starred in a short with Olga Kay entitled Olga Kay Goes Haywire.^[23] Other videos he has starred in include an episode of the YouTube series, "Retarded Policeman", as well as appearing in the music video for the song "Whistle While I Work It", starring opposite Chester See and Wayne Brady^[24]

Aside from these works, Turner has also presented a web series called CuteWinFail, created by Turner and co-produced with Philip DeFranco and his production company FishBowl Worldwide Media, since its inception in October 2010,^[25] although in November 2012 he was fired by the producers after 100 episodes of the show.^[26] He also works as a host on Tagged, a gaming-themed YouTube series produced by NODE Studios,^[27][28] and plays the Satan character in the Fine Brothers web series MyMusic.^[29]

Film and television

Turner's first feature-length film role came in 2010 romantic comedy film New Low, in which he played stand-up comedian Dave, the best friend of main character Wendell played by writer, producer and director Adam Bowers. The film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, before it received coverage at the Austin Film Festival in October and at the Glasgow Film Festival the following February, and was later released on DVD in 2012. Later, in 2012, he starred in psychological horror film Smiley, written and directed by Michael Gallagher and starring fellow YouTube partner Shane Dawson.^[30] Turner will also star in the upcoming film The Great Gilly Hopkins, set for release in 2015.^[31]

From 2012-2014, Turner starred in the Cartoon Network animated series The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange. Turner played Nerville, the only human character who can interact with the fruits.^[32][33]

Other work

Aside from video production and other entertainment, Toby Turner – who is described on his official website as a "viral marketer ... [and] consultant for viral video and social media platforms"^[34] – has worked with a number of major companies on advertising campaigns, including NBC, Disney, and others.^[11] Among his online commercial credits are adverts for Fox crime drama series Lie to Me, footwear manufacturer and retailer Timberland, snack food product Pop-Tarts, and social network aggregation website Ouibox.

Toby has also secured hosting roles for a number of events and series, including reporting on the Toshiba "Set Me Free Tour" for MTV in August 2009^[35][36] and presenting holiday special web shows for Comedy Central, Spike and VH1.^[11] In December 2012, Turner was nominated for the award of Best Host at the 2013 Streamy Awards,^[37] although eventually lost out to KassemG.^[38]

In May 2013, Turner set up a fundraising campaign on crowdfunding website Indiegogo for an iOS (and later Android) game based on his Tobuscus Adventures YouTube series, called Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards!.^[39][40] The fundraiser surpassed its goal of $240,000 within two days.^[41] The game features Turner as main character Tobuscus as he fights off hordes of zombies to get to the Wizard of Darkness.,^[39][42] and also cameos Gabe Hohreiter as Gabuscus, and Turner's dog Gryphon.^[42] The game was later released in March 2015.^[43] Before its release, Toby also revealed that a second, albeit smaller game, was in development at the same time and based on the popular sandbox game Minecraft.^[44]

In May 2014, Toby signed a three-book deal with Tegen Books, an imprint of Harper Collins, to help create an illustrated journal-style series based on Tobuscus Adventures. The first book will be published in the fall of 2015, with the following two set to release in summer 2016 and winter 2017.^[45]

Filmography

Besides his primary YouTube career, Toby Turner has also been featured in various other media roles:

References

External links

• Official website
• Tobuscus on YouTube
• TobyTurner on YouTube
• TobyGames on YouTube