The Annoying Orange

The Annoying Orange
Current logo of The Annoying Orange
Genre	Comedy Joke Humour Suspense Pun Off-color humor
Created by	Dane Boedigheimer
Written by	Spencer Grove Dane Boedigheimer Robert Jennings
Directed by	Dane Boedigheimer 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	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	136 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Dane Boedigheimer Aaron Massey Kevin Nalty
Producer(s)	Kevin Brueck
Running time	1-6 minutes
Production company(s)	Gagfilms
Distributor	Google
Broadcast
Original channel	YouTube
Original run	October 9, 2009 – present
Chronology
Related shows	The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange
External links
Website

The Annoying Orange is an American comedy web series created by Dane Boedigheimer in 2009. It stars Boedigheimer as an anthropomorphic orange who annoys other fruits, vegetables, and various other objects by using crude-humored jokes. Due to the popularity of the show, The Annoying Orange has also become the subject of a TV series, a video game, a range of toys, and a t-shirt line, despite the show's negative reaction. Other accessories, such as costumes of the series characters, have also appeared on the market.

Summary

The show is centered on Orange (voiced by Dane Boedigheimer), who resides on a kitchen counter with other objects such as his best friend Pear, a Bartlett pear (also voiced by Boedigheimer). Other fruits include Passion, a female passionfruit played by Justine Ezarik, grapefruit, a tiny apple known as Midget Apple (though he prefers the name Little Apple), a small marshmallow, and an elderly lemon named Grandpa Lemon, all of whom were not main characters until later episodes. Most episodes consist of Orange heckling other characters until they 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). Usually, Orange tries to "warn" them before it happens, blurting out the weapon-in-use, such as "Knife!"^[1]

Orange has several recurring mannerisms. He often begins an episode by repeatedly yelling "Hey, (name of character)!" until the character responds. Orange also often refers to said character as something that plays on the object's name or appearance (such as calling Grapefruit "Apefruit"). If he does not like an object, he will often say, "You're an apple!", even if the object is not (e.g. a tomato). Orange uses various tactics, such as telling rude and offensive jokes, burping, and making childish noises with his tongue, to get attention. He also has a loud, braying laugh.

Characters

From left to right: Midget Apple, Pear, Orange, Grapefruit, Passion Fruit, Marshmallow and Grandpa Lemon.

Main

• Orange is the lead protagonist (or antagonist, as he literally annoys others until their death) and main character, appearing in every episode since the series began on October 9, 2009. He has yellow teeth, grey eyes, and a braying laugh. He is known for his annoying puns which he uses in every episode, although hardly any of the fruits seem to find his puns amusing. His standard reply, uttered after being taken to task for being so annoying, is, "No I'm not. I'm an orange!"^[1]
• Pear made his initial (albeit brief) appearance in the first episode, before becoming a regular character since the episode "Passion of the Fruit". He is a Bartlett pear who inhabits the same kitchen counter as Orange, his best friend. Despite their friendship, he is often annoyed by Orange, and initially wants to die early on, although he subtly warms up to Orange's antics afterwards. Pear tries to help others maintain control, and is depicted as more intelligent than Orange.
• Passion Fruit (voiced by YouTube vlogger iJustine), or simply "Passion," first appeared on February 19, 2010 in "Passion of the Fruit". Passion is offended by insults, attempts to settle issues, and scolds Orange and other characters. Unbeknownst to Passion, Orange has a crush on her. She has a twin sister named Mandy, who appeared in "Wishful Thinking," and is in love with Pear.
• Midget Apple was first seen in the episode "Crabapple" on August 6, 2010. Also voiced by Boedigheimer, he is a tiny Red Delicious apple. A friend of Orange, Pear, Passion, and especially Marshmallow, he dislikes being called "Midget Apple," preferring the term "'Little Apple."
• Marshmallow debuted in the episode "Annoying Saw 2: The Annoying Death Trap" on September 24, 2010. He is a small, childlike, squeaky-voiced marshmallow that becomes friends with Orange in the episode. Marshmallow is typically presented as cheerful and happy, and claims to love "puppies, and unicorns, and bunnies, and rainbows, and clouds, and kittens, and bunnies, and rainbows." The character is shown to absorb significant damage to his body, from cuts, fire, and throwing stars, but still emerges largely unscathed. Despite his cuteness, size, and cheerfulness, when something or someone angers him, he tends to act destructively, both towards his friends and the area around him. Although his theme song calls him a "he", it was stated by Boedigheimer that it only referred to the term "marshmallow", which is a masculine word, and not the character itself. Thus, Marshmallow's true gender is male, because he has the face of Dane Boedigheimer.
• Grapefruit (voiced by Robert Jennings) first appeared in "Passion of the Fruit" as Orange's archenemy. He often engages in juvenile insults with Orange. The character was killed by Knife in his debut, but became a recurring character after being resurrected as part of the Frankenfruit monster in "Frankenfruit."
• Grandpa Lemon (played by Kevin Brueck) is an elderly, forgetful lemon who has a habit of falling asleep at rather odd and annoying times. First appearing in "Grandpa Lemon" on June 4, 2010, he is unfazed by Orange's taunts about his memory loss and sleeping habits. Sliced in half by Knife in his debut, he became part of the Frankenfruit monster in Frankenfruit, and has become a recurring character ever since.

Recurring

• Knife (voiced by Kevin Nalty) was initially introduced simply as a kitchen tool in "Annoying Orange". He appears when Orange announces his presence, proceeding to slice up the other fruits and vegetables. His first appearance as a character was in "No More Mr. Knife Guy." Knife is shown to be at odds with his role in the series, hating his life because of how he is used. His mortal enemy is a knife sharpener due to the pain involved.
• Liam the Leprechaun (played by Robert Jennings) first appeared in the episode "Luck o' the Irish" as a bad-tempered leprechaun, who loses his pot of gold to Orange. Orange tends to call him "Jolly Green Giant." Crushed by his pot of gold at the end of the episode, Liam is currently a recurring character, and is also the title character of a former spin-off series on his own YouTube channel.^[2] He still continues to return to the Annoying Orange series as a recurring character.
• Squash has appeared in quite a few episodes over 2011-2012. He is similar to Knife, only the fruits get squashed to death, not cut to death. He also appeares as a main fruit in an episode on certain occasions.

Background

Dane Boedigheimer
Born	(1979-09-28) September 28, 1979 (age 32)[3] Harwood, North Dakota
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	United States of America
Alma mater	University of Minnesota
Occupation	filmmaker, Youtube celebrity
Years active	2004-present
Notable work(s)	The Annoying Orange

Dane Boedigheimer frequently made home videos as a teen.^[4] During his college years, he studied filmmaking in Minnesota, where he met Spencer Grove as an undergraduate.^[5] After finishing college, Boedigheimer and Grove moved to Bakersfield, California and then in 2004 moved to Los Angeles,^[4] where they both worked as production assistants for MTV's Pimp My Ride.^[6] After finishing working for the show, Dane decided that he didn't want to pursue a career in television; "It wasn't me," said Dane. "I wanted to be creative and do things my own way."^[7]

Boedigheimer and his production company, Gagfilms, slowly built a core of fans. In 2006, he opened two Youtube channels named Daneboe and Gagfilms, producing several video series.^[6] Dane's videos have been viewed over 500 million times and have been featured on TV, popular entertainment, news, and video sharing websites.^[8][9] He is also known for his ongoing "Video Game Mashups" series of videos.^[10] In 2010, Boedigheimer's YouTube channel had almost 350 million views and earned an income of $288,000 from ads.^[11]

Before The Annoying Orange, Boedigheimer had done many talking food videos for his channel and other sites including JibJab. He said in an interview that the idea for The Annoying Orange was a combination of the talking food videos, puns and special effects he came up with and did before.^[12] The original video was initially meant to be the only Annoying Orange video on YouTube. However, many viewers requested more videos,^[1][13] and after the 4th one, Boedigheimer decided to make a full-time series. 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]

Reception

The series was rated as the most viewed web series of February and March 2010 by Mashable, with over 52 million views.^[14][15] On April 26, 2010, the series had over 108 million views on YouTube.^[1][16][17] In June 2010, the channel had received 137 million views.^[13] By August 13, 2010, it received had 1 million subscribers. On June 2011, the channel was ranked as the eighth most subscribed and 30th most viewed, with more than 2,000,000 subscribers.^[18][19] On January 13, 2012, the series hit 1 billion channel views and 2.3 million subscribers.^[20][21]

Despite the show's popularity, it has received some negative critical response. Liz Shannon Miller considered the show to be "annoying for many reasons."^[22] 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." Hepburn concluded, "the Annoying Orange series is one of the few that I had a physically bad reaction to. It was horrible."^[23] 411mania.com called the show "idiotic" and "creepy as hell",^[24] while other publications have referred to it as "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.^[25] On November 10, 2011, GeekDad announced a giveaway 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.^[26] The Collective also announced a partnership in December of that year with costume manufacturer Rubie's Costume Company to produce children and adult Halloween costumes and accessories featuring characters such as Orange, Pear, Marshmallow, and Midget Apple from the web series.^[27]

Games

A video game developed by Bottle Rocket Apps 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, and for Android devices on October 14, 2011. Players throw various produce items across the kitchen at a series of blenders and other kitchen utensils.

TV series

References

External links

• The Annoying Orange official website
• The Annoying Orange official YouTube channel