Annoying Orange

Annoying Orange is an American live-action/animated comedy web series created by former Minnesota film student and MTV production assistant Dane Boedigheimer in 2009. It stars its creator as an anthropomorphic orange who annoys fruits, vegetables, and various other objects by telling jokes and puns. Fred Figglehorn has appeared on the web series, mostly in Ask Orange and Annoying Orange vs. Fred.
The show became popular, leading to a TV series, , a range of toys, backpacks, couches, pillows, blankets, lunchboxes, drink bottles, mattresses, towels and a T-shirt line. Other accessories, such as costumes of the series' characters, have also appeared on the market.
Since its inception, the "Annoying Orange" YouTube channel has amassed around 10.8 million subscribers.
Plot.
The show is centered on Orange (voiced by Dane Boedigheimer), who lives in a kitchen with other foods and objects like his best friend, Pear, an irritable, geeky Bartlett pear (also voiced by Boedigheimer). Other fruits include Passion, a sensible passion fruit and Orange's love interest played by Justine Ezarik, an arrogant grapefruit (voiced by Bob Jennings), a tiny but hot-blooded Red delicious apple known as Midget Apple (though he prefers the name Little Apple), a happy-go-lucky and slightly eccentric marshmallow who always sees everything filled with enthusiasm, and an elderly lemon named Grandpa Lemon, all joining the show over the years.
The formula for most episodes consists of Orange heckling other characters until they meet a sudden, gruesome end, usually being killed or mutilated by a chef's knife, although implements used to maim them range from a blender to a toy pinwheel). Orange usually tries to warn them by crying out the weapon-in-use, such as "Knife!".
Orange has recurring mannerisms. He often begins an episode by repeatedly calling for a character's attention until the character responds. Orange also often refers to the character as something playing on the object's name or appearance (such as calling Grapefruit "Apefruit"). If an object behaves in a way that Orange dislikes, he will often call that object an "apple" (the food equivalent to "asshole"), even if the object is not an apple. Otherwise Orange tells jokes, burps, breaks wind or makes noises with his tongue to get attention.
Despite the contentions of other fruits and objects, Orange generally cannot control his quirks and rarely tries to annoy others on purpose; he usually means well for most fruits and objects. In one web episode Mango, a life coach, suggests that Orange is using his annoying nature to cope with the demise of the fruits he tries to befriend, implying that Orange has a learning disability. Regardless of his outward anti-social behaviour, Orange almost always finds comfort in the company of his friends and sometimes makes new ones.
Episodes.
The first Annoying Orange episode was released on October 9, 2009. Since then, the Annoying Orange YouTube channel has uploaded two or three videos a week.
Spoofs.
The Annoying Orange has spoofed many popular web shows, viral videos, TV shows and films. These include:
Other channels.
AO Kids.
An Annoying Orange channel made for young kids who want to learn things. (original launch: Passion Fruit)
Other series.
The Juice.
The Juice is a talk show series where Orange, Midget Apple, Pear, Grapefruit and Marshmallow discuss a question sent in from the audience. A special Halloween episode of The Juice was aired October 14, 2013. The questions were:
Foodsplosion.
Foodsplosion is a parody game show that currently consists of ten episodes. In the game, Orange, who serves as the host, asks a food contestant a question which they have ten seconds to answer. This is a win-win scenario where the player wins regardless of whether they get the question right or wrong (although the player almost always answers incorrectly). The prizes on the show, however, typically are materials that are hazardous to fruits, like sledgehammers, blenders, chainsaws and explosives. In the end, the player gets smashed, shredded, cut up, or blown apart by his/her "prize", followed by an instant slow-motion replay of the destruction, followed by a short advertisement for "Daneco", the company known for providing the "prizes".
Featured Contestants:
Ask Orange.
Ask Orange is a series of episodes where people got to ask questions which were answered by Orange and his friends. The show originally ran for eight months, with an episode coming out every month. Four additional Ask Orange videos were also aired. The first aired on September 26, 2011, with Ask Orange #10 being aired on January 24, 2014; Ask Orange #11 on May 30, 2014; and Ask Orange #12 on August 1, 2014. There was also a special episode of Ask Orange called Ask President Marshmallow #1, which aired on November 19, 2012. Currently, 60 episodes of Ask Orange have been produced as of April 15, 2020. Three Christmas episodes were aired in December 2014 – 2016. There are also two Halloween episodes in October 2016 and 2017. Currently, it is a recurring series.
The Misfortune of Being Ned.
The Misfortune of Being Ned is based on a character called Ned, voiced by Steve Zaragoza, who finds himself in unfortunate situations. The show debuted on October 9, 2013 as part of Annoying Orange "Shocktober". Twenty episodes have been produced, spanning two seasons. The main characters are Ned, Greg, voiced by Kevin Brueck, and Wendy, voiced by Meghan Camarena.
Season one of the series ran with ten episodes from October 9, 2013 to December 18, 2013. On December 18, 2013, Daneboe announced that The Misfortune of Being Ned would be renewed for a second season. Season two premiered February 19, 2014, with the series finale on April 23, 2014. Season two also had ten episodes. In the final episode, Ned gets to meet Orange, only to be rubbed out by an eraser. Following this, Orange announced that The Marshmallow Show would replace The Misfortune of Being Ned's time-slot, much to Ned's dismay.
The Marshmallow Show.
The Marshmallow Show was on the "Annoying Orange" channel and has Internet celebrities on it. Released on June 4, 2014, and ending on August 27, 2014, it airs every Wednesday. Marshmallow is the show's main character. Other characters are Mushroom (aka Shroom) and Joe the Coffee Mug. The guests who have appeared on The Marshmallow Show are:
In the final episode, Daneboe revealed that, although the show would be ending, Marshmallow would be going on an intergalactic mission back to his home planet.
Trailer Trashed.
Annoying Orange Trailer Trashed is a series in which Orange, Pear, Midget Apple, Marshmallow and sometimes Grapefruit, in the style of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", watch a movie trailer and comment on it. This is generally regarded as them trashing the trailer, hence the name Trailer Trashed.
Movie trailers:
Video game trailers:
HOW2.
HOW2 is a series of episodes where Orange and Pear teach the audience how to do all sorts of things. While Pear gives proper advice, Orange gives advice that is silly or off-topic. The series started in February 2016 with HOW2: HOW TO TIE A TIE. Most episodes end with Orange blowing up the video with TNT. DaneBoe makes the show by going through the comment section on the last episode and picking a topic. After that, he researches the topic. Then he blends the video with a bit of the real topic with something silly or off-topic as we;;.
Emoji Raps.
The Emoji Raps star Orange rapping about several things using emojis, including himself. The first rap was released on . As of , there have been eleven raps. The eighth rap was a Bendy-themed rap, which was on , the ninth rap was Marshmallow rapping instead, which was on and the eleventh one was Christmas-themed, which was on .
Annoying Orange Challenges.
On , Orange released a series of challenges from fan comments and made a series about it that are very extreme, such as the 3:00 a.m. challenges. As of , there are seven challenges.
Shocktober.
On every October from 2013 Onwards, horror / Halloween episodes are released to celebrate the month of Halloween. Pear is one of a few characters who hates Shocktober, as first stated in the episode "The Deviled Egg". This fact was even answered in an Ask Orange question in "Ask Orange 9". In later years, Shocktober would also be involved in the Annoying Orange Gaming Channel, in which the characters mostly play Horror Games, games that are scary, or games that are not really scary but are still meant to celebrate Halloween, whether a video game, an online web game, a downloadable game, a fan game or otherwise.
X-Massacre / Christ-Massacre.
From until December 22, 2017, X-Massacre, also called Christ-Massacre, was released. This series is about different types of food being killed and served for a Christmas dinner. Each episode would feature a food from the Christmas Dinner list on the refrigerator. This list is what the foods of the kitchen call the "X-Massacre List" / "Christ-Massacre List". Whenever a food from the list would be killed, that food gets crossed out from the list.
This series had also been reuploaded in the form of a Saturday Supercut on December 30, 2018, 8 days after when the 5th & final episode of the series aired. It basically has all the episodes combined as one, being exactly the same, albeit with a different question of the day at the end of the Supercut.
Storytime.
On , a new series was released where Pear tries to read classical children's stories and fairy tales, only for Orange to make up his own versions (which the plots are often odd or confusing), much to Pear's chagrin, which started with the second episode on . One episode sees Grapefruit reading a story, only for Marshmallow to twist the story up. Marshmallow appeared in a few later episodes as well.
Featured Stories:
Saturday Supercut.
Releasing every Saturday, Orange uploads a collection of a series of older videos, like HOW2 or all of his Wazzup videos, for example.
Annoying History.
On July 31, 2019, a new series of videos called Annoying History was created. Like How2 it is both education and comedy. Pear gives truthful wise information while Orange gives confusing off-topic information that would drive Pear insane.
Background.
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. The original video was planned to be titled "The Annoying Apple", but when he started animating the video he found it easier to put features on an orange than an apple and make it clearer.
The first Annoying Orange video initially was meant to be the only one on YouTube. However, viewers requested more videos, 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 "Annoying Orange" on January 11, 2010.
Reception.
The series was rated as the most viewed web series of February and March 2010 by Mashable, with over 52 million views. On April 26, 2010, the series had over 108 million views on YouTube. In June 2010, the channel had received 137 million views. By August 13, 2010, it had received 1 million subscribers. In June 2011, the channel was ranked as the eighth most subscribed and 30th most viewed, with more than 2,000,000 subscribers. On January 13, 2012, the series hit 1 billion channel views and 2.3 million subscribers. The Annoying Orange YouTube channel currently has over 10.5 million subscribers.
Despite the popularity of the web series with sections of the public, it has received generally unfavourable critical reviews, many citing its rude humor. Liz Shannon Miller considered the show to be "annoying for many reasons." 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." 411mania.com called the show "idiotic" and "creepy as hell", while other publications have referred to it as "third grade humor."
In 2014 The Annoying Orange YouTube Channel was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #32.
Lawsuit.
The success of the series had received attention from H2M, a Fargo, North Dakota advertising agency, which in 2006 created its own "talking orange" character to be the spokesman for a North Dakota Department of Transportation ad campaign. Both characters were anthropomorphic oranges with ties to the Fargo-Moorhead area. Despite only slightly resembling H2M's talking orange, the Annoying Orange was looked into by H2M's attorneys as an intellectual property matter. Boedigheimer stated he had not watched H2M's talking orange videos before being informed about the disagreement, and also believed that the characters were not very similar. Boedigheimer and Grove were later sued by H2M in May 2013 for allegedly copying the character. No information has been made public about the status of the dispute.
Merchandise.
Collective 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. 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.
Plushies.
In 2020, Annoying Orange partnered with Warren James, LLC and has produced Memory-foam plushie toys depicting every major character. The inventory of plush toys includes Orange, Pear, Midget Apple, Marshmallow, Grandpa Lemon, Grapefruit, and Passion Fruit. The toys can be purchased on the official website individually, or in a bundle of seven.
Comics.
Annoying Orange comics are published by Papercutz.
Television series.
"The Annoying Orange" got a TV series on Cartoon Network, and it ran from 2012 to 2014.
Games.
"Kitchen Carnage".
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. The Christmas version of the game was released in December 2011 and the free version of the game, Kitchen Carnage Lite, was released March 2, 2012.
The aim of the game is to throw different items across the kitchen into a series of blenders before the time runs out. The player is given apples and bananas at the start. When the second level is reached, tomatoes are added. Level 3 adds cantaloupes, level 4 pineapples, level 5 strawberries and level 6 adds Fred FiggleCorns.
"Splatter Up".
"" is the second game by the Annoying Orange, after "Kitchen Carnage". The game is based on baseball, and the player slides a finger while a fruit enters the home plate. The faster the player slides, the farther he gets. The game sprites are the same as the "Kitchen Carnage" game, the only one that does not appear in this game but appear in "Kitchen Carnage" is Fred Figglecorn.
"Skewerz".
"Skewerz" is the most recent Annoying Orange game. The player is given fruits and vegetables to collect and they need to catch them in the skewer. When collected, you can send them to a blender called the froomba.
Pay withdrawal lawsuit.
On December 23, 2014, Dane Boedigheimer announced that "The Annoying Orange" has not been funded by Collective Digital Studios since November 2014. This has led Boedigheimer to take legal action to get paid. Due to this, the series has had a noticeably lower budget on YouTube since then, with less use of live-action footage of foods.