This fall, the popular YouTube series ANNOYING ORANGE will be getting the television treatment! Premiering on TELETOON on Thursday September 5,the show will expand on the misadventures of Pear, Passion Fruit, Marshmallow, Midget Apple, Grapefruit, Nerville and, of course, their annoying friend Orange. This fruitastic crew have a ton of hilarious adventures that include getting superpowers at the supermarket and entering a duel at Medieval Times!
THE MAGAZINE recently sat down with ANNOYING ORANGE creator Dane Boedigheimer to talk about how ANNOYING ORANGE went from a web series to a television show. Here’s what he had to say:
The Magazine: Why make a show about an orange?
Dane Boedigheimer: That’s a great question. It’s funny because when I was doing the first episode, it was going to be Annoying Apple but for whatever reason, when I sat down to animate it, the features looked better on an orange. It was going to be an apple annoying an orange, but I swapped them and it became ANNOYING ORANGE.
How did you come up with the idea of an annoying fruit?
I guess a lot of it comes from watching cartoons and growing up with stuff like LOONEY TUNES. A lot of those characters were really annoying! Look at Pepé Le Pew or Bugs Bunny… He’s lovable but he really annoys Elmer Fudd. There’s something about watching people get annoyed that’s funny. I think it’s probably because it’s so relatable. We’ve all been annoyed by something!
How did it go from being a YouTube series to a show?
After about a year, I connected with a management company because I was getting all sorts of crazy business offers and I didn’t know how to handle them. They had turned other series into movies and I was interested in jumping mediums like that. So we came up with the idea to do a TV show.
How does becoming a TV show change the series?
It doesn’t change it that much because the web series still exists and we still upload a new episode every week, if not twice a week now. We’re actually putting up more content than we used to. We’ve got the web show and the TV show at the same time. They’re just different. With the web show, we only have a few minutes but with the TV show we have a lot of minutes, so we can go on bigger adventures and do fun things with the extra time. The characters are still the same. They still get in crazy goofy situations and have a lot of fun.
When you were making the YouTube series did you have any idea how big it would be?
No, there’s no way I could have realized how big it would get. It’s funny because I had a fair amount of subscribers. I was making a very good paycheck, not enough to live off of; I had other jobs on the side. When I was uploading that first episode I thought, ‘This is a pretty good situation. I really enjoy what I’m doing and if this is how it ends up then, this is great.’ Then, ANNOYING ORANGE took off and I was able to quit all the other work I had to do. ANNOYING ORANGE is all I have been doing since then, which is great. To be able to wake up every day and put faces on fruit, it’s not too bad!
What were you doing before ANNOYING ORANGE?
Well I’d been making short videos like my YouTube videos for a really long time. Ever since I was 12. With YouTube, there was finally a place to upload them!
What can kids who didn’t watch the YouTube series expect from the show on TELETOON?
At its core, ANNOYING ORANGE is just that. The main character is an orange that is annoying but he doesn’t realize he’s annoying. A lot of what Orange does and the adventures that he gets in come from a good place. When he’s pestering people, he’s just trying to get them to laugh, he doesn’t realize that he’s socially inept. I think a lot of people misunderstand and think that he’s kind of a bully, but he’s just trying to have fun. Orange and his band of friends go on crazy adventures. Every episode they get into some sort of trouble that they have to get themselves out of.
What is your favourite fruit to eat?
Ah man, I got to say my favourite is strawberries.
And your favourite vegetable?
Carrots.
And your favorite colour?
Orange!
Was it orange before the show?
I think it was blue, actually. I’m colourblind. A lot of people don’t know that about me.
Thank you, Dane!
We at THE MAG are extremely excited for ANNOYING ORANGE to hit the air this fall! Watch the Canadian premiere on TELETOON on Thursday, September 5 at 6:15 p.m. ET/PT!