[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m link and I’m Rhett it’s time for another conversation with somebody interesting from the internet and this week the person is joining us at the roundtable of dent dim lighting is Dane bodenheimer Nona filmed lighting known to fans as daneboe known to us is Dane he’s the creator of probably the largest or most successful crossover series of all time moving from the internet to TV you may have heard of it it’s called The Annoying Orange that’s right it it’s an orange with a mouth superimposed on what Danes mouth superimposed on right as well as Danes eyes superimposed on it I I think technically it’s one of his eyes superimposed twice it’s the same eye yeah doubled which may be part of the key to the success along with well all the other factors which we talked to Dana bout it premiered as a one-off video in October 2009 and now has over 152 million views I’m talking about just that first episode of The Annoying Orange here’s a clip hey Apple what you look fruity yeah that was hilarious hey hey Apple what can you do ten push-ups in ten seconds what kind of question is that I don’t even have arms how am I gonna do one push-up hey what hey Apple what can you do this okay with that initial success of that video Dane got the bright idea to start a channel that was wholly devoted to the Annoying Orange it’s called real Annoying Orange that was a good decision because that channel has since racked up two billion that’s billion with the bee that’s like almost a third of the world’s population views in a 2012 Cartoon Network picked up the series and adapted a television with Danes to running the behind-the-scenes production operation the high fructose adventures of Annoying Orange [Music] he’s ours [Music] since then that television show has had two seasons 60 episodes but Dane hasn’t stopped on the internet he’s still cranking out weekly episodes of The Annoying Orange and also making videos on his own jet to at least two active YouTube channels with a lot of content we had a great conversation with Dane he’s got a lot of interesting life experiences that he shared with us one of which was how to deal with inappropriate pictures while working at a one-hour photo lab it’s touch and go with that also how he worked in the middle of nowhere North Dakota where he grew up and then his move to Bakersfield California where he found meth heads rolling around in his front lawn quite a shock never happened to me no I’m but I’m glad it happened to him so you could tell us about it and obviously we talked about the many creative iterations that eventually led to creating the internet and TV phenomenon that is the Annoying Orange so here it is our ear biscuit with Dane I watched that the video you did where you listen to yourself on delay and ice cream ever oh my god yes do you fall victim to it oh yeah because there are some people who don’t really you know we’re on the mythical show we have a fine brother and brothers were on there and neither one of them are susceptible to it like they had no problem at all whereas we get on there and it’s just hi I’m the guy and that I love not able to yep that’s totally what it is so you tried this in like your spare time well what happens is we do every Monday morning we have a Google hangout with my whole crew cuz some of the guys work remotely and for whatever reason you know sometimes like video hangout yeah video hangout but for whatever reason there’s you know feedback yeah and then you’re talking and you can hear yourself talking and then pretty soon you like I can’t hear what okay now I can talk you know yeah headphones off yep yeah I mean there’s I don’t know what it says about the fine brothers but there’s something about the you just letting go and just talking and no women you magic sound like a complete idiot yeah I’m the worst when it comes to that so yeah now going to your studio mm-hmm was I think I said this when we were there and we were doing our guest spot for the annoying orange mm-hmm it was kind of like a dream come true it was like like or like a field trip like you see you watch this show and and you can’t your friends are getting to go on the field trip when do I get to and what is it gonna be like when I get there are there gonna be paddle boats yeah and the best field trip we went on in grade school was to Pullen park and there were paddle boats and that was the only disappointment I gotta say that I don’t know that’s next all this but it was it was a very cool experience being guest on Annoying Orange especially because we got to be rappers yeah yep you get to be the rapping fries grab Chris cut and cut Chris yeah well um you know I I had made assumptions about how the process would work or whatever the one thing that I had not thought of was how still our heads had to be right yeah so you said it’s down this in the stool you sit right down in the stool first I might let go first cuz if this is gonna hurt I want to know I didn’t know yep you can see how it goes so you sit down in the stool and I think you told me to put his head back if you want to put your head back you can but it was basically the I saw you set up the camera just film his mouth and I mean you’ve got this down to a science right at by this point I mean it’s been five years this stinks because the first thing that happened was I sat down and I I wanted to move my mouth to express myself especially when you move your whole head yeah yeah we move your whole head when you’re adopting a character has this affected the way that you communicate in life could you find yourself like keeping your head still now when you’re talking honestly I bet you I have to wonder actually I mean if somebody you know if they did a study of me like you know starting five years ago to now because I can tell I had motion study you you know I’m just saying if they did okay a head motion study and you could be able to track now your head moves I can tell your heads not moving that much when you’re talking you might be right actually I was gonna say that I think his head is moving and normal normal it I was saying I think that normal head movement while talking right it’s it’s it’s kind of funny because you learn how to keep your head extremely still and emote as much as possible but still move the rest of your body like using your hand to gesture and things like that when you’re you know saying something angry like I hate this very much but you can keep your whole body very still what character is that that was my dad you know I feel like it was a success I haven’t seen our Chris cut crisscross guests yet it hasn’t come out yet as of this taping but it was a grand experience oh yeah and you said five years of getting this thing down to a science I want to thank you for the experience it was it was like paddle boating paddle boating you guys were Naturals you know like there’s a lot of people and no disrespect to anyone that comes in and sits down because it’s a little I don’t know it it’s it’s hard to sit down in a chair and then you’ve got these lights shining at you they’re like two feet away and you’ve got a giant camera in your face and somebody’s saying you know keep your head completely still don’t move at all right but be excited and say you’re you know say your lines with a lot of emotion it’s it’s hard to do it all and a lot of people come in and get a little freaked out and so they’re very kind of timid and they don’t you know really get into the candor but you guys came in sat down and rocked it out it was fun you’ve had some high-profile guests on that thing I mean from the start it was you’ve always incorporated youtubers but you’ve had some some mainstream celebrities in there too over time right so back in the day I got a cold call email and this company wanted James Caan to be on the show to help promote whatever they were trying to promote and so I got to go to his house and meet him and it was just me with a camera sat down filmed him you’re like I’m just gonna he knew you’re just gonna fill my mouth yep I mean he kind of knew I mean he kind of knew what was going on but at the same time really didn’t it was a lot of fun actually he was a really you know gregarious gregarious guy he just told a lot of really weird stories and he would go off on tangents in the middle of a line it was you know he really yeah it was fun could he keep his head still yeah he actually did a really good job he was a good head Stiller yes what part did he play he played jalapeno okay very sexy was was it justine one of the first guests or yeah yeah she was the first guest before that it was like Bosnians was he helping you out at the time no Bobby wasn’t really helping I mean he was he was one of my buddies yeah you know good friend at that time and he was kind of watching this whole thing grow but he was actually in the same episode that justine was in so okay he I was the first episode with with other people right so well let’s go back to the to the beginning of you before we go back to the beginning of orange so where’d you grow up North Dakota well there’s people there there there is all the howl of like 20 now what was the situation the situation was it it’s a little town right outside of Fargo North Dakota called Harwood growing up I was well in college I was known as the Harwood hustler cuz I hustle the hard streets of Harwood with like like playing pool or what nothing selling drugs because it started with an H exactly durations yeah cause you were compensating for something I don’t know what I don’t know what I’ve been facing I would I put faces on food what can I say the the movie Fargo how do you deal with that when you grow up so close to Fargo it’s funny you know that was what I loved that movie by the way but many people from that area do not because you know they’ll you know people will ask them Oh have you seen the movie Fargo oh we don’t sound like that and they absolutely do everyone has that accent back there oh we’re going to the bar you know that bad accent yeah it’s it’s people don’t think that they have it what is your parents do there well my mom was a pregnant wife Cheryl I wish I wish well my dad was a roofer my mom worked all kinds of different jobs she you know would work like factory jobs she worked a lot of nightshift kind of things but right now she works with developmentally developmentally disabled excuse me I can’t tell she’s a true hero yes yes my dad’s not around anymore okay he passed a few years ago but my mom’s still around my brother’s back there still he’s going to school so now you were doing an impression of your dad earlier yes was that this is how he talked yeah when he was angry yeah did he get angry at you occasionally um yeah yeah he got angry at all of us you and your your I know you have a brother yeah Luke right mm-hmm and then who else is in the family that’s it okay my brother my mom okay yeah two brothers in the immediate family anyways right Hans of cousins and aunts and uncles and all kinds of things I mean so what do you what do you do in North Dakota for fun as a kid nothing there’s not much to do and that was the whole thing like you know obviously you you know hang out with your friends get in trouble go tip cows that kind of thing no that’s not possible we’ve tried it yeah yeah we have now joking we’re from another north we have tried it so I mean that’s what we did funded North Carolina attempt to yeah there’s just you know that was the thing there wasn’t a ton to do so you just kind of had to use your imagination and one of the things you know when I was 12 my my parents got a camcorder for the family and as soon as they got that camera I hijacked it and it became mine and I used it to make all sorts of you know short videos with my brother was this thing full VHS or DVD s it was eight millimeter Oh like a what is it supe no it’s not super 8 it yeah it was religiously yeah okay so the smaller tape-based thing but you could digitize the footage yep exactly you weren’t editing on VCRs I was in the beginning yes okay yeah well Digital eight came out afterwards like I ate yeah that’s what yeah it’s high yeah yeah that’s what usually a little too recent yeah exactly so you would shoot you would make shorts but would you edit in camera like yes shoot this scene and then the next scene is this so I got to shoot it now so that it can be laid on the tape right after the yep exactly but the the it was never it was obviously never a perfect science because there was like a one or two second delay from when you click the record button so you’d have to you know say action but then tell the person don’t say your line until two seconds after I hit record right because because I’m not gonna edit this that’s happening right now exactly so you get a lot of cut off lines you got a lot of people like standing there for a second and then moving and saying their line so you immediately started doing scripted content with the camcorder yep and then you know playing around you know there we had a VCR in one room and then a VCR in another room and so I grabbed those put them together and then you know tape to tape pick out those gaps yeah exactly put in some sound effects even oh wow I had a what was it it was a tape player that I hooked the the RCA cables up to the back of the VCR and then I could put fart sounds and stuff in the videos and so when you did that you fart movies yeah when you do these do you think I made because cuz this is how I remember editing you know Lincoln I would shoot something and then I would take the VHS see tape I would put it inside the VHS yeah holder yep put it in the in the VCR I would go to my dad’s office of the law school and I would take to like VCR carts that they used in classes and put them side-by-side and then take the cables from RadioShack and do the editing but I don’t remember being able to run like to overdub audio at the same time or you eventually figured it out and I said this is good we have to do it all you had to do it all at the same time right exactly so it’s like while you were recording video yep you had that wasn’t taped to the other timber sitting there ready with the tape player and then you would hit them in hope to god that the fart sound came in the same time yeah exactly there was a lot of hit and miss it’s so amazing that that was a thing that happened mm-hmm and it all depends on how old you are yeah in fairness the fart sound there’s a little leeway with when the fart comes like if you lean and then it’s a few seconds for the fart comes well that’s normal if you’re filming the bassoon I assume you’re a fan of Dumb and Dumber yes knowing you yes have you seen the truck new trailer it looks amazing well the trailer yeah he names the cab the hole and he says why do you call him that and he holds up shows the cats ba hole yes yes I’ve seen the trailer so I mean I watch that today so they do show cat ba hole and you had to say like that ball and it’s a trailer a trailer is you know anybody can see that right oh that’s yeah so I mean you know the world is changing so how did you go from foreign movies to making The Annoying Orange I’m sure you can answer that in two sentences so I went from making fart movies to you know just I kept making them and in there screenings no I mean there was for my family that was the whole thing like I loved making videos with like all my cousins and stuff and then we’d all crowd in a big room and watch them together you might be particularly proud of anyone oh man okay so I made this series called demon shadow and it was about this demon like we it was a ritual forest like every fourth of July my family would come out and we’d all get together for a fourth of July gathering but at the same time we had film one of these demon shadows you had a large cast yes exactly and they were completely nonsensical I grew up on horror movies and comedies pretty much so those were my inspiration very very cheesy but it was just about this demon that would haunt us and every year would come back to life it’s kind of like the you know Freddy Krueger there’s just he can’t be stopped and it would you know we would in the end to feed him and then he’d come back the next year so this became a ritual and I always just loved doing it and the kids loved doing it so yeah that’d be cold would you would you like kill off a cousin every year or something my god Yuki you can come back next year but you can’t be in the movie because you died well there’s a demon shadow right but demon shadows got to kill cousins first yeah well there’s always you know there’s always the danger of that but no none of the cousins ever got killed one of one of our buddies got killed in one of them and then became a zombie who came back to life and saved us and did any of these people fart or was that you know this is post fart movie okay good for you and have you done how do you kill a demon shadow oh you can do it many ways a very offline very often it was with fireworks since it was fourth of July so we would get amazed the prop secured yeah exactly disposal I think we did that at least three or four times it became a reoccurring thing it was like okay option value we’re gonna do this ending again alright what what are the fireworks laws in North Dakota because I assume there’s none I seem like there’s cannons there yeah I mean it’s pretty much no-holds-barred right for whatever reason a few years back they banned bottle rockets you can fire off the most insane artillery shell explosion it doesn’t matter but you can’t have bottle rockets because they’re cuz you how can hold them yeah I apparently I’m not sure hold them yeah too many woods they just look like it’s like that stick looks like a handle it does we had many a bottle rocket fight so yes so is it like I’m going to film school no in fact it was you know me just doing this thing and then you know I got to the age of I don’t know fifteen sixteen whereas like oh okay I can get a job now to get extra money so I started off working this really you know it it was fun but I would never do anything like it again we worked out in these corn fields and we were it was like cross pollinating different corn stalks he would second corn yes exactly with itself Wow Durban but anyways that was a job for a couple summers but then I saw the paper one you know was the next summer that they were looking for a cameraman for the local Prairie Public Television or PBS okay that’s what Perry Public televisions prairie public yes okay that’s what it’s called back in in Fargo right but I saw an ad for that and I was like wow okay maybe I’ll give it a shot that’s better than mating corn exactly so I you know I applied and they I got the job oh wow and it was awesome it was so much fun didn’t get paid very much but you got all the free Mountain Dew and popcorn you wanted so at the at the ripe age of 16 I was like heck yeah 16 years old yeah you were like traveling around the state shooting like public television studio it was all studio based like they would do the you know every season they do the drives to raise money and it was we would just shoot those film people answering phones exactly which sounds boring but it was so much fun could you just got your cans on and you’re just you know you’re jabbing with the other guys and making fun of each other making fun of the people answering the phones which is terrible if you do that job you can’t you can’t think that nobody’s you know making some jokes did that lead did that lead to the next thing kind of yeah it was when I was there that you know I was talking to one of the other girls who worked there and she she said oh you do film and you know you really like this stuff you should go to Minnesota State at the time it was called Morehead State University which borders Fargo and they have a you know they had the beginnings of a film department and I was that was when it first hit me I was like holy crap I could actually do this for a living alright I like this so that’s you know I kind of left there with that in mind and I I made a meeting with the you know the head over there and you know he was awesome said you know talked me into it basically but he didn’t really have to he just gave me the spiel was like you sold me at hey how are you doing right and that’s you know kind of where it started went to film school there and what was the film program like it and you say it we started to say Minnesota State is at what’s called now yeah it’s called Minnesota State University Moorhead okay yes and how many students in the film program man you know in our kind of cohort it was like I think like 16 something like that it wasn’t a ton so now it’s much much bigger over the few last few years it’s really grown but you know when I was there we had one 16 millimeter camera nobody knew how to operate it we had this other guy that wasn’t even affiliated with the school that would come in and help us run it but nobody knew how to run it no matter anyway no I know at the time we’re all like I wish we knew how to we could do that too cuz it would be really helpful no it doesn’t matter so was there like demon Shadow the college years or I wish I well I kept making them in my own time you know yeah that was that was my thing you know like you still have demon shadow on tape I do I do I’ve always wanted to upload them to YouTube but I’m a little hesitant because they all have like copyrighted music so I figured maybe I’ll just put them up and not you know obviously not monetized well you just need to create the channel demon shadow yeah and then just you know yep just take whatever happens right well if we get done with this podcast and people are like we want to see demon shadow alright then I’ll do it that’s gonna happen so at daneboe on twitter hashtag demon shadow my cousins will be very happy oh man I’ve always wanted to be featured quite in that way they’re gonna break out demon shadow so so you were you were getting the proper schooling but you had the thing that was even more important that was a drive to create mm-hmm yes yeah and that it was funny you know some of the a couple my good buddies we would always say like you know we saw some of the other guys in the department and again nothing against anybody else but they would you know just do the required projects and that was it whereas like I would do the required projects and I would get done with them I’m like I want to do more so I would go out and do my own stuff and I just you know for whatever reason just constantly wanted to keep learning new things got a computer one of the very first IMAX that came out you know those colored ones they were different yeah so I got one of those so I could use iMovie which is the most amazing thing in the world to me I didn’t even know it was called iMovie so iMovie shipped with the first one of those yeah awful looking things that was in public libraries what time I was like wow that was a thing of beauty at the time you know it was like what this looks this isn’t a computer this is a lunchbox you know just was amazing with a tube in it with like a television tube that you could see in the back yeah right yep exactly yeah so I saved up my money from doing those other jobs bought a computer and you know just I I did while I was in college I did a internship at a claymation film or this guy I think he was in Grand Forks which was like probably 45 minutes away out in this just on his farm way out in the middle of nowhere was making this claymation movie and he wanted someone to help him and my you know the head of the department came to me and was like hey this guy wants help you like animation so you want to do it I was like heck yeah I’ll do it so I went out there every day drove out there there and back and just help this guy and he he I can’t remember his now I think it was Peter but I can’t remember his last name but he he’s the one that kind of showed me After Effects for the first time and kind of how to use it in a very general fashion nothing really in-depth but it was at that point I was like oh my gosh what were his characters were they raises no no it was uh it was they were Knights it was at like a Knight’s Tale I think that was actually the name of it but his since been taken by someone else yeah something might turn into a movie yeah so that’s that’s kind of where I got my first you know dip my hand in the water my toes in the water with After Effects and that just you know from there I was like I love this so much and we’re still probably about I mean we’re talking at least four more years before the advent of YouTube mm-hmm even from this point mm-hmm so what was in that four years do you get married no I met my wife to be in college and we from there you know graduated moved to Minneapolis she’s an archaeologist so she was working for some of the firm’s injuries as an archaeologist yeah how come I didn’t know this no you do well I mean all our cuz we’d like for her to replace you at this point what could it how could benefit you get right over that but two very fascinating careers that’s interesting yeah she’s she specializes in stone tools so she can take she knows how to Flint nap so she can take you know rocks and she hits him with other rocks and turns them into does she like travel to remote locations and yeah stone tools up mm-hmm see I’ve only ever seen this on television mm-hmm or movies and I thought that it might be a completely made-up profession know it but now it’s been confirmed I know one yes she doesn’t look like Harrison Ford does she know senator I told her when she gets her PhD she’s getting a fedora in a whip there’s no like she doesn’t get to talk yeah there’s no or you’ll let her take her out take it out in public yeah exactly so you moved for her archaeologist job yeah she got a job out there and then I wanted to go up there too because Minneapolis there’s a bit more going on as far as filmmaking so I was like maybe I can break into something but and I had no luck there’s just there’s not at the time there really wasn’t a lot going out there and I did everything like I’m I was shameless I would just show up at businesses with a you know a resume in hand and say hey I’m looking for work he got anything and I got ended up getting a couple of things but they were you know they weren’t they didn’t pay at all but I got to stand there in the cold and and help out a little bit but that was about it and what kind of stuff was that um wrangling Talent okay for just I think it was a commercial shoot and then I can’t even remember what the other one was but it was something similar so it wasn’t anything crazy was just like a one-day shoot got to do it a couple times in the meantime I worked at one our photo labs that was my oh that was my thing Wow so you’ve seen you’ve seen photos oh yes it’s like the archeology of a different countries actually especially when you know cuz people one our photo labs there’s just stacks and stacks of photos and people bring stuff in but then you know they just don’t come back for it so you’ll have you know packages there for four years and peeling those open and you know like looking inside its yeah it’s crazy you see some see some crazy stuff if people take photos of things that are like inappropriate you’re not supposed to develop those no no in fact I mean we ended up it’s one of those things where you can’t really stop it from being developed because you developed the whole roll at it you don’t put it in the right right put it in a pack yep why not you put in you put it on the wall in the office it was it was the procedure was to like you were it was mandatory that when that happened you had to actually tell the person like hey we said we found some naughty photos in there and we couldn’t put them in and of course they were developed that’s what I don’t get and what were this what were the categories that you couldn’t put in there are you talking nudity yeah I mean that was like basically illegal activity I get to have sure but why personal photo nudity it’s North Dakota but I think that’s I think that maybe it isn’t anymore of course I don’t know who’s taking these type of photos and getting them developed these days but right yeah I think that’s that that was like the wall but it is a great question because the person who took them has seen it right now the person who developed them is seeing it yeah who are we trying to protect at this point yeah I shouldn’t say it’s just North Dakota it’s everywhere I mean right I remember in North Carolina too but you would have to tell the person hey hey Dad that photo that you took I don’t know if that’s your girlfriend or yes it’s a comfortable scenario to like have to say to someone like we found some new tees so and what do people say do they are they create yeah it’s either one of two scenarios the first is like they’re like you know kind of get that bashful look on their face like oh okay sorry or it’s like what what that’s my photo it’s you printed it right and then you have to say like well yeah but we can’t give it to you just give it to me so do you have any on you you and Teresa were you were dating or you were married yeah we were dating okay so she’s like being archaeologist extraordinaire and you’re like trying to piece it together mm-hmm I mean is that was that frustrating you’re like oh she’s not gonna marry me if I don’t get out of this photo lab now there was really no worry about that I mean we neither of us were really in any rush to get married or anything like that but it was frustrating at the same time of course you know to to really be hungry for it and want it but not at the same time kind of not knowing what you want but just being hungry for it because like I didn’t know at the time like do I want to do animation do I want to direct do I want to do this I mean at the at the end of the day all I kept thinking in the back of my brain is you know I want to I don’t want to I want to direct movies that’s all I want to do so when was it where was the breakthrough I don’t know well I guess it was YouTube really that was that was the big breakthrough from many Teresa got into a master’s program in Bakersfield California oh yeah oh yeah right right on our back doorstep you drive an hour and a half you will face the net capital birthplace of Merle Haggard exactly so we ended up moving there a great introduction to California it is it lots of cows and dust and meth I guess he would say yeah yeah okay that’s methyls of it’s funny the first day that we moved in because we we didn’t get a chance to actually come out and find a place before we move down so we got our place online moved out well you know get there with our moving truck pull up and we’re like oh god this is sketchy we you know we start moving our stuff and what did it look like lack of a better word very good we like you mean like unsafe yes yes okay a lot of unsavory types hanging out guys rolling around on the on lawns obviously on something there was a guy that that that was there he would roll around on the lawn and chase cars you mean like like as if he were on fire like a person person at first sausage meant like driving a car on lawns but fume you know like bodily rolling yeah yeah like a log right a log that snorts and yells cars like a dog yeah so like a log chased cars like a dog it rhymes so yeah we were moving our boxes in and you know getting getting settled and all of a sudden we hear from from like the walls were just paper-thin so in the apartment next to us we hear you and then I was like okay and then we well you and we’re like okay and it just it starts to escalate assume that was a woman in a man yes no you you want it you want it did you start hearing this oh wow it’s recent I would like well in the Bakersfield that was that was her first introduction to Bakersfield but for a moment you thought there was gonna be like gunfire through the through the through the wall well that yeah I mean that was always a worry actually it sounds it sounds you know completely overdramatic but it was of worry when we moved away from that place it was the very next week we they were doing we were watching the news and somebody got arrested for pulling a gun at that apartment complex at the pool and they were there was trying to shoot somebody but the the gun I wouldn’t go out it wouldn’t go off it got jammed and we were like ah so we actually broke our lease after three months because we couldn’t take it right so god yeah we for whatever reason we made the the people next to us really angry because we’d complain about the noise because Teresa is she’s in school trying to do her studies meanwhile people are blasting their music and so we would complain I came home one day went inside came back out dude pissed on my on the wheel of my car it was like because they were you know they’re tired of us we got a dead I didn’t expect to go down this road but it was a weird situation I mean that’s pretty hardcore peeing on a tire well you know does that mean he now owns the car well yeah he’s marking his territory appeal on all four tires and then you make it to the spare you definitely so you got out of the apartment did you get out of Bakersfield or yeah of entually eventually we did so one of the reasons a move to Bakersfield besides the fact that Teresa got into a master’s program was I was able to get a job on pimp my ride thanks to a couple buddies that I went to college with really yeah and they they shoot up there in Bakersfield no they actually shoot it in LA and Inglewood so I would commute from Bakersfield to Inglewood Wow probably twice a week but I would stay with them during the week they were nice enough to let me crash on the couch and more so what was your what was your job there production assistant okay sweeping floors at first so you were in the student you weren’t like on location with exhibit like hey I’m here at this car and I’m about to pimp it back in the studio hearing footage of him say hey I’m at this car I’m gonna be it was kind of in the middle actually I didn’t work I mostly did not work at the at like MTV studios what I did was I worked at the garage where they would do all the work but that’s the best part me and my buddy Spencer who actually is like been with me from the beginning yeah with orange it was me and him that’s what we did man we just we hung out at the at the garage all day long they were literally pimping the ride exactly we it was pimping 24/7 baby did you pick up any bodyworker uh you know surprisingly no it was terrifying the first day you walk in because these are you know these are rough and tough dudes that work there but you know it’s it’s standard procedure that you gotta you got to rough up the new guy a little bit give him give him a good ribbing so everybody was you know like guys would I would I would ask guys questions and they’d be to just look at me whatever and they’d turn around and walk away and then I’d see him way off in the distance they’d be like you know talking to their buddies and they’d just be laughing and laughing on laughing man so in the beginning it was scary and I remember my first week I hated it I was like I everyone hates me you know whatever but then after a little bit it’s totally one of those things like you know you’re around him enough they start talking to you pretty soon everybody gets along and they’re just they’re awesome dudes it was a lot of fun actually to be down at the garage these guys and tiny skinny white guy amongst okay all these rough and tough guys and so did did YouTube start to bubble up at this point or was it it was jobs it was closed so it was right around that time I think towards the end of when I was working on pay my ride that YouTube started to become a thing I remember sitting in I had we had we had a trailer out back I remember sitting in the trailer making a myspace page and it was yeah it wasn’t short short there too long after that that and when did you introduce a get married two years ago okay so that was that was more recent yeah okay we had been been together for 10 years around those 10 years yeah you guys been together a decade yeah okay so as you begin to work on Pat my ride making that MySpace page yeah makin a myspace page what was the what was the thought at that time because you know I mean the traditional model still a lot of people who follow this it’s like I’m gonna get a job as a PE on a TV show I’m gonna work my way up to whatever and then you know I’m gonna be in the business yeah it was at a strategy at the time kind of yeah I mean that was you know me and my buddies and everybody that was on the show that was kind of the you know the way that things were done if you were in that position you just got to work your way up and I kind of did you know from PA I was able to actually parlay that and work on a creative team with a little help from Spencer actually he helped me get a position on a creative team where I got to actually shoot and do some writing write some of the bits on the show things like that so that was a lot of fun but you know at the end of the day things didn’t quite work out and after I was done with it I just you know I was it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because I was just like this isn’t quite what I want to be doing it just doesn’t feel right so I was like I don’t think I want to do TV but while we were while I was working at him I ride and we were you know working our butts off you know we would come home at night and we just make stupid videos like we had always done back in college and whatever and it began with we we made our own website called gagfilms comm where we were just uploading our stuff there it was a lot of like old college buddies that would just go on the site and leave comments and watch it and stuff like that and that was kind of our vision was like hey what if we created the site where everybody could put videos you know and then it wasn’t shortly too long after that that YouTube popped out of nowhere so you almost made YouTube almost just that close to I don’t want to go there yeah actually had a lot of people ask me when I said oh we have the sight gag film I’m like oh is that that part right did somebody steal a video from gag Phil’s not come and put it on YouTube or did you post it on YouTube yourself no I think we just you know we made a YouTube page and I just started uploading stuff there because ironically our first video on YouTube was stolen from our website where we were hosting QuickTime videos mm-hmm we had a parody of pimp my ride really with our kids called pimp my stroller oh my god hope I never seen this we built because it used it’s not all I’m a playwright of music and it was stick oh but we pimped out a double stroller we actually engineered this thing it kind of looked like the Batmobile and we put my daughter Lily and his son lock in it and we like play these characters we were making fun right yeah it was like yo we pumped out your stroller and then it was crazy inning Rams and ground effects and everything and we like did the voices of our kids but you know somebody we know money stole it and put it on YouTube well but when we move from North Carolina that pimp that pimped out stroller double stroller is is out there somewhere yeah we off somebody bought three and a half years ago really fan Wow who came to our studio so so yeah that video was taken from our website posted on YouTube and it got a lot of views like we should start here to jail were you guys doing the same exact thing like hey let’s put make a site and put some videos yeah Retin we were kind they weren’t smart enough to think let’s get other people to put videos out there but but it’s funny because you know they’re just because we’re similar in age it’s and had the same type of aspirations it’s funny how there’s so many parallels it’s like if you wanted to be in some sort of entertainment that involved you making videos you edited on to VCRs you shot with a certain type of camera yep then you started your own website then YouTube came along and either you were smart enough to put your videos out there in our case somebody put a mother for you and so the when you put them up there on YouTube was early days I guess 2006 is that one yeah what was the what was some of the first videos if you put up the first videos were stuff that I did back in college the very first video that I have on my daneboe channel which is my main channel is a short called the Yanni show and it’s it’s like a kids show slash game show starring Yanni he teaches about green light touches and red light touches and Haggai it goes south very quickly and needless to say I have gotten many hate comments from people that love Yanni that I am a horrible person for whatever reason back in college we just we loved you know poking fun at Yanni I don’t know yes the other night and I was like I just this is unbelievable Yanni live like he’s still doing is still at it yep so then what popped because I know before orange there were talking eggs yes that was that was probably the first thing that popped it was we introduced those eggs I remember this CW CW online nation yep I don’t know what the intro was I’m sure it was a really cheesy line had been written for us it’s like you know what link I’m in the mood for eggs oh yeah right an omelet well here you go how about some eggs would personality Oh clip I’m sure it was something that bad yeah I remember this very very well and so that was on YouTube it was you open the fridge yep and the eggs that was like one of my well be very first talking food video that I did what what happens you open the fridge yep open the fridge and there’s some unsuspecting very cute kind of slightly annoying eggs that are you know kind of bewildered and like what is going on and then they get taken out of the fridge and put on the counter and the whole time they’re like I don’t know what’s going on what’s happening and you know you see the frying pan get put on the stove and the burner goes on and the whole time they’re still talking what’s going on and then all of a sudden Steve gets grabbed and he gets cracked over the edge of the frying pan and everybody freaks out yeah it’s always Steve I don’t know what I don’t know why but it’s always Steve so it so started with eggs and then moved on to what well it started off with eggs because I did that video for a film contest it was a bolt calm it was this old kind of networking sites kind of like MySpace it’s now defunct it’s not around anymore but at the time they were doing this contest where you make a minute long video submit it if you win you get $5,000 so I did it and I actually won and I use that $5,000 to buy a new camera and some new equipment and you know but why talking eggs it’s a great question it’s a great question I mean it’s one of those things like you you know I always grew up you know anthropomorphizing things we all do as kids you know you make the rocks talk or whatever sticks trees you know you give them personalities and you know learning after effects early on and realizing that I could actually do that in my videos just blew my mind and that’s why I just totally gravitated towards that like okay I can bring anything to life and it’s amazing to think that that stop-motion guy that you drove ever how far everyday yep to help him out for presumably nothing I taught you After Effects and that changed everything it totally changed everything yep so that would yeah that’s definitely one of those moments you won five grand and you bought in a better camera yes so you tx100 oh yeah you guys know yeah ene I had to be okay we had an MMA and then we had a beef nice so did you just put eyes and mouths on things after the eggs or did you do other things other things yeah right a mix of everything right so you know I like I said make cats talk I had you know and it was always like humans interacting with other things that you know don’t normally come alive but they did in the videos but was it always an inanimate object or something that doesn’t talk talking no I mean well quite often yes quite often we’ll put yeah because the eggs really worked it totally worked and it’s funny like looking back at it now you know I think about I’m like oh man I didn’t you know I wonder why I didn’t just gravitate towards that right away you know cuz it really worked and it just popped and people loved it and like in other words do a sequel to the egg yeah exactly and I did actually probably a year later or something like that but it was just one of those things like I want to do all kinds of things I want to try things out I want to make explosions you know I want to make giant demon monsters whatever yeah so and there was a good three years between joining YouTube you know six to that first annoying aren’t yo 9 yep and so in in that three-year period of course you know if you’re talking oh six oh seven oh eight you’re not no partner program really there’s not a lot of money or any in YouTube it’s still sort of hot the hobbyist yep so what were you doing to make money in that period of time so after I made that talking egg video you know I was continuing to do other things and then all of a sudden I got an email from JibJab com I don’t know if you guys know yeah definitely animation site where you could actually interact with the website and upload your photos and they would make those talk yes at some point yep and they would also do political satire music videos that were two-dimensional animations but they would all have like moving mouths yep so they saw your egg thing and they’re like ah get this guy on border we’re gonna assassinate him yeah they called me up and they’re like hey we love this and we want you to come in and make a whole slew of them and so when in talk with them and that’s what happened I ended up making I think like ten of them at least different variations of kind of this egg structure so you know and it was all for different holidays because they were doing just you know kind of holiday greeting card ecard kind of thing so you know for the Super Bowl a bunch of avocados got turned into guacamole and for for Christmas a bunch of cranberries got strung up on you know a string and hung up on the the Christmas tree and stuff executed yes and it was all horrific but funny at the same time a lot of animated violence so it played really well and it would it did really well for their site and you know I had a lot of lot of fun doing it and I actually got to like work with a legitimate crew have a cameraman things like that so it was a good learning process there too and those guys hands down some of the best dudes Evan and Greg over there they are one of the reasons why I’m at where I’m at like those guys really nurtured me so but you didn’t make the orange for them nope I didn’t nope I think goodness for that yeah it was shortly after that I had done all those JibJab videos I still doing my thing every once in a while I’d do a talk in food video and that was really it it was just gonna be you know I came up with this idea you know it was lying in bed one night and just you know cuz I you know before I’d fall asleep just come up with ideas and that just popped into my head like Oh would it be hilarious if this you know if this Apple was annoying this orange and then it got knifed and you know and just kind of that that escalation of being annoyed to death what did you switch it because yeah I said that oh yeah in the beginning it was going to be the other way around but then when I started animating it I still hadn’t like really really perfected the animation process even though I had done tons of these so as you know as I was animating I was like looks like the face on the orange looks so much better I’m gonna make it The Annoying Orange so I swapped it Wow so it was almost The Annoying Apple yes it was almost but it was good that I didn’t go that way because then you know orange could say you’re an apple and you know there’s that you know kind of thing going on the its you know up to over 150 million views now it was so it was one of those videos that everybody passed around back then and continues to get a lot of views having just watched it today to kind of just to refresh as a refresher on it I’m just reminded at how much the violence at the end is is really the kiss that is the hook mm-hmm you know it’s like it’s funny throughout I mean it’s just a hilarious video that first iteration and the annoying are you’re laughing throughout and then of course just this unexpected like oh this is gonna happen and and that was kind of what that was sort of the the plot line with with everything in short right it was like I would add that it was obviously the great ending was this knife and then you know it’s like slicing an apple is I think more satisfying than slicing orange – so I got you one on that one but then it was that the button of Bennet it pans over to the payer mm-hm yep and that you got that extra big laugh and it was just perfect but it set up another one I don’t even know if the second one after that was a pear no it wasn’t but you kind of get this oh now he’s gonna talk to this pear and what else is this aren’t you gonna talk to I’m gonna keep watching and I’m and I’m I could be five years old or I could be 55 I could be 105 and I’m gonna watch the next one yeah because I’m annoyed by this orange in a very delightful way did it blow up instantly it took a few weeks but after a few weeks it hit a million and then slowly just started getting more and more millions was there someone who talked about it at that early stage that was like helped it blow up or was it just just everybody it was yeah I mean it was it really was organic you know I don’t remember anyone ever you know talking about it or featuring it or anything like that it was just it started to get a lot of traction and then suddenly I was getting tons of emails from kids and make more you know we love this and so I you know luckily I left the character in alive at the end so I could make some more because it was never intended to be more than just one video so you know but at that point where you’re like all in orange orange orange no not even then it wasn’t until the fourth episode that I uploaded and I was like holy crap because I was right before Christmas I uploaded that video and the next day it had a million views which at that time was that’s gangbusters so I was like there’s something going on here so at the time I was doing client work and YouTube at the same time I was off on vacation for Christmas I got home I made an annoying orange YouTube dedicated page and just decided right then and there like hey this is what I’m doing I’m gonna I’m gonna try and make this work cuz you know now is the time right so from there I just you know I kind of dedicated myself to you okay now I’m on a schedule every week I’m gonna do another one of these cuz that was kind of the schedule at the time for everybody is like just do a video a week and you know get on a schedule so Friday became the day so every Friday was a new annoying orange video was it difficult to maintain that schedule did you oh yeah because of the work that went into it writing the shooting to add any in the compositing yeah yeah I mean I would not have been able to do it without Spencer I I did the first couple episodes and then you know by the third episode I was already starting to get stumped a little bit you know as far as like coming up with puns in terms of writing yeah so I hit him up cuz he’s the he the master of puns it’s ridiculous and then in terms of like the the keyboard work was that time-consuming to I mean was it did like the animating yeah yeah that took so long I mean it was we would basically the structure became Spencer and I would talk on Sunday for an hour to come up with okay what’s this next video gonna be he would script it and have the script done usually by Monday and we maybe do some revisions it’d be very quick revisions and then you know we’d have it locked by Monday night and then Tuesday would record all the mouths and then you know spend the next two days animating it and upload on Friday and that became that was the structure for many many many many weeks I was your life yeah life for a while yet it but it was rewarding because it went up it was working and it was working totally it was fun it has so much fun after everything you had done I mean hearing your story it had to have been satisfying wow this is really happening yeah yeah it was crazy and to go on YouTube and see the videos featured everywhere you know at the time they would actually feature videos all over the site and just just seeing it featured and you know seeing like I would upload a video and within you know an hour it would have thousands and thousands of thousands of likes and favorites and you know comments and whatever and people were so engaged and there was no negativity whatsoever it was crazy you know like you know fred was kind of the other annoying character at the time I always felt really bad because you go to his videos and look at the comments and they were chests nasty people say some nasty things but there really wasn’t any of that with orange and anytime anybody did say anything bad the rest of the community would stand up and say hey don’t you make fun of orange he’s funny you know right what are you thinking usually when you go back to something monstrously successful on YouTube when you look back at the first one it’s like oh yeah I want actually one even that good you know that’s the thing that was when I was I was very pleasantly surprised to rewatch the first one that it was very much intact I think a testimony to a process of well it wasn’t an orange but you had mastered a lot of other things that everything came together in a way that you never could have imagined or planned right exactly that I mean if you you can’t point to any one thing but it’s kind of a confluence of everything mmm yeah the writing the I mean everything mm-hmm but it’s very cool that even in that first one it’s like oh this is a template this is not it would be great it was and so you you you go you start making these videos every single week and you’re getting this amazing popularity and of course you know we know part of the rest of the story is moving on and having it adapted into a television show but wasn’t it before that that the because like beyond it we came bigger than YouTube I mean all of a sudden there was merchandising involved and there was you know little I can’t remember what year it was but I started seeing Annoying Orange key change and then pajamas and then all the eight all this television show yeah it well it started before then especially there was a lot of t-shirts and things like that but like I think oh man maybe the toys actually were before yeah the toy the toys were before the TV show too so yeah there was a lot that was out there before that I felt so cool going into Toys R Us that Christmas like I guess that was that was so surreal and it was like at the cashier you know the let the impulse buy stuff whenever was Orange there’s like obviously there I’m sure you’re like screaming in Toys R Us no the guy I think I was phone number in like my phone call I know that mouth so you’re seeing this thing blow up like this and I know you it’s one of those things where you’re in conversations with people and you’re like oh yeah let’s do this merchandising thing and they’re all gonna make keychains or pajamas or t-shirts or whatever it might be but how it does it feel what would you remember the first time you saw it on a shelf yes there was a hot topic uh-huh there was actually a bunch of a bunch of youtubers that had gotten stuff in hot topic I don’t know were you guys in there too or not and part of that wave okay like Shane Dawson was one of them I think Charlie the Unicorn and there was a bunch of people so it was cool to actually go there and not just see my stuff but a whole wall of youtubers that was it was at that point where I was like ah that makes me proud right those are my boys and then it gets on television but it’s a different iteration I mean is there what what’s the perspective on okay this is what you did here and it worked here but for this to be a television show it does have to be something different well yeah that was always I mean everyone always came to us and they were like you know when we’d go and pitch and stuff and talk about it everyone we always say like how do you translate two-minute video online to you know TV show well you do that by concentrating on the characters and character development and going on adventures it’s not you go from just this witty dialogue quick things that happen and then you know the knife moment whatever because that’s what the web show was to now hey we can actually explore all of these personalities and how they work together and you know that kind of thing and that was actually the most fun part of the TV show is doing that kind of thing you know really diving into those personalities and you know finding out that marshmallow is this cute character that loves everything but kind of has a dark side that comes out every once in a while you know is these you really get to play with those sorts of things a lot more didn’t you have the opportunity to work with some pretty amazing veterans in the animation business when you sort of developing the show yeah it was I mean you know with development you know Tom Shepard came in and he he had worked on so many things like pinking the brain one of my favorite cartoons so you know having guys like him come on and then conrad vernon of madagascar fame a bunch of other stuff too working with those guys it was amazing and then you know having a whole studio filled with people just working on putting faces on fruit was very very surreal and a lot of fun and you’ve had two seasons up to this point yeah and that went really well I mean what was the experience for you amazing great experience it was beyond amazing I mean at the time it sucks because at the time I was so busy you know because we were trying to do the web show at the same time cuz my whole philosophy was you know going into it which was also kind of hard to get across to a lot of people was like you can’t cut off the web show cuz the web show was where it was all born that’s where the audience is now you got to use that to push the audience to this new bigger thing you know and they cross-promote each other and they work together just like two strains of corn but you you were working yourself like crazy cuz you had to have you have to do both yeah yeah the web series going every week yep exactly so it was constantly running back and forth from from that to the web show and then back and forth and back and forth so it was hard to like really sit down and you know take it all in and really enjoy it but you know I say that but I’m not I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy because I really really did but it you know at the time looking back I’m like gosh I wish I would have just stand sat around more and just you know took it all in a little bit but what’s your focus at this point I know that on the orange Chan what you mean you’ve got your own channel daneboe channel which you there’s things happening there but and then even within the orange channel on youtube there is seems to be a lot of different things that are that are happening there so so what’s the strategy what’s your focus be it television daneboe orange or the orange series or other things on the orange channel it’s all of those things actually we’re continuing to do stuff on the demo channel here and there we’ve got you know we’re always doing stuff on The Annoying Orange Channel every Friday still and now we do stuff every Monday it’s usually like gameplay videos because obviously everyone loves gameplay on YouTube and then Wednesday we’ve kind of hold we’ve kind of held four new IP you know we did our first new show about half a year back called the misfortune of me being Ned excuse me and it was an animated show cartoon it was a lot of fun to do and it kind of taught me the whole process of making a cartoon and it is a much more daunting task than I ever would have thought so but yeah kind of just exploring and experimenting with you know the whole medium because really it used to be you uploaded once a week and that was kind of the model but now it’s become much more normal for people to upload you know multiple times a week if not multiple times a day it’s kind of what the algorithm Rize geared towards so we’re just kind of playing with that I mean and with having five years of orange that’s what she said right there’s five years of orange under your belt yeah the I would imagine there’s a challenge to keeping it relevant keeping it top of mind I mean you can’t expect to do the same thing and get the same results exactly exactly so how does that work I mean is it is it frustrating views aren’t the same that they used to be in one sense no no and it’s it’s it’s it’s tough because you don’t want to go down that road where you’re just a slave to the views but it’s so hard not to be you know because when it’s star it’s getting down that road you start enjoying it a lot less and you start worrying okay like ah I worked so hard on this video but it didn’t make its money back and so now what am I gonna do and you know so it’s it’s tough in that way but you know ultimately we just we try and do something new with every single episode whether it’s whether it’s a 3d shot or you know something that we haven’t tried before just to keep it fresh and then always you know trying to bring new people on like you guys and you know new people that are getting popular on YouTube I still find it amazing we had Chester Chester C come in a while ago and he came in and he was you know he’s been blowing up and so I was worried that he wouldn’t even want to be on the show like you know our dinky show whatever but he came in he’s like are you kidding me man I totally want to be on this show it’s like you know it’s a rite of passage it’s a youtube rite of passage you got to be killed so it’s I’m continually amazed by the YouTube culture and you know everybody working together still you know it’s it’s a good thing to fall back on especially when you get frustrated you know it’s a it’s a big family and that’s that’s a very comforting thing well we’re glad to now be considered part of the ranks the dead ranks and hang out with you and hear your story it was a lot of fun thanks for coming in thank you gonna kill you oh I’m gonna do what you told me to do I was sitting there in the booth and you’re okay now just yell I just encourage you to yell like you’re dying okay here we go that’s good cut sign the table sir [Music] and there it was our conversation with Dane Oda Kaymer I really had a good time talking with Dane I think there’s this dynamic when we talked to someone on a near biscuit that’s a similar age to us that’s found a way to be successful on YouTube we there’s a similar path because there was a many years of development before YouTube came about where you were making videos I mean if you track with us it’s the whole editing videos on to VCRs as a kid and finding a way even in the college years to make videos and find an outlet still before YouTube was invented well and one of the interesting phenomenons when that’s your story is that you have something that you made that no one knows about unless you tell them about it like for him it’s demon shadow you know for us it’s gutless wonders yeah you have that thing that you that you began or you made that you showed the family members that you don’t want the Internet to see although Dane did say he was possibly willing to put it on the Internet at some point I’d like to see daemon shadow yeah and you know and he got married before the whole YouTube thing happened not true he met his wife he met his wife met his wife who is now his wife but yeah he’s been but they were they were a longtime couple I think yeah so it’s just it’s just a different it’s a different thing and what you see today with YouTube it’s these kids who you know I don’t know they don’t know who they’re dating next what do I know what videos coming out and it’s just a different dynamic it’s been wrong with that it’s just it’s good to connect with somebody who’s got sort of a similar similar background but not old we’re not old oh no no no it’s not I’m not saying that 50 is the new 30 is that thing is there’s somebody who just said whoa right like you’re 50 what it won’t be too long brother tweet at daneboe not danbo I accidentally left the first a out and it it’s just some other dude I don’t know who it is it’s somebody but you know what you should tweet at dambo and say what are you in dude come on now it’s too close to well but not really sweet it daneboe and let him know what you thought of his ear biscuit we certainly appreciate the time that we spent together we also appreciate you reviewing ear biscuits on iTunes so give it some ratings also comment on SoundCloud we appreciate all of this as way to support ear biscuits and mostly we just appreciate your ears ingesting our ear biscuits that’s true so just bring your ears back next week and we’ll bring the biscuits it’s a beautiful arrangement we promise [Music] [Music]