Going bananas about series

By Scott Collins

McClatchy Newspapers

LOS ANGELES

It’s logged more than 1 billion views on YouTube and is a genuine Internet sensation, even though all the characters are bickering, crudely animated fruits. But will TV audiences find “Annoying Orange” as appealing?

Cartoon Network is about to find out this week with its latest series, adapted from the enormously popular three-minute animated Web clips about a talking citrus with a high-pitched voice and a grating penchant for laughing at his own jokes.

Annoyed critics have trashed “Orange” for humor that might not pass muster on a grade-school playground: Imagine “South Park” set in a kitchen, minus the ripped-from-the-headlines outrageousness.

Creator Dane Boedigheimer — a native North Dakotan whose official bio describes him as a “goofball extraordinaire” — agrees it’s all silly but says that’s not the only point.

But there’s more at stake than just one relatable fruit. With Internet video viewership soaring — and Americans increasingly bypassing TV for their tablets, smartphones and laptops — “Annoying Orange” offers the latest test of whether the Internet can help reenergize television, a conventional media format often criticized for creative infertility and too many lookalike programs.

Television networks have had some success transferring original Web content to the living-room flat-screen. The antics of Fred Figglehorn — a manic, helium-voiced, deeply troubled 6-year-old portrayed by 18-year-old Lucas Cruikshank — jumped from YouTube to two hit movies for Nickelodeon, with a third on the way. “Adventure Time,” an animated satire of post-apocalyptic fantasies, was a Web hit first before Cartoon Network picked it up in 2010.

But not everything survives the jump. CBS was confident that a Twitter account based around bon mots from a grumpy septuagenarian could be spun into sitcom gold. Yet “$! My Dad Says,” starring William Shatner, didn’t even last an entire season.

Some experts see the inherent slickness of TV as not always conducive to homegrown Web fare.