Cartoon Network Lawsuit: 'Annoying Orange' vs 'Talking Orange' (VIDEO)
Cartoon Network is involved in a lawsuit with a North Dakota AD agency over their "Annoying Orange" character.
H2M, a Fargo based marketing and advertising company, are suing "Annoying Orange" creators Dane Boedigheimer and Spencer Grove for allegedly copying a marketing campaign of theirs that ran from 2005 - 2010 in North Dakota and western Minnesota for the North Dakota Department of Transportation.
"Defendants Dane Boedigheimer and Spencer Grove were raised, resided, educated, attended film school, were employed and first obtained access to 'The Talking Orange' in North Dakota and western Minnesota — the same area where Plaintiff H2M's 'The Talking Orange' and its derivatives, were widely disseminated on cable television," the suit states.
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The "Talking Orange" and the "Annoying Orange" share many of the same similarities such as superimposed human lips and teeth on the fruit and a highly obnoxious and snotty voice that moves in sink with the lips. The differences are in voice tone and in the eyes, "Talking Orange" has none.
"Like 'The Talking Orange,' 'Annoying Orange' appears to be speaking with a 'voice' that is perfectly in sync with the movement of the actor's mouth, lips, teeth and tongue," according to the lawsuit.
Yahoo reports that both creators of the show are also from Minnesota warranting suspicions they may have seen the commercial.
"They picked up, moved to California and started another version of it," H2M attorney Jeff Landa said, reports UPI. "That's essentially what our case is about."
Boedigheimer claims he has never seen the "Talking Orange" ads before, and that created the "Annoying Orange" as a Youtube show back in 2009 before heading to the children's cartoon channel in 2012 as "The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange."
The "Annoying Orange" is on its second season on Cartoon Network on May 16. The series had more than 1 billion views on Youtube. H2M claims it simply wants its share of the profits made by the creators.
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