Object show

A relic of the past, in this case a poster showcasing characters from four object shows, representing the OSC.

An object show is a genre of animated web series throughout YouTube, active on the Internet since 2010 with the Battle for Dream Island series premiere, "Take the Plunge", which has since spawned many other web series like this one after the release of Inanimate Insanity. The Object Show Community is the main fandom behind this topic and it is the community in which the genre revolves around.

General overview

An object show is generally a web independent animated cartoon series uploaded to YouTube which contains anthrophomorphic animated object characters as contestants mostly competing for a prize.

Several series contain random genres which depends on the creator's choice. Most of these object shows, mostly in universe controlled by a host, are competition as most of the shows plotlines revolves around teams battling over contests to gain the prize, while the contestants are eliminated by vote, either by the contestants or the viewers, which are sent to the elimination zone. Some object shows however, follow a non-competition based plotline where are mostly slice of life skits by the objects or other genres.

Much of the object show genre around the competitional ones contained every personality basis for a cartoon but sometimes they can also follow up changes of personality or making unique ones.

Etymology

The term "Object show" have its earliest appearance on YouTube was on XanyLeaves first YouTube video which was the earliest intro for Object Overload, as seen on the video description, but the use of the word "object" was first used as far back as 2011, under the show Object Awesomeness. On April 1, 2013, the term was official and recognized by the Huang twins (Michael and Cary) through a video suggesting object show creators to share their own at an email.

Quote the Urban Dictionary, an object show is a term used for a "web series featuring anthropomorphic objects, usually competing for something".

History

Origins

Although Move Your Feet! by rtil existed since 2008 on the Newgrounds website, it didnt focused on competition but the characters being objects with faces and sometimes even limbs arrose with this fan-made music video. Battle for Dream Island, the first official object show, first premiered on January 1, 2010, under the first season episode "Take the Plunge". Inanimate Insanity, who was thought to be the second object show, only premiered on April 1, 2011 under the first season episode "The Crappy Cliff" resulted in the creation of more object shows, inspired by the first three who were the first competitional shows.

Early developments

Since Total Fruit Island was possibly the first PowerPoint object show, this started to give the rise of object shows in the 2010s under the simplicity. The first popular ones were mostly competitional being Brawl of the Objects, Object Overload, Object Lockdown and many more.

Rise in popularity

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Object show community started to appear in its rise, especially in it's after years. And apparently they will become more popular once one of the show that inspired BFDI, Total Drama, returned to the television air, kids probably heard about object shows with it.

Object shows in other languages have also started appear internationally over the world as several foreigners gained interest over the Object Show Community years after the release of Contest For Millions of Thousands. The Timely genre rose to prominence and common numbers once FusionAnimations created and released The Daily Object Show. It was however meant to be a joke show.

Animator's Guide on Object Shows

Foundation

There are over two main categories to follow when creating an object show: Competitional and Non-competitional. Competitional shows follows the format introduced by BFDI and somehow makes more success than Non-competitional.

Name

Most of the object shows from the 2010s followed the template of suffix starting with "Object" and then fill the blank with an event, but the name can either also follow the suffix starting with "Battle for" or "Inanimate". Most of the object shows have acronyms such as Love of the S*n which has it's acronym as "LOTS". Some object shows however don't have acronyms since it looks like one but doesn't stand for anything, such as ONE, as confirmed by it's creator Cheesy Hfj.

Animating

Adobe Animate is an example of software used for animating an object show, which most of the time takes months or weeks to finish, depending on the schedule. Animate, a product of Adobe, was originally famous under the form Adobe Flash before the Player platform was shut down in January 2021 There are two other examples that are no longer mostly used, PowerPoint and Anime Studio. PowerPoint object shows were using the Microsoft Office software PowerPoint to make animations of their object show with sometimes bubbles of dialog in them. The only known Object show that used Anime Studio was Inanimate Insanity.

There are various styles used for animation. One of the most famous styles of Object show animation is the Classic animation style, which is the use of pre-existing assets, excluding the object asset, including faces, eyes, hands and legs. The assets most of the time uses the BFDI assets used for the first 3 seasons. The animation is mostly based on tweens.

A recent style of Object show animation is the Hand drawn style where most of the mouths, eyes, hands and legs are mostly drawn by the brush tool from Adobe Animate. This has since been popularized by Battle for BFB and ONE.

Completion

After finishing the first episode, you can upload the show on YouTube and share it online through social media or Discord server, giving attention to it. Most of the recent object shows gets at least a hundred views but some of them blow up in popularity gaining at least 50,000 views.

Status of an object show

Ongoing

An object show that is still airing episodes. Battle for Dream Island is the most famous example.

Completed

An object show who is mostly completed, meaning it can either return or it is fully finished. ONE is a major example at this.

In hiatus

An object show who is still in hiatus, meaning on hold or development paused. IDFB, the third season of BFDI, is an example.

Canceled

Object shows that were announced to be canceled. Total Fruit Island supposedly got canceled around the time Inanimate Insanity premiered. "Self-Titled" takes the theme of an unsatisfying ending for the objects.

Upcoming

An upcoming object show is when an object show is unreleased and still in development. Beyond Bounds by BlueFlower is an example.

Revived

This is a rare occassion where an object show that was previously canceled returns to the air. Battle for Dream Island Again, the second season of BFDI, is an example, with the release of "Well Rested", also known as BFDIA 6.

In popular culture

In popular culture, references relating or directing to object shows have been common, but mostly unintentional. Some objects from these web series appeared in random content or in real life.

An example of an object appearing in popular culture is Haminations' Book reading in a video. The cause of this is possibly YellowAngiru, a member of the OSC, animating that scenes as he was one of the animators on the video.

See also

• Object Show Community
• List of object shows
  • List of object shows from before 2013
  • List of object shows from 2013
  • List of object shows from 2014
  • List of object shows from 2015
  • List of object shows from 2016
  • List of object shows from 2017
  • List of object shows from 2018
  • List of object shows from 2019
  • List of object shows from 2020
  • List of object shows from 2021
  • List of object shows from 2022
  • List of object shows from 2023
  • List of object shows from 2024

External links

• Object shows playlist
• TV Tropes article