Toby Turner

Early life

Turner was born in Mississippi and grew up in Niceville, Florida. He attended the University of Florida, and having an interest in filmmaking, graduated with a degree in telecommunication production. Toby's mother later took out a loan and bought him a camera, an act he appreciated helped begin his YouTube career.

YouTube

Toby Turner has grown to become a popular personality on YouTube, achieving his early notability through his Tobuscus channel, and later through his secondary vlogging channel, as well as his gaming channel. Aside from these channels, Turner also worked with Philip DeFranco on Like Totally Awesome (LTA) and Cute Win Fail, after befriending and being employed by DeFranco. LTA was a gaming and review channel that ran during the late 2000s and early 2010s.

In July 2013, Turner signed with YouTube multi-channel network Maker Studios.

Main channel

Toby Turner first joined YouTube on May 14, 2006, when he created a channel under the name of "Tobuscus". The first video that remains on the channel is a sketch based on the 2006 film Click. One of Turner's earliest popular videos is "Don't Tase Me, Bro!", a remixed recording of the University of Florida Taser incident in which his classmate Andrew Meyer was stunned with a taser gun by a police officer. Interviewed about the video by MTV, Turner explained that, after watching the clip, "as soon as [he] heard [Andrew] yelling, [he] knew it would fit in a hip-hop song", and that he "wanted to give [Andrew] the profits" from sales of related merchandise. The Tobuscus channel has since continued to focus on comedic skits and animated sketches. Turner's Literal Trailers series is one of his most popular, earning him mainstream recognition from CBS News, who described his rendition of the Dead Island trailer as "amazing" and "hilarious", and Wired, who praised Turner's Literal Trailer of Iron Man 3.

Vlogging and gaming channels

In April 2009, Toby began using his "TobyTurner" channel to upload daily unedited vlogs, which he dubbed "lazy vlogs." In July 2010, Toby registered his fourth (third in use) YouTube channel under the name "TobyGames", designating it for a new series of comedic Let's Play videos. The channel has featured playthrough videos of numerous games since its inception, including the long-running Minecraft and Happy Wheels series.

Collaborations

In addition to producing his own original content over three channels, Turner has worked together with a wide range of other YouTube personalities on various projects. In 2009 he performed a guitar collaboration with Joe Penna (MysteryGuitarMan) using two separate videos played simultaneously; in 2010 he made an appearance on the fifth episode of The Annoying Orange, titled "A Cheesy Episode"; in early 2011 he worked with iJustine on a number of LittleBigPlanet 2 Let's Play videos; since 2011 he has worked on many projects with Jack Douglass, including parody "Tobjackscus", sketch "Dubstep Tobuscus", and music videos "Take Off Your Clothes (Like Scarlett Johansson)", "Razors in Your Apple (On Halloween)", and "The Valentine's Day Song"; and in 2012 he starred in a short with Olga Kay entitled Olga Kay Goes Haywire., as well as starring in an episode of the YouTube series, "Retarded Policeman". Tobuscus has also appeared alongside notable celebrities on several occasions, including the music video for the song "Whistle While I Work It", featuring Chester See and Wayne Brady, as well as starring in a three-parter YouTube series "Terminator Genisys: The YouTube Chronicles" to promote the film Terminator Genisys. A range of well-known personalities were involved in the series, including Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, and YouTube stars such as Lilly Singh, Olga Kay, Sean Klitzner, Epic Lloyd, The Warp Zone, and Kevin Lieber.

Aside from these works, Turner has also presented a web series called CuteWinFail, created by Turner and co-produced with Philip DeFranco and his production company FishBowl Worldwide Media, since its inception in October 2010, although in November 2012 his involvement ended after 100 episodes of the show. He also works as a host on Tagged, a gaming-themed YouTube series produced by NODE Studios, and plays the Satan character in the Fine Brothers web series MyMusic.

Film and television

Turner's first feature-length film role came in 2010 romantic comedy film New Low, in which he played stand-up comedian Dave, the best friend of main character Wendell played by writer, producer and director Adam Bowers. The film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, before it received coverage at the Austin Film Festival in October and at the Glasgow Film Festival the following February, and was later released on DVD in 2012. Later, in 2012, he starred in psychological horror film Smiley, written and directed by Michael Gallagher and starring fellow YouTube partner Shane Dawson. Turner also starred in the 2015 film The Great Gilly Hopkins.

From 2012–2014, Turner starred in the Cartoon Network animated series The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange. Turner played Nerville, the only human character who can interact with the fruits.

Other work

Aside from video production and other entertainment, Toby Turner – who is described on his official website as a "viral marketer ... [and] consultant for viral video and social media platforms" – has worked with a number of major companies on advertising campaigns, including NBC, Disney, and others. Among his online commercial credits are adverts for Fox crime drama series Lie to Me, footwear manufacturer and retailer Timberland, snack food product Pop-Tarts, and social network aggregation website Ouibox.

Toby has also secured hosting roles for a number of events and series, including reporting on the Toshiba "Set Me Free Tour" for MTV in August 2009 and presenting holiday special web shows for Comedy Central, Spike and VH1. In December 2012, Turner was nominated for the award of Best Host at the 2013 Streamy Awards, although eventually lost out to KassemG.

In May 2013, Turner set up a fundraising campaign on crowdfunding website Indiegogo for an iOS (and later Android) game based on his Tobuscus Adventures YouTube series, called Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards!. The fundraiser surpassed its goal of $240,000 within two days. The game features Turner as main character Tobuscus as he fights off hordes of zombies to get to the Wizard of Darkness., and also cameos Gabe Hohreiter as Gabuscus, and Turner's dog Gryphon. The game was released in March 2015 for iOS and later for Android. Before its release, Toby also revealed that a second, albeit smaller game, was in development at the same time and based on the popular sandbox game Minecraft, titled "Mine The Diamond", which was later released in June 2015 for iOS.

In May 2014, Turner signed a three-book deal with Tegen Books, an imprint of Harper Collins, to help create an illustrated journal-style series based on Tobuscus Adventures. The first and second books were published in the fall of 2015 and summer of 2016, respectively, with the third book set to release in winter 2017.

Sexual abuse allegations

On April 8, 2016, Turner's ex-girlfriend April Fletcher, known online as AprilEfff, made several allegations about the YouTuber, including that he was addicted to drugs, that he had cheated on several of his former partners (including Fletcher), and that he drugged and raped Fletcher in February 2013. Writing a blog post on Tumblr, Fletcher claimed that she had contemplated suicide following the episodes, and that Turner had likely committed the same acts to other women. On April 9, 2016, Jaclyn Glenn, another of Turner's ex-girlfriends, posted a video on YouTube responding to the allegations. Glenn claimed that Turner had affairs in their relationship, and that while she thought the rape allegations were possible, she personally believed that they were untrue.

Turner responded to the accusations on April 11, 2016. In a short video, he dubbed Fletcher's claims as "false" and claimed that he had "never done anything without her consent [and] never tried to trick her into anything".

Personal life

Having begun his video-making career in Niceville, Turner moved to Los Angeles in 2008, where he resides with his dogs Gryphon and Boone.

Filmography

Besides his primary YouTube career, Turner has also been featured in various other media roles: