The PBh Story
An Environmental Education Journey
or “How to Be an Overnight Success in Just Under 20 Years!”
I love making Planet Bonehead, and I want kids everywhere to learn about the incredible advancements happening everyday in green technology and STEAM fields. This is the story of how PBh began, and the incredible journey through environmental education I've taken to get to this point so far.
I'm just getting started...
PART 1
Let's Make... Something
2005
Original Bonehead skecthes
There’s no roadmap to creating an educational program that teaches kids about an issue most grown-ups prefer to ignore. My adventures on Planet Bonehead began in 2005 when I first attempted to design a nebulous cartoon character called Bonehead. I had the beginning of a start of an idea, and no clue where this was taking me.
Word to the wise: designing bone-shaped characters is... challenging.
My kids were little at the time, and I was becoming more environmentally aware as climate change was becoming a more prevalent topic. So I set off to create a website community to help people become environmental activists. It was during this time I designed the original versions of Bonehead, T-Bone, and the gang (they weren't good), and started teaching myself video editing and animation.
2006
Original T-Bone skecthes
2007
Not every character made the cut
Pretty soon I had the whole family working on PBh, and we were trying to find a way to gain traction. Here’s a video of me, my family, and my brother's family wandering around a college campus in pure Bonehead fashion trying to get attention for the new venture. Still wasn't sure what I was making or what I wanted to accomplish, but the idea was catching on!
PART 2
Let's Make a TV Show!
I set off to create a TV show. I tried pitching it to various stations like Nickelodeon, PBS Kids, and Cartoon Network, but nobody was interested in educational content. They only wanted the next Sponge Bob. When that route became a dead end, I had to consider whether or not to keep going.
2009
2010
Spoiler alert: I kept going! I decided to create the show myself. It was slow going being the sole member of the PBh creative team, but I worked on the stories, animations, music, and video editing. I wasn’t thrilled with the original animation style, but you have to start somewhere.
PBh was finally getting attention, and the original videos began selling on DVD to teachers and schools through educational distributors at SAFARI Montage and Learn360. Then, Fox News (I know, right?) did a segment on the show. Next, Charleston, South Carolina wrote Planet Bonehead into their official science curriculum! I was certain that PBh was set to take off in no time.
I was wrong :/
2011
Charleston, SC officially included Planet Bonehead in their district-wide curriculum
PART 3
Now What?
2012
It's important to keep in perspective that PBh made little to no money.
In fact, at times it was costing money to produce.
Being a young dad with little kids, everything I was doing was in my “spare time”.
Thank God for my wife's unending patience putting up with me.
There were some “big breaks” that just broke.
I trusted some people who made big promises but never came through.
It would have been easy to pack it in at this point.
But I had a better idea...
PART 4
Let's Make a Better TV Show!
I never really loved how the characters looked originally, so I redesigned them into the Boneheads we see today. All the original episodes I had animated with the old characters were completely redone with the new ones.
2013
Wishbone redesign
2014
My distributors were transitioning from selling DVDs to streaming content into classrooms. My new animated episodes with the revised characters began streaming into schools across North America, reaching over 300,000 kids each year. Surely “success” was just around the corner!
It wasn't. And don't call me Shirley.
My best friend Tony Walker helps me write every animated adventure, and he voices Pa Fossil too! One goal we had from the very beginning was to make an animated kids show that the grown-ups could also enjoy. So Tony and I make each episode a parody of different pop culture hits we loved as kids: Indiana Jones, Star Trek, Back to the Future, even Gilligan’s Island. This way there was fun for the kids, but also jokes and winks just for the grown-ups.
2015
Original Pa Fossil sketch. I told you designing bone-shaped characters is challenging!!
PART 5
Let's Make MY Show!
2017
I wanted Planet Bonehead to inspire kids to learn more about STEAM fields. I began immersing myself in the world of greentech, learning how much optimism there was for solving climate change, and discovering amazing advancements. I soon began to realize...
Greentech is saving the world and nobody knows about it!
I started experimenting with some new production ideas, and wanted to create a new series that focused on climate change and advancements in green technology. This video was a test-run for what PBh is today.
2018
2019
Planet Bonehead was evolving into a program to teach kids about greentech. The technology that exists today is amazing, and falls well within STEAM lessons and NGSS standards. Plus, these industries are starving for talented engineers, designers, communicators, and more. There are exciting careers just waiting for kids in these incredible fields, but parents and teachers don't know they exist!
I was just about ready to launch a whole new Planet Bonehead when…
// We're sorry, the world is closed //
// ERROR 2020 //
// Insert all the reasons why the pandemic pressed pause on my plans //
PART 6
Roadmap to the Future
Planet Bonehead finally re-launches.
It turned out the pandemic allowed me the time to transform PBh into a new greentech-focused program.
And now PBh is premiering globally in over 86 countries, including the UK and Australia, thanks to new distributors, ClickView and Boclips!
2023
2024
New episodes are being released throughout the 2024-25 school years, available to stream into classrooms globally.
Plus, I'm building and launching the new Teacher Learning Center and Planet Symposium in early 2025.
I see Planet Bonehead in every classroom in America, and the world. Kids don’t need to be taught that the planet is important, they get that innately. The problem is, they forget it when they become grown-ups. So this program will always be here to help them remain master stewards of our one and only Planet Earth.
2033
and beyond
I’m Bobby Donohue
I'm revolutionizing climate education
The sad fact is that teachers lack the knowledge, resources, and support they need to approach topics like climate change or global warming with confidence. So I'm creating it for them.
The name‘s Head. BONEhead.
