Robert James Rallison (/ˈrælɪsən/; born May 14, 1996), known online as TheOdd1sOut, is an American YouTuber, cartoonist, animator, author, and voice actor. He is known for producing storytime animations on his YouTube channel and co-creating, starring in, and executive producing the Netflix animated series Oddballs.
Rallison's first published illustrated works were webcomics, under the title TheOdd1sOut. He uploaded the first comic strip onto Tumblr in June 2012, when he was 16.[9] After 100 comics, he had amassed 100 followers, and it took him about a year to settle into his art style.[9] By September 2016 he had written around 400 strips. Rallison described the characters in his comics as "marshmallow people" because of their white, roundish look. His comics tended to focus on lighthearted themes, such as taking famous puns literally, or poking fun at social clichés.[8]
YouTube
On August 30, 2014, just over two years after starting his webcomic, Rallison started his YouTube channel as theodd1sout comic. In his animated videos, which feature the same "marshmallow people" as the webcomic,[8] he talks about his life story, his thoughts, and opinions. His first video was titled "A Book I Made as a Kid", looking at a short story he made while in elementary school.[3] In March 2016, his channel reached 100,000subscribers.[10][11] In April 2016, his channel gained over 278,000subscribers, giving him a total of over 400,000subscribers.[12] In July 2016, his channel reached 1 million subscribers.[13] At some point, Rallison dropped out of college to make videos full-time.[3]
On December 2, 2017, Rallison created a second channel, TheOdd2sOut, in which non-animation content is uploaded, i.e gaming. TheOdd2sOut amassed 1 millionsubscribers in April 2018,[14] and TheOdd1sOut reached 10million subscribers in January 2019.[15]
Collaborations
Rallison has collaborated with others to produce two songs and their accompanying music videos: "Life is Fun" in July 2018 with David Brown from Boyinaband;[16][17] and "Good Person" in December 2020 with Joel Berghult from RoomieOfficial.
His animated character appeared in the credits scene of YouTube Rewind: The Shape of 2017 and in YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind where he has a speaking role.[18]
In March 2019, Rallison was in MrBeast's $200,000 YouTuber Battle Royale video. He was on a team with Jaiden Animations and Anthony Padilla and they won the first round.[19] Rallison gave the earnings he made from the YouTuber Battle Royale to #TeamTrees, a non-profit started by MrBeast that aimed to plant 20 million trees by the end of 2019.[20]
Other work
Rallison wrote a book titled The Odd 1s Out: How to Be Cool and Other Things I Definitely Learned from Growing Up, which was released in July 2018.[9] It was ranked No. 12 in the "trade paperback" category on Publishers Weekly's August 13, 2018, bestseller list.[21]
Rallison also worked on the board game Can't Catch Harry,[22] and, on November 22, Rallison announced and released his mobile game named TheOdd1sOut: Let's Bounce!.[23]
In June 2022, Rallison announced that an animated series, Oddballs, based on his character, would premiere on Netflix later in the year.[24][25]
Public image
As of December 2022, Rallison's main YouTube channel had over 19.5million subscribers, and his secondary channel had over 2.7million subscribers.[26][14]
Foodbeast writer Peter Pham called Rallison's three videos about working at Subway (which Rallison satirically refers to as "Sooubway") as "amazing" and "hilarious".[27][28][29]
In 2017, Dave Trumbore of Collider named Rallison one of five YouTubers who were "poised for mainstream success".[30] In 2018, Kristin Brantley of Culturess reviewed his channel and webcomics favorably, writing, "You'll be glued to the screen watching all of these hilarious clips and reading all his great comics."[31]