PuffyZillaman

Benjamin Eugene Tannehill (born: ), better known online as Puffyzillaman (or Benthelooney/PuffyZillaman4/Ben T. Looney), is an American YouTuber, artist and animator who is most known for his rant-review videos that primarily cover television cartoons. His most well known rant series is Ben Rants in which he would use a character named Ben T. Looney. His earliest known videos date back to 2008. He is also known for his animations, most notably the Alright Cartoons series of shorts. 
==History==
===PuffyZillaman4===
Ben initially began on YouTube under a channel named PuffyZillaman4, which he created on June 13, 2007. The oldest known upload on the channel "MechaGodzilla tribute" was published on December 23, 2008https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqUq-0YpRkA. The first video to resemble his popular review series format would be a video titled "Ben's Top Ten: Classic Cartoon Characters" which was uploaded on April 10, 2009https://youtu.be/1Wnhw6Qz350?si=XMClgAQsrVnYB5cR. The first Ben Rants video "Ben Rants: The Disney Vault" was uploaded on April 22, 2009https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjR1h3OsQU. 
The final video uploaded to the channel "Ben Rants: The Looney Tunes Show" was uploaded on June 3, 2011https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezl7V5bKICs, which notably had an extremely polarized reception with 950 likes and 1.1k dislikes as of 2023. This would be the final upload on the channel due to Ben's old computer crashing and, as a result, losing access to the accounthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1HtZuFT4MM.
The most popular upload to the channel, with 795k views as of 2023, is "Tom and Jerry Title Cards Part 1" (part 1 in a series of 3), uploaded on April 3, 2009. The video, as the title implies, is a two minute compilation of Tom and Jerry title cards accompanied by the song "Sunrise" by Puffy AmiYumi. The highest viewed review287k views as of 2023. is "Ben Rants: The Looney Tunes Show".
===Benthelooney===
After losing access to PuffyZillaman4 in sometime after June 3, 2011, Ben began anew with Benthelooney, creating the channel on June 15, 2011. The first upload was "Godzilla (Part 2) - Benthelooney", uploaded on July 26, 2011. The video is a sequel to "Ben Salutes: Godzilla" which had been uploaded to the PuffyZillaman4 channel on June 9, 2010https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHWbcNxkzIE.
It was business as usual on this channel with the continuation of Ben Rants, Ben Salutes and Ben's Top 10 as well as new series such as mini-rants, Neb Rants, Looney T. Ben and Attack of the Anime. This would change on December 15, 2013https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u47Qb4CVcDI when Ben announced in a video titled "Is This The End?" that he was discontinuing his rant series and the characters associated with them, explaining that this was due to college and videos becoming more of a chore for him. He would, however, continue to put out more positive reviews and go back to his old rants with his updated thoughts (which would include Family Guy, Pixar, and Adventure Time & Regular Show).
====Revival and second retirement and second & third revival====
On April 11, 2014, just shy of four months after "Is This The End?", Ben would announce a return of his rant series in what he described as "a brief revival". The revival would continue until June 6, 2014, which he again announced the retirement of his rant series in a video titled "Ben T. Looney's Farewell".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o60fuLd3pBM
From June 2014 to November 2015, Ben stayed true to this and would mostly upload his animations from college during this period.
On November 16, 2015https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR7AYAHvEro, Ben returned with his reviews once again with "Yu Yu Hakusho - Attack of the Anime - Benthelooney" and would also continue the Ben Rants series. This third revival continued into June 17, 2016https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYg9EC1OsXA when "Top 9 Adult Swim Cartoons - Benthelooney" was seemingly the last review style video published.
====Shift in content and fourth revival====
On June 23, 2016https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFsftlhoH5w, Ben would start to make an effort to have his animations become a greater focus on his channel, most notably his Storytime Animations series, which he would find some success with as his McDonald's storytime videos are among the highest viewed on the channel as of 2023"McDonald's Customers" (July 22, 2016) 741k views as of 2023
"McDonald's Stories (part 2)" (April 14, 2017) 306k views as of 2023. He would also attempt a series out of his passion project The Dexter and Daisy Mysteries which ran from September 30, 2016https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xf3Ov2D7I to November 4, 2016https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2gxGewDmow. Despite this, he would again revive Ben Rants on January 6, 2017 with a review of Sausage Partyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ2fo03sjiw. Starting in 2017 he would do storytime animations, review style videos, general rant videos and Artist Spotlight. Despite the revival of his Ben Rants series, the character of Ben T. Looney did remain retired since June 17, 2016.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huQ61XL9HTQ
Ben T. Looney was formally revived once more on August 9, 2019 with a review of Rocko's Modern Lifehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N3t-rWVcoY. However Ben Rants and Ben T. Looney was retired once more on March 20, 2020 in a desire to make the cartoons he wants to makehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQkY5nuFnvw.
====Alright Cartoons and further reviews====
On April 10, 2020https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPvO6JCvwkI, Ben began Alright Cartoons, which were a series of his own cartoon shorts. During this he would still continue rant-review style content on the side.
Beginning on January 5, 2023, he would delve into making YouTube Poopshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BseXKWbw_I.
In January 2024, he changed his username back to to PuffyZillaman.
==Content==
===Ben Rants===
Ben Rants is a series of rants that cover a wide range of topics but they primarily tend to focus on television cartoons. Other rants include topics such as modern musichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3-zsSapwd4&list=PLrE3QFE_vGLSyW7HFy7HVjSfJ61Q1ohCf&index=12, preschool cartoonshttps://youtu.be/VVOy0nAODcY?si=L_2sUr7OOULrqGDI, One Million Momshttps://youtu.be/SAhrkKT4qpE?si=RCFDOiuAjry9dDh1, Fredhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0DCDt4h19k and the Twilight film serieshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OIKL_uY198. The first Ben Rants branded video was uploaded on April 22, 2009. The latest video in the series was uploaded on May 6, 2022https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNjiAvb21N0. The series infrequently features a character by the name of Ben T. Looney.
It has received criticism over the years for its amateur video editing, frequent outbursts of anger and, in its early years, a poorly drawn avatar drawn by Ben himself in Microsoft paint. Later versions of his avatar would be drawn by Pablo's Corner (which resembles what some would consider the Eddsworld style). His current avatar featured in his profile picture, many videos and thumbnails is drawn by artist and animator SB99https://www.deviantart.com/sb99stuff, though Ben also draws and animates his avatar in uploads as recently as 2022. The avatar is also used in many unrelated content on the channel. 
The series has several related series, including Ben's Top Ten, Ben Salutes (for his positive reviews), Neb Rants (bizzaro Ben Rants) and Looney T. Ben (Ben but in a mental asylum). The series has also been retired and revived numerous times throughout the years.
===Animation===
Ben has uploaded a variety of his own animated content since 2014, the earliest of these uploads would often be projects he worked on in College. His current animated series is Alright Cartoons, which feature a variety of sketches starring his original characters.
==Avatar==
Tannehill doesn't use a camera to voice out his opinions; instead, he uses several characters (around 2010). Some of which are Ben T. Looney (the main character of Ben T. Looney and Friends), Neb and Looney T. Ben. Ben T. Looney is a Caucasian male with brown hair and a light blue hoodie. He originally was drawn by Ben himself in Microsoft Paint. 
Later, Ben switched to a higher quality avatar drawn by Pablo's Corner who is currently on deviantART.http://pablos-corner.deviantart.com/ It caused mixed reception, some of which thought Ben looked like a character that came out of Eddsworld.
He's also had several avatars since then drawn by himself, which go for a style somewhat inspired by old Merrie Melodies cartoons. His avatar is generally not seen in his recent videos, however.
==Criticism and controversies==
===Lewd Artwork===
Beginning in 2016, after leaving animation college, Ben transitioned his focus to producing more NSFW artwork. This phase has been deemed very controversial towards fans and other members of the cartoon community as Ben mainly focused on drawing artwork of haracters who are depicted as being under 18 in their original context. He was also criticised for defending lolicon/shotacon culture, especially towards the infamous artist Shadman, who is infamous for his lolicon artwork.
As 2017 rolled by, Ben transitioned this behaviour into his videos, starting with videos that defended racism in classic cartoonshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl01VhWbC74 and drawing lewd artwork as a whole.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6SZWte5tcQ By 2018, this had expanded further with videos that contained edgy humor, strong profanity (which had previously been censored prior), animations featuring content of a sexual nature, and having his avatar in the nude (which was also briefly used as his profile picture) have also caused viewers to accuse him of being a "pervert" and a "pedophile".
The controversial nature would soon lead to people flagging his artwork on DeviantArt. In response, Ben made an angry profane-ridden post on the site defending his lifestyle and calling out those who think it's fine to defend gory artwork of cartoon characters but not lewd artwork, and also those who are concerned about character ages.https://www.deviantart.com/ben-the-looney/journal/More-Flags-on-my-Art-737943082
As the years rolled by, his "Edgy" lifestyle took a turn on his mental health, to the point he was getting less interested in making videos.
On March 25, 2024, YouTuber jormy49 uploaded an hour long video titled "YouTube's Most Controversial Cartoonist" in which he explains and dwells in the controversies surrounding Ben. After taking note of the video, Ben would post a now-deleted comment on the video and expressed his side of his behavior. Ben explained that his "Edgy Asshole" behavior was due to being in a depressive state for many reasons (being fresh out of animation college, being unemployed and having concerns about his future) and regretted not accepting the hate he got for his behavior, drawing Rule 34 of underaged characters, and defending Shadman and blackface in cartoons. He also stated that his engagement in female characters was for appreciation and not for sexual desire, after he came out as gay. In replies, he later stated that he wanted to move on from his past behavior and not think about it anymore. While the comment is now deleted, his comments were meet with mixed criticism. 
On May 15, 2024, Ben uploaded a video entitled "Can I Move On, Please?" which explains his side of the story in video form, wanting to move on from his past behavior and informing people about how Jormy's video affected his mental health.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFrm8NEchXY
==Trivia==
*The highest viewed121k views as of 2023 Ben Rants video on the Benthelooney channel is a rant on SpongeBob SquarePants, which was uploaded on August 17, 2012. It is the third highest viewed on the channel overall, behind his McDonald's storytime videos. The highest viewed in general is a rant on The Looney Tunes Show, which was uploaded to the PuffyZillaman4 channel on June 3, 2011.
==References==
Category:Review YouTubers
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:Art YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2007