Your Favorite Martian (2024)

Your Favorite Martian, often shortened to YFM, is an internet cartoon band created by Ray William Johnson and Jesse Cale in 2009, but only started releasing music in 2010/2011. They originally released songs from December 24, 2010 to September 26, 2012. Afterwards, due to conflicts between Johnson and the label, Maker Studios, they “retired the project.” The band, even though it solely consisted of two members throughout it’s entirety, consisted of four members: Puff Puff Humbert (Portrayed by Johnson), Benatar (Portrayed by Cale), DeeJay, and Axel. The latter two “members” had no person to actually perform their role. Your Favorite Martian made over 40 songs and were the number one music channel on YouTube at a point. YFM's return on June 1, 2022 was started by the sequel of "Orphan Tears" called "Orphan Tears Part 2". Since they have made many songs including "Orphan Tears Part 3", "Verified", and "Uno Reverse".

History[]

Background[]

The YourFavortieMartian channel originally joined on November 30, 2006. Nothing was uploaded in the first few years of the channel's existence. Ray William Johnson would begin to emerge as a popular YouTuber in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

In 2010, following the disbanding of his previous music group, Fatty Spins, Johnson would begin work on a brand new music project. On June 30, 2010, the YFM channel uploaded its very first video. The video, titled "be patient", announced the project to be coming soon. The following months would see the culmination of the Your Favorite Martian project as songs and a crew were put together for its debut.

Rise to popularity & original YouTube tenure[]

Your Favorite Martian's first song was released on iTunes and Spotify on December 24, 2010. The song, titled "My Balls", would have an animated music video released as the first real video on the YFM channel on January 26, 2011. A week after upload, the video had already reached over 6.5 million views, establishing it as a viral video. From then on, the channel would release original animated music videos every two weeks on Wednesdays.

The YourFavoriteMartian channel quickly grew, with every new music video gaining millions upon millions of views. YFM became the most subscribed music channel, and one of the most subscribed channels overall, on YouTube. On December 2, 2011, the first episode of an animated spin-off series featuring the band members on tour, titled Your Favorite Martian: The Series (YFMTS), was released on the Animonster channel. All of the series was hosted on this channel and YFMTS ran for 11 episodes from December 2011 to April 2012.

In May 2012, Your Favorite Martian would begin to make covers of pre-existing songs, rather than totally original ones. The band cited that all original content was going towards the album they had just announced. The songs would also begin to become less comedy-oriented, and revolve around more serious topics. The channel's last video of their original tenure was uploaded on September 26, 2012.

Disbandment[]

YFM had been continuously pushing the announcement that an album was to be released in the winter of 2012. However, these plans soon came to an abrupt halt. The album would promptly be cancelled along with the whole project.

In November 2012, the band announced that "the project had been retired". This was a direct result of a dispute between Maker Studios and Ray William Johnson, who co-created the band. Maker Studios, who had funded the production of YFM, and, specifically, the announced album, demanded a higher share of Johnson's Adsense revenue and more control over the joint intellectual property of the two parties. When Johnson declined, the network cut funding for the album, also discontinuing Your Favorite Martian as a whole.

Following the fallout, The YFM channel changed its name to "THIS PROJECT IS RETIRED" and was left completely inactive. However, Maker Studios (and later, Disney, following their absorption of Maker in 2017) held on to the trademark and rights for YFM. This prevented Ray from using it without paying royalties, which he vehemently refused to do.

No new music at all was released from Your Favorite Martian in the time that followed. Eager fans have speculated that perhaps their album would be released at a later time, though it was later confirmed that the album had barely began production before the project was shut down.

Sudden activity in 2021[]

After the channel was dormant for over nine years, it would briefly become active again in an effort to restore some of YFM's old music videos which had previously been taken down. On October 31, 2021, the channel began reuploading deleted videos and other content in HD, including original music and YFMTS. The restoration process was conducted between October and December 2021.

However, the channel claimed that there were no immediate plans for YFM to actually return, and since the channel restoration was finished, it had again gone inactive.

Return and recent endeavors[]

On May 14, 2022, the YFM channel changed their icon and banner to say "June 1". One day later, in one of Ray Johnson's new YouTube shorts, he announced that Your Favorite Martian would be coming back after almost 10 years. On the same day, the name of YFM channel was also changed to "THIS PROJECT IS REBORN".

Ray said that Maker Studios (which had gone defunct years prior), and its successor, the Disney Digital Network, no longer had control over YFM and he had become the sole owner of the property. He also revealed new character designs for the fictional band members. Your Favorite Martian's comeback animated music video was set to be released on June 1, but was released a day early, on May 31, 2022. The video's upload officially marked the return of Your Favorite Martian, after almost a decade of silence.

In November 2022, Ray announced the addition of Stefan Johnson to YFM's lineup, with the latter becoming the new voice of DeeJay in the group's videos.

Animators[]

At first YFM was being animated by Studio LadyBug. At some point or another, they switched over to Cosmic Toast, most likely to the more mature shift to their songs. After YFM switched from LadyBug to Cosmic Toast, the art style looked very different. It's both loved and hated. In total, Cosmic animated 29 videos not including YFMTS. Then, they switched back over to LadyBug for the animation with Gen 2 of YFM. Team Legend Studios also animated The Trauma Song and Algorithm God.

Songs[]

NOTE: the ones in bold means that they are unreleased.

Gen 1/Phase 1[]

1. My Balls
2. Zombie Love Song
3. Bottles of Beer
4. Club Villain
5. The Stereotypes Song
6. The Unofficial Smithers Love Song
7. Orphan Tears
8. Mr. DoucheBag
9. Transphobic Techno (Bitch Got a Penis)
10. Grandma Got a Facebook
11. Tig Ol' Bitties
12. Fight To Win
13. Stalkin' Your Mom
14. Robot Bar Fight
15. 8-Bit World
16. Puppet Break-up
17. Unstable

Gen 1/Phase 2[]

1. Whip Yo Kids
2. Booty Store
3. Nerd Rage!!!
4. Epileptic Techno
5. Dookie Fresh
6. Santa Hates Poor Kids
7. sh*tty G
8. Friend Zone
9. She Looks Like Sex
10. We Like Them Girls
11. Alien
12. White Boy Wasted
13. Complicated
14. Take Over The World
15. Text Me Back
16. Jupiter
17. Just a Friend (Biz Markie cover)
18. Somebody That I Used To Know (Gotye cover)
19. Fight For Your Right (Beastie Boys cover)
20. Love The Way You Lie (Eminem/Rihanna cover)
21. Road Rage
22. My Balls (alt rock cover)
23. Alien (Unplugged)
24. Jump Around (House of Pain cover)
25. Bartender Song (Rehab cover)
26. High Voltage (Linkin Park cover)
27. Boom Headshot (YFM Mashup)
28. Your Favorite Martian Album

Gen 2/Phase 3[]

1. Orphan Tears (Part 2)
2. Orphan Tears (Part 3)
3. Verified
4. Uno Reverse
5. Eff This Job
6. Brain Rave
7. This Is Why I’m Single
8. Rich People $hit
9. Gentleman's Ballad
10. Everyone Clapped
11. Date Myself
12. Damn I'm Ugly
13. Telescope
14. Iamverybadazz
15. The Trauma Song
16. Algorithm God
17. Real Girl
18. Be a Princess

Gallery[]