So, Bill Nye Is Suing Disney

The erstwhile Science Guy alleges in a lawsuit that House Mouse withheld $28 million in profits from his old show.

Yikes! It seems Bill Nye has been crunching some numbers, and he is not happy about what he’s found: namely, he alleges that Disney withheld $28 million in distribution profits from his old kids’ show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, which aired from 1993 to 1998, won 19 Emmy awards, and earned its host an enduring reputation that has allowed him to, among other things, launch a new series on Netflix almost two decades later.

According to the lawsuit, filed Thursday, Nye claims he was entitled under an agreement with Disney’s Buena Vista Television to one-sixth of the show’s net profits. His skepticism started in 2008: Buena Vista sent him a profit share of $585,123 for the preceding year, but just a few months later sent him another correspondence claiming it was an “accounting error,” and that Nye then owed the company almost half a million dollars back. “The disturbing size of the supposed ‘accounting error,’ coupled with the seeming indifference of both [Buena Vista] and [Walt Disney Company], left Nye suspicious of the veracity of the accounting statements he had been receiving from BVT over the years,” the suit says. Additionally, Nye’s suit alleges that Buena Vista stopped paying Nye royalties afterward, insisting that he first pay back what he supposedly owed.

The suit also disputes the costs Disney claimed to have incurred—which grossed over $20 million—despite the fact that it was largely backed by federal grants from the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and other organizations. “Nevertheless,” the suit continues, “[Buena Vista] and [Disney] steadfastly refused to negotiate, instead taunting Mr. Nye to audit [Buena Vista’s] accounting, knowing that [Buena Vista] and [Disney] would make such an audit unduly burdensome, costly, and time consuming.” After four years, the suit says, Nye was forced to hire an auditor—and he did in 2013.

In 2014 his attorney notified the company of their intent to audit, only to be told that there was a backlog on such procedures, and that it would have to wait for three to four years. What followed, the suit says, was a series of obstructions and empty promises of information that ultimately prevented Nye’s auditor from completing the audit—still, based on what information they do have, Nye’s suit claims that, House Mouse owes the scientist at least $9.3 million, and that in total, the company withheld about $28 million from the show’s owners in total.