LOS ANGELES (CN) — Children’s TV star Bill Nye the Science Guy claims in court that the Walt Disney Co. cheated him out of more than $9 million of profits from his hit educational series over many years. 
 
 In a state court lawsuit filed Thursday, Nye accuses Disney and a half dozen of its subsidiaries of “an ongoing, deliberate conspiracy to deceive Mr. Nye and the [other owners of the series], and deprive them of their rightly owed share of the net profits from the BNSG series and derivative works.” 
 
 The defendants underreported royalties, mischaracterized revenues, used incorrect rates, overcharged expenses and “even, in some instances, [went] so far as to construct falsified invoices and accounting statements,” Nye says in the 27-page lawsuit. 
 
 The other defendants are ABC Television, Buena Vista Television, Touchstone Television Productions, Disney Educational Productions, Disney Movie Club and Buena Vista Home Entertainment. 
 
 In an email, a Buena Vista Television representative said Nye’s lawsuit is “a publicity ploy and we look forward to vigorously defending it.” 
 
 Nye, a Cornell University-trained mechanical engineer, performed on a Seattle TV station’s sketch comedy show in the late 1980s and early ’90s. In 1992, he and the producers of the comedy show developed the Science Guy show for Seattle’s PBS affiliate, garnering underwriting from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. 
 
 In March 1993, Nye and the other owners of the show struck an agreement with Buena Vista Television — since renamed Disney–ABC Domestic Television — to promote and distribute the series. The owners were promised half of Disney’s net revenue, with one-third of that half going to Nye, according to the complaint. 
 
 “The show was an unquestionable success,” Nye says. Produced from 1992 through 1997, it won 19 Emmys and was “the first television program concurrently aired in national syndication while also broadcast on PBS.” 
 
 A DVD box set of all episodes sold for $1,500 in 2013. The series still plays in some markets today, Nye says. 
 
 The trouble began in April 2008 when Buena Vista sent Nye a $585,123 check for his profits from the year before and then in July demanded he return nearly all of it — $496,111 — because the company “had made a mistake in its prior calculation.” 
 
 That caused Nye to grow “suspicious of the veracity of the accounting statements he had been receiving … over the years.” 
 
 His questions led to “more than a year of futile discussions” between lawyers. Nye says the financial statements Disney did give him “appeared dubious” because they showed that the Science Guy series had grossed $26 million “but had somehow also accumulated deductions” of more than $20 million. 
 
 “The foregoing deductions were especially suspicious given that underwriting funds from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and other organizations covered the vast majority of BNSG’s costs of production,” the complaint states. 
 
 In January 2014, Nye demand an audit. Disney responded that it was backlogged with audits and could not accommodate Nye for three or four years. 
 
 After more back and forth, the audit began in May 2016. “However … the defendants failed to engage in the process in good faith” or to turn over many essential documents for review, Nye says. 
 
 Even so, he says his outside auditor discovered many discrepancies. 
 
 For instance, the series owners were to receive their share of 100 percent of net revenue from most “video device” sales, such as DVDs. But they would get only 20 percent of the revenue from video device sales made by a Disney affiliate. 
 
 Nye claims Disney paid him the reduced affiliate rate on sales from nonaffiliate Netflix, “thereby paying Mr. Nye one fifth … of what he was actually owed.” 
 
 “The defendants were well aware of their wrongdoing,” the lawsuit states. 
 
 Despite many difficulties, Nye says, the auditor determined that Disney underpaid him by at least $9,350,565. 
 
 “The foregoing estimate of underreported payments is merely the sum initially identified by the auditor based upon the limited documentation that [Disney] disclosed during the audit,” according to the complaint, prepared by Nye’s attorney, Charles C. Rainey with Hamrick & Evans. 
 
 “The plaintiff is informed and believes that the actual sum owed is substantially larger.” 
 
 Since Nye is due just one-third of the series owners’ share of the profits, he says Disney and its subsidiaries obtained “ill-gotten profits” of more than $28 million. 
 
 Nye seeks disgorgement of profits and punitive damages for fraudulent concealment, false promises, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and other causes of action. 
 
 Such complaints are not new in the movie and TV industry. They are so frequent that practices such as those detailed in the lawsuit are known as Hollywood accounting. 
 
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 Bill Nye the Science Guy has turned his attention to accounting. 
 
 The famed science enthusiast filed suit against Disney (DIS) on Thursday, claiming the media giant hoodwinked him out of more than $9 million in earnings from "Bill Nye the Science Guy." 
 
 The beloved television series originally aired between 1992 and 1997, gaining a loyal following among children while winning multiple broadcasting awards for its fun, science-focused programming. It's still streamed on services like Netflix (NFLX). 
 
 Two decades after production wrapped up, Nye has accused Disney of fraud and breach of contract in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Disney subsidiaries including Buena Vista Television and ABC are also named as defendants. 
 
 Disney and the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 
 
 Related: It's been a tough year in the courtroom for media companies 
 
 The lawsuit claims that Nye, who was owed 16.5% of the show's profits, became suspicious after Disney-owned Buena Vista demanded he repay a large portion of his 2007 "Science Guy" earnings, citing an "accounting error." 
 
 Nye doubted the company's bookkeeping. But his efforts to engage the firm in negotiations to resolve the matter were "futile," according to the lawsuit. Nye claims that Buena Vista stopped making royalty payments in 2008 because of the dispute. 
 
 The suit says that Nye eventually hired an auditor to review the company's records, but the inquiry was delayed for years and the defendants allegedly did not provide all the requested documentation. 
 
 The "defendants failed to engage in the process in good faith," says the suit, which accuses the companies of engaging in "an ongoing, deliberate conspiracy to deceive Mr. Nye." 
 
 According to the complaint, the limited documentation provided to auditors showed revenues were skewed and royalties went unreported. 
 
 Nye claims that he has suffered damages of at least $9.4 million, while the defendants enriched themselves with "ill-gotten" profits of over $28 million. 

 Bill Nye is accustomed to explaining complicated concepts to children, but even he has struggled with the byzantine mess that is studio accounting. 
 
 According to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Nye has spent much of the last decade trying to audit Disney’s profit statements for “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” The result is shocking: Nye alleges that Disney has withheld $28 million in profits from distribution of the show. 
 
 According to the suit, Nye became suspicious in 2008, when Disney informed him that he owed the company nearly $500,000 due to an “accounting error.” 
 
 Nye and two producers launched the show in 1992, in partnership with KCTS, the Seattle PBS affiliate. According to the suit, the show’s costs were substantially underwritten by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. 
 
 The following year, Nye and his partners entered into a distribution agreement with Disney subsidiary Buena Vista Television. Under the agreement, the owners of the show would receive half of the show’s net profits, with one-sixth of the total going to Nye. Disney distributed the show on VHS and DVD, and in many other formats, now including Netflix and iTunes. 
 
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 In 2008, Disney sent Nye his annual profit participation, which amounted to $585,123. A few months later, the company said it had made an accounting error, and requested that he return $496,111, according to the suit. 
 
 “The disturbing size of the supposed ‘accounting error,’ coupled with the seeming indifference of both (Buena Vista Television) and (the Walt Disney Company), left Mr. Nye suspicious of the veracity of the accounting statements he had been receiving from BVT over the years,” the suit states. 
 
 According to the suit, Disney reported gross revenues of $26 million, but also reported costs of $20 million — for a show largely underwritten by federal grants. 
 
 Nye engaged an attorney and began what would become a drawn-out and largely fruitless effort to audit Disney’s statements, according to the lawsuit. At one point, the company said it was experiencing a backlog of audits and would not be able to begin the process for three or four years. Once the audit commenced, the company withheld documents, or said it would produce documents and then failed to follow through, the lawsuit alleges. The auditor was not given access to the Netflix and iTunes licensing agreements, among many other records, Nye alleges. 
 
 The auditor ultimately concluded that Nye is owed $9.3 million. According to the suit, Disney had taken a number of steps to skew the profits calculation in its favor, including applying the wrong rates for distribution fees, improperly deducting foreign taxes, and mischaracterizing revenues. 
 
 The suit alleges that, in total, Disney has deprived Nye and the other owners of the show of $28 million. 
 
 Disney did not respond to a request for comment.
– Bill Nye, aka the Science Guy, says the Walt Disney Co. and a bunch of its subsidiaries owe him $9 million. He filed a lawsuit Thursday against Disney along with ABC Television, Buena Vista Television, Touchstone Television Productions, Disney Educational Productions, Disney Movie Club, and Buena Vista Home Entertainment alleging that they engaged in "an ongoing, deliberate conspiracy to deceive Mr. Nye and the [other owners of the series], and deprive them of their rightly owed share of the net profits from the [Bill Nye the Science Guy] series and derivative works." Courthouse News has the full details, but basically, Nye and his co-plaintiffs are accusing Disney, et al, of taking steps to "skew the profits calculation in its favor," per Variety, including improperly deducting foreign taxes and in some cases falsifying information entirely. Nye's show was developed in 1992 for Seattle's PBS affiliate, and the following year, the owners of the show made a deal with Buena Vista Television (now Disney-ABC Domestic Television) to promote and distribute the show while it was also still broadcast on PBS. In exchange, the owners were supposed to get half of Disney's net revenue, of which Nye would then get one third (the suit claims the full amount owed to all plaintiffs is $28 million). But in 2008, Nye got suspicious after getting a check for the year prior and then, months later, being asked to return most of that money due to a mistake the company made in a calculation. Suspicious, Nye started looking into the financial statements over the years, finding many "dubious" things in the process, per the lawsuit. He says royalty payments stopped entirely during the dispute, per CNN.