David Tanny is a novelty musician who has been in the business for more than ten years. His specialty is "dementia comedy," a style pioneered by artists such as Spike Jones, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and, of course, Dr. Demento, of whom he is a fan. He deals mainly in rap, creating the beats using a cheap MIDI program. He has also dealt in parody (sometimes of other parody songs) joke ads, and sketches.
Associated Tropes:
- Buxom Beauty Standard: "Boobs, Boobs, Boobs", about David's love of large mammaries. He names celebrities whom he admires the breasts of, and complains about silicon.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Definitely, and it tends to leech into his works, such as the four-part sketch "Watch the Frog", his interpretation of a short-lived image campaign for The WB nobody remembers or much less ever cared about.
- Pirate: "Pirate Radio", about a radio station literally run by swashbucklers who say "yar!" and "ahoy!"
- Gay Cowboy: "Brokeback Mice," his hypothetical movie about talking mice who are also gay cowboys. It ends with them having sex.
- Dull Surprise: Much of his output is done in a droning monotone.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Implied on "Oh, Happy Boy". The title character gets a thousand-dollar allowance, is never bullied, and is chauffeured to school. The narrator might be jealous, given the line "He has a thousand video games, so they say he's cool".
- "Shaggy Frog" Story: Many of his songs lack a punchline, and have random tangents, like "I'm a Cowboy". The cowboy mentions how he likes eating Oreos, flunked out of school, his wife turned gay, and his bully died of AIDS, but doesn't expand on any of these. He also spends time accusing several celebrities of being gay, which has little to do with being a cowboy, or any of the aforementioned things.
- Shout-Out: Most songs by David Tanny contain references to Dr. Demento and various comedy musicians such as Barnes & Barnes, Allan Sherman, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and The Great Luke Ski. He even parodies a few comedy songs, from "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" to "Gump" (which were already parodies of Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" and The Presidents of the United States of America's "Lump," respectively).
- Stalker with a Crush: "Hello, Mila (A Letter to Mila Kunis)", in which he writes a creepy letter to the actress (claiming she could make a robot hard and looks good in leather). Also "I Had Sex With Paris Hilton", where he dates Paris after watching her sex tape, has sex with her in various locations, and plans to bed her mother next.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Has employed this with varying degrees of success, like from "Paris Hilton":
- I had sex with Paris Hilton, that's what I said
I gave her my all, she was good in bed
We can do it all night long, we can do no wrong
When it comes to Paris Hilton, she can give good...love.
- Outsider Music: Arguably falls into this genre.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Discussed on "What If Your Wife Was A Man." He notes that his friend's wife urinates standing up, gets erections, is (apparently) too tall to be pretty, and wears flannel shirts.
- Updated Re-release: One of his additions to his discography was a reissue of an old album from ten years back... with a laugh track.
- Word Salad Title: His adult-oriented album is titled "The Outrageous Weasel"
