David Tanny Explained
Official Bio
Author: David Tanny
David Tanny runs a daily media blog San Diego Radio News, or SDN to be short, posting daily links to related media stories and commentating on the media itself. He's been running a radio blog service since 1999 during the time when Clear Channel was still buying up hundreds of radio stations.
Tanny also hosts a radio show on the Internet called "I Still Get Demented" featuring funny songs from around the nation, and playing many novelty songs that never make it to broadcast radio anymore. He also created the world's first all-request funny music countdown show called the Dementia Top 20 in 2004, then in 2011, came back from retiring from counting down funny songs in 2007 to create The Funny Top 20, bringing the original spirit of the DT20 back into the funny music world.
As a side hobby, Tanny records novelty sketches and songs on occasion, as well as break-in interviews. He hopes to one day begin working with a funny music producer who has the resources to create better sounding recordings such as studio musicians and actors, mixers and engineers, script writers and lyricists, market his recordings, financial backing, and more to help make his ideas successful.
The Recordings
Born in San Diego, David Tanny specializes in fun dementia (or funmentia) recordings and spoken word humor. He writes, produces, and engineers (rather cheaply) novelty music and sketch comedy from his home with a computer.
David Tanny had some songs and stuff played on terrestrial radio stations in 2006 such as "Friggin' Here" (now defunct) and others. The Christmas song "I'm Doing Nothing For Christmas" was featured in December 2005 on a radio station called Oldies 1520 in the Delta Valley.
Tanny got air play just once so far on the Dr. Demento Show on July 2, 2006: "Mariah Carey's Screamin' Hits" featuring excerpts of Mariah Carey's screaming in some of her songs. It was repeated one more time on the July 23, 2006 show.
Tanny's favorite TV shows include anything from the genres of variety, comedy, game shows, sports, cartoons, and sitcoms. He hates reality shows and trash talk shows.
Tanny’s influences and other favorite icons include "Weird Al" Yankovic, Allan Sherman, Bob and Tom, Bob Newhart, Bob Rivers Comedy Corp, Cheech and Chong, Da Yoopers, Frank Zappa, Heywood Banks, Monty Python, Napoleon XIV, Ray Stevens, SCTV, Sean Morey, Spike Jones, Stan Freberg, Steve Martin, the 70s era of Saturday Night Live, The Frantics, Tom Lehrer, talk radio, classic rock and roll, new wave music, old school funk, and more.
The subjects he writes about in his recordings span a wide variety of topics about television, celebrities, commercial take-offs, classic hits, life, geek culture, pop culture, video games, tributes to demented icons, and commercial and song parodies.
Tanny has made dozens of funmentia gems over the years. Examples are video games from the 80s: "Centipede" and "Pac-Man"; some adult cartoons: "South Park" and "Space Ghost"; numerous TV shows: "Beverly Hills 90210", "Eight is Enough", "Jeopardy!", "Hollywood Squares", and "Pokemon"; salutes to demented icons of the past: Cheech and Chong, Bob and Doug McKenzie, Napoleon XIV, Odgen Edsl, and the Not Ready for Prime Time Players; break-in interviews whose style was originated by Dickie Goodman; famous celebrities: David Hasselhoff, Hilary Duff, Mariah Carey, and Sarah Michelle Gellar; fast food such as Papa John's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Taco Bell; other topics include commercial parodies, beer, Michigan J. Frog, Wacky Packages, and many more recorded since 1998 including "Tonight at 8", "Fried Eggs", "Watch the Frog", "Warner Music", "Pat Sajak (is an Egg)", and "Hey, Three Stooges!"
Back in 1966, Tanny unwittingly created a song parody in first grade. While his class was standing up to salute the United States Flag, they recited Pledge of Allegiance, sang The Star Spangled Banner, and in between, the song he parodied, Flag of America. The first grade teacher wasn't impressed when Tanny substituted the word "Bank" for the word "Flag" so that he was singing about a "Bank of America", because that's the place where his parents banked back then. Thus, a parodist, whether he knew it or not, was born.
In 1972, he got a tape recorder and recorded excerpts of TV shows while doing an Ed Sullivan impression to introduce the next recorded track. His favorite topics were The Electric Company, Zoom, The Mouse Factory, and The Flintstones.
David Tanny has been actively releasing funmentia audio from 1998-2000 and continuously since 2004.
In 1998, he recorded the first songs that would later become part of his Stupid Audio CD series, which were first released in 2004 on CD, and before that, only to select funny music shows on cassette in 2000 since the CD burner in his old Sony VAIO computer didn't do the job of burning audio discs right.
Since 2004, Tanny has released uncountable homemade CDs, including a 30-minute break-in interview recorded in 1980 using analog tapes, back in the time before digital editing and recording took over.
In 2004, he released his first CD modestly titled "Stupid Audio 1.0", and released four more until he discontinued the "Stupid Audio" line in 2008. He has since resurrected the "Stupid Audio" name as the official a.k.a. name of his act.
In August of 2008, he released his first CD for commercial release titled "Yes Parking Anytime."
In 2010, he released eleven "10th Anniversary Collection" CDs in 2010 and 2011, and discontinued them at the end of the year. It featured one last chance to catch some of his early material before retiring them forever.
In 2012, he released some of his older material on a CD titled "Originals (2000-2012)". Later on, he reintroduced "Instrumentals" and "Crazy Commercials" (volume 1) without the 10th Anniversary umbrella titles.
Lies About David Tanny Exposed and Corrected
Author: The Modest Geezer
There have been a lot of half-truths and outright lies published about David Tanny on other sites that we don't need to link to. Let's clear up some of the confusion with some actual facts.
Myth from another site: "He isn't funny. His music sucks. That's a factual opinion."
Fact: there's no such thing as a factual opinion. There are opinions, such as some artist isn't funny and sucks, then there are facts, such as David Tanny is a recording artist on a part time basis. Yes, anyone can suck. There is nothing wrong with sucking, is there? They write their opinion as if he's not allowed to suck like anyone else can. Sucking is an opinion by someone else, not a fact.
Myth from another site: He has been literally ostracized from the dementia-comedy music community because he would put himself on the top ten best lists when he was an admin for their comedy radio shows...
Fact: The ostracism wasn't a result from Tanny's actions. The dementia-comedy music community very much ignored his novelty recordings and he was trying to prove to the other deejays that his recordings were in the same spirit of dementia as everyone else's recordings. To keep this unbiased, Tanny began producing his own show called The Dementia Top 20, and his fans put his songs on the weekly charts on their own, not by Tanny's self doing. To say that he put himself on the top ten best lists was only partially true. He compiled the votes from the fans who voted for songs by him and other artists, and ranked them. If the weekly results had Tanny in the weekly DT20 charts on a more or less regular basis, that's what you ended up with because he released recordings every few months for people to vote on and to rank. At the time, you could hear Tanny's recordings only on his own produced shows. He was simply proving a point that he can chart as well as the other novelty recording artists in the 2000s decade. He exposed the problems with Draconian-style gatekeeping and was keeping the so-called genre of dementia predictable and stale by adding his own fresh perspective on what funny can be.
Myth: "he was an admin for their comedy radio shows."
Fact: a 100 percent lie. Tanny was never an admin of other comedy radio shows other than his own. He never administered Dr. Demento or other shows. He administered only the Dementia Top 20 (from 2005-2007) if that's what someone else was referring to because it's his show.
Myth: ", and bashed Dr. Demento..."
Fact: That was true, but he and Dr. Demento later made up with Demento saying that the dementia community needs to get over the differences and get along with each other including Tanny. Demento has yet to play another Tanny recording since 2006. He's still unfairly ostracized for his remarks and people need to get over it.
Myth: "David heavily utilizes reference-style comedy as well."
Fact: He does, but so do many other novelty artists who often reference TV shows and movies such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and other so-called geekcore themes, and with the exception of Trek and Wars, most of the geekcore themes do not appeal to a wide audience. Tanny references TV shows that were once a staple on broadcast television and turns them into novelty raps and other tunes. He's just referencing what he can relate to, which makes for a much more believable song than he could if he was forced to reference something that's foreign to him such as Firefly, which he admits he's never watched.
Myth: "Have we mentioned that David charges $20 to request songs on his crappy radio show? "
Fact: 100 percent false. Another lie posted on a website that specializes in gossip, exaggeration and half truths.
The More Complete Music and Comedy of David Tanny
Myth: "David Tanny is a prolific recording artist. His many songs include gems such as:", then goes on and lists what they think is a representation of his works.
Fact: David Tanny's catalog of funny recordings are bigger and better than what the author lists. He's only human. He's supposed to make bad recordings every now and then, just like everyone else. I'll avoid the really bad ones as there's just a few anyway. Here are some bettter examples of his diversity (source: David Tanny at davidtanny.com via e-mail contact):
All of the Editor's comments relate to Originals Album
See it at davidtanny.com- "Goin' Back to L.A. (2010 mix)" (released on 6/5/2010) - celebrates the old days of driving 120 miles to Los Angeles to hear the Dr. Demento Show because the fan's hometown wouldn't carry the show on their radio stations in the fan's radio market. The driving trek takes place on a Sunday in 1981 when the Doc used to do a live four-hour show on a now-defunct radio station. Editor: I'll bet that a lot of dementoids did just that, whether it was solo or with a party of five, they drove a car up to the nearest place where they could hear a distant station air Dr. Demento's radio show. Only Tanny produced such an original idea such as that one and I commend him for that.
- "Hey, Whimsical Will" (released on 1/9/2011) - after 25 years, Whimsical Will decided to quit producing his annual Summer Movie Adventures after producing his 25th one in 2010. Editor: it's a talk-rap about the 25 year history of Whimsical Will's summer movie adventures that he produced and aired on the Dr. Demento show.
- "Funnyback" (released on 4/6/2010) - an official tribute song of David Tanny's ten years of dementia works. Editor: it may have come off as a self-promoting self-ego track, but Tanny was making fun of music people who had big egos, most of which didn't have quality chart busters anyway.
- "I Eat Animals" (released on 8/1/2010) - Benny Bell would have liked the song. It's a politically incorrect salute to all of the meat eaters. Editor: this one was in the spirit of Benny Bell, where Tanny would make a pair of lines where the last word in the second line would rhyme with the last word in the first line, but in cases where the last word in the second line would be dirty, be quickly begins a new pair of lines with a word whose beginning syllable was the same as that of the naughty word. "Example: A baby fell out of the window; the poor kid had slipped a bit. But good luck was with him that morning; he fell in a bucket of... Shaving cream. Be nice and clean."
- "No Place to Park (2010 mix)" (released on 6/5/2010) - no place to park? That's a major problem. It's a comedy rap commentary on overcrowded parking lots and the businesses who don't get the rapper's business simply because there's no place to park his car. The businesses underestimated the number of parking spaces to include in their property. Editor: This only affects people who drive in cars and trucks. Those who never drive cannot relate to the song or care about not finding a place to park. Another winner.
- "80s TV" (released on 6/5/2010) - yet another original rap, this time, sort of like 70 lines about 35 TV shows. Every two lines weaves in a name of a popular TV show from the 80s at the end of the pair. Editor: References, references, and more references, this time, using a theme of television shows from a decade to make a clever rhyme. There are no jokes, but just clever rhymes and smiles throughout the song.
- "Nothingman" (recorded in 2010, released on 1/1/2011) - what if there was a hero that was anything but super, in fact, way below super. Editor: it's a parody of all of those self-absorbed super heroes. Self-deprecating lyrics are funny.
- "Dead Bug (2010 higher pitch mix)" (released on 6/5/2010) - I wrote this when I saw a dead bug on the wall. Editor: this song has been overly negatively criticized, for what? It's a silly song about a dead bug, which makes people laugh, and he's making ridicule about it, which makes it humorous.
- "I'm a Cowboy (2010 live mix)" (released on 4/11/2010) - An original song using clever rhymes for "Day" almost throughout the song. Editor: Cowboys can do anything they damn well want to. I've seen them cut me off and give me the bird among other things Tanny raps about. Clever.
- "Warner Music" (released on 2/24/2010) - another original about a song parodist whose songs got taken off of Youtube because a certain record label didn't understand what a parody is. Editor: He's taken the role of another artist he won't name who had his parodies pulled off of youtube. I'm not sure if it happened to Tanny himself for real.
- "Zorch" (released on 8/19/2008) - is a lyrical parody of The Monkees' track "Zilch" and serves as a tribute to the late novelty singer Nervous Norvous. Editor: Clocking in at 2 and a half minutes or so, he makes a psychedelic-themed novelty recording repeating some of Nervous Norvus's catch phrases in a similar style the Monkee's did for their cut Zilch.
That's just the 11 Best Tracks from Originals in My Opinion
For more albums, it's davidtanny.comMore Lies Exposed and Corrected
Myth: "Tanny releases his music across numerous home-pressed CD's which he sells for between $10 (for 4 songs) - $20 (for a full CD). "
Fact: Tanny explained that the sentence is misworded and incomplete. He sold one CD with four songs for $10...because they were all LONG cuts about 5-8 minutes apiece, totalling about 25 minutes for all four cuts from his now-discontinued "Watch The Frog Collection" EP in 2008. Tanny can command any price he wants; if a CD is priced at $20, then so be it. However, Tanny wants to tell his readers not to go to Amazon because the website lists "Yes Parking Anytime" well over $8; you can get that title for that price at his davidtanny.com website.
Of course, Tanny created a crap load of websites. They're easily accessable from his home page at http://www.davesfunstuff.com/. He takes some low traffic or outdated sites down periodically to keep his site fresh.
Myth: "At one point he made the Demented Underground Music Project, A.K.A. the DUMP, to annoy the Funny Music Project (or The FuMP.) and further worsen his relationship with the Dementia crowd his music is supposed to appeal to. It's down now, though."
Fact: It's ironic that those who make jokes can't often take it when someone else makes them a target of their own jokes. I call it hyprocrisy. If you attack one, expect to be attacked back. It can happen to anyone. Tanny nails it with The Dump by not only doing a dead-on parody of The Fump, he also self-deprecates the quality of his own recordings (as many members of the dementia community did anyway, so why can't Tanny counter them), as well as referencing the style of Wacky Packages in paroding the well-known products with their self-deprecating satires and knockoffs of the superior products. The ruling from the editor: The Fump is a superior website, and somebody had to do a parody of them, and Tanny had the nats to do it by making fun of both The Fump and referring to Tanny's recordings as toxic waste with The Dump. Didn't many of them think of Tanny's recordings as toxic anyway? I don't know. It's the same thing with Kentucky Fried Chicken being parodied into the funny Kentucky Fried Fingers Wacky Package, which in my opinion is the funniest parody I have ever seen. If you're in the business of making jokes, you better not get upset when someone else makes fun of you. If all you want to do is to ostracize and try to get even with him, then you're in the wrong business. Tanny is a pure screwball, a demented genius (his own words and it may be true anyway), and a humorist who simply belongs with the other humor makers. Once again, the whole dementia community needs to make up with Tanny as he's ignoring many of the artists from the Fump on his self-produced and hosted "I Still Get Demented" audio shows.
re: The Drama: most of which were not even started by Tanny, but by other people who had a beef with what he does, that is, posting and doing mean things to Tanny, such as excessive trolling, sharing of non-CC recordings, and even selling Tanny's CDs that were given to them for free at an auction for a profit, much to Tanny's annoyance. As a result, Tanny has personally banned such people (he wouldn't tell me) from his show for selling what they didn't pay for monetary gain. I'm with Tanny on that. He has also banned such well-known trolls that were seen on another Tanny bashing website I won't link to or name from his show and blocked them from his Facebook page so they can't friend him. In short, Tanny didn't cause the drama; the others did.
Goodbye Dementia, Hello Funmentia
David Tanny has since started his own genre called "Funmentia" to distance himself from the genre of dementia and to mean the kinds of recordings that most people in the genre of dementia have cast off and ignored. It's strange that the genre of dementia is inhospitable to many forms of comedy by the playlists produced by some of the other funny music radio show hosts.
Tanny finds the kind of screwball and goofy recordings that they're not playing that is considered what used to be in the dementia world and plays them, even if the other hosts ignore them, proving a point that there are just some kind of funny that just cannot remain in obscurity besides Tanny's nummerous dozen works.
Besides that, he says that the word "dementia" should remain to mean mental illness issues and the genre of dementia music has come to mean that it's become "a cesspool of egotism, politics, and bulls**t comprised of people who are incapable of tolerating people perceived as mentally and lyrically inferior," of which Funmentia (meaning Fun Dementia) isn't. If you profess to be so smart and brag about being a college (not a community or trade) graduate, then you should be more acceptable to people you perceive as intelligently inferior or indigent or you will be branded a snob.
In Conclusion
Tanny is capable of writing fun dementia lyrics, but seriously, could use some help in producing and engineering. Tanny admits that he can't play a musical instrument as he is all thumbs and his timing is bad, but makes up for it by using a software program to overcome his handicap. Nothing wrong with it, mind you. If people really want his recordings to sound better, then they should just put their money where their mouth is, STFU, and pitch in to help Tanny out instead of bashing and osctrcizing him. Ostracizing him won't make the genre of dementia any good, in fact, the genre of dementia is darker, colder, and more boring without the bright, warm, and fun contributions of funny recordings by Tanny.
davidtanny.com For All Your David Tanny Needs
SDN Media BlogDavid Tanny's Official Brand Yourself Profile
David Tanny's Live Journal Entries
David Tanny's Amazon Wish List
Dave's Fun Stuff Radio (formerly ifunnyradio.com)
David Tanny's Comedy Video Greats