Dave Anthony

David Sean Anthony (born August 26, 1967) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, and podcaster. He is best known as the creator and co-host of the comedy podcast The Dollop, in which he tells notable stories from American history to his friend and fellow comedian Gareth Reynolds, who has not heard the story before. The pair have a second podcast, The Past Times, where Anthony picks a paper from a day in history and reads it to Reynolds and a special guest. Since 2019, Anthony has also co-hosted the podcast The Audit with writer Josh Olson.

Early life David Sean Anthony was born in Marin County, California, on August 26, 1967, the son of a hairdresser mother and lawyer father. He grew up in San Anselmo, California. His ancestors were Irish immigrants. He has one sister, Pam, who is two years older. Both parents neglected him when he was growing up, which he later attributed to the alcoholism of both his father and maternal grandparents, though his mother was not an alcoholic. In one instance, his father was reprimanded in court for showing up too drunk to represent his client, leading to the postponement of the trial. The couple divorced when Anthony was in second grade. Unlike most of Marin County, home to some of the richest Americans, Anthony's family had far less money. He graduated from Marin Catholic High School and earned a degree in physical geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

From age five, Anthony knew he wanted to be a comedian. and the fact that Robin Williams was also from Marin County was significant to him.

Anthony has performed stand-up comedy on various late-night shows, including Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Late Show, as well as on Comedy Central. and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In 2015, the Melbourne Herald Sun gave his show "Hot Head" a 4-star review and called it "hugely enjoyable." Also in 2015, he appeared on the nationally televised Cracker Night as part of Sydney Comedy Festival 2015. His 2015 comedy tour and subsequent album, Hot Head, were based around his difficult childhood.

Television Anthony has acted in television shows, films, and commercials. Television programs he has appeared on include The Office, Scare Tactics, Arrested Development, Maron, Hello Ladies, Boston Legal, Veep, Hidden America with Jonah Ray, Comedy Bang Bang, and Entourage. He was a panelist twice on @midnight.

In 2006, Anthony's first staff writing job was on The Greg Behrendt Show, a daytime syndicated talk show. He also appeared on the show playing comedic characters, including the recurring character Waffle Man. He has also worked on several pilots with Bob Odenkirk. In the show's second season, he was added as a staff writer. He became the show's story editor in the fourth season and directed an episode.

Writing Anthony has written for many different mediums. He was the political editor for SuicideGirls, and had a blog called Stop All Monsters. As a television writer, he has written for Talking Dead, Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis, Pretend Time, and The Greg Behrendt Show. In 2019, he wrote an episode of Deadly Class for Syfy and was credited as a co-producer. He was a story consultant on the scripted audio drama Bronzeville written by Josh Olson and starring Laurence Fishburne. He has written a screenplay based on the Piedras Negras jailbreak.

Podcasting

In 2009, Anthony's son was born and Anthony became a stay-at-home dad. Around the same time, he began to feel like he was washed up and would never achieve his career goals. After listening to the podcast Uhh Yeah Dude, he was inspired to start his own podcast. Together, they hosted the podcast Walking the Room from 2010 to 2014. Anthony was the producer and editor of the show, which was named one of the AV Club's best podcasts of 2012. The podcast was recorded in Behrendt's closet for sound quality.

When Anthony and Behrendt learned that a podcast in Australia called TOFOP had a similar vibe to their podcast, they invited the hosts, Wil Anderson and Charlie Clausen, to be guests on Walking the Room. In 2012, Anthony and Behrendt appeared on stage with Anderson and Clausen during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in an event billed as Superpod. The Festival immediately lost the recording, and the four podcasters discussed the loss that night on the episode "The Death of Superpod."

Anthony regularly appears as a guest on other podcasts, including FOFOP, a podcast started by Wil Anderson when his TOFOP cohost, Charlie Clausen, was unavailable to record for an extended period. Anthony was the first guest host, resulting in the nickname "Guest Charlie Number One."

On The Dollop, Anthony presents an event or person from American history that he has researched to Reynolds, who usually has no idea what the topic is going to be about. Reynolds then reacts to the story, and the pair improvise as they go.

Anthony often frames stories from the point of view of laborers, enslaved people, women, and the poor. They put out a limited-run series of England and UK Dollop episodes. They also made a web series called Trash Toons, in which they watched and discussed old cartoons, and put out webcasts of political coverage. In 2020, they did a special episode of The Dollop on Comedy Gives Back to raise money for comedians whose careers were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 2019 to 2022, Anthony co-hosted the podcast The West Wing Thing with writer Josh Olson. The hosts discussed the politics of the TV show The West Wing from a leftist perspective and the effect it had on modern politics.

LA Podfest After fans of Anthony's podcast Walking the Room flew from around the world to be at a live show, Anthony thought this could be something bigger.

The podcast festival ran for six years and featured many comedians, including Marc Maron, Aisha Tyler, Doug Benson, Greg Proops, and Paul F. Tompkins. Their guest to tell a hometown murder story was Anthony, who talked about a serial killer who stalked women on hiking trails near San Francisco. After the Sofitel Los Angeles hotel in Beverly Hills put a member of the Podfest community's safety at risk, the festival moved venues, and Anthony publicly recommended against staying at the hotel.

On August 25, 2019, Josh Levin posted a thread to Twitter accusing Anthony of plagiarizing one of Levin's articles for a Dollop show at Chicago's Athenaeum Theatre in 2017. In a reply to the thread, author Paul Brown stated that The Dollop had also plagiarized sections of his book The Rocketbelt Caper for a 2017 episode. Brown's book was cited in The Dollop show notes but not mentioned on the recording.

The Dollop hosts have stated it is a fair use podcast. Anthony told the San Francisco Chronicle, "We want people to find the source material and know who's writing it. The whole reason I'm doing the podcast is to get these stories out there because they're important." He has said that he uses his platform to turn more people against capitalism, and claims to have gotten feedback confirming that it is working.

Another issue of deep importance to Anthony is climate change. He has spoken about his fears for the planet as a whole and for his own child's future. He actively protests against new construction that is detrimental to the environment. Anthony, with his Dollop co-host Reynolds, formed a group called Plan It Change 10. The group's mission, as stated on its Facebook page, is to "get people who want to fight climate change together into groups in their cities and towns and turn our fear into action and art."

Anthony often stresses his belief on his podcast and in interviews that marching against something is not effective by itself. He believes people must "put pressure on authorities, get in their faces, and yell at them." Around this time, he began attending Al Anon meetings. They have a son together and three labradoodles named Maple, Larry, and Pablo.

Filmography Actor

Media appearances Title Year RoleThe West Wing Thing 2019–2022Cohost My Favorite Murder 2016 Guest on live episode from LA Podcast Festival The Dollop 2014–present TOFOP 2013–present The Naughty Show 2012 Never Not Funny 2011 Sklarbro Country 2011 TOFOP 2011 WTF with Marc Maron 2010 Jimmy Kimmel Live! 2004 The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn 2002 Late Friday 2001