David Cross (born April 4, 1964) is an American actor, comedian and screenwriter. He's known for his incredibly dark, sardonic sense of humor and his decidedly left-leaning views. With Bob Odenkirk, he wrote and starred in Mr. Show, and its spiritual spinoff, the Netflix Original W Bob And David.
Cross is also an actor; his most famous role is Tobias Funke from Arrested Development, and he played the titular role in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret He also played Moonbeam in Ask the StoryBots. He's also appeared in films ranging from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to the Alvin and the Chipmunks series and had a rare turn as the Straight Man in It's a Disaster!. He's the voice of Master Crane in the Kung Fu Panda films note .
And that's not all! Cross has released several albums and a DVD of stand-up comedy through Sub Pop. He also sang the Expository Theme Tune for the fourth season of Cheap Seats, and he's done guest voices for the [adult swim] series Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Rick and Morty. And during the first season of The Colbert Report, he played liberal talking head "Russ Lieber", Stephen Colbert's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis.
In 2014, he wrote and directed the indie dramedy Hits, about the public obsession with YouTube fame.
Associated tropes related to his career:
- Black Comedy: His bit about the Roman Catholic sex scandal. "How do you not fuck that?"
- The Cast Show Off: Surprisingly, he's not that bad a singer, particularly at hitting high notes. He does this quite a bit in Mr. Show, Megamind and even performed a song from Jesus Christ Superstar with the band Sloan.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Has worked 9/11 Truther theories into his stand-up routine.
- Cringe Comedy: He's very good at playing very socially awkward characters. But not in an adorable kind of way; more in a Too Dumb to Live kind of way. See Tobias in Arrested Development and especially The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret .
- Crosses the Line Twice:
- Invoked. He won't sign on to something if he isn't doing this, unless it's under certain circumstances.
- This came back to bite him when Charlene Yi accused him of having acted racist toward her years earlier. Cross claimed he was acting in character as his redneck persona and they'd "both misunderstood" the situation, which he now deeply regrets as a poor choice of words.
- Cluster F-Bomb: His routines seem to be full of swear words.
- Gallows Humor: Cross claims he gave his girlfriend a dildo, in case she gets raped. Of course, if you've seen Terror Firmer, this makes perfect sense.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: His first two comedy albums, Shut Up You Fucking Baby! and It's Not Funny, use track titles that don't reflect the actual content of the routines, but instead mock clichéd stand-up topics - for example, "My Child is Enthralling, Especially When It Says Something Unexpectedly Precocious Even Though It Doesn't Understand What It Just Said!". Subsequent albums dropped the practice. Meanwhile, the DVD chapter titles of tour documentary Let America Laugh are named after Chick Tracts.
- Large Ham: Likes to mock other people's over-enthusiasm. "They're square, mother-fuck! FUCK YOU, MOTHER-FUCK!" He's talking about bagels, by the way.
- Money, Dear Boy: Cross made it no secret that his participation in Alvin and the Chipmunks CGI movies was motivated by the salary, noting that being in the first movie paid more money than anything he'd ever done combined, and apparently paid for his house. He did, however, go on to say that the filming of Chipwrecked was the most miserable experience of his professional life, urging others not to see it. He spent most of filming in a pelican suit on a moving cruise ship. Ouch.
