#david zed

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Mr. Zed | R. O. B. O. T. | 1980

[passionate-reply]

DAVID ZED - “R.O.B.O.T.”

David Zed (also known as Mr. Zed) isn’t really a musician, but rather could best be described as a comedian and mime. His signature act is an impressive imitation of a fairly clunky android, with jittery, stilted mannerisms. While that feels like it might have international appeal, Zed found the majority of his success in Italy, despite hailed from the USA himself. Given the Italians’ love of electronic dance music, it’s no wonder that when Zed decided to release a novelty single to promote himself, he went for chirpy, punchy Italo Disco! While a lot of music made by comedians doesn’t always hold up, the fairly minimal lyrical content helps this one a lot. So does the fact that music about robots is pretty commonplace, in the grand scheme of things, and it isn’t always overtly humourous. (If anything, I think Kraftwerk could stand to lighten up a little!)

[anotheruserwithnoname]

The memes of Christmas 2025

During the recent Christmas break I had a lot of free time to just surf around and I came across two videos that have been running through my mind on an alternating basis for 2 weeks.

The first is Mr. Zed (a.k.a. David Zed), an American actor based in Italy whose gimmick is performing as a robot singer and stand up comic. He had a big hit in Italy in the 1970s with "R.O.B.O.T." but in the late 80s he also did a version "Witch Doctor":

And then I found this video by a South African musician named The Kiffness who created this unforgettable (seriously, it won't leave your head) tune based upon one of those talking cat videos:

(I could also include "I Am A Cider Drinker" by The Wurzels, but I think that's enough earworming for one day!)

[kouji-funamoto]

Mr. Zed - (The Robotic Comic) - stereo

[daturasound]

David Zed’s Robot Pop

Even the most mainstream of Italian pop music often has a tinge of the absurd to it, but David Zed’s uniquely bizarre “Zed” character went well beyond the outer limits of mainstream sensibilities. The perfect encapsulation of this character (which was created by an American born mime active predominantly in Italy) is the Sanremo featured song “R.O.B.O.T.”

    The music video is a psychedelic, effects laden clip of Robert performing the song as the Zed character, who is singing an absolute nonsense song that veers from Kraftwerk’s more hard sci-fi descriptions of robotics, to describing the kind of meatballs he eats. The video is presumably from some sort of televised performance, since in the middle of the song (during the “input, output” part) a very Italian sounding man announces the name of the song and pronounces the word “robot” in a distinctly Italian way (without the T at the end).

    There’s scant other information on Robert Zed, even on his Italian wikipedia page. At least we know his music career continued after “R.O.B.O.T.” He went on to release several more singles, including 1983’s Ballarobot/I Am a Robot, and 1986’s Witch Doctor/U-I-U-A-A. It’s too bad he kicked the robot theme so late in the game. He really had a good thing going.

[rusek]

David Zed - R.O.B.O.T. (1980)