Daniel Paul "Danny" Lyons (born: August 18, 2000), better known online as danny., is an American YouTuber who creates various animations. He is best known for his animated series The Rodfellows and his remakes of the 1999 animated adaptation of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. He is also the creator of his virtual cartoon band known as Band Davion.
History[]
Beginning[]
Daniel Lyons founded his production company on September 19, 2013, under the name Story Choice. On April 9, 2014, he began his YouTube channel. During this time, he animated his stuff using Photoshop CC and Windows Movie Maker. On February 6, 2015, Daniel renamed his production company to Daniel Lyons Entertainment.
The Rodfellows[]
The Rodfellows are one of Daniel's most notable series. It was formed on March 17, 2014. The series consists of a group of anthropomorphic animals as they try to solve any sort of problems affecting their friends. The first series, The Rodfellows 2014 first premiered on April 9, 2014. Since then, there have been several other series and movies based on them. Up until recently, he used text-to-speech voices to voice the characters in the show, but later replaced the voices with modified versions of his own voice. In later years, more voice actors stepped in to voice some of the characters. Since mid-2021, The Rodfellows has been renamed The Jungle Forest Gang/Show (later SDH Triplicity), likely due to the name's similarities and controversy with another web series known as The Bedfellows. In 2023, the group was originally disbanded but later reformed under the new name SDH Triplicity.
Band Davion[]
Band Davion is Lyons's newest project, a virtual cartoon band based on his interests in the Warner Bros. Animation style and the 80's/90's retrowave/synthwave genre. The band consists of six fictional characters named Davion McDougal, Stella Aliz, Moby DeVante, Pearl Annesley, Carrie Gonzalez, and Lyons himself.
On December 7, 2021, Lyons came up with the idea to create an animated music group based on his interests in 80's and 90's synthwave and retrowave genre. The concept all started with a depiction of what style his OC (also known to be the mascot for Daniel Lyons Entertainment), and Carrie Gonzalez would look like in Eric W. Schwartz's art style, which is basically Warner Bros. For example: Animaniacs, Tiny Toons Adventures, etc. After that, he depicted four cartoon characters by the names of Davion McDougal, Stella Aliz, Moby DeVante and Pearl Annesley with their appearances and musical instruments. The characters having to be in the style of Eric W. Schwartz/Warner Bros. gives them a subtle observation for the band to fit in with the glimpse of the synthwave/retrowave genre.
Several weeks later after the band was created (December 22, 2021), Lyons came across a cover of one of The Chats' songs performed by four original members of The Wiggles, including Simon Pryce - giving him the motivation to make a Band Davion cover out of it, although it was a demo. For instance, the song was called "Pub Feed" - and in The Wiggles' version, some words were changed to make the song have a consuming feel. Several days after the Band Davion demo cover of "Pub Feed" was recorded, Lyons then began to evolve the band by composing songs by the names of "Old McDougal Formed A Band", "Rock It, Roll It", "On Your Side", and so on. Most of the tracks were at first composed as demo songs from December 2021 to January 2022, while the rest of the songs recorded in March 2022 like "Strumming on Friday" and "Boring Mondays" seemed to be qualified as final products in Lyons' standards. The mentioned songs are featured in Band Davion's first record album, "Reliving the Golden".
Pre-Davion Days[]
While it may not have any relation to Band Davion, in October 18, 2021, Lyons had a dream centering around himself and Alfred "Weird Al" Yankovic in a radio podcast, discussing about how he would like to team up with Yankovic in future songs, including parodies - as well as the fact that Yankovic would be a graphic designer like he is. A short time later, he created a sort of "what if" commercial announcing the release of "It Begins" by Weird Al Yankovic and Danny Lyons. The album would consist of the following songs, including parodies: "It Begins", "Mystics", "Fantasies", "Silver Slither", "The Name's Danny", "It's Called a Hustler", "Battle", "Think Before You Speak", "Living", "The Hulk", "It's Us", and "Fire (WAY+DLE cover)". He then released the make-believe commercial on his Facebook profile after said dream.
Then, somewhere earlier in November 2021, during his continued rehabilitation therapy - after him and his mother were driving back home, he listened to a familiar song on the local radio station, "Dancing with Myself" by Billy Idol - which gave him the visuals in mind that had his OC dancing and singing it, with Davion McDougal in the background also dancing to it. Davion wore an Elvis Presley themed suit, which would've resulted in a prototype version of himself - although it hadn't crossed Lyons' mind before he was depicted.
Friendship with Darren A. Nichols (2019-2021, 2023-present)[]
Content[]
Most of Daniel's content consists of animation that he did himself. In addition to making episodes of The Rodfellows, now known as SDH Triplicity, Daniel also makes logo animations similar to those made by SLN! Media Group, who was a good friend of his until he cut ties with him following SLN's controversial activities including making lewd and disrespectful logos. He also collaborates with others in The Rodfellows community and also manages another group founded by Mirabelle Wieland known as The Universal Artists.