World’s shortest comedian to perform in Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — Comedian Tanyalee Davis may stand only three feet three inches tall, but she packs a big attitude. 

“My entire life, I've been underestimated,” Davis said. “People have wanted to feel sorry for me, and I'm like, ‘No, I've done incredible things with my life because I believed I could.’” 

Davis, who holds the Guinness world record for the shortest comedian, talks a lot about dwarfism in her act, entitled “Unstoppable Me.” It’s as much an extended TED talk as a standup comedy show, she said. 

“People have no idea there's over 400 different types of dwarfism, and each type of dwarfism has (different) physical characteristics,” she said. “So, I explain the different characteristics, then when I'm telling my stories about situations I get into (it becomes) even funnier, because I've got this situation going on.” 

Davis’ situation is that she was born with a form of dwarfism called diastrophic dysplasia, which causes the person to have very short arms and legs with a normal-sized head and body. It’s a recessive gene and most people who carry it have no idea it’s even there, she said. 

“Both my parents were carrying this recessive gene, so they had a one-in-four chance of having a dwarf baby,” she said. “So, they got a bingo right off the bat. And then my sister’s five and a half years younger than me. She's tall, but mentally, she's more jacked up than I am.” 

Davis is coming to Moses Lake on May 10 for two shows at Moore Brewing Company. 

“She did a show in Moses Lake (in November),” said her promoter, Michael Glatzmaier. “Now we’re bringing two shows because the last one sold out in a couple of days. I’ve barely even started advertising and tickets are already over halfway sold out.” 

Davis was born in 1970 in a tiny town in northern Manitoba, but spent most of her growing-up years in Winnipeg because of her medical problems. She started out in standup comedy in 1990 when, on her first visit to a comedy club, someone challenged her to get up and be funny. 

“So he signed me up, and then when I showed up, the owner was like, ‘Oh, hey, welcome. Just so you know, the headliner’s really (angry) you're here.’ And I'm like, ‘How do you know who I am, and why are you telling me this?’ Something snapped in my brain, and I was like, well, I'll show you. I went up, did my five minutes, people clapped and I went to the back of the room. And then when the headliner came out, I realized, Oh, my God, it all made sense. He was five foot, two inches tall, so his entire act was about being short. When you’ve got to follow a midget, your short jokes are (terrible).” 

The man sabotaged her act all over Canada, she said, making sure that she couldn’t perform any place he did, which only spurred her on. She left Canada in the late 1990s and since then she’s performed at clubs in the U.S. and Britain, appeared on TV and in the movie “Austin Powers 3: Goldmember” and been featured in documentaries about dwarfism. She returned to her hometown of Thompson, Manitoba, for one show in 2020, just before the pandemic. 

“It was my 30th anniversary of doing comedy,” she said. I was like, ‘Oh, they're gonna roll out the red carpet. Maybe I'll get a key to the town.’ And six people showed up. We drove eight hours straight up there for six people. It was so terrifying that the other comedians were like, ‘We're just going to drive back. We don't care how tired we are, we're not staying.’ It was like The Walking Dead.’” 

While her height provides much of the source material for her comedy, Davis resonates with everybody, Glatzmaier said. 

“It goes over the humor of being somebody who's just three foot three living in a world of people who might not know how to interact with somebody who's three foot three,” Glatzmaier said. “After listening to her show, you realize, oh, her life hasn't been that much different from ours.” 

“We all have bumps and bruises,” Davis said. “We all have tragedy and issues, but if you take a step back at the end of the day, you can find the humor in things that makes life more palatable, because life is a struggle for everybody.” 

    Tanyalee Davis has performed all over the U.S., Canada and Britain, as well as educating audiences about dwarfism.