David Gilhooly states that his lowbrow humor makes his work accessible so that ​“even my most maiden old aunt or my most drugged-out cousin can get at the meaning of the work or at least experience it!” He studied at the University of California, where he worked as an assistant to Robert Arneson. Gilhooly was a leading advocate of funk art, which challenged the seriousness of the art world by focusing on absurd images of everyday objects. He parodied ancient civilizations, religion, politics, and culture through an alternative world of ceramic frogs and other creatures until 1983, when he began to use food to satirize man-made and natural disasters.