Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem

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Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem is the name of a Muppet rock band that appeared on The Muppet Show. Following The Muppet Show, they have appeared in various Muppet movies and television specials, and have also recorded album tracks. Dr. Teeth was designed by Jim Henson, while the rest of the original band members were designed by Michael K. Frith. Their most famous song was "Can You Picture That?" from the 1979 film The Muppet Movie.

The band consisted of Dr. Teeth (band leader and piano), Janice (guitar), Sgt. Floyd Pepper (bass guitar), Zoot (saxophone) and Animal (drums). In season five, Lips joined the band (trumpet). Animal, Floyd and Zoot also played in the Muppet Show pit band, performing the opening and closing themes and underscoring most of the Muppet Show performances. Lips and occasionally Janice appeared in the orchestra in later episodes.

Members

Dr. Teeth

Dr. Teeth is the keyboard player and gravelly-voiced leader of the band. He is green-skinned and red-haired with, as his name suggests, a large grinning mouth of teeth, including a gold tooth that he claims he fashioned by melting down his gold records. He wears a scruffy beard, a fur vest, a striped shirt, and a floppy purple top hat. He has arms so long that additional puppeteers are required to guide them; this design enabled Henson to work the Teeth puppet while another performer acted as Teeth's "hands" in order to play the keyboard. His introductory lines in The Muppet Movie are: "Golden teeth and golden tones, welcome to my presence." Jim Henson based the character on the musician Dr. John. Since Henson's death John Kennedy performed him until 2004 then Bill Barretta took over in 2005.Victor Yerrid performed him for Statler & Waldorf: From the Balcony

Despite being the band leader, Dr. Teeth is not featured in the regular orchestra playing at The Muppet Show like the rest of the group. Instead, Rowlf the Dog is playing the piano in the orchestra pit.

Dr. Teeth only sings lead vocals on the second Muppet pilot and during the first season: those songs were written before Rowlf was firmly established as the regular Muppet pianist. Later performances feature lead vocals by Floyd or Janice. His speaking roles got even smaller after Jim Henson's death; Dr. Teeth's first major speaking role since Henson's death was in Statler & Waldorf's very own show, Statler and Waldorf From the Balcony.

Janice

Janice is a lead guitar player. She usually wears a brown hat with a turquoise gem and a feather.Though she regularly performed vocals, she only actually sang lead a couple of times on the the show. She also acts in sketches periodically, most notably as wisecracking Nurse Janice in "Veterinarian's Hospital", a recurring parody of medical dramas. She speaks in a feminized "Tommy Chong hippie" sing-song voice. Her name is an homage to Janis Joplin.

This flower girl was involved with Zoot in season 1 of "The Muppet Show", but paired up with Floyd Pepper starting in season 2. Janice was performed by Eren Ozker during the first season of The Muppet Show (without the valley-girl voice), then she was performed by Richard Hunt until his death in 1992.

Muppet characters are frequently paired together based on how well puppeteers perform as a team. Richard Hunt and Jerry Nelson had established themselves as a team prior to The Muppet Show. Therefore, the change in Janice's performer may have been the reason for her relationship shifting from Zoot to Floyd. After Hunt's death, her character was faded back to brief non-speaking background appearances until the 2002 TV movie It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, in which she was performed by Brian Henson.

A running gag in some Muppet movies was that, during a scene where several characters were excitedly talking at once, and someone called for silence, Janice would be the last one still talking, on a topic with no apparent connection to the situation. In The Great Muppet Caper, she says: "Look, Mother. It's my life. OK. So if I want to live on a beach and walk around naked... Oh." Another example from The Muppets Take Manhattan: "So I told him 'Look, man, I don't take my clothes off for anybody, even if it is artistic,' and...oh."

Janice is the only member of the band apart from Animal to have appeared on the animated series Muppet Babies. In her single appearance she was portrayed as slightly older than the main characters, and able to read. Her hippie philosophy was already in place. She is voiced by Dave Coulier who played Animal, Bunsen and Baby Bean Bunny

Sgt. Floyd Pepper

Sgt. Floyd Pepper plays bass guitar. A laid back hippie-type with a pink body and long orange hair, he usually wore a green army cap, or sometimes, while in the pit, a slightly fancier cap of stiffer, glittery material, and a red uniform with epaulets and ornate gold braid on the buttons. His name refers both to Pink Floyd and to the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His jacket is a clear visual reference to the album. He was performed and voiced by Jerry Nelson. However, Nelson retired from performing most of his characters, citing health reasons, and John Kennedy took over the role, beginning with The Muppets' Wizard of Oz.

Floyd is the most cynical member of the band and perhaps of the entire cast; in several episodes, he observes his fellow Muppet Show performers' backstage antics and pratfalls with great amusement and is not above outright laughing at them. His pink color is a little insider joke, and a reference - he is a Pink Floyd. He first appeared in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. He appears backstage more often than the other band members, presumably because Jerry Nelson was the muppeteer least often preoccupied with performing other characters backstage.

Although Dr. Teeth is the leader, Floyd is the one who sings lead most often. Some of the songs he sang on The Muppet Show include: "New York State of Mind", "Ain't Misbehaving", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover". He has a close relationship with Janice, and is Animal's handler, and in books like The Case of The Missing Mother, by James Howe, Animal is practically Floyd's pet.

Floyd claims to consider himself an excellent songwriter but, with no apparent contradiction, admits that everyone hates his music. Not that he blames them. "If I didn't know I was a genius," he once declared, "I wouldn't listen to the trash I write."

Zoot

Zoot is a green, balding, blue-haired saxophone player with dark glasses and a high-crowned blue felt hat, and was generally a laid back fellow of few words. His name refers to the twentieth-century saxophonist Zoot Sims. He is performed by Dave Goelz. He was conceived as a burned-out, depressed 50-year old musician, but according to Goelz, when the role was assigned to him, he did not know how to perform that type of character. He therefore made the character mainly communicate through his playing rather than by speaking.

Oddly enough, Zoot spoke much more in the first season, where he was often seen dancing with Janice in the "At The Dance" sketches. Goelz stated that he tried to give most of Zoot's lines away to other characters, particularly Floyd. Floyd's performer Jerry Nelson was not performing full-time in the first season, which may explain Zoot originally having more dialogue.

Zoot's claim to fame was playing the final off key note to the end theme of the show, then looking into his saxophone with a bewildered expression, checks his music and gives a satisfied nod and looks around at the other musicians and gives the same nod. Curiously, the note played is the lowest note on the baritone saxophone, and most of Zoot's other playing has the sound of a tenor saxophone, while his instrument appears to be an alto.

Animal

Animal is the drummer, appearing in The Muppet Show. He has also appeared on the Muppets Tonight show, as well as the Muppet Babies cartoon and all the Muppet movies. During performances, Animal is usually chained to the drum set, as his musical outbursts are extremely violent. From The Muppet Movie:

Animal: [roars]
Floyd Pepper: Oh, yeah, that's Animal. Show 'em what you do, Animal.
Animal: I what do: Eat drums!
[chews on a cymbal]
Dr Teeth: No, no, beat drums, beat drums!
Animal: Beat drums! Beat drums! [beats the drums with his head]
Floyd Pepper: Down, Animal!
Animal: Down!
Floyd Pepper: Back!
Animal: Back!
Floyd Pepper: Sit!
Animal: Sit! [He sits quietly for a moment, panting, then snickers to the camera]

However, sometimes his wild and crazy appearance, attitude and antics are used as the source of a joke by way of a reversal of what the audience might expect from Animal, such as in this piece of dialogue during a break in the song, "Happiness Hotel", in The Great Muppet Caper:

Kermit the Frog: What's wrong with your drummer? He looks a little crazed.
Zoot: Oh, he's just upset about missing the Rembrandt exhibit at The National Gallery.
Animal: [Correcting him in a wild, angry tone] Renoir! Renoir!

He opts to wear American football shoulder pads instead of a shirt (when he is not in his maroon band uniform). Despite the antics, Animal was a very good drummer, and was able to hold his own with legends such as Buddy Rich and Harry Belafonte, both of whom he played with/against in separate drum-offs on The Muppet Show. (The Rich sketch ended with Animal breaking a drum over Rich's head.) Animal was voiced by Howie Mandel in the first season of Muppet Babies and then by Dave Coulier.

Animal has also run afoul of Muppet Show guests, such as the aforementioned scene with Buddy Rich. When he kept interrupting Rita Moreno's rendition of "Fever" with loud drumming outburts, she became so annoyed that she slammed his head between a pair of cymbals. Animal's attitude towards Dudley Moore became quite hostile when Moore tried to replace the band with a programmable, music-playing robot.

He usually speaks in grunts and monosyllables, and has a violent temper. Animal bowls overhand. He has been depicted as a literal skirt-chaser (in The Muppets Take Manhattan, he chases a female co-ed out of the auditorium, chanting "Woo-maaaan!" after her). He also chases cars. Animal was performed and voiced by Frank Oz until 2002 when Eric Jacobson took over; his drumming is performed by Ronnie Verrell.

There is no evidence in the original sketches for the character that suggest that he was based on anybody in particular. Three of the other members of the Electric Mayhem were created by Muppet designer Michael K. Frith, and the sketches reproduced in the book Of Muppets and Men show that they were based on famous musicians. Dr. Teeth is a cross between Dr. John and Elton John, possibly inspired by George Clinton of Parliament/Funkadelic; Sgt. Floyd Pepper is based on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album and Pink Floyd, and the original concept for Janice was a skinny, long-haired male character based on Mick Jagger. Animal, on the other hand, was designed by Jim Henson.

A regular gag involves someone imparting a figure of speech to Animal: Animal turns to the audience, his eyes go wide and then he goes berserk, taking it literally. For instance, Jim Nabors once spoke the traditional theatrical good luck wish, "Break a leg," whereupon Animal decided to indulge him by trying to break Nabors' leg. Another gag would occasionally occur when the band plays a slow song: Animal will get about halfway through and then after announcing "Too slow!" launch into a faster paced version of the song. The band would usually comment that Animal lasted much longer than they thought he would.

In the movie The Great Muppet Caper, it is revealed that Animal has a passion for impressionist paintings, especially those of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. To get into the Gallery, to stop the villains, Kermit asks if Animal can quietly eat through the iron bars. Animal responds by saying "eat through bars ahhhhhhh" and then ripping the bars apart with his teeth, noisily ignoring Kermit's request.

In the movie Muppets from Space, Animal meets his match in the form of a security guard played by Kathy Griffin - after chasing her down a hallway with his "Woo-man" call, he later comes running back around the corner, yelling "HELP HELP!" with Griffin calling after him about how they'll settle down, buy a house, and have children.

Ty Pennington commented that Animal had ADHD when the character appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Animal was the official mascot of the U.S. Ski Team during the 1998 Winter Olympics. He appereared in a television advert for the Renault Clio car with French footballer Thierry Henry. Animal shows a talent for jazz during the ad.

Lips

Lips, a hippie performed by Steve Whitmire, joined the Electric Mayhem for several numbers in the later episodes of the series, playing the trumpet. His name naturally refers to the fact that trumpet players use their lips to play. He has a yellow afro, goatee, and a permanent squint. His appearances on the Muppet Show were few and far between, and when he did appear in the later episodes or movies, he never did anything that drew audience attention to him. He did, however, have a leading role in the Shirley Bassey episode where he was the featured soloist in several numbers.

He was mainly created so that Whitmire could have a character to perform in the band. His lack of character development was apparently due to Whitmire's uncertainty about performing Lips. He was less experienced as a puppeteer at the time, and wanted to use a voice like Louis Armstrong but was afraid of offending African-Americans. Lips' last appearance to date was in The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Parody

In an episode of Adult Swim's Robot Chicken (Season 1, Episode 4), Dr.Teeth and The Electric Mayhem were in a fake VH1 Behind The Music sketch detailing the band's activities after The Muppet Show. It shows Dr. Teeth earning a living as a piano teacher, and claims that no one has seen Zoot since he was arrested in Japan with a suitcase filled with thirty-seven pounds of hash - which is a parody of the 1980 Paul McCartney marijuana bust. Also, in a fake episode of The Howard Stern Show, Janice reveals that Tommy Lee gave her Hepatitis C and that she only has 5 years to live (referencing similar claims made by actress Pamela Anderson); when Stern ignores her distress and asks if Janice will show him her breasts, she angrily refuses (saying "Fuck you, Howard! I'm dying!"). Finally, a possible comeback for the Electric Mayhem--a performance on Star Search--ends in tragedy when Animal has to be put down for a vicious attack on host Ed McMahon. The sketch ends with Floyd sadly stating that a reunion of the Electric Mayhem is all but impossible without Animal and Zoot, as Dr. Teeth plays a piano duet with Rowlf the Dog and a sickly Janice coughs in the background.

References

External links

• Muppet Wiki: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

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