Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem
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Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem was the name of the Muppet rock band and house band of the The Muppet Show. Following The Muppet Show, they 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. They performed the song "Can You Picture That?" in the 1979 film The Muppet Movie.
The band consisted of Dr. Teeth as the band leader and piano, Janice on guitar, Sgt. Floyd Pepper on bass guitar, Zoot on saxophone and Animal on drums and in season five of the show, Lips joined the band on 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.
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[edit] Members
[edit] 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 claimed to be fashioned by melting down his gold records. He maintains 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 were: "Golden teeth and golden tones, welcome to my presence." Jim Henson originally performed him, and based the character on the musician Dr. John.
Dr. Teeth only sings lead vocals on the second Muppet pilot and during the first season and these songs were only written before Rowlf had become firmly established as the regular Muppet pianist. Later performances feature lead vocals by Floyd or Janice. His speaking roles got even smaller after his performer Jim Henson's death; he was limited to non-speaking cameos until 1999 when John Kennedy began performing him. Bill Barretta took over the role beginning with The Muppets' Wizard of Oz so that Kennedy could perform Floyd instead. Dr. Teeth's first major speaking role since Henson's death was in Statler and Waldorf's very own show, Statler and Waldorf From the Balcony, where Victor Yerrid performed him.
Despite being the band leader, Dr. Teeth is never featured in the regular orchestra playing at The Muppet Show like the rest of the group. Instead, Rowlf plays the piano in the orchestra pit.
[edit] 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 actually only sang lead a couple of times on the show. She also acted in sketches periodically and most notably as wisecracking Nurse Janice in 'Veterinarian's Hospital', a recurring parody of medical dramas. She spoke in a hippie sing-song voice and her name is a homage to Janis Joplin.
This flower girl was involved with Zoot in the first season of The Muppet Show, but paired up with Floyd Pepper at the start of season two. 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 It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, in which she was performed by Brian Henson. In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, she was performed by Tyler Bunch .
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 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". Another example from 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".
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 was voiced by Dave Coulier, who regularly vocied baby versions of Animal, Bunsen and Bean Bunny.
[edit] Sgt. Floyd Pepper
Sgt. Floyd Pepper plays bass guitar. A laid back "hipster" 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, in 2004, 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."
[edit] 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; he then looks into his saxophone with a bewildered expression, checks his music, gives a satisfied nod, 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.
[edit] Animal
Animal is the drummer, and arguably the most famous member of the band, being the only member to have appeared in every feature film and the only member in the regular cast of the Muppet Babies spin-off cartoon. Frank Oz operated Animal from his first appearance until 1999; in 2002 newcomer Eric Jacobson took over. In Muppet Babies he was voiced by Howie Mandel (1984-1985) and Dave Coulier (1986-1991). Animal was also played by Kevin Clash in Muppets Tonight and by Bill Barretta in Muppetfest. His first appearance was in the original pilot, "Sex and Violence!", and he has had numerous other appearances on television, in advertising, and even on a U.S. postage stamp.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 for possessing 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.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem
