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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, Zoot and Janice also played in the Muppet Show pit band, performing the opening and closing themes and underscoring most of the Muppet Show performances. Rowlf the Dog was the pit pianist, however.
Members
Dr. Teeth
Dr. Teeth is the keyboard player and gravelly-voiced leader of the band. He has a gold tooth that he claims he fashioned by melting down his gold records, a scruffy beard, a fur vest, a striped shirt, and a floppy purple top hat. Despite being the nominal leader of the band, most of the songs he appeared in featured lead vocals by Floyd or Janice after the first season. Jim Henson based the character, which he designed and voiced, on the musician Dr. John.
His speaking roles got much smaller due to Jim Henson's death, but 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. This flower girl was involved with Zoot in season 1 of "The Muppet Show", but paired up with Floyd Pepper starting in season 2. 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 "Valley girl" sing-song voice. 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. Her name is an homage to Janis Joplin. However she is rumored to be based on Carly Simon with her low raspy voice and big lips. 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.
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 hippy philosophy was already intact.
Sgt. Floyd Pepper
Sgt. Floyd Pepper plays bass guitar. A laid back hippie-type with a pink body and long reddish-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 is performed and voiced by Jerry Nelson. Floyd's pink colour is a little insider joke, and a reference - he is a Pink Floyd.
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. (Oddly enough, Zoot spoke much more in the first season, where he was often seen dancing with Janice in the "At The Dance" sketches.)
Perhaps his best line came in The Great Muppet Caper, when the gang is planning to stop a group of crooks from robbing a museum, and trying to get their supplies together unsuccessfully.
Fozzie mentions a particular item ("wax lips")
Zoot says, "Man, I just had 'em!"
"Did you leave 'em in your other pants?" someone else asks.
Zoot comes back: "I don't have no other pants!"
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.
His name comes from "zoot suit", a large-shouldered, taper-waisted, gaudy garment popular in the 1940s. It is alternately possible that his name comes from Zoot Sims, a great jazz tenor saxophone player. Others believe that he is based on the great blues saxophonist Lou Marini. Zoot's appearance seems to be an amalgam of Latin tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri and Frank Tiberi, longtime member and current leader of the Woody Herman big band. Yet another version is that Zoot is based on tenor-sax player Yaroslav Yakubovich, Israeli jazzman, who immigrated to the USA and continued his stage career there during the 1970s. Zoot is performed and voiced by Dave Goelz.
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.
Animal:
Floyd Pepper: Oh, yeah, that's Animal. Show 'em what you do, Animal.
Animal: I want to eat drums!
Dr. Teeth: No, no, beat drums, beat drums!
Animal: Beat drums! Beat drums!
He opts to wear 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.
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 is performed and voiced by Frank Oz while his drumming is performed by Ronnie Verrell.
Fans of The Who's drummer Keith Moon claim that the character of Animal was based on Moon, who was known for his wild antics. However, 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; Sgt. Floyd Pepper is based on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, 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, and the rough sketch (also seen in Of Muppets and Men) doesn't appear to be related to any real musician.
A regular schtick is that when someone says a figure of speech to him, then Animal turns to the audience, his eyes go wide and then he goes berserk taking it literally. For instance, Jim Nabors once gave the traditional theatrical good luck wish to Animal, "Break a leg," and Animal decided to indulge him by trying to break Nabors' leg.
In the movie The Great Muppet Caper, it is revealed that Animal has a passion for impressionist paintings, especially those of Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
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, she later returns with him, with Animal acting submissive and sheepish, and lets him go (after reminding him to call her and blowing him a kiss).
Ty Pennington commented that Animal had ADHD, when the character was appearing on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This fact is disputable, as the appearance can easily be considered not part of the Muppets canon.
Lips
Lips, a hippie, joined Electric Mayhem for several numbers in the latter episodes of the series, playing the trumpet. Marked by his yellow afro and goatee, and a permanent squint, Lips was never considered by fans to 'really' be a part of the band. His appearances on the Muppet Show were few and far between, and when he did appear in the episodes or the later movies, never did anything that drew audience attention to him.
Rowlf
Main article: Rowlf the DogRowlf was built in 1962 for Purina Dog Chow commercials. Jim Henson designed Rowlf who was then built by Don Sahlin. It was Sahlin's first creation. Rowlf rose to popularity as Jimmy Dean's sidekick on The Jimmy Dean Show. He was the first Muppet to get a regular spot on network television. In 1976, Rowlf joined the recurring cast of The Muppet Show as the group's pianist. Rowlf was considered to be one of Jim Henson's most personal characters, and has been mostly retired since Jim Henson's death in 1990, similar to how Scooter was retired after Richard Hunt's death in 1992. It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, however, contains the first spoken lines by Rowlf since the death of Jim Henson, but his first major speaking role since Jim Henson's death was in the "Making of" video for the Weezer "Keep Fishin'" music video. Since 1996, Rowlf has been portrayed by puppeteer Bill Barretta. It was reputed that Rowlf was Jim Henson's favorite character. It was also said that Rowlf was the character most like himself. Henson had said Kermit flew off the handle more than he did, while Rowlf's laid back attitude was more like his own demeanor.
He's a quiet fellow, very easygoing, and a fan of classical music and musicals, particularly Beethoven. He is often portrayed wearing a tuxedo for his classical performances. When The Electric Mayhem walked out over the lameness of the theme song once, only Rowlf stayed on, playing it singlehandedly. He once sang a touching song to a puppy, and he plays a wisecracking doctor in a recurring medical drama parody skit Veterinarians' Hospital, with nurses Janice and Piggy. It is thought that Tom Waits has served as the inspiration for Rowlf's character in later muppet releases.
