Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem is the name of a Muppet rock band. Dr. Teeth was designed by Jim Henson, while the rest of the original band members were designed by Michael K. Frith. The band consists of Dr. Teeth on vocals and keyboards, Janice on guitar, Sgt. Floyd Pepper on bass guitar, Zoot on saxophone, and Animal on drums. In season five of ‘The Muppet Show,’ Lips joined the band on trumpet. The original pilot episode featured ‘Jim,’ a Muppet caricature of Jim Henson on banjo.
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 has arms so long that additional puppeteers are required to guide them; this design enabled Henson to work the Dr. Teeth puppet while another performer acted as Dr. 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.’ He often misuses long words and mangles verb conjugation. Jim Henson originally performed him, and based the character on the musician Dr. John.
Animal is the primitive wild man, drummer, and 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. He is named for his wild behavior and drumming. Some speculate the character is based on either Keith Moon of The Who, or Levon Helm of The Band, while others have suggested Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. Billy Joel claimed he was based on his drummer Liberty DeVitto.
Sgt. Floyd Pepper is the bass player. A laid back ‘hipster’ with a pink body and long orange hair, his name refers both to Pink Floyd and to the Beatles album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’ He also plays his bass left-handed, like Paul McCartney. 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. A battle of the egos occurs whenever he and Miss Piggy are on screen together as he loves to poke fun at her airs and graces. He’s also somewhat arrogant, referring to himself as ‘one real cool dude’ and he once said to Kermit: ‘Kermit, you are talking to Floyd Pepper! The hippest of the hip! I mean I have a room for life at the home of the chronically groovy!’ His pink color is a little insider joke, and a reference – he is a Pink Floyd. He has a close relationship with Janice, and is Animal’s handler. 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.’
Janice is a lead guitar player. Her name is an homage to Janis Joplin. Her favorite guitar is a left-handed Gibson Les Paul with cherry sunburst color scheme. 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. 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, often in valley girl-speak. In ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan’ she is heard saying, ‘So I told him ‘Look, buddy, I don’t take my clothes off for anybody, even if it is artistic,’ and… Oh.’ 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.’
Zoot is a green (sometimes blue), balding 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 20th century saxophonist Zoot Sims and per designer Bonnie Erickson, is modeled after Latin jazz artist Gato Barbieri. He was conceived as a burned-out, depressed 50-year old musician, but according to his puppeteer, 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. 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.
Lips 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. He was mainly created so that puppeteer Steve 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.
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