Animal


 * "You don't mess with Animal. He eats glass, man." - Frank Oz

Animal is the drummer for the Electric Mayhem band. He first appeared in the 1975 pilot The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, chained up in a basement cell when he wasn't onstage performing with the band. He was a main character on The Muppet Show, and his unrestrained style has made him popular with young people for decades.

Animal is a crazed drummer, with three styles of music -- loud, louder, and deafening. He speaks in a guttural shout, often repeating a few simple phrases: "BEAT DRUMS! BEAT DRUMS!" or "WO-MAN!" In relatively calmer moods, he is capable of more intelligent conversation... but not much more. An early description by Jim Henson of Animal for his first appearance, cites him as "a three-handed drummer for [a] folk or rock group." Frank Oz says that he had his character down to five words: Sex, sleep, food, drums and pain.

Animal has had roles in all of the Muppet movies. In The Muppet Movie, he ate some of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's Insta-Grow Pills causing him to grow ten times his size and scare away Doc Hopper. He also appeared in The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets From Space, It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, and The Muppets' Wizard of Oz.

When drumming legend Buddy Rich appeared on The Muppet Show, one sequence featured a "drum battle" between Rich and Animal in homage to the legendary face-off album between Rich and his contemporary Gene Krupa.

Casting History

 * Frank Oz - from The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence (1975) to Muppets From Space (1999)
 * Eric Jacobson - from It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas (2002) to Present


 * Kevin Clash - Occasionally on Muppets Tonight (1996)
 * John Kennedy - Mastercard commercial (2002); Muppet Party Cruise video game (2003)
 * Drew Massey - Statler and Waldorf: From the Balcony, Episode 9 (2005)