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149-754: The Muppets Mayhem is an American musical comedy television series featuring the Muppet musical group Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem . The series was developed by Adam F. Goldberg , Bill Barretta , and Jeff Yorkes for ABC Signature and The Muppets Studio . The series stars Lilly Singh , Tahj Mowry , Saara Chaudry , Anders Holm and Muppet performers Barretta, Dave Goelz , Eric Jacobson , Peter Linz , David Rudman , and Matt Vogel . The streaming service Disney+ released all ten episodes of The Muppets Mayhem on May 10, 2023. It received generally positive reviews from critics. In November 2023, it

298-547: A Muppet Magazine article as one real cool dude and during The Muppet Show (season 1 episode 23) he says to Kermit the Frog : "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 name and pink color are homages to the band Pink Floyd , and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , the album by the Beatles . He appears backstage more often than

447-565: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , Barbra Streisand , Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). The musical started to diverge from

596-488: A Muppet caricature of Henson on banjo . Dr. Gerald Teeth Jr. is the gravelly-voiced lead singer and keyboardist . He is green-skinned and red-haired with a large grinning mouth of teeth including a gold tooth supposedly fashioned by melting down his gold records. He sports a scruffy red beard with no mustache, 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

745-553: A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie and the video game Muppets Party Cruise . In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz , she was performed by Tyler Bunch . Her most recent performer is David Rudman , who first performed her in Studio DC: Almost Live . John Lovelady performed her for one appearance in 1975. A running gag in some Muppet movies was that during a scene in which several characters were excitedly talking at once and someone called for silence, Janice would be

894-490: A baby. Sgt . Floyd Pepper is the bassist and backup singer . A laid back hippie 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. He plays his bass left-handed; and although he's been seen playing a variety of bass guitars over time, he appears to have settled for playing Fender basses. The character

1043-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of

1192-426: 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, most notably as wisecracking Nurse Janice in 'Veterinarian's Hospital', a recurring parody of medical dramas; in the latter role, she dispenses with much of her flower child lingo. Her name is an homage to Janis Joplin , and she bears

1341-518: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of

1490-454: A featured role in 2015's The Muppets as the house band on the show-within-a-show Up Late with Miss Piggy . The same year, they released two music videos for " Jungle Boogie " (featuring Sam Eagle ) and "Kodachrome". An Electric Mayhem "live" tour with audio-animatronic versions of the puppets and rock band My Morning Jacket performing the characters was proposed by The Walt Disney Company but ultimately abandoned. The band performed

1639-520: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of

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1788-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by

1937-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On

2086-537: A live five-song set at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival on August 6, 2016. The Muppets Mayhem , a series about the Electric Mayhem recording their first eponymous studio album , premiered on Disney+ on May 10, 2023. Despite featuring Dr. Teeth's name prominently in the band's name, the group officially has no frontman and instead has described itself as a "rocktocracy". The original pilot episode of The Muppet Show also featured Jim,

2235-517: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at

2384-510: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It

2533-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from

2682-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from

2831-467: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond

2980-547: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked

3129-464: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of

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3278-569: A part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at

3427-444: A resemblance to Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary . Janice is the band's lead guitarist and backup singer and she plays left-handed. Her favourite guitar is a Gibson Les Paul with cherry sunburst colour scheme. Janice 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

3576-521: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances

3725-497: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with

3874-521: A series based on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem came from the success of a series of music videos on the Muppets' YouTube channel. The series was greenlit shortly before its announcement, after finalizing deals with the Muppet performers. Goldberg and Barretta also executive-produce alongside Michael Bostick, Kris Eber, and The Muppets Studio executives David Lightbody and Leigh Slaughter, while Yorkes

4023-544: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during

4172-547: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting

4321-425: A series. The three eventually began working together on combining their ideas onto a single series. On February 7, 2022, ABC Signature and The Muppets Studio announced developing a 10-episode series for Disney+ based on The Muppets . Written by Barretta, Goldberg, and Yorkes, The Muppets Mayhem is the first series developed by Goldberg for ABC following his deal with the studio in 2019. The decision to develop

4470-533: A show about the band; let's focus on this one very specific corner of the Muppet Universe... And from there, let's now kind of branch out and do even more. So that was always our idea. In fact, we were kind of more excited about introducing new Muppet characters. That was always a goal for us." Following the show's cancellation, Goldberg revealed on social media that plans for a Muppetverse were still happening. Musical theatre Although music has been

4619-477: A spin-off of The Muppet Show centering on his band, Floyd would probably emerge as the central figure. He was designed by Michael K. Frith and built by Dave Goelz . He debuted in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence . 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 in

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4768-789: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on

4917-499: 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 2000's Muppet Race Mania in which she was performed by Matt Vogel . Brian Henson also provided her voice for It's

5066-399: Is a co-executive-producer. On November 21, 2023, it was announced the series would not be picked up for another season. Writers for the series include Julie Bean, Hannah Friedman, Crystal Shaw, Hans Rodionoff, Gabrielle Rodriguez, and Danielle Maransky. According to executive producer Kris Eber, the filmmakers approached the series as if it was a 5-hour-long feature film. The series explores

5215-418: Is a teal-colored, balding saxophone player with dark glasses and a high-crowned blue felt hat that is 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 is performed by Dave Goelz . He was conceived as a burned-out, depressed 50-year-old musician but according to Goelz when

5364-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in

5513-468: Is no evidence that Animal was based on anyone specifically, and is simply an amalgam of common stereotypes about rock drummers. Oz performed Animal from his first appearance until 2000; he has been performed regularly by Eric Jacobson since his 2002 appearance in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie . In Muppet Babies , he was voiced by Howie Mandel (1984–1985) and by Dave Coulier (1986–1991). Animal

5662-470: Is not limited to, being a nursery school teacher, inspiring The Bangles song "Walk Like an Egyptian", and introducing Paula Abdul to MC Skat Kat . Clifford , performed by Kevin Clash , was briefly made a member of the Electric Mayhem (as a percussionist ) in 1990. His only appearances with the group were in the television special The Muppets at Walt Disney World and minor publicity material. Jim

5811-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only

5960-439: Is practically Floyd's pet. In The Muppets Mayhem , it is revealed that Floyd raised Animal from a young age, and inspired a young Dr. Teeth to become a musician. Floyd has declared himself to be an excellent songwriter—when the band briefly went on strike, one of his conditions was that he be allowed to write new theme music for the show—but with no apparent contradiction, admits that everyone hates his music. "If I didn't know I

6109-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of

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6258-411: Is shown from episodes of The Muppet Show featuring Muppet performers Jim Henson as Teeth, Frank Oz as Animal, Jerry Nelson as Floyd and Richard Hunt as Janice, as well as Elton John as himself. Following a performance at the 2016 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival , Muppet performer and writer Bill Barretta developed a pitch for a series based on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem . At

6407-671: The Billboard Kid Albums chart, the first ever Muppets album to do so. On May 4, 2023, according to Jordan Williams of Screen Rant , "The anticipation for The Muppets Mayhem clearly extends beyond its core child fanbase, as the series has generated remarkable buzz with over 1.3 million online interactions, becoming the ninth-most hyped May release on Facebook." The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 83% based on 23 reviews with an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads: " The Muppets Mayhem might be too slight to find

6556-640: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music

6705-491: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in

6854-411: The baritone saxophone , while most of Zoot's other playing has the sound of a tenor saxophone and his instrument appears to be an alto saxophone . In A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa , it's revealed that he celebrates Hanukkah . Lips is the band's mumbling, yellow-haired trumpet player who joined the Electric Mayhem during the final season of The Muppet Show . His name is inspired by

7003-557: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over

7152-561: The valley-girl voice), then she was performed by Richard Hunt until his death in 1992. Briefly, in The Muppet Show pilot, in the Muppet Meeting Films and in one Season 1 sketch she was performed by Fran Brill. Due to the lack of female Muppet performers, Janice has, since Ozker's departure, consistently been played by a man. Muppet characters are frequently paired together based on how well puppeteers perform as

7301-543: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives

7450-622: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed

7599-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within

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7748-555: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by

7897-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in

8046-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during

8195-551: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to

8344-677: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create

8493-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and

8642-668: The Dr. Teeth puppet while another performer acted as Dr. Teeth's hands in order to play the keyboard. His self-introduction in The Muppet Movie was typically grandiose: "Golden teeth and golden tones. Welcome to my presence." He often misuses long words and mangles verb conjugation. Jim Henson originally performed him, basing the character on New Orleans musician Dr. John . He was designed by Henson and Michael K. Frith and built by Don Sahlin . He debuted in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence . Dr. Teeth only sings lead vocals on

8791-756: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In

8940-415: The Frog and Miss Piggy were considered, they were discarded early during development in order to keep the series focused on Electric Mayhem. Yorkes said the series' comedy would derive from how the band only do whatever they want while Nora tries to lead them in making their album. Along with the series' announcement, it was reported that Lilly Singh would portray Nora, a junior executive struggling with

9089-586: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of

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9238-583: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on

9387-560: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of

9536-612: The Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to

9685-655: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from

9834-493: The Rainbow Connection, but its ragtag band of plucky puppets and plethora of showbiz gags make for a solid addition to the franchise. On Metacritic , the series has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Goldberg has expressed interest in developing a "Muppetverse" similar to Marvel Studios and Star Wars stating, "it was like, we're just doing

9983-582: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During

10132-463: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from

10281-497: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from

10430-477: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of

10579-486: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in

10728-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as

10877-425: The backstory of Electric Mayhem, which has not been depicted in previous projects; the writers worked closely with the Muppet performers to ensure their ideas stayed faithful to the characters. The series aimed for a more grounded setting than most Muppet productions, lacking elements such as "talking fruit", with Goldberg saying the show would "[tell] a regular story in the real world with Muppets". Goldberg said this

11026-415: 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. She was voiced by Dave Coulier who regularly voiced baby versions of Animal, Bunsen Honeydew and Bean Bunny . In the 2023 series The Muppets Mayhem , Janice is revealed to have an estranged twin sister. Zoot

11175-501: 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. Jim Henson once said that Dr. Teeth was one of the most difficult characters to play due to the harshness of the character's voice. Although he appeared in Muppet Treasure Island , he was absent from Muppets Tonight and did not appear in

11324-404: The band to be " anklin' " during its brief strike, only Zoot seemed dubious, noting "The frog's been good to us." 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. The note played is the lowest note on

11473-580: The band, being the only member to appear 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 , John Bonham , Ginger Baker , Mike Baird , or Levon Helm , while others have suggested Mick Fleetwood . Original performer Frank Oz has stated that Animal's character can be summed up in five words: sex, sleep, food, drums, and pain. Several years ago,

11622-610: The chaos caused by The Electric Mayhem . Muppet performers Barretta, Dave Goelz , Eric Jacobson , Matt Vogel , David Rudman , and Peter Linz reprised their roles as Electric Mayhem members Dr. Teeth, Zoot, Animal, Floyd Pepper, Janice, and Lips, respectively. On April 5, 2022, it was confirmed that Tahj Mowry joined the cast. On June 9, 2022, Saara Chaudry and Anders Holm joined the cast. Production for The Muppets Mayhem began April 25, 2022, and ended August 5, 2022. Craig Kief serves as director of photography. Matt Sohn and Kimmy Gatewood will direct episodes. On July 2, 2022, it

11771-474: The characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that

11920-557: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to

12069-508: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by

12218-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by

12367-548: The core of Frank Loesser 's and Abe Burrows ' Guys and Dolls , (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe 's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held

12516-474: The deaths of two of the group's puppeteers, Henson and Hunt, they were limited to brief instrumental background music throughout the 1990s. However, the Electric Mayhem backed Miss Piggy for a song in The Muppets' Wizard of Oz and performed alongside Miley Cyrus in the 2008 Studio DC: Almost Live television special. They have been a mainstay in the Muppets' viral video efforts of the 2010s and have

12665-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved

12814-403: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as

12963-409: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and

13112-544: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict

13261-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down

13410-669: The famed Ludwig Drum Company built a specially modified version of their child-sized Ludwig Jr. kit for Animal, as noted on their website at the time. In the April 8, 2002, episode of Inside the Actors Studio , Billy Joel claimed that Liberty DeVitto was the inspiration for the Muppets character Animal. This assertion has not been taken seriously as Animal's initial appearance in the 1974 pilot for The Muppet Show occurred two full years before DeVitto even made his first recording (on Joel's 1976 album Turnstiles ). Others say there

13559-564: The filming of the 2015 music video " Kodachrome ". Lips speaks frequently in The Muppets Mayhem (2023), with his dialogue mainly consisting of unintelligible mumbling and occasionally a determinable sentence. A recurring gag in The Muppets Mayhem and media released around the same time is that Lips has inexplicable connections to a myriad of celebrities and other people the Mayhem come across. This colorful history includes, but

13708-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite

13857-416: The first episode. In the 2023 series The Muppets Mayhem , Dr. Teeth is revealed to be an actual doctor, having worked in his family's dentistry business before leaving with Floyd to start the band. After an argument with the band, he rechristens the band's name simply as "The Electric Mayhem" out of parity for the other members. Animal is the primitive wildman, drummer and the most published member of

14006-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need

14155-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in

14304-499: The imagery of lips seen on posters for The Rocky Horror Picture Show , one of Whitmire's favorite films. He has yellow frizzy hair that has been compared to a chrysanthemum (much to his chagrin), a 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 rarely did anything besides play the trumpet. One of his few speaking appearances

14453-527: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of

14602-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about

14751-411: 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, buddy, 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

14900-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on

15049-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,

15198-505: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming

15347-535: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,

15496-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of

15645-585: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see

15794-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as

15943-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:

16092-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:

16241-766: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as

16390-855: The orchestra in later episodes. Lips joined the band as the sixth member in the fifth season of the series, and made some appearances with the group after The Muppet Show ended production; the group later reverted to its original five member line-up, until Lips returned in 2011's The Muppets . The band's first film role was performing the song " Can You Picture That? " in The Muppet Movie . They also performed "Night Life" and participated in "The Happiness Hotel" in The Great Muppet Caper and performed " Jingle Bell Rock " in A Muppet Family Christmas . They appeared in The Muppets Take Manhattan (sans Lips) where Dr. Teeth sang "You Can't Take No For An Answer". Following

16539-502: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan

16688-464: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act

16837-436: The other band members. 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 Misbehavin' ", " While My Guitar Gently Weeps " and " 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover ". He has a close relationship with Janice and is Animal's close friend and handler. In books like The Case of The Missing Mother , by James Howe , Animal

16986-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of

17135-463: The pilot for The Muppet Show . Dr. Teeth and Animal were designed by Henson, Zoot was designed by Bonnie Erickson , while the rest of the original band members were designed by Michael K. Frith . 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

17284-764: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards

17433-562: The retirement of Jerry Nelson , Floyd's original performer (although Matt Vogel later assumed the role of Floyd as well as most of Nelson's primary Muppet characters). 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. Bill Barretta , however, has been performing Dr. Teeth consistently since 2005. Although being

17582-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help

17731-487: 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 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

17880-442: The same time, Muppet fan Adam F. Goldberg and partner Jeff Yorkes began developing their own project based on the characters; they were interested in a project about the band because he felt their lack of popularity compared to other characters allowed them to "do anything with these guys, because people just know them enough". While Yorkes originally pitched the idea to Goldberg as a feature film, he instead suggested developing it as

18029-1281: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem , or simply The Electric Mayhem , are an American Muppet rock group that debuted in 1975 on the pilot for the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show . They are the house band for The Muppet Show , with personalities and appearances inspired by prominent real-life rock music and jazz performers. They subsequently appeared in various Muppet films and television specials and have also recorded album tracks and covered numerous songs. The Electric Mayhem consists of Dr. Teeth on vocals and keyboards , Animal on drums , Floyd Pepper on vocals and bass , Janice on vocals and lead guitar , Zoot on saxophone , and Lips on trumpet . The band's members were originally performed by Jim Henson , Frank Oz , Jerry Nelson , Richard Hunt , Dave Goelz , and Steve Whitmire , respectively; they are presently performed by Bill Barretta , Eric Jacobson , Matt Vogel , David Rudman , Goelz, and Peter Linz , respectively. The group made their debut in 1975's The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence ,

18178-487: The second Muppet pilot and during the first season and these songs were only written before Rowlf the Dog had become firmly established as the regular Muppet pianist. Later performances mostly feature lead vocals by Floyd or Janice and only a few featured Dr. Teeth. His speaking roles got even smaller after his performer Jim Henson's death; an exception was the 1991 Muppets stage show Muppets on Location: Days of Swine and Roses ,

18327-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed

18476-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this

18625-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in

18774-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At

18923-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with

19072-515: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer

19221-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in

19370-679: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away

19519-508: The turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond the revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the most famous musicals through the decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of

19668-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in

19817-425: The voice being performed by John Kennedy . He performed Dr. Teeth from 1991 to 2003 but made only very brief appearances with very little dialogue, some examples being the 1999 film Muppets from Space and once in the music video for the " We Are Family " charity song in 2002. Bill Barretta took over the role beginning with The Muppets' Wizard of Oz so that Kennedy could start performing Floyd instead following

19966-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it

20115-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from

20264-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided

20413-548: Was a genius," he once declared, " I wouldn't listen to the trash I write." He nonetheless seems to have made a small fortune on advertising jingles during one of the band's sabbatical. It is believed he is based on the guitarist Jeff Baxter , who is a studio musician and a former member of both Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers. Janice is a guitarist and backup singer with a flower child personality. She has blonde hair, big eyelashes and lips, and usually wears

20562-558: Was also played by Kevin Clash in Muppets Tonight and by Bill Barretta in MuppetFest (the first Muppet fan convention). Animal's drumming was performed by British jazz and big band drummer Ronnie Verrell . He has had numerous appearances on television in advertising and on a U.S. postage stamp. The 2023 series The Muppets Mayhem , it is revealed that Animal was raised by Floyd after being abandoned on his doorstep as

20711-1128: Was announced the series was cancelled after one season. Junior A&R executive Nora must deal with the madness caused by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem , who come face-to-face with the modern musical business as they try to record their first-ever album with which to go platinum . David Bizzaro and Stephanie D'Abruzzo perform Dr. Teeth's controlling dentist parents, Gerald and Tina Teeth. Other supporting Muppet performers include Jordan Brownlee, Alice Dinnean , Bradley Freeman, Jr., Donna Kimball, Tim Lagasse , Bruce Lanoil , Drew Massey , Sarah Sarang Oh, Michael Oosterom, Nicolettte Santino, Stoph Scheer, Michelan Sisti, Art Vega and Alex Villa. Paula Abdul , Steve Aoki , Karamo Brown , Sofia Carson , Charlamagne Tha God , Tommy Chong , Billy Corgan , deadmau5 , Desiigner , Morgan Freeman , Susanna Hoffs , Peter Jackson , Kesha , Tommy Lee , Lil Nas X , Cheech Marin , Ziggy Marley , Ryan Seacrest , Kevin Smith , Chris Stapleton , Danny Trejo , "Weird Al" Yankovic and Zedd play themselves. Archival footage

20860-427: Was because he wanted to portray the band as being "like real people, real, breathing entities that can be in the real world". The number of Muppet elements and characters present in the series were determined according to how natural they were integrated in the story, such as the appearance of Muppet bunnies, which Barretta described as "something that Animal's always had". While appearances from characters such as Kermit

21009-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting

21158-586: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and

21307-520: Was in the Shirley Bassey episode where he sang a line of "Barnyard Boogie." 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 . After The Muppet Christmas Carol , he

21456-502: Was not performing full-time in the first season which may explain Zoot originally having more dialogue. Since his eyes are hidden by his shades, he often appears oblivious to events around him—during the band's first meeting with Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear as depicted in The Muppet Movie , he briefly forgot his own name which Floyd described as Zoot "skip[ping] the groove again"—but he can be sharper than he seems. When Floyd declared

21605-478: Was not seen at all until the 2009 NBC special Christmas in Rockefeller Center . He also appeared in The Muppets (2011). He also appeared and spoke (albeit very briefly) in the 2014 movie Muppets Most Wanted . He appears (and speaks on several occasions) in the 2015 series The Muppets having been completely rebuilt, as the original puppet from his Muppet Show days disintegrated on set during

21754-400: Was originated by Jerry Nelson until 2003. At this time, 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 . Matt Vogel took over in A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa and is Floyd's current performer. Author Christopher Finch says that Floyd is most like Nelson and if there were

21903-510: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing

22052-558: Was reported that an accident took place in which a crew truck crashed into a tree on the edge of a cliff near the Griffith Observatory . Walt Disney Records released a series soundtrack album digitally and on streaming on May 10, 2023, alongside a vinyl LP debut album titled The Electric Mayhem that featured the first fourteen tracks of the full soundtrack. It featured the original songs written by Linda Perry , and cover versions of popular songs. The soundtrack topped

22201-482: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise

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