Zoot

From Muppet Wiki

Performer:

Dave Goelz

Zoot, as seen in Season 1

Design Team:

Bonnie Erickson • (designer)

Dave Goelz • (builder)

Zoot is the balding, blue-haired saxophone player for the Electric Mayhem. According to his performer and builder Dave Goelz, "Zoot is just a fifty-year-old burnt-out musician."^[1]

Zoot first appeared with his bandmates in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence before securing a regular gig on The Muppet Show, where he played both in the Muppet Orchestra and with the Mayhem. He has also appeared in every Muppet movie, the most recent being The Muppets' Wizard of Oz.

One of Zoot's trademarks is blowing small notes of music at a time. He notably blew the final note of "The Muppet Show Theme" in the closing credits on every episode of The Muppet Show. Although most of his appearances were with the Electric Mayhem, Zoot was more prominently featured as an individual in the early episodes, appearing with Juliet Prowse in a blackout in episode 101, and playing a reluctant duet with Mahna Mahna in "Sax and Violence" in episode 102.

Zoot was considerably more talkative during the show's first season, but he soon started speaking less, often expressing himself purely with music. Dave Goelz explained that "I found that when the writers gave Zoot lines to speak, I would always try to give them away to other characters, because I didn't know what to do with him. Maybe that helped to define the character. Perhaps it's best that he's so non-verbal."^[2] Thus, Zoot's proclivity towards speaking more in the earlier episodes may have been due to the fact that Jerry Nelson, who played Zoot's more animated bandmate Floyd, was not available for tapings of The Muppet Show's first episodes.

Zoot was designed by Bonnie Erickson after seeing Argentine saxophonist Gato Barbieri.

Behind the Scenes

Evolution

Throughout the years, the Zoot puppet has been redesigned several times, his skin changing from gray to blue to green, the texture from exposed foam to fleece and back again, and his nose from green to yellow. Zoot's trademark shades, his bald spot, and his long, blue hair have always stayed with him, though.