hostile toward Dudley Moore when Moore tried to replace the band with a programmable, music-playing robot. On another occasion, however, Animal is starstruck by James Coburn after the movie tough-guy demonstrates his own violent streak in a parodic manner: A common gag involves someone imparting a figure of speech to Animal: Animal turns to the audience, his eyes go wide and he goes berserk, taking the figure of speech literally. For example, Jim Nabors once spoke the traditional theatrical good luck wish "Break a leg", whereupon Animal indulged him by trying to break Nabors's leg. Another gag would occasionally occur when the band plays a slow song: Animal will get about halfway through and then after announcing "Too slow!" launch into a faster paced version of the song. The band would usually comment that Animal lasted much longer than they thought he would. Animal is a literal skirt-chaser. In The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), he chases a female student out of the auditorium, chanting "Woo-maaaan!" after her. He also chases cars. While many Animal gags involve a role reversal, or a moment of intellectualism, others are still more subtle, such as in this piece of dialog from The Great Muppet Caper (1981), where it is revealed that Animal has a passion for the impressionist paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir: In the film Muppets from Space (1999), 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, he later comes running back around the corner, yelling "HELP HELP!" with Griffin calling after him about how they'll settle down, buy a house, and have children. Ty Pennington commented about the possibility of Animal having ADHD when the character appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Animal's lack of social grace is on display at the very end of The Muppet Movie. After the credits, his face fills the screen as he admonishes the audience: "Go home! Go home!" Performers Animal was performed by Frank Oz from his first appearance in the pilot for The Muppet Show until his 2000 appearance in the video game Muppet RaceMania. He has been performed regularly by Eric Jacobson since his 2002 appearance in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. On The Muppet Show, his drumming was performed by Ronnie Verrell up until his death in 2002. Animal has had roles