Rizzo the Rat "Midnight Cowboy". Steve Whitmire created the character, based on rats he had previously made out of bottles. Rizzo first appeared in episode 418 of "The Muppet Show", as one of many rats following Christopher Reeve backstage. He can be seen mugging and reacting to practically every line of dialogue. He remained a scene-stealing background figure through the final season, occasionally performing with Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem. By the time of "The Muppets Christmas Carol", Whitmire had been performing Rizzo for around 12 years. After the series, he appeared in "The Great Muppet Caper" as a bellboy in a
Mayhem (band) avant-garde metal, the album was concept-based, dealing with themes of war and post-apocalyptic destruction. Maniac largely abandoned the traditional black metal rasp for dramatic spoken-word monologue, with most of the songs sequencing seamlessly into one another. Because of this conceptual straying, however, the album received harsh criticism. Mayhem made headlines in 2003 when fan Per Kristian Hagen landed in the hospital with a fractured skull after being hit by a severed sheep's head that had been thrown into the audience from the stage. Assault charges were filed, but the band considered it to have been entirely accidental. The band released