Animals who rock? Animals who ROLL??? Yeah, Poindexter, where have you been? Animal bands have been rocking for decades! All it takes is a guitar, maybe some drums, a piano, and you got yourself a party, with music provided by our furry — and not-so furry — friends. But whose skills and repertoire rise to the top?
And to be completely honest, I'm not including animal singers. There are a ton of them. I'm not saying that just anyone can get behind a mic, no. That takes some guts and usually some talent. But the amount of characters that belt out a few bars just in Disney films alone would make this list unreadably long. So — on to the bands!
20. Mexican Frog Band
These guys are on the list for their sheer tenacity. They've been handling these instruments for years, decades even. That one dude is rocking on a harp. You know how many bands have harps these days? Oh wait, for real? It's like a prog rock thing? Wow. Anyway — to a lot of middle America, especially in the '80s, these guys had more visibility than big talents like Spyro Gyra and Roky Erickson. When you went to Mexico, you brought this band back to live in your home. The reason they're at the bottom of the list? No one knows what they're playing. They have no single, no EP, no bootlegs. They could be absolutely terrible, we'd never know. Still, these guys class up any home bar.
19. Sebastian and His Orchestra (The Little Mermaid)
Hey, I love calypso more than most people. Lord Invader is a hero of mine and I actually saw Mighty Sparrow live (I know his nephew, actually). Sebastian's calypso band has that great get-up-and-dance feel. Literally everyone under the sea is up on their fins to "Under The Sea." The downside is ... they're under the sea. They only play one club, and that's under the sea. What if you're not under the sea? No live music, no dancing. This is like when Black 47 was only playing that one bar in New York. Sebastian's got a great band, totally fantastic live show, but you gotta travel to see them. Travel where? Under the sea, as I said before.
18. Alley Cats (The Aristocats)
Very rarely do you ever see a band that has an established accordion player as part of the lineup. They Might Be Giants, Gogol Bordello, "Weird Al" Yankovic — they all make it work. Do the Alley Cats? I guess so. They're kind of all over the place musically, but their big hit "Everybody Wants To Be A Cat" is a catchy little number. I saw Doctor Who's Arthur Darville cover it live with The Flash's Carlos Valdes on bass. My concern? The Siamese cat who plays with chopsticks. Look: there's a history of bands reclaiming stereotypes and slurs (thinking specifically of The Chinkees and Pansy Division here), but I don't think this was done in that spirit
17. The Neptunes (Jabberjaw)
When was the last time you saw a band with a massive drummer? Sure, they exist, like Jason Bonham, but Jabberjaw is stealing focus from everyone else. Now, I may not have seen every band in the world, but in my experience the big dude is the bass player, the only one capable of holding it down. Drummers are typically little dudes who whip around the kit like a flailing capuchin monkey. Jabberjaw is a fine musician, sure, and the Neptunes got their own show, but let's be real for a second: Were any of their songs so good that you said to your friends, "Hey, I'm going to see The Neptunes tonight!" or would you just say, "I'm going to see that band where the huge f'n shark is playing the drums tonight, with his, like, massive shark head"?
16. Groovie Goolies (The Groovie Goolies)
I know what you're going to say: "BUT EEEEETHAN! They're monsters, not animals. What are you talking about?" WRONG. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a werewolf — which is what Wolfie is — is defined as "a person transformed into a wolf or capable of assuming a wolf's form." Know what that means? HE'S AN ANIMAL. He is a wolf who plays a strange Harry Partch lyre-thing in a pop band, but he's an animal when he's in werewolf mode, which is all the time, so he is an animal.
They're okay, more of a looks/vibe kind of thing than the full on experimental jazz that their instruments suggest. Look up Harry Partch. The guy invented complicated instruments, wrote music specifically for them using his own notation, then left them all to various universities who were entrusted with their perpetual care because they were the only instruments capable of playing that music.
15. Louie and the Bayou Critter Band (Tiana's Bayou Adventure)
Louie was a solo act for a while. That suited us just fine because he was a damn fine horn player — and in this day and age, that's saying a lot. Too many kids go for the guitar or the drums and not enough learn how to wail Dixieland jazz on a trumpet. But having solo skills can only take you so far, and his patron muse Tiana figured that she'd get him hooked up with some other animals who also played zydeco for her new cajun restaurant. And there is so much talent in New Orleans! There's a whole nightclub staffed by frogs! Bears who play big flowers as horns! Bobcats who play vaksin! It's an entire musical ecosystem that's a throwback to when Walt Disney would have Dixieland nights on the riverboat at Disneyland.
14. The Puppet Band (Pee-wee's Playhouse)
When Pee-Wee Herman was putting together his house band at the Playhouse, he could have gone different routes. He could have gone electronic, like Mark Mothersbaugh, who did the soundtrack for the show. He could have gone rock, like Todd Rundgren, who composed the theme song. He could have gone full-on weird like The Residents, who scored the show from the second season on. But no, he chose bop. Cool, slow, heavy bop jazz, played by Dirty Dog and Cool Cat and sung by Chicky Baby. When the camera flashed over to these guys, you felt a hush in the room and smelled booze and imported cigarettes. And all it takes is bongos and a bass.
13. The Banana Splits
Controversial opinion: I think this band is just guys in suits pretending to be animals. There's the height differences — or lack thereof — that just screams that something is off about these four. But still, the music is fucking sick '60s garage rock that brings the best of bubblegum with the later stuff from the Monkees and stands up on its own. If you don't believe me, play one of their albums to a friend (not "The Tra La La Song," that gives it away as the Banana Splits) and say you found this cool Summer of Love band that you want them to hear. Trust me. They'll be impressed that you dug up this great rock, then will be blown away when you say they're animals. Or, people dressed as animals. I'm sticking to that theory.
12. Rowlf the Dog (The Muppet Show)
Without Rowlf, we would have no Tom Waits, I'm assured of that. Rowlf had a career that outshone most of the other Muppets, starting way back with commercials for dog food in 1962. Then he was the sidekick to Jimmy Dean on his titular variety show and even guested on The Mike Douglas Show in 1966. It's that weird mix of outsider artist (doing things no other Muppet was doing) and reliable insider (doing sketches like "Veterinarian's Hospital") that makes him so intriguing. His music is classic barrelhouse piano, à la Leon Russell, but with a growl (ha ha ha) that would put Bonnie Tyler or Bruce Springsteen to shame. He needs to do a cover of "Jockey Full of Bourbon" ASAP.
11. Ash (Sing)
Here's where the rule about having to play an instrument to be on the list comes into play. There are a lot of animals in Sing who sing. It's ostensibly about a singing contest. But Ash the porcupine gets on the list for two reasons: her guitar skills (check out that tapping on the fretboard!) and her one original song that really kicks ass. Those go pretty far in my book, and I'm not going to let my dislike of U2 and all the U2 covers she does in Sing 2 cloud my judgment of the original Sing, which brought the house down with "Set It All Free." It's kind of a letdown going from that career high to not pushing new music. BUT. "Set It All Free" makes up for a lot of sins.
10. Chanticleer (Rock-a-Doodle)
What pipes! Seriously, he can go from a Jimmy Rogers yodel straight into an Elvis drawl and absolutely belt. That Glenn Campbell voice is working double shifts at the attitude factory, and I am proud that I just came up with that phrase. He's supposed to be an Elvis impersonator of sorts, but really, he's his own character through and through: a corn-fed, down-home, gosh-darn country boy. Lock up your chickens, this rooster's in town (on a mission to call back the sun — yeah, yeah, we know he's a working man).
9. Lester's Possum Posse (A Goofy Movie)
Lester. Beuford. Beulah. Mordachai. Names that will live in infamy long after John, Paul, George, and Ringo fade into obscurity. Lester's Possum Posse is a Butthole Surfers' concert in a VFW basement where they play nothing but "The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave" for two hours and nearly burn the place down while screaming at you through a bullhorn. It's a drunken sonic assault that leaves you reeling and the only chance to catch your breath is when the audio-animatronic starts skipping because it's old and rusty.
8. Pizza Time Players/Munch's Make Believe Band (Chuck E. Cheese)
The epitome of neighborhood bar bands, Munch's Make Believe Band (formerly Pizza Time Players) has range and repertoire. Hailing from every city that has a Chuck E. Cheese, this quintet (plus their friends) know over 300 songs from multiple genres. You could hear "Help!" by the Beatles, followed by the Marky Mark (and the Funky Bunch) version of "Good Vibrations," followed by "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" back to back in the same set. This is like if the band at the local bar got up from playing Stones covers, picked up their gear, then went to play at a country bar for a set, no repeats. Their style is all over the place though. They need someone to make an executive decision about who's wearing what to the gig.
7. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (From The Muppet Show)
I debated putting the Electric Mayhem on the list because is Animal, the drummer, an animal? Or is he a strange, grungy human? Because I've seen guys who look like him and yes, they're all in bands. But his name's Animal. And I get it: Them Crooked Vultures were not actually vultures and Maxine Nightingale wasn't a bird either, but I'm going to say, for the purpose of debate, he's an animal.
The Mayhem is a damn fine band, no doubt about it. In fact, they're the only band on this list to play a live festival, when they got on stage at Outside Lands in 2016 in San Francisco. It seems like they're going to be taking over Disney's Hollywood Studios Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith soon too, so they'll be the only band on this list to play a festival, lead their own TV show, and have their own Disney parks ride. Some bands can claim one, but not all three.
6. K.K. Slider (Animal Crossing)
While some musicians on this list can lay claim to multiple genres, K.K. Slider has made it a point to claim them ALL. And so he gets the credit. He just adds his name to each genre, no matter how obscure. Russian-themed music? That's K.K. Steppe. Spy-Fi? That's Agent K.K. Opera? K.K. Aria. Despite sounding like the vocoder on Neil Young's Trans album, K.K. Slider controls the airwaves. Don't believe me? Listen to "Two Days Ago" and tell me that chord progression won't stay with you all day. He's virtually his own jukebox, and why he's stuck playing [your town name] is beyond me.
5. Alvin and the Chipmunks
In full transparency, I hate Alvin and the Chipmunks. Playing cover songs badly only works if you're the Replacements and you're drunk. They have no set genre, they play whatever's popular, and in my mind that means you are ghouls who have no souls (please leave the genre Chipmunk soul out of this). Still, they are probably the most successful band on this list. They have 38 studio albums, a feat rivaled only by Frank Zappa, Merzbow, Buckethead, and Johnny Cash. They starred in 8 feature-length films. How many have I done? Zero albums, zero movies. So I give them a high slot on the list out of respect, but y'all, I do not like them.
4. The Frogtown Hollow Jubilee Jug Band (Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas)
The last nice guys left in music. I'll say that of their two songs, "Barbecue" is head and shoulders above "Brothers," buuuuut ... the thunder wasn't really brought until they mashed "Brothers" up with Emmet's mom's sweet song "Our World." Mashups were very uncommon in 1977, when Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas premiered. The only one that comes to mind is the Guess Who's "No Sugar Tonight/The New Mother Nature" from 1970, so this was some groundbreaking stuff. They're essentially a DIY country group with everyone helping out on vocals, even the guy on the jug. (The only other jug player in rock music is Tommy Hall from the 13th Floor Elevators and they never gave him a verse) God, I miss the days when you could just go down to the creek and check out a local jug-band, fuzzy animals or otherwise.
3. Riverbottom Nightmare Band (Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas)
But WAIT. Emmet Otter's rivals get the spot above the titular hero??? Absolutely insane live act, no doubt. They combined the sound of Alice Cooper with the visuals of Mott the Hoople and just absolutely killed it at that local music fest they played at that one time. Frogtown Hollow was not ready for this level of attitude. Not only does the keyboard player wear a sequined cape (I'm thinking '70s rock band Sorcery vibes), they have a catfish that just jumps around and does nothing musically! Years before Slipknot had guys doing the same thing! And as a bass player, I can confirm: you don't really need fingers to play the bass. A snake can technically do it. I just wish their attitude was a little better. Totally understand living that rock star life on and off the stage, but their snowmobiles really do make a mess of things.
2. The Country Bear Jamboree (Walt Disney World)
It's telling that there are so many jug bands on this list. It's not necessarily easy music to play, but it has that down-home feel that is evoked by multiple animals who don't wear pants banging on instruments. The Country Bears are a real roots country movement, staying more or less the same since the country heyday of the 1970s. They've done some updates, including a very large repertoire refurbishment in 2024 that changed out their Buck Owens and Tex Ritter tracks for classic Disney fare, but they maintain that big family atmosphere of Hee-Haw to this very day. Also, they come with air conditioning in the Florida heat.
1. The Rock-afire Explosion (ShowBiz Pizza)
The Rock-afire Explosion began appearing at ShowBiz Pizza locations in 1980, three years after Pizzatime Players launched at Chuck E. Cheese, but the Explosion was where the passion was. It's like how most people couldn't pick Pete Best out of a lineup, but they sure as hell know Ringo Starr. How many other bands on this list have multiple tribute bands scattered throughout the United States? Their setlist has been preserved on the Internet Archive. There's a damn documentary about how influential they are to children of all ages. They had a member named Antioch, the Birthday Spider, which, for my money, catapulted them to the top of the list. Oh — and they're terrifying.
Honorable Mention: Bremen Musicians
I'm choosing the original Grimm Brothers fairy tale for this honorable mention. In the story, an aging donkey, cat, dog, and rooster escape farm life where they are sure they will be "replaced" because they are too old to work. They decide to go to the town of Bremen and become musicians rather than expire on the farm. Oh the way, they encounter bandits, whom they scare away and claim their house. They never make it to Bremen, thus creating the ever-true tale of friends who rent a house together and say they're going to start a band but never do.
