Metalmouth is the name given, by Lawndale High students, to a metal shop teacher of urban legend status. At least, for most of the episode we thought he was just a legend...
Story and name origin[]
According to Trent Lane, Metalmouth was a metal shop teacher, who had the tendency to grind his teeth at every student's stupid comments. Because of that, he eventually lost all his teeth and, because he was a teacher, could not afford dentures.
Being a shop teacher, he built himself a set of steel dentures, to the horror of his students (which gave the teacher his nickname). However, that horror quickly turned to laughter when it was seen the teeth could pick up radio transmissions, particularly Cyndi Lauper's rendition of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (that seems to be the only thing they picked up). He was laughed out of the school by the students, never to be seen there again.
However, it was said he extracted revenge by attacking student couples in the woods, biting on their car doors while they were necking inside the cars. His dentures would be found embedded in the door of at least one car. Because of that, concludes Trent, "We don't want to be caught out here by these woods. Especially at night."
Curiously, Metalmouth's teeth are found on the passenger door handle of Helen Morgendorffer's SUV at the end of the episode. Was Helen necking with someone in the woods before she came home? Or did Metalmouth attack her car for other reasons?
In the episode, the character has the appearance of Anthony DeMartino and his class has the appearance of Kevin Thompson et al, playing on the canon character's tendency to be irritated by his students. The real Metalmouth doesn't look like DeMartino... or does he...?
In fanfiction[]
In fanfiction, Metalmouth's first big appearance was as a mad scientist supervillain, and a secondary threat in TAG's "A Hard Days' Night" (with numerous 'off-screen' battles with Andrew Landon).
He had a burst of fanfiction appearances in 2010, most likely because The Angst Guy used Metalmouth as his forum avatar and writers became inspired/disturbed by it. "Anthony DeMartino Just Wants To Have Fun" by Smijey reveals Metalmouth's true identity as DeMartino and record of murders. He also got his own Iron Chef, Terror of Metalmouth, which among other ficlets had him crossing over with two of Jim North's other slasher-villain stories.
"Mecha Ensign Daria" also ran with DeMartino as Metalmouth; in this sci-fi story, the dentures are a budget equivalent of a mecha that does wrong.
Trivia[]
- He only appears in "Legends of the Mall", where his story is told, as well as the ones for the Rattling Girl of Lawndale and the Girl in the House of Bad Grades. Unlike Metalmouth, these urban legends are not then shown to be true.
- Helen's car is replaced with a different model of SUV after this episode.
- Metalmouth's attack is a parody of the urban legend of a necking couple hearing about an escaped killer with a hook for a hand, driving off after a noise spooks the girl, and discovering the hook embedded in the car or hanging from the door handle, torn off just as the killer was about to get them.