"Just goes to show what you can do when you want something pretty bad... and this is pretty bad."
[~Bill's observation of the Junkyard Band's first rehearsal]
The Junkyard Band, led by Fat Albert, plays instruments made from discarded junk items.
The Band (and their instruments)[]
- Weird Harold: Bedspring harp; occasionally thumps a dressmaker dummy (as an upright bass) in the rhythm section
- Fat Albert: Radiator Bagpipes; occasionally plays another bedspring harp
- Bill: Trashcan Drums (using spoons for drumsticks)
- Dumb Donald: Pipe Trombone
- Russell: Xylophone (cans tied to a coat rack)
- Bucky: Stovepipe Organ
- Mushmouth: Skiffle-style guitar
- Rudy: Rhythm guitar (the only real instrument in the band)
Origin of the band[]
The season 1 episode "Creativity" is something of a flashback story that shows how Fat Albert and the others created the Junkyard Band. When Rudy shows off his new electric guitar to the gang and brags about his plans to become a big rock star and make a lot of money, Fat Albert and the others decide they want to get instruments of their own and go to their parents for money, but they are all turned down. They then decide to take up odd jobs and collect empty bottles to make money, but have very little success due to their neighborhood being in the lower-class poverty level.
Back at the junkyard, the gang are mulling over their frustrations and Rudy’s plan to become a rock star was canceled, due to his electric guitar blew a fuse in Uptown and Downtown, while Russell is throwing a baseball at a discarded bedspring frame. Weird Harold gets an idea and, with some minor adjustments to the springs, begins playing the frame like a harp.
When Russell starts tapping on some old cans with a stick, Bill gets a brainstorm and hangs the cans from a discarded coat rack which Russell begins playing.
Fat Albert starts clanging on an old radiator with a discarded spoon, but Bill suggests that he should blow into it rather than bang on it, so Dumb Donald attaches a valve and funnel to one end while Fat Albert blows in the other end, which actually works; Mushmouth then hands Fat Albert an airbag to attach to the other end, and Fat Albert begins playing the instrument like a set of bagpipes.
Bill then creates for himself a set of drums from a foot-pedal trash can with a couple of discarded lids for cymbals, and a pair of spoons with which to play them.
Dumb Donald cadges together some plumbers pipe with a morning glory horn from an old gramophone and begins playing it like a trombone.
Mushmouth stitches together a homemade guitar from a wooden box and the handle from an upright vacuum cleaner.
Bucky finds a discarded piano keyboard which he connected to a junked wood-burning stove and some old stovepipe.