Metalmouth

Metalmouth is the moniker for an unnamed metal shop teacher who exacts revenge on his former students at Lawndale High. During the telling of the story, Metalmouth is depicted as an alter ego for Lawndale High's History teacher, Anthony DeMartino.

The story of Metalmouth is an urban legend told by Trent Lane in the episode "Legends of the Mall" (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 is a mad scientist supervillain, and a secondary threat in TAG's "A Hard Days' Night" (with numerous 'off-screen' battles with Andrew Landon). "Anthony DeMartino Just Wants To Have Fun" by Smijey reveals Metalmouth's true identity 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.

(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)

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.