3 Bizarre Characters Frank Zappa Created for His Songs

Frank Zappa was a famously odd man with a famously bizarre sense of creativity. His music was really something to behold back in his prime, and his legacy in progressive rock and experimental blues and jazz is still revered today. Frank Zappa is also known for his fascinating cast of characters that he invented for his songs, and the following are just a few of the strangest.

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1. Frunobulax

“Cheepnis” comes from the 1974 album Roxy & Elsewhere and is a famous ode to movie monsters made famous in low-budget films in the mid-20th century. The lyrics describe a movie monster of Zappa’s own making called Frunobulax. 

Frunobulax is an enormous poodle, not a scarred-up murderer or fish-like creature you’d expect from a song about famous movie monsters. Rather, this large canine monstrosity is immune to most forms of bodily harm and is quite ambiguous in terms of lore. Frunobulax was apparently inspired by Zappa’s pet sheepdog, and the character appears in other songs as well. This is a great example of Zappa’s talent for conceptual continuity.

2. Ms. Pinky

In a wildly different vein from Frunobulax, Ms. Pinky isn’t a “frightening” creature at all. Rather, this character is a sex robot who marries a lonely and desperate man. In the song named after this character, Zappa makes a bunch of puns about how a robot woman never talks back. 

There’s a deeper meaning here. Zappa appears to be exploring the complexity of romantic relationships and how problematic and unequal power dynamics can be in heterosexual relationships, all with a touch of science fiction weirdness.

3. The Slime

This interesting entry on our list of Frank Zappa characters comes from the song “I’m The Slime”. The meaning behind this character is quite fascinating. Zappa was an outspoken opponent of the commercialization of music. Specifically, he thought that mainstream music was straying further and further from art. The Slime, more or less, represents the destruction of the creative mind. 

Its goal is to infect the minds of humans and turn their brains into goop. One could say this character also represents television (and mass media in general) and how it can poison people.

“I am gross and perverted / I’m obsessed and deranged / I have existed for years, but very little has changed.”

Photo by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

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