Three Decades of Terror: The Evolution of Sweet Tooth Ahead of ‘Twisted Metal’ Season 2

Mascot characters have been known to change over time in order to better suit the ever-shifting needs of their parent franchise, and this is especially true in the world of video games. From Lara Croft being turned into a younger and more vulnerable human being to Kratos going from kill-crazy monster to a loving father, I’d argue that there’s no better way of judging how a series has adapted to the world around them than by taking a closer look at their star character.

One series that went through quite a few interesting iterations happens to be Sony’s beloved car-combat series Twisted Metal. And in honor of the latest season of Peacock’s Twisted Metal streaming show bringing Samoa Joe and Will Arnett back for another stab as the live-action incarnation of our favorite Killer Clown in an Ice-Cream truck, I’d like to invite readers to join me as explore the evolution of Sweet Tooth over the past three decades of the franchise.

Naturally, the story of Sweet Tooth begins in 1995 with SingleTrac’s original Twisted Metal for the PS1. This first game is said to have been inspired by a situation where the lead designers became stuck in traffic and fantasized about engaging in Mad-Max-style vehicular combat with other drivers. As the project evolved into more of a 3D fighting game with wheels and guns instead of fists, the team also decided to incorporate the genre’s easily identifiable character archetypes into their exaggerated take on vehicular combat.

This is why just as much attention went to the drivers as their over-the-top vehicles. And with the game taking inspiration from media like the aforementioned Mad Max films as well as Death Race 2000, the killer clown archetype felt like a natural fit for the mascot of a title combining oddball humor with gruesome road rage. That being said, instead of a vulnerable little clown car, it was decided that the psychotic “Needles Kane” (named by David Jaffe’s girlfriend at the time) would drive a heavily armored ice-cream truck in order to further lean into his subversive design. This vehicle was dubbed “Sweet Tooth,” though the name would also end up referring to the homicidal driver.

Of course, this initial version of Sweet Tooth is a far-cry from the shirtless hunk with a flaming head that we see in modern media. Not only was the original clown’s head not on fire, but he was also much grimier and more sadistic. His overall design even harkened back to the Joker, as well as real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy. That being said, the driver’s desired reward for winning the tournament was much less chaotic than you might initially think, with Needles only requesting a simple paper bag.

The first Sweet Tooth also had a live-action component, with Robert Goodens playing the character in both still images and the original FMV sequences that were cut from the game. This low-budget take on the character isn’t as refined as Peacock’s killer clown, but it’s cool to see that Jaffe and his team were already aware that they had a potential multimedia icon on their hands, and I appreciate just how dirty he looks.

The 1996 sequel would take a different route, as Sweet Tooth was canonically killed in the first game and the developers wanted to pivot to Axel as the new series mascot. That’s why the Twisted Metal 2 campaign mostly ditches the clown and instead features his father Charlie as a vengeful final boss (with the old man having previously driven the Yellow Jacket cab in the first title). Of course, the team knew that fans would still want to play as the original Sweet Tooth, so they included him in the game as an unlockable character with redesigned face-paint (looking even more like Gacy this time around) and the now-iconic flaming head – as well as another joke ending where he turns into a clown-faced insect.

Unfortunately for SingleTrac, their work on the sequel was a little too impressive for their own good. The positive buzz surrounding both Twisted Metal and Jet Moto meant that they were soon bought out by a larger company that prohibited them from working on Sony properties. That’s why the third entry in the series ended up being developed by 989 Studios with almost no input from the original team.

Despite being prominently displayed on the cover, Sweet Tooth is once again relegated to being an unlockable bonus character in 1998’s TM3, with the development team toning down his darker side and making him more of a circus-themed mascot than a homicidal maniac. His ending is also somehow even less serious this time around, with Needles winding up at the dentist’s office after wishing for impossible amounts of candy and ice cream. It’s possible that this change came from a corporate push to make the star character more consumer friendly, but this would become a bigger problem in the sequel.

The following year, 989 released Twisted Metal 4 with an even bigger focus on Sweet Tooth. Once again encouraged to put the killer clown at the forefront, the development team decided to retcon the established lore by making the character an in-universe mascot and champion of the Twisted Metal Tournament – at least until he decides to overthrow Calypso and become the new ringleader of his chaotic operation.

Having Needles be the one to grant the winners’ wishes only to torture them with a warped version of their own desires makes sense due to the character’s darkly humorous persona, but it was clear that the clown was more of a one-note corporate figurehead than an actual character at that point. Many fans pointed out that the ringleader Sweet Tooth lacked the chaotic edge that had made him so popular in the first place, and Sony appeared to listen.

In 2001, Sweet Tooth was split into two with the release of an unconventional duo of Twisted Metal games. First, there was an underrated PS1 spin-off aimed at children (where a young Needles is depicted as a mischievous RC racer), and then the darkest entry in the series so far, the PS2’s Twisted Metal: Black – a game that most fans would agree contains the definitive incarnation of Sweet Tooth.

A peculiar by-product of an era in media where developers were eager to prove that videogames weren’t just for kids by leaning into edgy stereotypes, Black was one of few titles that benefited from a darker aesthetic. While certain developers went too far with their gritty re-imaginings in titles like Shadow the Hedgehog or even Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, the style fit Twisted Metal perfectly. Not only was Sweet Tooth’s iconic redesign the stuff of gaming legend (and that’s not even mentioning J.S. Gilbert’s memorable voice-acting), but the story additions also made Needles into a legitimately fascinating character.

Both the split personality plot twist (where it’s teased that Needles is actually Marcus Kane’s alter ego) and the ultimate suggestion that the entirety of Black takes place in the clown’s twisted mind make Sweet Tooth into more of a proper character rather than a mere archetype while also providing a lore reason for him to be the face of the franchise.

The 2005 PSP spin-off TM: Head-On mostly copy-pastes the aspects of Black that worked while confirming that Marcus inhabits the same brain as Needles, but the game also features a clever retelling of how he rebelled against Calypso. However, the most interesting reveal here is in the bonus features of the title’s PS2 port, with that version of the game featuring recovered elements from a canceled sequel where Sweet Tooth would track down a certain “Dr. Becker” who presumably had some connection to what happened with Kane at Blackfield Asylum.

We’d meet Needles again in 2012 with the release of both a crossover fighting game (where the clown was featured as DLC) and a soft reboot meant to welcome both veterans and newcomers to a new era of car combat. While the controversial Twisted Metal ’12 still referenced previous story developments, it also took a different route by borrowing aesthetic elements from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse revival – especially when it came to the title’s stylized live-action cut-scenes.

The man behind the clown mask was Adam Dunnells this time around, but his voice and appearance were identical to what we’d seen in Black. However, this legitimately scary Sweet Tooth is my personal favorite portrayal of the character both because it’s the character because it finally leans into his slasher side, with the story following a classic horror setup of a killer becoming obsessed with the proverbial “girl who got away.” Of course, that girl happens to be Needles’ own daughter, Sophie, and his desire to find her leads to him becoming trapped alongside her corpse in a coffin due to Calypso’s twisted sense of humor.

That’s not even the most interesting part, however, as the game also suggests that the homicidal clown persona has become something of a family curse, with the youngest Kane brother taking on the flaming mantle of his deceased sibling while Calypso revives Sophie as yet another demonic clown.

With the 2010s demanding a shift in focus to online play, the reboot also included a whole gang of killer clowns in order to justify having multiple Sweet Teeth in the game’s multiplayer offerings, though these goons barely factored into the story and it was strange to see them driving anything other than the transforming ice-cream truck. Unfortunately, this was the last we’d see of Twisted Metal for a over a decade.

It was only once Amazon got in touch with Deadpool and Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick (as well as their collaborator Michael Jonathan Smith) that the series’ long-gestating live-action adaptation would finally get off the ground after decades in development hell. The writing team jumped at the chance to bring the franchise to life in a new medium, and while they made quite a few changes to the source material, they insisted on keeping the killer clown as faithful to his origins as possible.

Of course, Reese, Wernick and Smith borrowed from all of the games instead of focusing on a single incarnation of Sweet Tooth, with details like his comedy routine incorporating shout-outs to TM4 while the Paper Bag character referenced his original ending from the first game. However, while his overall design remains nearly identical to what we saw in Black and its successors (with Samoa Joe being a perfect physical match for Needles in both size and mannerisms), the character’s humorous demeanor seems to be more in line with the Studio 989 titles – something that may be related to Will Arnett’s naturally charming voicework.

However, one of the stand-out moments from the show involves Sweet Tooth revisiting his cell and dealing with severe emotional trauma reminiscent of the events of TM: Black, which means the mind-bending events of that game may very well be canonical in the TV show. This combination of artistic license and reverence to the source material has a lot to do with the current cultural climate where producers are finally listening to fans when adapting their favorite video games, though I appreciate that Reese, Wernick and Smith often take risks in the interest of telling a more entertaining story.

And if the teasers for the latest season are any indication, it seems like Sweet Tooth will continue to evolve while remaining faithful to his videogame counterpart, especially now that we’ve reached the titular tournament. While I can’t wait to see the new episodes of the “Twisted Metal” television series once the first batch drops later this month, I’d also appreciate it if Sony exhumed Sweet Tooth’s body for that long-awaited sequel to the 2012 game.

The high-octane action-comedy series based on the video game series returns to Peacock with three episodes on July 31, followed by new episodes every Thursday through August 28.

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