Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal)

'Sweet Tooth, real name Needles Kane A.K.A. VILE SMILE, is designed around the premise of a killer clown that drives an ice cream truck, and his face has been featured on the cover of every Twisted Metal game to date, making him the series mascot. He is the only character, besides Marcus Kane, to drive more than one vehicle in any of the games, being the driver of Head-On's Dark Tooth, Tower Tooth, and as of Twisted Metal Lost, Gold Tooth. He is voiced by J.S. Gilbert in Twisted Metal: Black.

The character has gone through several redesigns differing from game to game, similar to fellow character Calypso, and his personality has grown progressively darker along the way. Sweet Tooth's original look featured him as a green haired, slim simple circus clown who had escaped from a mental institution. The design was expanded upon in the second game in response to changes to the truck's design, notably due to the clown head adorning the truck now featuring a personality of its own. The result gave Sweet Tooth the flaming head design seen on the character since. 989 Studios which handled the next two games put more emphasis on the clown design, redesigning his attire to that of a ringmaster in Twisted Metal 4; neither design was held in high regard by the developers, with David Jaffe stating his dislike of 3's look. As of Black and beyond, the design was modified heavily, giving him increased bulk and other features that would be called his "classic look" by Incog Inc.'s design team. His design became a large, somewhat overweight bare chested clown with a flaming mask locked into a permanent maniacal smile. Head On expanded on this idea, changing the mask to face paint and the smile to his own.

The ice cream truck was actually designed well before the driver himself, and Black's incarnation took six months and many concept sketches to finalize. Labeled early on "DEMONIC ICE CREAM TRUCK", attention to details such as the head adorning the vehicle and the contents of the back of the truck were focused on during development. Boss variants of the truck have also appeared regularly in the game's series, starting with Dark Tooth in the second game. While the designs for the vehicles have progressed steadily, care has been emphasized to keep them rooted to the simple ice cream truck structure yet unique, something that has become harder and harder for the team as the games go on.