In 1972, Elfman returned to Los Angeles and formed his own troupe, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, where he served as its creative Director and percussionist. Elfman retrospectively described the Mystic Knights as a "commedia dell'arte ensemble, featuring upwards of fifteen Musicians playing as many as thirty instruments, performing only recreated pieces of music from the 1920s through the 1940s as well as avant-garde originals composed by Elfman's brother Danny. The Mystic Knights performed steadily throughout the 1970s, gaining a following in Los Angeles which helped lead to a 1976 appearance on The Gong Show, where the group won the first place prize, and a cameo in the 1977 film I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Elfman left the Mystic Knights in 1979 to pursue a career in filmmaking, after which Danny assumed creative control of the band, eventually shortening the name to "Oingo Boingo" and transforming it into an 8-piece rock band which found commercial and critical success throughout the 1980s and 1990s.