Kermit the Frog: A Sensational and Inspirational Career

Kermit the Frog and The Muppets were instrumental in shaping my childhood through movies, music and television shows. GenX should really be called The Muppet Generation. The throughline includes themes of friendship, empathy, kindness, resilience, tapping into your strengths, work ethic, acceptance, sticking up for yourself, hope, humor, joy and a smidge of snark. In a time when the current administration feels like the opposite of all that is good, the antithesis of everything we learned from and love about The Muppets, I wanted to share Kermit the Frog's remarkable career as a reflection on these themes and to celebrate his long-awaited comeback.

Career Timeline

We really need a dose of The Muppets right now.

I could not include all of Kermit's career achievements because there are too many. It was easy to look up things like; when did The Muppet Show premier and is Kermit still on Sesame Street? I could rattle off the titles of movies and of course, the John Denver Christmas Album (as it was know in my house) was so cherished that my brother confiscated it decades ago. It was easy to find dates and box office numbers. However, I learned a lot about his early life by trying to find a picture of the first Kermit and landed on the Smithsonian's website (pictures are not available for download or to open in a separate tab). I did not know that Kermit had an entire life before Sesame Street. When I googled, It's Not Easy Being Green, I found the correct title of the song, Bein' Green and the clip with Ray Charles and Kermit from Cher's show which is much more moving than even Kermit's solo. The video at Lincoln Center with Kermit and Choir! Choir! Choir! was a complete and wonderful surprise. It helped to show that Kermit is still beloved and relevant despite his lackluster career after Disney acquired him and then, literally, left him hanging. When I found the Steve Martin piece, I was trying to fill in the giant gap between Kermit's real success and the 2026 Muppet Show: googled Kermit the Frog banjo to see if he had any other celebrity encounters. Though I considered some of the Disney-produced stuff, it wasn't successful and I wanted to skip over those disappointments (in Disney, not Kermit). I listened to the Bowery Boys podcast breaking down the storyline of Muppets Take Manhattan since I'd long forgotten the plot. I found solid resources that helped shaped the narrative: the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Jim Henson's Red Book, The Puppet Nerd and Muppet Wiki. Due to his fame, I was also able to find interviews with Kermit on Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and with Brett Goldstein for Entertainment Weekly.

At first I had some challenges in finding images that worked. I found that YouTube was the easiest, but I needed some specific photos and of course, variety for interest. Other than getting the hang of finding the right images and refreshing the preview to see what I had, the biggest challenge was looking at the page that described how to change fonts, add background colors, etc. In the end, I did not have the bandwith or the skills to figure it out. I didn't understand the language on this page so I went with the simple version and I'm happy with the result. It's clean and the visuals really hold up. I obviously love my subject. The other challenge was proofing my work. I kept finding typos or spacing issues, so back to the spreadsheet for a fix.