Kermit The Frog's History Explained

For millions of fans, Kermit the Frog stars in some of their earliest memories. Whether he's playing banjo in the swamp, flailing with excitement to introduce "The Muppet Show," or playing Bob Cratchit in "The Muppet Christmas Carol," he is a beloved cultural icon. Kermit exists in a strange and delightful world of talking animals, dancing food, and various other unidentifiable critters, but his own strong personality grounds this chaos. Sure, he can't always keep it under control, but he reacts much as we all would like to imagine we would: with a witty comeback for whatever physics-defying nonsense he witnesses. Through it all, he never loses his good heart, reassuring us that maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay.

As his viewers have grown up, Kermit has remained ageless. You'd never know it from his youthful, froggy face, but Kermit is over 60 years old! He has accumulated a rich history in that time, and we're here to explore it. Join us as we make like a frog and dive into Kermit's past, present, and future.

By the time "Sam and Friends" ended in 1961, Jim Henson was moving onto bigger and better things — and he took Kermit along with him. He founded his own small studio, Muppets Inc., for a variety of TV commercial projects. Kermit became a kind of mascot for the new company, making high-profile appearances on "The Today Show" and "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Crucially, he acted as a guide who eased viewers into the chaotic world of the Muppets. Kermit would play this role in the unsold pilot "Tales of the Tinkerdee" and the "Tales from Muppetland" series of specials. The first of them, "Hey, Cinderella!," debuted in 1969 and sees Kermit roped into the machinations of a cast of humans and human-like puppets to get Cinderella and the prince together. He plays a more active part in "The Frog Prince," which introduces his nephew Robin — only in this version, Robin's a cursed prince who turns into a live actor in the end! But by the time that aired, Kermit had found his big break out on the street.

"Sesame Street" produced some of Henson's finest work, but he was disappointed with how it pigeonholed him as a children's entertainer. He firmly believed puppetry was capable of much more, so he decided to prove it with a prime-time show that would appeal to all ages. He produced two pilots that aired in the mid-'70s as "The Muppet Valentines Show" and "The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence." The formula was already in place, but with one key difference: Kermit was only a supporting character, and the shows were hosted by nondescript Muppets named Wally and Nigel.

When "The Muppet Show" was finally picked up for syndication in 1976 after years of rejections, Henson wisely realized that Kermit was the only Muppet with the star power to lead the show. It was the perfect outlet for Kermit's charm and gave him a cast of weirdos to push him to, and past, his breaking point. He was no longer literally an exasperated adult trying to wrangle a group of children, but the "Muppet Show" cast was, if anything, even more immature and unruly. But through it all, his deep love for them held the show together. "The Muppet Show" introduced the love of his life, whether he likes it or not, Miss Piggy, and his pals Fozzie Bear and Gonzo. In the show's five seasons, Kermit had all kinds of adventures behind the scenes and onstage at the Muppet Theater, from going into space to interview the Koozebanian Spooble to vampire-biting horror legend Vincent Price.

The success of "The Muppet Movie" led to two sequels, 1981's "The Great Muppet Caper" and 1984's "The Muppets Take Manhattan." Even though the first movie gave us Kermit's life story and showed how he met the other Muppets, the series is about as interested in consistency as Gonzo is in personal safety. In "The Great Muppet Caper," he and Fozzie Bear are twins ("You two guys don't look anything alike!" "Well, that's 'cause Fozzie's not wearing his hat.") who meet Miss Piggy in London, and in "The Muppets Take Manhattan," the gang are college buddies with dreams of making it on Broadway.

A lot of sequels give filmmakers a chance to coast on their past success, but Henson and his crew went out of their way to top themselves. Kermit wowed audiences by riding a bike, so in "The Great Muppet Caper," Henson used remote control technology for a scene of all the Muppets biking at once!

"The Muppets Take Manhattan" returns to the emotional earnestness of "The Muppet Movie," with the gang splitting up after they fail to sell their Broadway show and Kermit continuing to chase his dream while working in a diner to make ends meet. But it all ends happily, and the show premieres with a big finale featuring the casts of "Sesame Street" and "Fraggle Rock" where Kermit and Miss Piggy play a bride and groom ... but maybe it's not just a play, since Miss Piggy reveals in the end that she got a real priest!

Kermit was dearly important to Jim Henson, and he wanted to make sure the frog outlived him. Steve Whitmire, who had played a variety of Muppet characters, including Rizzo the Rat, received a Kermit puppet in the mail soon after Henson died. Whitmire said, "I could not do it. I just took the puppet off, set it on a shelf in another room, and I didn't touch it for almost a month. I couldn't go near it. I couldn't do the voice."

Whitmire was eventually able to overcome his grief and bring Kermit to life for Jim Henson's memorial and, a few years later, in "A Muppet Christmas Carol," which premiered in 1992. After all, the world needs Kermit. To cope with Henson's absence, Kermit moved back from lead roles to ensemble parts, with Gonzo, Rizzo, and human actors like Michael Caine, who played Scrooge, taking the lead. "Christmas Carol" featured Kermit as Dickens' kind soul Bob Cratchit and proved that Whitmire could fill Henson's shoes with Kermit's moving display of grief for Tiny Tim in the possible future, which must have helped Henson's many fans process their own grief.

Kermit and company took a similar approach to the follow-up "Muppet Treasure Island," starring Tim Curry as Long John Silver. While the plot mostly focused on him and Kevin Bishop as Jim Hawkins, Kermit got a nice romantic subplot as Captain Smollett when he reunites with Miss Piggy as a gender-flipped version of the novel's Ben Gunn.

In 1996, the Muppets returned to regular series television with "Muppets Tonight," an update of "The Muppet Show," upon which the curtain fell in 1981. Rather than produce a vaudeville-style show in a theater, "Muppets Tonight" found the usual gang of characters producing a live variety TV show. Kermit's role changed, too, handing off hosting duties to dreadlocked Muppet Clifford (a holdover from "The Jim Henson Hour") and serving as a beleaguered, rushed, talent-managing producer. Unfortunately, "Muppets Tonight" earned low ratings and was canceled after 22 episodes.

Not long after the brief run of "Muppets Tonight," Kermit and his pals returned to the cineplex as the stars of "Muppets from Space." After the self-proclaimed weirdo Gonzo discovers he's an extraterrestrial, Kermit has to lead a rescue of his friend from some shady government agents. The movie failed to make back its budget, and "Muppets from Space" would put an end to Muppet movies for the foreseeable future, leaving the continued major media presence of Kermit the Frog in limbo for the first time.

Jim Henson had been involved in negotiations to sell the Muppets to Disney. The deal fell through without him, but the acquisition finally went through in 2004. Disney produced a new Muppet movie in 2011, simply titled "The Muppets."

"The Muppets" leaned into Kermit's years in the wilderness after Henson's death, showing him living alone in his mansion, separated from the other Muppets for the past two decades. He's eventually shaken out of his doldrums by some eager fans played by Amy Adams and Jason Segel and their puppet friend Walter, just in time to save the Muppet Theater from being bulldozed to make room for an oil field.

That story's not too far from the reality. Segel and writer Nick Stoller were reminded of their love for the Muppets when they created a puppet Dracula musical for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and pitched Disney on a new Muppet movie. The result won Oscar gold for the original song "Man or Muppet?" by Flight of the Conchords' Brett MacKenzie.

And it got a sequel, "Muppets Most Wanted," in 2014. This one focused more on Kermit and introduced his evil doppelgänger, the international master criminal Constantine, who takes Kermit's place at the Muppet Theater and gets him locked up in an old Soviet gulag. Unfortunately, "Most Wanted" didn't bring in the big bucks Disney was hoping for, so Kermit returned to the small screen.

In 2020, Disney launched a new Muppet series, "Muppets Now!," as part of its entry into the streaming market with Disney+. The new show has found a way to integrate the variety format into the modern media landscape with parodies of YouTube lifestyle channels in bite-sized "Muppisodes."

The series arrived following the controversy of Steve Whitmire's departure from the Kermit role in 2016, changing the character's voice for the first time since Jim Henson's death. He claims he was fired over creative differences on the set of ABC's "The Muppets" and unwanted, inappropriate notes on how to play Kermit. Disney released a vague statement citing "unacceptable business conduct," but Jim Henson's children Brian and Cheryl were much more direct. They claimed Whitmire was the one making "outrageous demands," using his status as the Muppets' star and their father's choice for the role (which Cheryl denies) to hold the franchise hostage. It's hard to know who to believe, and it's a mess all around.

Fortunately, that doesn't seem to have affected Matt Vogel's transition into the role, which took place the following year. Vogel had previously worked closely on "Sesame Street" with original Muppeteers Carroll Spinney and Jerry Nelson, who entrusted him with iconic roles like Big Bird and the Count when they retired.

Kermit seems to be in good hands. But more than that, no matter who plays him, Kermit seems destined to live on as a symbol of battered hope and kindness in a world of weirdos. And as long as he does, some part of his creator will, too.