Here it is, February 28th. What is typically the last day of February. However, this year, as I’m sure you are aware, is a leap year. So we get another day this month, making this year 366 days long.¹ Anyhow, this leaping business of leap year has inspired me to think about frogs.² And thus you get a froggy ThThTh list.
A Few Frogs
- leap frog: A game you play by leaping over crouched people. (I can’t really describe it. Go see what Wikipedia says.)
- Frogger. A classic 80s arcade game. The goal is to get a frog to hop safely across a road and a river without getting squashed or dunked. You can play online.
- Kaeru: This Japanese word means both frog and return, leading to frog charms being carried for luck by travellers.
- The Frog Prince. A fairy tale about a princess prince-turned-frog-turned prince. It has some variations I’m less familiar with:
Although in modern versions the transformation is invariably triggered by the princess kissing the frog, in the original Grimm version of the story, the frog’s spell was broken when the princess threw it against a wall in disgust.[1] In other early versions it was sufficient for the frog to spend the night on the princess’s pillow.
- The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, a book by Beatrix Potter. Mr. Fisher is a frog who goes fishing for his meal, but after some mishaps, opts to dine on grasshopper.
- Frog and Toad. Characters from the series of books (including Frog and Toad are Friends) by Arnold Lobel. They are a frog and a toad. Who are friends.
- Kermit the Frog. The beloved Muppet, created by Jim Henson. The orginal version was made from a discarded coat and ping pong balls.
- Michigan J. Frog. The singing frog from the classic Warner Brother’s cartoon.
- Keroppi Hasunoue. A Sanrio character. (It’s not actually clear to me what he is a character of, beyond toys and other merchandising.)
- Froggy, a character in various books by Jonathan London, such as Froggy Gets Dressed.³
- The frog scene from the movie Magnolia (1999). It rains frogs. Really big frogs. It gets messy.
- Frog Went A-Courting. An English folk song.
- Five Little Speckled Frogs. A children’s count-down song:
Five little speckled frogs,
Sitting on a hollow log,
Eating some most delicious bugs,
Yum, Yum.
One 1 frog jumped in the pool,
Where it was nice and cool,
Now there are four 4 speckled frogs,
Glub, glub. - A frog in one’s throat: an expression describing the gurgling and croaking⁴ that people sometimes get when talking with phlegm in the throat.
- Crunchy Frog: a Monty Python sketch about a chocolate confection with a dead frog center.
We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest-quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.
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¹ Has anyone else noticed that this is perhaps an unfortunate year to choose for the inaugural year of Blog 365, where people commit to blogging daily for the whole year? But I see they have a planned day off for tomorrow.
² Because they leap.
³ We recently got a different Froggy book for Phoebe from a Scholastic catalog, namely Froggy Eats Out, and were a bit dismayed by the message of this particular one. In it, Froggy behaves like a brat and embarrasses his parents so badly at a nice restaurant that they must leave. They then reward him by going out to a burger joint, like Froggy had originally wanted.
⁴ Or irregular phonation. Which sounds less frog-like than croaking and gurgling.
collecting tokens 
Chocolate Frogs from the Harry Potter books, enchanted to jump like real frogs!
I love Kermit. My second-favorite Muppet (Gonzo is first). :)
There is a song that goes: ‘We all know frogs go [clap!] la-di-da-di da, [clap!] la-di-da-di da, [clap!] la-di-da-di da/ We all know frogs go [clap!] la-di-da-di da, they don’t go croak croak croak.’
I sing it to Fizzy quite a lot. Perhaps too much. I pointed to a frog in a book the other day and asked her what it said. I expected to hear, ‘Ribbet!’ or ‘Croak.’ Instead she waved her arms from side to side and sang, ‘La la la!’
Me thinks you missed Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/price/frog.htm
And have you looked at the lyrics of Froggy went A Courting? Some of the versions are downright gruesome – like the one that ends with a frog/mouse spawn. Of course, I can’t find that one now.
Mmm… frogs legs in melted butter.
Blog366 just doesn’t have the same catchy ring, I suppose.
Frogs! And nary a Frenchman to be seen! ;o)
(great list!!!)
Most excellent ThThTh post yet, Sister!
when I was a camp counselor we proposed playing “Frogger live” with the children out on the highway. oddly enough, the camp director rejected that idea, as well as “fun with glass,” “our friend fire,” and “midget tossing” which involved the older campers throwing the younger campers. we settled for capture the flag, and “Where’s Waldo” instead.
I love those little swimming frogs that you put in aquariums.
They are so friggin cute.
OMG! I have tried explaining who Michigan J Frog was (without knowing his name – until now) to I don’t know how many people over the years, and almost nobody had ever seen that cartoon. I was starting to wonder if I’d been imagining things as a child.
Never saw the sequel…
Keroppi was big when I was in junior high. I think maybe there are also children’s books about him? Like Hello Kitty?
Since phlegm has been a major player in my life in the last few weeks, I would be remiss if I did not note that growing up, my friends and I sometimes called “loogies” “frogs,” instead. As in, “Eew, Johnny hocked a huge frog!”
dragonfly-
Ah, yes. Chocolate frogs. Somewhat different from Crunchy frogs.
Stella-
Ooo, I don’t know that one. Thanks for adding it.
Magpie-
Great addition. And no, I hadn’t really looked at the “Froggy went a courting” lyrics. Freaky.
Denguy-
You like? Seriously?
Mme. Meow-
I did consider adding the French bit. I even found a whole page of attribute origins for the usage.
CityGirl-
You are too kind. (But please don’t stop.)
Painted-
Such a shame that creativity was squashed in that way. (Though I can see their point about not wanting the campers to be the ones squashed.)
flutter-
I haven’t many any, but they do sound cute.
azahar-
While you may have been imagining things as a child, MJ Frog was a real cartoon. But I missed the sequel, too, myself.
Kyla-
Perhaps there are books. I didn’t realize there were Hello Kitty books, though.
blc-
Well, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, if there can be a frog in your throat, it must be a frog that comes out when you clear it, right?