Guest Appearances and Parodies
Kermit the Frog was seen in The Earth Day Special. A skit featured Kermit, Robin, and other inhabitants of a swamp that has been devastated watching the broadcast and discussing how pollution is ruining the Earth.
Baby Kermit was one of the cartoon characters featured in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
Kermit has made numerous guest appearances on popular television shows, including co-hosting individual episodes of a number of long-running talk shows: On April 2, 1979, Kermit guest-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and as an April Fool's joke, Kermit hosted CNN's Larry King Live in 1994 and interviewed Hulk Hogan. Kermit was also a semi-regular during the last two seasons of the Tom Bergeron-hosted Hollywood Squares, continuing a quasi-tradition of Muppets appearing on the game show (Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch made several appearances on the original Squares).
Most of Kermit's appearances as a guest star include him being treated as a "real" (non-puppet) character. This pretense has been continued into other media: In 1993 Pocket Books published One Frog Can Make A Difference, Kermit's Guide to Life with Kermit as the author. In 1987, Kermit and other Muppet characters co-hosted an ABC News special which attempted to explain the stock market and the potentially disquieting events of the Black Monday stock price decline in a manner that both informed and entertained the audience about the complex subject. He appears as a game contestant on the show To Tell The Truth. He also appeared as an audience member, occasionally helping the human contestants, on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Kermit also guest appeared on An Audience With... Kylie Minogue. Kermit & Kylie performed a duet of her hit song "Especially For You". It aired on ITV in the UK on October 6, 2001. In 2009, Kermit accompanied pop singer Lady Gaga at the MTV Music Video Awards.
His popularity has also led to his appearance in advertisements for a range of products. In January 2006, in a commercial for the Ford Escape Hybrid premiering during the Super Bowl, Kermit was featured singing "Bein' Green"; he is also featured in Ford's print ads for their hybrid vehicle. He also has co-starred alongside Miss Piggy and Jessica Simpson in Pizza Hut commercials in previous Super Bowl commercials. In previous years, he and Miss Piggy were part of the "We want to race the truck" UPS ad campaign involving NASCAR driver Dale Jarrett and his sponsor's "prodding" him to drive a brown UPS truck in a race. On April 9, 2006, he filled in for Ty Pennington on the ABC reality show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. On June 28, 2006, he also appeared on Charles Gibson's final episode of "Good Morning America" as Gibson's "adopted son".
Due to his popularity, easy recognizability, and distinctive voice, Kermit has become a popular target for parody: Kermit has been referenced dozens of times on several television series and films, as Vomiting Kermit on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, on Family Guy, Meet the Feebles, in the Internet fan video Sad Kermit and Kermit Bale, a series of photos comparing him to actor Christian Bale. On a Home Improvement episode titled "Futile Attraction", Tim calls Al pretending to be Kermit. For a comprehensive list of Kermit parodies, see the Muppet Mentions category on Muppet Wiki.
From 1983 to 1995, the French political satire show Le Bébête Show used copies of various Muppets to parody key political figures, and Kermit, renamed "Kermitterrand", embodied President François Mitterrand.
Kermit the Frog has also appeared in Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room on December 3, 2011 to discuss to give tips on how to prevent hazards with your Christmas tree.
Kermit also appeared on an episode of MAD where he was just a sick frog but ate a butterfly and turned into himself and tried to audition for American Idol, but got kicked out, so he made his own talent show called The Muppet Show.
Kermit and his fellow Muppets made a guest appearance on the Halloween 2011 episode of WWE Raw. He and Miss Piggy opened the show at the TitanTron entrance before they were suddenly interrupted by Jack Swagger and Vickie Guerrero. Santino Marella intervened in the confrontation to announce his match with Swagger later in the show before Kelly Kelly appeared and gave Kermit a kiss on her way to the ring, much to Miss Piggy's dismay. Later in the show, Kermit checked backstage to see if Hornswoggle was alright after Miss Piggy gave him a karate chop. Cody Rhodes then entered the dressing room and placed a paper bag over Kermit's head; Kermit then sighed, saying, "Trick or treat."
In November 2011 Kermit also appeared on Saturday Night Live. In the opening monologue, Kermit and fellow muppets Miss Piggy, Gonzo and Fozzie Bear joined hostJason Segel in a song that raised confusion about who was really hosting the show. Kermit later took part in a Weekend Update segment called "Really!?" in which he and Seth Meyers mocked the decision by the United States Congress to have the tomato sauce on pizza qualify as a vegetable for school lunches.
On Sydney's New Year's Eve Celebrations in 2011–2012, Kermit the Frog launched the 9 pm Family Fireworks.
Kermit appeared on "The Colbert Report" on March 14, 2012 to promote the upcoming release of The Muppets on DVD and Blu-ray.
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Famous quotes containing the words guest, appearances and/or parodies:
“Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.”
—Edgar Albert Guest (1881–1959)
“What I often forget about students, especially undergraduates, is that surface appearances are misleading. Most of them are at base as conventional as Presbyterian deacons.”
—Muriel Beadle (b. 1915)
“The parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer. Parodies are what you write when you are associate editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The greater the work of literature, the easier the parody. The step up from writing parodies is writing on the wall above the urinal.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)