The Muppets’ Kermit The Frog and Gonzo Celebrate Leap Day

Every four years, February has a 29th day — and who better to talk to you about the importance of Leap Day than a frog? Well, that’s what the people who thought Sam The Eagle should be talking to you about Presidents Day thought, anyway, and you can see the logic there, if you squint. The Muppets have relesed a new video featuring Kermit the Frog and Gonzo the Great, wishing fans a happy Leap Day. Kermit, meanwhile, isn’t super into the idea of being so on-the-nose, and would rather a non-frog be doing the greeing. He’s encouraged to relax a little by Scooter, seemingly reprising his role as Kermit’s personal assistant from The Muppets’ last TV series.

The official description? “It’s Leap Day! There’s no one better to spend this bonus day with than Kermit the Frog…or Gonzo if Kermit is unavailable.”

You can check it out below.

The Muppets have been absent from screens since the failure of their 2015/2016 sitcom The Muppets., a workplace comedy using a documentary style a la The Office. In spite of similarities to The Office and appearances by NBC standouts Ed Helms and Mindy Kaling, the show aired on ABC and never really found its audience. In that series, Gonzo was a cast member on a TV show run by Kermit (the premise of the show had Kermit serving as executive producer for a late-night show hosted by Miss Piggy).

Josh Gad was set to co-write a six-part The Muppets Live Again miniseries for Disney+. The project, which was an ’80s-set sequel to The Muppets Take Manhattan, would was cancelled by Disney after creative differences drove Gad and his co-writers away.

Their next project, Muppets Now, is described as a short-form, improvisational comedy series produced for Disney+.

The Muppets, created by legendary filmmaker Jim Henson in 1955, were massively successful during his lifetime, with The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock being watched by huge numbers of people in their first runs as well as in syndication. Henson approached Disney to purchase his assets in 1989, and they came to an agreement in principle, but Henson passed away in 1990 before the deal could be completed. Without Henson there to anchor it, the deal fell apart, and Disney didn’t get the Muppets until 2003, when they bought a much smaller batch of rights (this time excluding a number of projects, which Henson’s company now retains the rights to) but did get they key Muppet characters.