Life would be a little easier if we could all pack up and step into a new world. Frog and Frog. What if life’s biggest problems were lacking the will to stop eating cookies, stupid mayo, and deciding on ice cream flavors?
We can’t all shrink to the size of tiny amphibians, but thanks to the new children’s show that will air on Apple TV+ on April 28, we can now live by proxy through beloved characters. Hand of the late author and illustrator Arnold Lobel with stories from all four Frog and Toad books: The Frog and the Frog are Friends, Frog and Frog Together, Year-round Frog and FrogAnd Days with the Frog and the Toad.
While the Frog and The Toad books were written for children in the 1970s, they have stood the test of time—two best friends who have become a friendly nugget of nostalgia for many generations. Rob Hoegee, the showrunner of the new adaptation of the picture books, narrates the series in a way that makes you long for the past and your youth. While watching the show, you feel small like Frog and Toad lying on the grass on a hot summer day.
“It’s like you’re lying facedown in your backyard, peering through the grass and staring at a world at ground level,” Hoegee told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed on Zoom. “Like a diorama you did in elementary school, you take a shoebox and cut a hole in it to create a scene. You look inside and see the stacked foreground, midfield, and background with a richer landscape environment with selective focus, shadow, and light.
Talking about everything from the color palette used to bring Lobel’s paintings to TV to the whimsical subtext that has become a much-loved part of fans’ relationship with these characters, Hoegee makes it clear how much pressure there is to breathe new life into a property. near and dear to many people. But it was even clearer how much she enjoyed it, she.
The new series follows the famous friends through the events of the classic short stories: Grumpy Frog refuses to get out of bed in the morning, but an energetic Toad haunts him until he wakes up. A sad Frog misses getting a letter in the mailbox, so Frog writes him a letter, but before he can reach Frog’s yard, he explains what the letter said. Little stories of little gestures guide children (and seniors!) in their commitment to friendship; Just because Frog and Toad are very different creatures doesn’t mean they will never agree.
In the 1980s, the stop-motion-animated adaptation of the series gave life to Frog and Toad with clay, and in 2003 she sang and danced in a Broadway musical called Buds. A Year with the Frog and the Frog. But this feels like the most faithful adaptation that Frog and Toad has ever seen. Definitely Like the book, the show even had a specific Frog and Toad font created to match the signature strokes of the original covers.
Creating a landscape fit for high-quality television but also evocative of original illustrations was something Hoegee and his team struggled to plan. If you examine the books, you will notice that the colors used are only black, brown, green and white; it wouldn’t give the show the vibrancy the team wanted.
“While we want to keep the color palette of the show within the world we think Frog and Frog“What I learned was that Arnold Lobel delivered the illustrations just like pen and ink drawings, and the publisher colored them. Because I know it was a printing decision rather than purely creative, I felt a little bit forced to push the color palette a little bit more. It made me feel more willing.”
Hoegee says this detail about Lobel’s original workflow comes from her children Adrianne and Adam Lobel, who served as executive producers on the series and became “champions, custodians and protectors of their father’s business and legacy.” “I shared with them what I thought a show would be like, and thankfully we were in line with what it would look like.”
Hoegee certainly has his own memories of the characters from his childhood. “But they really came home when I had kids of my own,” she says. “They always resonated with me. You talk to adults – these are books and characters that do not leave you. So many children’s books are a thing of the past, you live them. But there is something about Frog and Frog it sticks with you.
Reading the books to her children, now 12 and 16, Hoegee realized they were timeless tales of friendship, love, and compassion. Signing to Apple TV+ production meant he had to fully realize these stories in a series, but it also meant he had to release some of those memories. For example, he had to look beyond all the sounds he gave to Frog and Toad as he read books aloud to his children and appoint actors to play the role.
“I had a very clear voice for these two characters in my head,” Hoegee says with a chuckle. “I was already fed up with my preconceived notion of how these characters sound. A big part for me was not finding out what these guys were like so I could be open to other comments.
Nat Faxon and Kevin Michael Richardson starred as Frog and Toad, respectively. Faxon also read the books to her children; So do most of the voice cast, including Yvette Nicole Brown, Margaret Cho, Cole Escola, Aparna Nancherla, Fortune Feimster, and Tom Kenny. John Hodgman, who voices one of the characters in the series, had a very different voice for Toad than the other actors: “a weird Eastern European accent,” Hoegee says. “Everyone who loves this show comes to it with their own interpretation.”
This includes the creative team behind the scenes. Because the style of the characters in Lobel’s books changed over time, they had to choose which Frog and Toad was “The Ultimate Frog and the Frog.” They also had to design new, original stories to match the stories in the books.
“Every single person on our team who had a hand in the show, as artist, writer, voice actor, brought their own version of Frog and Toad to what they were doing,” Hoegee says. “It was really important to me to allow as much of the screen as possible.”
This is why Hoegee found it important to consider the bizarre subtext of the Frog and Toad books. Hoegee says a “significant portion” of the cast and crew identifies as LGBTQ+, and she says she desires “to make sure that everyone feels heard and that their contribution – the Frog and the Toads – lives up to whatever it is.”
“You can’t deny that,” Hoegee says. “Part of the books, part of the legacy.”
Although The Frog and the Frog are briefly referred to as “friends” in the series and in the books, Arnold Lobel revealed to his parents that he was gay after the books were published in 1974. in a 2016 interview with New Yorker, Adrianne Lobel called the books “the beginning of her emergence”. Over the years, Frog and Toad have become gay icons. There are shirts that read “The Frog and the Frog are Gay”. In fact, when this series was announced, Them wrote an article titled “Everybody’s Favorite Queer Couple, ‘The Frog and the Frog’ Is Coming to Television”.
“What we wanted to do here was create a faithful adaptation of the books,” says Hoegee. “For humans, for many readers of a certain age, the Frog and the Toad as characters seen through a strange lens are very important to them. As far as these characters are concerned, we can’t deny anyone who has meaning to them. It would not be wrong to say that you will have the opportunity to see the point of view.”
Take Toad and Toad as you like, but Hoegee says the most important thing is to understand how deeply they care about each other. It doesn’t matter if this affection is platonic or romantic, the fact that they’re almost inseparable should tell us a little about friendship.
“What Frog and Frog “It shows us that there is still the ability to have a deep, meaningful and loving friendship that transcends everything,” Hoegee says. “This is a show that celebrates how two very different characters can still find common ground and find respect, appreciation and love for each other, while still allowing them to have fun together and be inseparable. Our differences should not separate us, it should be our differences that bring us together.”
It’s an important lesson for kids to learn, but it’s equally effective for adults. As Hoegee says, The Frog and the Frog isn’t really leaving you – not just pipsqueaks, the whole world is delighted to announce a Frog and Toad series. First, I still keep a copy The Frog and the Frog are Friends On my nightstand In our Interview, Hoegee pulls out a rare pop-up copy of some Frog and Toad stories from right behind his desk. Little guys are always nearby.
“There’s an assumption that shows made and written for kids should be simple, so you’re almost channeling your inner five-year-old. The thing is, these are made by adults. We still bring our own sensitivities, our own baggage and our own experiences, our own joys and sorrows – all that pours into what we do,” says Hoegee.
When Hoegee talks about himself and his team, it’s impossible not to hear this quote and not think of Arnold Lobel, who wrote these stories for children with sensitive themes such as love, trust and boundaries – as his children approve. own life. Dozens of other artists are now seeing these stories re-told through the lens of their own lives.
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