I know it’s cliche to say it, but… there was a time when the entire family could enjoy a TV show together. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of great stuff on TV these days. I enjoy South Park as much as — well, maybe much more than most people. But I certainly don’t want my kids to watch it with me. And my kids enjoy The Wizards of Waverly Place, but I have a hard time sitting through more than a few minutes of it. It’s not that it’s so bad. It just clearly isn’t made for people my age.
But back before there was micro media, like South Park on Comedy Central geared toward adults and Wizards on Disney Channel geared toward tweens, there was such a thing as mass media — TV that had to appeal to a wide range of ages and types of audiences. Appealing to such a diverse audience is a hard thing to do well, which is part of why so many old TV shows were so lousy.
But Jim Henson was a master at creating entertainment for people of all ages. The Muppet Show and movies are just loads of fun for people young and old. I confess that I still enjoy seeing Henson’s old bits from Sesame Street. It’s great stuff.
Pretty much everyone knows the Muppet TV series and movies, but earlier in his career Jim Henson made a series of fairy tales called Tales from Muppetland, with which I imagine fewer of you are familiar. The best story from this series was The Frog Prince. It retells the classic story, but adds all of the fun of the muppets, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and crew.
There’s lots of singing, oodles of slapstick humor, a hilariously funny evil witch and sidekick ogre, a buffoon king, and a beautiful princess. One of the best aspects of the muppet telling of this story is that the princess also lives under a terrible curse where she says everything wackbards, I mean, backwards. She actually is saying Spoonerisms.
My favorite part is when the princess and the enchanted frog sing a duet in Spoonerisms. She sings, “Ny mineteen, ny mineteen, by mirthday’s dotay” and Robin, the cursed frog, echoes in translation, “I’m nineteen, I’m nineteen, my birthday’s today.”
As it turns out, the entire muppet Frog Prince is available on YouTube broken into 6 segments, each 10 minutes long. I also believe that it is available on DVD and video. Here’s part 1:
And here is part 2:
So, next time you want to all sit down as a family and watch something, or just when you grow tired of the non-stop hipness of MTV, crudeness of Comedy Central, and schmaltziness of the Disney Channel, check out the muppet’s Frog Prince.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
is it possible to download this movie on an ipod?
can i somehow download this movie on an ipod?
Yes, I love all the Jim Henson stuff. It was always loaded with puns. My brothers and sisters and I still use some of them in conversation. We all saw the Muppet Movie at least three or four times.
Thanks for the memories.