It was the last day of the term and the Muppets were graduating from college. Up on the stage of the college auditorium Kermit the Frog and his fellow performers were coming to the end of "Manhattan Melodies," the senior class variety show. As a packed house watched, Miss Piggy danced daintily across the stage, Scooter and Fozzie harmonized, and Rowlf the dog howled away happily. Gonzo was...well, he was gonzoing for all he was worth with his adored chicken, Camilla, by his side.
Then Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band played the last crashing chords and the curtain came down on the show's big final.
And the audience went wild! They clapped, they whistled, they stamped and cheered, and then they clapped some more. Cries of "Author! Author!" rang out, first once or twice and then over and over again. In the wings the author hung back modestly, but the other performers convinced him to take a bow by shoving and pulling him out onto the stage.
And there he stood, blushing a kind of reddish green, the president of the senoir class and author of "Manhattan Melodies"-Kermit the Frog. "Way to go, Kermit!" and "What a frog!" his classmates called out to him over the thunderous applause. Kermit was overcome. It felt wonderful to have an audience clapping for the show he was so proud of. "See you on Broadway," yelled someone from the audience. Kermit laughed at the thought. Then he bowed one last time and ducked into the wings.
"Why not?" Scooter asked the others backstage. "Why don't we put the show on Broadway?"
Miss Piggy, who was still swooning with happiness at see her adored Kermy taking his bows, suddenly woke up. "Broadway!" she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up like giant searchlights. "Moi can see it already!"
"Yeah!" agreed Fozzie. "Broadway must by dying to get a show like this."
"Broadway! Broadway!" chanted Animal, the wild-eye drummer of the Electric Mayhem Band.
"But the show isn't good enough for Broadway," said Kermit.
"Not good enough!" chorused the others. "It's more than good enough. It's great!"
"It's a tempting idea," said Kermit. "But we have to think about our plans for the future."
And then Fozzie had a brilliant idea. "So so I guess if we don't go to Broadway, we just have to..." He paused, looking sad and forlorn as a bear can look. "...we just have to say good-bye to one another." He waited for the words to sink in.
Kermit looked around at each of his friends. The thought of the gang breaking up and heading off in different directions was painful. No one spoke, and Fozzie held his breath. "Well!" Kermit said at last. "What are we waiting for? We're going to Broadway!"
Before anyone had time to say "Are you sure?" or "Maybe we shouldn't rush into this" or "Help!" the gang was there, gazing in awe at the famous Manhattan skyline. Right in front of their very noses was the Empire State Building, as pretty as a picture. And there was an execellent reason why it was as pretty as a picture-it was a picture! It hung on the wall of the not very clean bus terminal that was the only part of Manhattan they had seen so far.
The terminal was much, but it was home. They decided to stay in their lockers that night, even if the lockers weren't exactly first-class accommodations. "More like twenty-first class," said Fozzie. "Right up there with park benches."
"But it's only for one night," said Piggy. "Because we'll all be big Broadway stars tomorrow."
"No problem," said Gonzo, whose personal habits have often been described as "unusual" and even more often as "really, really weird." "This is much better than the file cabinet I used to live in."
"Squawk," agreed Camilla, and everyone else settled down to sleep.
It was early the next morning that an excited group of college graduates set out to find fame and fortune. Their first stop was the office of Mr. Martin Price, producer. "His office is so close to Broadway, he must be an important producer," Scooter remarked as they made their way in.
"We saw Mr. Price's name in the paper and we have a show called 'Manhattan Melodies,'" Kermit explained to the secretary.
"A frog with a musical to see you," she called out over the intercom. The gang couldn't believe their luck when an immediate "Show them in" came right back from Mr. Price.
Mr. Price had an extremely large and important-looking office with an extremely large and important-looking desk. Kermit didn't want to waste any of this extremely important man's time.
"Hit it!" he signaled the others, and as Janice and Floyd played their instruments and the others sang and hummed behind him, he launched into one of the bouncier numbers from the show.
"Frog! Frog!" Mr. Price shouted "No singing, okay?" They all froze, and Kermit had to think fast. He didn't want to ruin this golden opportunity, so he quickly began to tell the producer about the story of the show.
"It's all about life in the big city," he started.
"Terrific! You mean cops and shootings and stuff?" the producer asked.
"Uh, no...songs and dances, actually," Kermit corrected him.
"Okay...and three are lots of big names in it, right?"
"Actually," Kermit said, feeling sure that this would be the end of the interview, "actually, we're going to be the stars."
"You know what?" Mr. Price asked, sniffing the air. "I smell something! I smell...a hit! Fellas, I'd be proud to produce you on Broadway."
They could hardly believe their ears. "We did it!" Kermit said as the words sank in. "Great!" Scooter exclaimed. "It's too good to be true!" exclaimed Gonzo. "I can hardly believe it," added Fozzie.
"Now all you have to do is give me three hundred dollars each," said the producer, "and we'll get started."
"Did someone say 'too good to be true'?" asked Kermit sadly, realizing that they had been tricked.
"Kermy," Piggy whispered. "I don't think that's quite right. Isn't he supposed to pay us?"
Suddenly the door to the office burst open and two policemen and an elderly lady came charging in. "That's him!" the lady shouted angrily, pointing to the producer. "That's Murray Plotsky. I gave him my life savings."
"All right, Murray, you've pulled your last con job," said one of the cops. "This time you're going away for good."
"Murray?" Fozzie whispered to Kermit. "I thought his name was Martin."
Suddenly Plotsky made a diving leap for Camilla. "One more step and the chicken gets it," he sneered to the policemen.
"No!" cried Gonzo. "Take me instead." The crook grabbed Gonzo by the nose and backed out of the door with both of them-Gonzo and his beloved chicken.
It was then that Floyd had a brilliant idea. "Animal," he whispered to the ferocious drummer. "Bad man." And he pointed after Murray. A wild look came inot Animal's eyes. With a ferocious roar, he tore off after the crook.
A few seconds, a hideous crash, and three or four awful screams later, the quaking Plotsky hobbled back into the room. "Arrest me, please," he begged the policemen. "These animals are crazy!" Animal grinned proudly, a piece of Plotsky's trousers dangling from his teeth.
Gonzo confronted the shaken Camilla, and Kermit rallied the others. "We're going to get this show on Broadway," he told the others cheerfully, and led the way out of the office.
