Meanwhile, many miles away, Rowlf had his paws full. He was managing a boarding kennel for other dogs. A rich gentleman was dropping his pooch off and giving Rowlf the last of ninety-five instructions.
"Snooky gets his breakfast of quiche at eight A.M. exactly," the gentleman told him. "Good-bye, ittle lumpy dums," he sniffed to his pet. "Daddy's gonna miss ittle snooky wooky so much."
As soon as Rowlf convinced the man to leave, the other dogs stopped barking and starting teasing the new arrival. "Does snooky wooky want his boney woney?" asked a big German shepherd sarchastically.
"Or would he like a teensy weensy bite of quiche?" snarled a mean-eyed Doberman.
"All right, you guys," called Rowlf. "Lay off him."
The other dogs stopped teasing and started nagging Rowlf instead. "I need a walk," whinned one.
"It's time for my brushing," called another.
"I wanna go home," howled a third. Then the whole kennel erupted in a deafening chorus of nagging, wailing, barking dogs.
Out in Ohio, Scooter also had his hands full. He had found a job managing a theater featuring The Attack of the Killer Fish in 3-D. The Swedish Chef was working at the popcorn and candy counter. He was busy throwing popcorn into the air, trying to give his customers a 3-D candy experience as they went in to see the film.
The movie started rolling and boomerang fish-thrower Lew Zealand waited for his moment. When the killer fish in the movie attacked the hero and heroine, the sprang into action. He reached into his bucket and started launching his fish at the screeen. Because he was a boomerang fish-thrower, the fish curved back and landed in the audience. "How realistic!" and "What a great 3-D effect!" they cried as they were bombarded with bass and slammed with salmon.
Back in New York, things at Pete's were quiet. Piggy was now working as a waitress there. She and Jenny were reading over Kermit's shoulder as he finished the postcards he'd gotten from Scooter and Rowlf.
"Just one more," said Jenny, handing Kermit an envelope. He opened it, and the three of them read it silently: Dear Kermit the Frog, I would be very interested in talking with you about your musical, 'Manhattan Melodies.' Please come to my office at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Bernard Crawford."Bernard Crawford!" screamed Jenny, scaring Piggy and Kermit half to death. "I've heard of him! He's a big-time Broadway producer!"
Kermit was halfway out the door before she could say another word.
"Call us and tell us what happened!" Piggy shouted after him.
"Just act confident," added Jenny as Kermit whizzed down the street in a green blur.
In minutes Kermit stood outside Bernard Crawford's office. He was tyring very hard to look confident when a young man walked up to him.
"Are you Kermit the Frog?" the young man asked.
"Yes...are you Bernard Crawford?"
"No," the young man replied nervously.
Kermit was trying to figure out what could possibly to going on when a distinguished-looking gentleman walked up.
"Dad," the young man said. "Remember how you promised me my one chance to be a producer? Well, this is Kermit the Frog and I want to produce his musical."
Kermit could hardly believe that he was hearing these wounderful words. Before anyone could say anything else, he began telling Mr. Crawford about "Manhattan Melodies." "It's about how the two leads get married after they sing this song and my friends who are dogs and bears and chickens perform in it and..."
"That's ridiculous!" thundered the producer.
Kermit's legs turned to rubber. His jaw dropped open, his shoulders sagged, and his heart started to break.
"But," the producer added, "maybe 'ridiculous' is just what Broadway needs right now. Ronnie, you can do it!"
"Thanks, Dad!" yelled his son.
"Yeah! Thanks, Dad!" yelled Kermit. Kermit and Ronnie hugged each other and jumped up and down, about as excited as a young producer and a frog can get. "I'll see you at Pete's!" Kermit shouted to Ronnie.
Then he dashed out onto the street, found a pay phone, and dialed Pete's. "Piggy, we did it! They're going to produce the show!" He yelled into the phone, loud enough for most of the people on the block to hear. "You're going to be a big star and Jenny can do the costumes...and we have to get the gang back right away!"
On the other end of the phone Jenny and Piggy cheared and hugged each other. "I'll be there in ten minutes!" Kermit called triumphantly.
He went flying down the street, charged with happiness. He stepped off the curb, too busy singing and grinning and being deliriously excited to look up at the traffic light, which, unforntunately, was red. Kermit bounded straight out into the path of the speeding traffic.
And then it happened. With an aweful squeal of brakes and a sickening thud, a taxi hit Kermit and sent him flying into the air. Onlookers gasped in horror as he crashed to the pavement. Kermit lay there, not speaking or even moving, as cars screeeched to a halt and people rushed toward the accident.
Hours later, Piggy was peering anxiously out of the door at Pete's. "He's never disappeared like this," she wailed. It was so late that the place was closed, and still there was no sign of Kermit.
As Piggy paced, sick with worry, Jenny tried to comfort her. "He's all right, Piggy. Why not think about how you'll all be a big Broadway star in just a few months?" she suggested gently.
"Two weeks," a voice from the door corrected her. Everyone turned as a stranger stepped into Pete's. "I'm Ronnie Crawford," he said. "Your producer. My dad said I could have the theater, the sets, and everything-but only if we open in two weeks." It was only after the others introduced themselves to him that Ronnie realized Kermit was missing. "The writer and the star of the show is missing!" he gasped, suddenly a very worried young producer. "And we're opening in two weeks?!"
"No sweat," Jenny told Ronnie. "We'll find him." Then she and Pete sent telegrams to the others, telling them to hurry back to the city.
Way out in polka-crazy Monongahela, Pennsylvania, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band were crashing through the "We Never Ever Wanna Play Another Polka" polka when a telegram arrived. It took them about two seconds to get their instruments, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker and the gas-powered drummer into their friend Bo's trunk. Next stop, Broadway!
Up in a cave in Maine, Fozzie woke his new friend to show her the telegram the had just arrived. "Come with me," he suggested, forgetting for the moment that he was extremely shy.
"I will," the beautiful bear responded.
"What's going on? Is it spring yet?" the other bears asked, waking up.
"Follow me!" Fozzie shouted, and a sleepy bunch of bears followed him out of the cave.
On Lake Michigan, Gonzo rounded up his choral of chicken chums. "Hey, girls," he told them, "we're going to New York!"
At the kennel, Rowlf barked an order to his canine companions: "Let's go guys!"
In a certain extremely weird movie theater in Ohio, Scooter called "New York!" to the Swedish Chef and Lew Zealand. Before the popcorn and the fish in the air had landed, they were on their way.
While Scooter and Fozzie and Gonzo and all the others were speeding toward the city, a strange scene was unfolding in a Manhattan hospital room. Kermit sat in bed with a blank look in his face, listening to a doctor.
"You're absolutely fine physically so we can't keep you here any longer," the doctor explained. "But because you've lost your memory, we just don't know who you are." She pulled out a pen light and began to wave it in front of Kermit's face. "Perhaps if I hypnotize you and take you back to your past, you just might remember who you are." Kermit went into a deep trance. "Good. Now, what's the first thing you recall?" the doctor asked.
"I remember my father croaking," Kermit told her.
"I'm so sorry. But what about when you were a teenager?"
"I remember the first time I invited a girl back to my pad."
"What did she called you?" the doctor asked, trying to get Kermit to reveal his name.
"She called me Snuggles....Oh Freida! Freida!" cried Kermit. "Freida...why don't you answer me?"
"Um...er, hello," the doctor said, pretending to be Kermit's lost girlfriend.
"Oh, Freida...you're so wonderful!" Kermit exclaimed, a dopey smile on his face.
"Yes, I am wonderful," the doctor responded, her mind racing. Maybe she could trick his mystery patient into revealing his identity. "So let's get married and I'll changed my name to yours. By the way, what is you name?"
Kermit frowned. "Freida, how can you talk about getting married on out first date?"
The doctor sighed and snapped his fingers to bring Kermit out of his trance. "I'm afraid you case is hopeless," she told him. "All we can do is wish you luck starting you new life.
Kermit felt a little lost that day as he left the hospital. He was wearing a new suit that the hospital had given him, and he was carrying the address of an advertising agency where the doctor had said he might find work. Within an hour he had found the office and was standing in front of the repceptionist.
"You name, please?" she asked.
It wasn't an unusual question, but to Kermit it was pretty hard to answer. "Um...Phil!" he blurted out, guessing wildly.
"And your last name, Phil?" she asked pleasantly.
Kermit thought as fast as he could. Phil Harmonic? No, too weird. Phil Youmarryme? Too unusual...
Before Kermit coud admit that he had no idea what his name was, a smart-looking frog walked in. "I'm Bill, this is Will, and this is Jill," he said to Kermit, introducing two other business-like frogs. "We'll show you around." The three took Kermit down the hall to the office where he would be working with them.
Across town at Pete's the whole gang was being reunited. A great deal of hugging and yelling went on, and after that quite a bit of introducing.
"That opening is just a week, folks," Ronnie announced as he walked in. The introductions stared all over again so that everyone could meet the producer. Finally Piggy called for quiet.
"Kermit is missing!" she told them, fighting back the tears.
"Oh, wow! Double bummer!" gasped Janice.
"I just can't believe it," said Fozzie.
"Missing! When? Where? How? asked Gonzo.
Then they all started talking and asking questions at once. Thought they were shocked and worried, Kermit's friends were sure about one thing-they were going to find him!
"What are we standing around here for? Let's go!" shouted Scooter.
"Go! Go!" shouted Animal as the gang poured out of Pete's.
And so they started looking for Kermit. Scooter searched the streets on his bike and Gonzo looked in alleyways and strange tunnels and passages. Animal roared Kermit's name at the zoo and Jenny checked the place in the park where she and Kermit had once jogged. Piggy peered hupefully into horse-drawn carriages while Dr. Teeth check the library and Rowlf went up the Empire State Building.
Days went by, newspaper and radio advertisements announced the opening of "Manhattan Melodies," and the gang got nowhere. They checked the bus terminal where they had all started out. Nothing. They called out "Kermit!" in the streets so often that even the lampposts got sick of hearing it. Still nothing. They tried everything anybody could think of to try. And then there was absolutely nothing left to do and no time to do it anyway.
"It's hopeless. Absolutely hopeless," said Piggy, who was heartbroken.
"And I always thought that opening night would be so exciting," added Fozzie. The others, sitting around a table at Pete's, didn't even respond. It was time to go to the theater and get ready for the first performance, but nobody moved a muscle. They were too miserable to budge. They were so utterly dejected that they didn't even look up when four frogs in suits came in and sat down at the booth.
Kermit sat at the table with Bill and Will and Jill. And soon he got the oddest feeling. He found himself tapping out a tune he didn't even know he knew. Strange.
The melody of one of the songs from "Manhattan Melodies" came wafting through the fog of gloom that surrounded the others. In a second a dozen heads were peering over the booth, staring at Bill and Jill. "Oh...just some frogs," somebody said, and they sank back into their seats, disappointed once again.
But then a long beak was poking around the side of the booth. An anormous Gonzoid shreik split the silence: "It's Kermit!!!" Suddenly Piggy and Jenny and Fozzie and Scooter and quite a few others were hugging Kermit and shouting questions at him and hugging him again.
"I believe there must be a mistake," Kermit said. "But please allow me to congratulate you on the friendly service," he added politely, seeing that he had disappointed them.
"Kermy...what's wrong?" Piggy wailed.
"Nothing that I can see," answered Kermit politely. "I think I'll have the tuna melt, an order of fries, and a cherry coke, please."
His friends began to get the idea that something about Kermit was very strange. "Kermit don't you know us?" they asked him. "Don't you remember the show? It's opening night tonight."
Kermit shrugged. "A show sounds amusing enough, but I do have some marketing data to review this evening." he replied.
Piggy whispered an urgent command to the others. Then she yelled, "Grab him!" and they pounced on Kermit and carried him out of Pete's.
Above the theater the marqee glowed with a big, bright sign: "MANHATTAN MELODIES" BY KERMIT THE FROG. The name of their show was in lights, just as they had dreamed. But backstage, things weren't going as well. In fact, they weren't going anywhere. The situation was desperate. First Fozzie had tried to get Kermit to remember his friends by telling him his favorite Fozzie jokes, but Kermit had just smiled politely.
"Very amusing, but I really must be off," he said.
Next Gonzo pulled out four balloons, a ukulele, a set of bagpipes, and a tin ear flute. And they he performed Kermit's favorite Gonzo trick. He strummed "Honolulu Harry" on the ukulele while blowing up the balloons with the bagpipes and doing imitation bird calls with the ear flute.
"Quite an accurate rendition of a cardinal's call," said Kermit as Gonzo bounce up and down on the wheezing bagpipes and tweeted the ear flute. "An unusual imitation, but quite accurate, nevertheless," he repeated. Gonzo gave up.
Even Statler and Waldorf were brought in. They tried to prod Kermit's memeory with their silly insults. "Are those you eyes, or did you sit too close to a Ping Pong game?" they asked.
"As I mentioned earlier," Kermit said evenly, "I do have a rather important board meeting in the morning."
Before long it was time for Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band to start the overture. It was time to admit defeat. After all they had been through together. After all the no's from all the producers, and after all the happiness of thinking they had finally made it.
But Piggy would not give up. "Look at me," she commanded staring into Kermit's eyes. "You are Kermit the Frog. These are your friends. You wrote this show for them." Kermit listened politely. "And you love me. You want to marry me."
Suddenly Kermit laughed. "What?" he cried. "In love with a pig?" He seemed genuinely amused at the idea. "You've got to be kidding! Think I've gone hog-wild? I'd have to be a bit rasher to do that! Get it?" he giggled and slapped his knee. "Maybe you could bring home the bacon!"
A pair of pig eyes flashed with fury. There was a sudden blur of pink and a killer karate chop sent Kermit hurrling across the room and crashing against the far wall.
He lay still, a tangle of twisted arms and bent flippers. Then slowly, very slowly, he opened his eyes, blinked, and shut them again.
And snapped upright. "Piggy! Fozzie! Jenny! Where am I?" His friends exploded with excitement, their whoops of joy mingling with the sounds of the overture being played in the theater. "He's back!" and "You know you're Kermit!" they yelled at the confused frog.
"What's going on?" Kermit demanded.
"You are!" Ronnie answered, leading him out of the dressing room. "This is Broadway. We've made it. Remember the opening song?"
"Sure, but the show is still missing something," said Kermit slowly. "It's not quite ready."
He was inturrupted by his friends from the advertising agency. "Can we watch?" they asked Kermit.
"No!" Kermit cried. "Because you're going to be in the show...all of you!" He waved his arms to include Fozzie's bear friends and Rowlf's dogs and Camilla's chicken choir companions and all the others who had come to New York. "All of you! More chickens and frogs and dogs and everything is just what the show has been missing. Come on!"
Then he grabbed Piggy's hand. And as the band played the first song, Kermit danced out onto the stage with Scooter and Fozzie and Gonzo and Rowlf and Camilla.
"Look at us. Here we are, right where we belong," they sang as the audience applauded and the curtain rose. The lights came up on the set, which was a beautiful model of the streets of New York, with rats and bears and dogs playing parts of the police officers and tourists and doormen and just plain New Yorkers. Jenny's costumes looked senational and the band had never sounded better-"Manhattan Melodies" felt like a Broadway smash.
"Extra! Extra!" a dog shouted on-stage. "Somebody's getting married!" He started handing out the newspapers, and everybody took up the cry.
As they sang, Fozzie and Gonzo and Scooter took Kermit to a tailor's shop on one side of the stage. There the tailor fitted him out as the groom. And at the same time Piggy was being outfitted with a beautiful bridal gown. Piggy and Kermit were going to get married in the musical.
Practically everybody had come to join in the big scene. All the Muppet friends and family from near and far waited in the chapel. And then Kermit walked in, looking as handsome as any frog ever looked on his wedding.
But Piggy looked more then handsome. She radiated, she glowed, she shone with happiness. Everyone in the audience sighed and smiled at how beautiful a bride she made.
As everyone in the chapel sang about the bride and the groom, Piggy arrived at the alter and smiled at Kermit. "I only know he'll make me happy," she sang softly, "and that's all I ever need to know."
As Kermit and Piggy knelt at the alter, the minister stepped forward to begin the ceremony. "Piggy," Kermit whispered, "I thought Gonzo was going to play the minister."
Before Piggy could answer, the minister began to speak. "Do you, Piggy, take this frog to be your lawful wedded husband?"
"I do!" she sang out joyfully.
He turned to Kermit. "Do you, Froggie, take this pig to be your lawful wedded wife?"
"Well, I...well...er..." Kermit answered nervously. The entire audience hushed as Kermit gulped. "I do," he sang.
Then the minister intoned, "Because you share a love so big, I now pronounce you-frog and pig."
Piggy turned to Kermit and they kissed. As their lips touched, bells rang out and hundreds of doves flew upward in the chapel. And everybody cheered, cried, laughed, and jumped for joy. The rats danced and deliriously, Jenny hugged Ronnie, and Pete hugged himself.
In the middle of the excitement Kermit leaned over to Gonzo, who was playing his best man. "Hey, Gonzo!" he whispered. "Why didn't you play the minister? And who was that actor who took your place?"
"That was no actor," Gonzo corrected him. "That was a real minister."
"Piggy!" Kermit yelled.
"Oh, Kermy. I'm so happy!" Piggy cried, and she did look happy. Very happy. Very, very happy.
Kermit gulped. But then he took her hand and smiled. "What better way could anything end, hand in hand with a friend?" he sang. And with all their friends around them onstage, he drew Piggy close and kissed his new bride.
