Skip to main content

Our Favorite Amphibious Queer Icons Are Getting a TV Series!

Frog and Toad Together cover

An animated Frog and Toad series has been announced for Apple TV+, meaning our favorite queer amphibians will ascend the pages of children’s books for the small screen. The show will premiere April 28 on Apple TV+ as part of its spring kids and family slate.

Recommended Videos

Frog and Toad will be based on the Caldecott and Newbery Award-winning children’s books by Arnold Lobel. Originally published between 1970 and 1979, this four-book series has cemented itself as a classic not just for children, but for LGBTQIA+ individuals who identify with the titular pair and their unyielding love for each other.

Lobel was a gay man who died too young of AIDS. (He was only 54.) Although he never publicly spoke about any relationship between queerness and Frog and Toad, he said in a 1977 interview with the children’s-book journal The Lion and the Unicorn, “If I have an unhappy love affair, I have to somehow use all that pain and suffering but turn it into a work for children.”

The Frog and Toad books never explicitly state that the characters are gay, but that doesn’t matter. Whether they are just friends or a devoted couple, their relationship is comforting and admirable because of how readily they celebrate each other’s differences.

Per Apple, this will be the focus of the Frog and Toad animated series. It couldn’t be any other way. Even Frog and Toad Are Doing Their Best [A Parody]: Bedtime Stories for Trying Times by Jennie Egerdie and Ellie Hajdu focuses on the love and kindness shared between the characters. No matter the setting of Frog and Toad’s lives, they’re most content when they’re together.

@bgprobably

This show is SO CUTE and i cant wait for yall to see it #frogandtoad

♬ One Big Beautiful Sound by JMPB – Audios with Potential

The Frog and Toad animated series will feature Nat Faxon (Our Flag Means Death) and Kevin Michael Richardson (The Simpsons, Family Guy) as Frog and Toad, respectively. The cast also includes Yvette Nicole Brown, Margaret Cho, Tom Kenny, Aparna Nancherla, Ron Funches, Fortune Feimster, Cole Escol, John Hodgman, Stephen Tobolowsky, Selene Luna, and Betsy Sodaro. Rob Hoegee is the series showrunner and executive producer alongside Adrianne and Adam Lobel and production company Titmouse’s Chris and Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio, and Ben Kalina.

(featured image: Harper & Row)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Author
Samantha Puc
Samantha Puc (she/they) is a fat, disabled, lesbian writer and editor who has been working in digital and print media since 2010. Their work focuses primarily on LGBTQ+ and fat representation in pop culture and their writing has been featured on Refinery29, Bitch Media, them., and elsewhere. Samantha is the co-creator of Fatventure Mag and she contributed to the award-winning Fat and Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives. They are an original cast member of Death2Divinity, and they are currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative nonfiction at The New School. When Samantha is not working or writing, she loves spending time with her cats, reading, and perfecting her grilled cheese recipe.

Filed Under:

Follow The Mary Sue: