Early the next morning Kermit went to see Pete to ask him for a job. But Rizzo was there before him, with a whole troop of his rat friends. "I gotta have these guys to help," Rizzo was telling Pete as Kermit walked in.
"Okay, you work," Pete told the rats. "But I tell you what is...is jumping...is cheese...is big show...yes, no and maybe for sure...okay?"
"Okay, Pete!" chorused the rats, and they scampered off to work.
Kermit finally got his chance. "I'll do anything!" he told Pete desperately, but Pete seemed too busy to listen. "I'll sweep up...clean windows...anything!" Kermit began to get the feeling that it was hopeless. Then Jenny walked in.
"Pop...we could use some help in the kitchen," she told her father.
Pete thought for a moment and then turned to Kermit. "Okay is dishes need washing. Is job of plenty wet soap-suds bubbling, yes?"
"Yes, Pete!" replied Kermit, grateful to him and especially to Jenny. "And thanks!"
Later he told Jenny about how his friends had had to leave town. "But I'm going to sell the show so I can bring them all back. I've been reading up on producers and now I know what I have to do."
"I really admire you for doing what you believe in," Jenny told him. "Someday I want to do something special in fashion designing too. Someday."
Kermit looked up from the dishes he was washing. "You know," he said slowly, "I think your fashion designing might be able to help me now. I've got a three-part plan to sell the show. The first part is, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
A few days later an extremely bizarre-looking frog bounced into the offices of the William Morris Agency. Thanks to Jenny's help, Kermit had transformed into the slickest looking frog in the history of frogs in show business. In a flashy shirt open to the navel, even flashier bell-bottom jeans, bright white loafers, and dazzling gold jewelry around his neck, Kermit was wearing sunglasses to protect himself from the glare of his own outfit!
"Hiya, sweetheart," he called breezily to the receptionist. "I got an appointment with your theater agent here."
"Leonard Winesop?" she asked.
"Yeah...Lennie, right," said Kermit, who had never heard the name before. "We go way back! I'll just go right in." Before she could stop him, he went bounding down the hallway, bell-bottoms flapping away.
"Lennie! Sweetheart! Babe!" he called to the agent as he burst through the door. "My private plane's double-parked, so I gotta run, but I'm giving you this boffo, socko script, 'Manhattan Melodies.'" He shoved the script into the agent's hand and slapped him on the back. "I gotta split, babe...but remember, boffo, socko!" Kermit called as he bowed out the door.
As he left the building, feeling hopeful and excited, Kermit had no way of knowing that the agent had already tossed the script into the wastebasket.
A few minutes later Kermit met Jenny. As he told her what had happened, he had no way of knowing about something else: They were being watched. Across the road, a figure lurked, trying very hard not to be seen. It was Miss Piggy, wearing dark glasses and a trench coat, the favorite outfit of those who are trying very hard not to be seen. Two muscular construction workers were trying to flirt with her as she strained to hear what Jenny and Kermit were talking about.
As she watched the pair like a hawk, Miss Piggy saw Jenny give Kermit a hug. She didn't know that it was just a little friendly encouragement; she decided to turn into an exploding pig first and ask questions later. She smashed an empty oil drum, then picked up a lead pipe and bent it like a pretzel! The construction workers, who had been calling "Hey babe!" and "Over here, cute thing" to this extremely dangerous character, grew very quiet and quickly went back to work.
Piggy was still breathing fire when she rushed into an elegant store nearby and hurried to the cosmetics counter. Her new boss was not very thrilled that she had returned late from lunch on her very first day of work.
She apologized halfheartedly, and he stalked off in a huff.
"What's wrong, Piggy?" asked her new friend, Eileen, who worked at the cosmetics counter with her.
Piggy told Eileen about what had happended. "But I'm going to fight for my frog," she vowed. "You do think I'm pretty enough, don't you?"
"Of course," said Eileen.
"Gorgeous?"
Elieen's face fell.
"All right," said Piggy with a sigh. "How about trustworthy?"
"Your better than gorgeous," Eileen reassured her. "You're unique. But you could use a little rouge."
She sat Piggy down at the cosmetics counter and dabbed a little rouge on her cheeks. And then she added some eyeliner. "Oops! Maybe I went just a little bit too far," Eileen said.
"More!" Piggy commanded fearlessly. Then Eileen really went to work with an eyebrow pencil and lipstick and glitter and polka dots and practically anything else that wasn't locked away. When Piggy looked up, her face resembled an explosion in a paint factory. But that wasn't what she noticed first. When first caught her attention wsa her boss. He wsa staring at her, and he was furious.
He had surprisingly little to say about the way Piggy looked. Just a few words. Three, to be precise: "You are fired."
Meanwhile, miles away from the big city, the other Muppets were having problems too. In the tiny, polka-crazy town of Monongahela, Pennsylvania, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band were performing at the local Firemen's Bazaar. The band was just getting ready to play another polka.
"All right! Here's another down-home polka for you polka-crazy cats and kittens," Floyd announced from the bandstand. The other band members groaned. It was their eighty-ninth polka of the evening.
"Like...I'm not totally sure my vibes will survive," Janice whispered. "I think I'm polka'd out."
Just then Floyd was approached by two strange-looking characters. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew introduced himself and his assistant Beaker. "We couldn't help but notice that your drummer had been playing a mite out of tempo," the scientist told Floyd.
"Animal is wiggin' out. Polka just ain't his thing," Floyd admitted.
"Luckily for you," said Dr. Honeydew, "I have my gas-powered drumometer here, which plugs directly into the drummer's brain." Beaker held up a weird-looking device.
"If you can find his brain, sure," said Floyd, and the strange cap was put on Animal's head. Dr. Honeydew started the motor, Floyd gave the signal, and the band launched into the "How Come They Never Get Tired of the Polka?" polka.
But in a few minutes Animal was slowing down, so Dr. Honeydew instructed Beaker to turn the motor up. When he did, Animal started drumming faster and faster, making the dancers spin around at a very crazy speed. His eyes lit up like fireworks, smoke poured out of his ears, and he bashed his drums harder and harder, faster and faster. He drummed in double time, he drummed in triple time, and then suddenly there was a terrific explosion and Animal stared out from under the blackened, smoking cap on his head. "One more time!" he yelled, and then slowly fell over.
Way up north, in the remote, quiet, peaceful woods of Maine, Fozzie Bear would have given anything to have been with his friends, even with an exploding drummer in their midst. Fozzie had decided to hibernate with the other bears. But he was realizing that being the only one awake wsa very lonely, especially when the nap lasted three months!
I wish I weren't too shy to do something, he thought. Like yell "All you boring, snoring bears WAKE UP!!" Just then another bear bumped against him and opened her eyes.
"Hello," she said pleasantly.
"Gee," replied Fozzie shyly, "I didn't know this cave was coed." Before he had time to panic, the friendly she-bear had snuggled against him, closed her eyes, and gone to sleep.
And off in Michigan, Gonzo and his chicken companion-for-life, Camilla, were all set to perform their indescribable Aqua Show.
"I will now describe the indescribable show," Gonzo announced to the audience from his takeoff plateform. "After skiing thrilling and intricate patterns through the slalom course, I will make a death-defying leap from the ramp, hurtle through the Circle of Doom loop-the-loop, and land effortlessly upon my easy chair when my chickens sing 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose?'" He turned to the boat driver. "Ready!" he called, and then stopped to give his goggles one last wipe.
That was one big mistake. Because just then the boat roared off, and Gonzo was yanked forward by the rope. Camilla and her fellow chicken choir members sang their hearts out, the crowd yawned, and Gonzo was dragged through the water at a hundred miles per hour, screaming his unusually shaped head off. "Help!! I have en unusual fear of serious injury!" he yelled. "And also a fear of early death!!"
