Being green’s not easy, nor is the path to a diploma.
Kermit the Frog, slated to speak at the University of Maryland’s commencement ceremony Thursday evening, joined “CBS Mornings” to preview his address with alum Gayle King.
“I’m excited to finally get up there and start speaking, but until that happens, I’ll probably have some jitters,” Kermit said. “I like to take some calming breaths, maybe some word exercises, like ‘loads of locusts lounging on Lanai,’ stuff like that.”
Kermit told King, who delivered her alma mater’s 2023 commencement address, that he hopes graduates walk away “feeling a little inspired.”
“If my speech can give the graduates a leg up on their exciting new adventures, I guess I’m going to feel like I’ve accomplished something amazing,” he said.
The frog will be the lone Muppet in attendance, as his family members — which number in the “thousands” — “live down at the swamp” and “don’t travel too much.”
Kermit’s longtime on-again, off-again girlfriend, Miss Piggy, is “summering on a beach somewhere exotic” and will skip the event.
“She insists that it has nothing to do with the fact that I was asked to give the speech and she wasn’t,” Kermit said. “She had lots of input on the speech, especially the parts that mention her.”
Thursday isn’t the frog’s first commencement.
He last spoke at Southampton College’s 1996 ceremony, where he accepted an honorary “Doctorate of Amphibious Letters” and told graduates, “May success and a smile always be yours … even when you’re knee-deep in the sticky muck of life.”
Muppets creator Jim Henson graduated from the University of Maryland in 1960. The school’s arboretum and botanical garden features a bronze statue of Henson posing with Kermit.
Kermit gave a guest lecture at the university in 2024.
“I hope my speech helps them keep on believing in themselves long after they’ve left college, and long after I’ve left the stage,” Kermit later said in a statement to CBS News.
