How Muppets Do Money: Kermit

“How I do money?” Kermit asked. “Is money something you do?”

My final interview was, of course, with Kermit the Frog.

“You know that song from Follies?” Kermit’s home is a testament to a life spent in and around the theater. “Good times and bum times, I’ve seen ’em all…”

It’s a strange experience to hear Kermit the Frog sing to you in his own home. An even stranger experience to hear him singing someone else’s song.

“I don’t know what to say,” Kermit said. “I’ve never had a plan. I’m a dreamer, I guess. Sometimes I have more money than others. Sometimes I have a lot more money than others.”

He continued explaining how his life was full of cycles: the agent who discovered him in the swamp, the highs and lows of careers in both Hollywood and Manhattan, hosting the Muppet Show, a brief stint as a news reporter, the two songs that made him famous.

Re-opening Muppet Studios in 2011. A short stint in prison for a crime he didn’t commit in 2014.

“I really have seen it all,” Kermit said.

I asked him how he managed his finances.

“Oh, Fozzie set me up with his CPA,” he explained. “And Muppet Studios has its own accountant. And I know I should think about money a little bit more, but I don’t.”

I asked him if he had a retirement account. “Nope,” he said. A savings account? “Nope — everything just goes in checking.” Credit-card debt? “Not right now.”

“It makes me feel uncomfortable to talk about this,” Kermit said, and he was starting to look a little agitated. “My life hasn’t ever gone by the rules, even when I’ve wanted it to. So I’m not married, I’m not a father, I don’t think about money the way other people do.”

He paused. “This is going to sound silly,” he said, “but I just live life one day at a time.”

I asked him what he did when he needed money.

“Same thing I’ve always done,” Kermit said. “I put on a show.”

Previously in How Muppets Do Money: Gonzo

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