by Stacey Osbeck

Forty years ago, on June 22, 1979, The Muppet Movie was released in the U.S. Before that, no other feature length film had incorporated puppets and people with the puppets as the main attraction. It explored the origin stories of already beloved characters and tied them all together in a road movie headed for Hollywood. “Rainbow Connection” received an Oscar nomination and would in time become Kermit’s signature song, the carefree musings of a frog with a banjo in the swamp he called home.