The Conversation Society: Dialogue #6

This exchange between the celebrated children’s writer Arnold Lobel and his two most famous creations, Frog and Toad, took place in 1985 in Lobel's Manhattan apartment.

Frog: Toad and I have been re-reading some of the old stories, and we’d like to know why there are no women in our world?

Toad: Yeah, where are all the female toads? Where are all the she-frogs?

Lobel: I don’t know. I guess I just never thought to put any in there.

Frog: Is it because you didn’t think we would go for it?

Lobel: No. I think I left women out because I didn’t want anybody to complicate your friendship.

Frog: Is that why we’re the only characters in the stories?

Lobel: That’s one explanation.

Toad: We’re the only characters in the stories because nobody else wants to be around us.

Lobel: That’s not true at all.

Frog: What Toad is trying to say is that we feel…ostracized.

Lobel: Ostracized? For what?

Toad: For being gay!

Lobel: Who said you were gay?

Frog: Arnold, please. Like you haven’t heard the rumors.

Lobel: No, I haven’t. Who is saying you’re gay? Children?

Frog: Children, adults, teenagers, librarians.

Toad: They all think we’re fags.

Lobel: Why, because you have a natural fondness for each other?

Toad: No, because we don’t do manly things.

Lobel: Of course you do. I have you mixed up in all kinds of macho business.

Toad: Gardening, baking cookies, making to-do lists. You call that macho business?

Lobel: If I recall correctly, Toad, I have you eating cookies, not baking them.

Toad: No, you have us trying not to eat cookies, which is almost as bad as baking them.

Frog: Now that these rumors are out there, Arnold, what do you intend to do to stop them?

Lobel: I don’t intend to do anything.

Frog: Well, you have to do something.

Lobel: Like what?

Frog: Toad and I think you should write another collection of stories about us.

Toad: Yeah, and make us do more guy stuff, like chopping wood, and riding motorcycles, and getting into fistfights with other animals.

Lobel: I’m sorry, but I have no plans to write any more Frog and Toad books. That chapter in my life is over.

Frog: If you’re not willing to do it, Toad and I will write the stories ourselves.

Lobel: You can’t. The Frog and Toad name is my intellectual property.

Frog: Fine. Then we won’t call it Frog and Todd. We’ll call it…Todd and Froag.

Toad: Yeah, the Un-queer Adventures of Todd and Froag.

Lobel: No one will buy that book.

Frog: Why not?

Lobel: Because people like Frog and Toad the way they are.

Frog: But we don’t like the way they are, and we’re Frog and Toad. Shouldn’t we have some say in how we’re represented?

Lobel: I think I’ve done a fine job representing you.

Toad: As homos.

Lobel: No, as friends. That’s what makes the books so popular: your friendship. It’s a paragon of tolerance and understanding.

Frog: We don’t care about that. We just want some women in our world.

Toad: Yeah, even Curious George gets some every now and then.

Lobel: Do you want me to tell you what it feels like to live in a world with women?

Frog: No, we want you to write a story about the two of us finding girlfriends.

Lobel: And do you think that will put the rumors to rest?

Toad: It worked for you, didn’t it?