‘Frog and Toad’ on AppleTV needs to be gay or else what’s the point?

Fans have rallied for the central characters on Apple’s upcoming show Frog and Toad to be gay, given the importance of the series to the queer community and the history of the original source material. The official trailer for the animated show, which is adapted from Arnold Lobel’s children book series of the same name, was released yesterday, and makes numerous references to the titular amphibians as “friends.” 

The original Frog and Toad book series has long been read by LGBTQ+ fans as a queer love story, not least for the fact that Lobel himself was gay. In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Lobel’s daughter Adrianne — who took over illustrating the series following her father’s death in 1987 — said the four-book series “really was the beginning of [Lobel] coming out.” She continued: “[Frog and Toad are] of the same sex, and they love each other.”

“It was quite ahead of its time in that respect,” she added. Adrianne is far from the only reader to view the Frog and Toad subtext as queer, with trans children’s book author Kyle Lukoff last year describing the fictional duo as “the most famous gay couple in children’s literature.” Lukoff’s sentiment was echoed in fan responses to the recent Apple TV trailer, with some taking umbrage with the description of Frog and Toad as “friends.” 

“’True friendship’ lol ok,” one Twitter user wrote in response to the trailer, with another writing “Yeah…friends.” Other fans described the pair as “the best boyfriends,” and compared the upcoming series to last year’s breakout LGBTQ+ show Heartstopper. Readers of the original series elsewhere replied with rainbow flags, or celebrated the show’s importance for queer audiences. “YAY FOR GAYS,” one user wrote. 

If the queer subtext is explored, Frog and Toad will add to a growing number of queer-affilliated children’s stories to be released of late. In 2016, Pixar faced criticism for the minimal screen time given to its first gay couple in Finding Dory, and later introduced a lesbian character in 2022’s Lightyear. In 2018, former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman said he had “always felt” that beloved puppet duo Bert and Ernie were gay, while Mindy Kaling — who voices Velma in the namesake HBO series — explored the Mystery Inc. character’s bisexuality in the first season.