Frog Went A-Courting - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

The song has been heard by many people (as "Froggie Went A-Courtin'") in the 1955 Tom and Jerry cartoon Pecos Pest, which uses a version arranged and performed by Shug Fisher, in character as "Uncle Pecos." In Pecos Pest, Jerry's Uncle Pecos stays with him while getting ready for a television appearance, and continues to pluck Tom's whiskers to use as guitar strings throughout the cartoon. It is an improvised version with many lyrics that are unintelligible, and many changed. For example, he stutters and gives up when he tries to say "hickory tree" and says "way down yonder by the--," stammers out the names of several types of trees, finally settling (ironically) on "eucalyptus". He also mentions while continuing the music "That's the hard part right in there, n-n-n-n-nephew!" and "there's a yodel in thar somewhar, but it's a little too high f'r me."

Some refer to this song as "Crambone" as it is repeated at the end of many lines and said more clearly than the other words in this version. For example the line is "Froggie went a-courtin' he did ride/Crambone." Fisher, in character as Pecos, delivers the coda with a glottal stutter on the letter c. Woody Guthrie's version used "Hey-hey," and Bob Dylan's version used "uh-huh" in the same way after several lines.

Other examples in film and TV include:

• On an episode of The Muppet Show, Kermit the Frog going a-courtin' Miss Mousie.
• Ethan Hawke's character Troy Dyer is singing the song on his guitar at the end of the film Reality Bites when Winona Ryder's character Lelaina Pierce comes and tackles him on the couch.
• Thomas Raith hums the song during a standoff with the Denarians in Jim Butcher's Small Favor, a novel of the Dresden Files.
• Bender sings a version of the song in the Futurama episode "Bendin' in The Wind".
• Bobby Hill is heard to sing the opening verse on an episode of King of the Hill.
• It has also been used in the episode of The Colbert Report that aired on May 23, 2007. This version was sung by Burl Ives. Colbert also sung a portion of the song on the June 18, 2007 episode, during an interview with Toby Keith.
• The song was performed on The Fast Show by the character Bob Fleming as one of 'Bob Fleming's Country Favourites'.
• An explicit remixed version of this song, named "What Do You Say" by Mickey Avalon, was on the soundtrack of the 2009 film The Hangover.

German-American composer Paul Hindemith wrote a series of variations "Frog He Went a Courting" for Cello and Piano.