Rainbow Connection

"The Rainbow Connection" is a song written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher for The Muppet Movie and originally performed by Kermit the Frog. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song in 1979. It is sung by Kermit as the movie's opening number and reprised by the whole cast of Muppets at the end of the movie; it since has been featured and reprised in other Muppet productions, including 2011's The Muppets.

The single of this song reached #25 on Billboard's "Hot 100 Singles" chart in 1979 and the American Film Institute named Rainbow Connection the 74th greatest movie song of all time in AFI's 100 Years…100 Songs.

Behind the scenes
When Williams and Ascher started work on the songs for The Muppet Movie, they had a discussion about a film they both loved, Walt Disney's adaptation of Pinocchio. At the beginning of Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket sings "When You Wish Upon a Star," which the pair felt set the mood for the whole picture. This was the inspiration to write something very special for Kermit as well.

Although they had nearly completed the song, they had difficulty coming up with a title until a friend of Williams asked them "What's the problem? You having difficulty finding that rainbow connection between people and their dreams?" They knew at once that they had their title.

In the Music, Mayhem and More! CD booklet, Williams briefly shared the creative process that surrounds "The Rainbow Connection" and the movie's finale, as follows:
 * "It's one of two favorite songs I've written in my life, and oddly, they're both from The Muppet Movie. (The other is 'I'm Going to Go Back There Someday.') When we started working on the film, Kenny and I and Jim and Jerry Juhl all agreed that we had to establish Kermit's soul from the very beginning. And to do that, he has to ponder some big questions. Kenny and I began to write this song -- the song addresses that inner voice that tells Kermit he can try to do these big things. Then Jerry Juhl did this great thing in the script at the end, when the stage explodes and the end of the rainbow appears — the actual 'rainbow connection.' That's the proof of the whole Muppet philosophy."

Williams later recalled "The amazing thing about the song is that it's a song about questions instead of answers... We start out with Kermit sitting in the swamp... We looked at it and said, well what has he got? He's got water, he's got air, he's got light.  You have refraction, you have rainbows.  So the first line came immediately."

The Muppet Movie opening
The opening of The Muppet Movie features Kermit the Frog singing the song while sitting on a log in his swamp, completely surrounded by water. It was one of those "how'd they do that?" moments that Jim Henson loved to create. Rather than use a radio-control rig, like had been used to make Emmet and his ma sing while rowing a boat down the river in Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, Henson wanted a more precise way to operate the character for the poignant, subtle and emotional performance required and opted to perform Kermit by hand from under the water.

A large swamp set was created in a watertank on the studio backlot—complete with real trees that were shipped in from the Georgia bayous. A diving bell equipped with a rubber sleeve was submerged into the tank so that Henson could perform Kermit from inside. Even though oxygen was being pumped in to Henson, and he was in continual contact with the surface via his headset, biographer Brian Jay Jones said it was "like being buried alive". Henson later referred to the set-up as "no place for someone with claustrophobia." There were rescue divers nearby in case of trouble. At one point during the five days it took to film the sequence, Henson spent nearly three straight hours sealed underwater in the cramped diving bell.

Steve Whitmire and Kathy Mullen used a remote-control device to operate Kermit's hand while he played the banjo in the long shots and manipulated his arms via arm-rods in close-ups.

According to Paul Williams, originally Kermit was going to be seen in the swamp sitting on a lily pad, however it turned into a log because it was easier to position Kermit and hide Henson.

A 1979 Muppet Show Fan Club newsletter answered the question of "How does Kermit sit on a log in the middle of a swamp?":
 * "Jim Henson squeezed into a specially designed metal container complete with an air hose (to breathe), a rubber sleeve which came out of the top (to work Kermit) and a monitor (to see what Kermit was doing), and positioned himself under the water, under the log, under the frog. Jim spent about five days in this bathysphere. It's not easy..."

The Muppet Movie finale
The closing reprise of "Rainbow Connection" in The Muppet Movie featured a crowd of more than 250 Muppet characters—virtually every Muppet that had been created up to that point in time. According to Henson Archivist Karen Falk: "137 puppeteers were enlisted from the Puppeteers of America (along with the regular Muppet performers) to perform every Muppet extant. Prior to the day-long filming of the shot, Jim Henson gave the enthusiastic participants a lesson in the art of cinematic puppetry. Amazingly, it did take just one day."

The Muppet Show Fan Club newsletter answered the question of "How did they do it?":
 * "There are 250 puppets in the last shot of the film, and they're all moving. How? 150 puppeteers in a 6' deep, 17' wide pit, that's how. They were recruited through the Los Angeles Guild of The Puppeteers of America, and almost every puppeteer west of the Rockies reported for pit duty."



Non-Muppet performances

 * Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams performed the song in The Muppets Go Hollywood (1979)
 * The Carpenters recorded the song in 1980, but it wasn't released until 2004
 * Bob McGrath with Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Pops Orchestra for the album Young at Heart (1992); McGrath has performed the song for various Canadian Children's telethons since then.
 * Kenny Loggins on his Return to Pooh Corner album (1994)
 * Paul Williams, as Bernard Weeden, at Ginny's funeral in the third season Picket Fences episode "Cold Spell."
 * Vera Lynn on her Thank You For The Music album (1997)
 * Livingston Taylor, as heard over the end credits for an episode of National Arts (1997)
 * Lea Salonga on her Small Voice album (recorded when she was 9 years old, but only released in 1988) and her I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing album (1997)
 * Less Than Jake on Muppets (1997)
 * Vonda Shepard, in the second season Ally McBeal episode "Angels and Blimps" (1999)
 * Me First and the Gimme Gimmes on their album Are a Drag (1999). The recording was featured in the end credits and over a reel of outtakes from Kermit's Swamp Years.
 * Willie Nelson on his Rainbow Connection album (2001)
 * Sarah McLachlan on the For the Kids album (2002).
 * Various employers in a commercial for Yahoo HotJobs (2003).
 * Justin Timberlake and "Kermit" (Will Forte) on Saturday Night Live (2003)
 * The Dixie Chicks on the album Mary Had a Little Amp (2004)
 * Jason Mraz performs the song on For the Kids Too (2004)
 * Willie Nelson and Paul Williams on the dual-disc DVD I'm Going Back There Someday (2005)
 * John Michael Higgins & His Symphony of Guys, a cappella version arranged by John Michael Higgins as heard during the ending credits for The Break-Up (2006)
 * Jason Mraz performed the song as a launch.com exclusive, now Yahoo! Music, introducing it as "one of [his] favorite songs" (2006)
 * Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) in the third season The Office episode "The Convict" (2006)
 * Jason Mraz and Paul Williams on Mraz's Influences album (2007)
 * Willie Nelsons 2001 version of the song, was used at the end of Las Vegas season 4 episode "The Chicken Is Making My Back Hurt" (2007), when Ed Deline was smashing up a car with a golf club.
 * Paul Williams on the Nickelodeon series, "Yo Gabba Gabba!" (2008)
 * Jane Monheit recorded the song for her album The Lovers, The Dreamers and Me (2009)
 * The Whiffenpoofs, Yale's all-male glee club, have performed the song on multiple occasions, including April 18, 2010 in Kansas City. They also performed the song on Glee's season four finale in 2013, as the fictional glee club The Waffletoots.
 * Paul Williams and the Roots performed it on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (June 15, 2011)
 * Weezer performed it with Hayley Williams of Paramore in The Green Album (2011)
 * Meredith Braun performed the song on her debut album Someone Else's Story (2012)
 * Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Seth Rogen and Samuel L. Jackson sang part of the song for Jimmy Kimmel Live's YouTube-referencing "David After Dentist Double Rainbow Oh My God! in 3D" (2014)

Audio releases

 * The Muppet Movie: Original Soundtrack Recording (1979)
 * The Rainbow Connection/I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along (single, 1979)
 * Favorite Songs From Jim Henson's Muppets
 * Put Some Zing in Your Spring
 * Music, Mayhem and More! (2002)
 * Best of the Muppets (2005)
 * The Muppets: Original Soundtrack (2011)

Video releases

 * The Muppet Movie
 * The World of Jim Henson (1994, first verse cut and played during the credits)
 * Henson's Place (2010, excerpt of The Muppet Movie finale)
 * The Muppets

Other uses

 * Special
 * The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years (excerpts of The Muppet Movie finale)
 * The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson (clips)
 * I Love Muppets (clips)


 * Other media
 * Muppet Race Mania (clip plays before the first race)
 * The Muppet Movie: Nearly 35th Anniversary Edition Blu-Ray (Frog-e-oke lyric video)

Publications

 * Sheet Music Magazine
 * Favorite Songs from Jim Henson's Muppets
 * The Reader's Digest Children's Songbook
 * The Rainbow Connection
 * Jim Henson: The Works
 * It's Not Easy Being Green... and Other Things to Consider
 * Before You Leap - dedicated to "the lovers, the dreamers, and you."
 * The Muppets: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack

Merchandise

 * The Rainbow Connection Kermit Action Figure
 * The Rainbow Connection Kermit Mini Muppet

Trivia

 * On March 20, 1996, The Rainbow Connection was the basis of a bizarre crime in Wanganui, New Zealand. A twenty-one-year-old overly enthusiastic Muppet fan took a radio station manager hostage claiming to have a bomb and demanded to hear the song played nonstop on the air for the next twelve hours. Several buildings were evacuated due to the threat. When it was learned that the man had no bomb, police stormed the station and arrested him.
 * I Love the 70s lists the song as Kermit's favorite.
 * In Jim Henson's childhood hometown of Leland, Mississippi, a local bridge was named "The Rainbow Connection," in his honor on September 24, 2011 (Henson's 75th birthday).