History Literature / FrogAndToad

* IgnoredEpiphany: In "Cookies", after Frog tries to teach about willpower by giving away the rest of the cookies to the birds, Toad walks off and openly announces he's [[HereWeGoAgain now going to bake a cake]].

* IgnoredEpiphany: In "Cookies", after Frog gives away the rest of the cookies to the birds to teach willpower, Toad walks off and openly announces he's [[HereWeGoAgain now going to bake a cake]].

* ShaggyDogStory: The ending of "The Button", where Frog and Toad go looking for the button that fell off Toad's jacket after believing that they lost it while taking a walk. After finding a number of buttons that aren't his, much to Toad's increasing frustration, Toad finally loses his temper and stomps off home...whereupon he finds his missing button on the floor of his house, having fallen off before the day even started. Toad realizes that he dragged Frog all over the place and threw a fit in front of him over nothing and decides to apologize to Frog by giving Frog his jacket (now adorned with all of the buttons they found).

* ''Frog and Toad Together'' (1972) ([[UsefulNotes/NewberyMedal Newbery Honor]] award)

[[quoteright:336:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Frog_and_Toad_709.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:336:Once upon a time there were two good friends, a frog and a toad...]]

* TemptingCookieJar: In "Cookies," Frog and Toad try to stop themselves from eating too many cookies by putting them in a box, but they keep opening up the box and eating cookies anyway. After some failed attempts at making the box increasingly inaccessible (tying the box up with string, putting the tied-up box on a high shelf, and so on), Frog throws the cookies to the birds to [[AnAesop teach Toad about the importance of willpower]].

* CrazyPrepared: Toad tries to enact this trope by gathering several items with which to rescue Frog, who Toad imagines to be in great danger. [[spoiler:Frog is just fine.]]

-->'''Matthews''': There was a pause while his furnace heated up. [[BerserkButton Then he exploded]]: "Yeah, sure! Frank the Frog! Tom the Toad! Sid the Snail! (etc!)" I felt like a small bug with a tiny brain. But mostly he was a sweet guy - if you didn't ask too many questions.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: It's the story about a frog and a toad who, per the title of the first book, are friends.

* MistakenForBrooding: In "Days with Frog and Toad", Toad finds a note on Frog's front door saying he wants to be alone. Toad soon sees Frog on an island, looking out in the distance, and he thinks Frog is either moping or angry with him. When he laments having dropped the lunch he made for Frog in the lake, Frog reveals that he already is happy and that he just wanted to be alone to think about how grateful he is about life.

* NothingIsScarier: In Toad's dream, he dreams he is the greatest toad in the world. With each act onstage, Frog gets smaller and smaller until he eventually disappears. Toad realizes he is now alone. He wakes up, and Frog is just fine.

** Frog and Toad have several moments where they act more like partners than friends. However, their orientation and nature of their friendship is forever shrouded in ambiguity because of the fact that Arnold Lobel died of AIDS complications before he could get the chance to elaborate on the nature of Frog and Toad's relationship.

* TheAtoner: Toad, being more prone to losing his temper than Frog, is equally prone to try to find a way to amend his mistakes, be it giving Frog his coat after they spend the day looking for a lost button or being extra kind to his seeds after he yells at them.

** [[WordOfStPaul Lobel's daughter]] has commented that her father came out as gay a few years after he wrote the first Frog and Toad book; she theorizes that writing the book, with its close friends of the same sex, was the beginning of that process for him.

There are two [[AnimatedAdaptation Animated Adaptations]]. The first, made by Churchill Films in 1985, used Claymation and adapted two ''Frog and Toad'' books. Frog and Toad were voiced by [[SopranoAndGravel Will Ryan and Hal Smith]]. Creator/AppleTVPlus created a second adaptation in 2023, and uses traditional 2D animation. Frog and Toad are voiced by Nat Faxon and Creator/KevinMichaelRichardson.

There is also an AnimatedAdaptation of two ''Frog and Toad'' books, made by ''Creator/ChurchillFilms'' in 1985, and voiced by [[SopranoAndGravel Will Ryan and Hal Smith]].

* ConformingOOCMoment: At the end of the chapter "The Swim" in ''Frog and Toad Are Friends'', Toad reluctantly comes out of the water, [[EmbarrassmentPlot revealing his embarrassing swimsuit]]. A turtle, some lizards, a snake, a field mouse, and even Frog laugh at him, which is strange since Frog is often more sympathetic to Toad's plights.

* ObsessedAreTheListmakers: In "The List", a story in ''Frog and Toad Together'', Toad makes a list of things to do and sticks to it so rigidly that when the wind blows the list away, he refuses to chase after it because chasing the list wasn't on his list of things to do. Heck, neither of them feel like they can do ''anything'', because they can't quite remember what was on the list. Eventually, when the sun sets, Toad remembers that "go to sleep" was on the list. They write that on the ground, cross it out, and go to sleep right there.

* ADogNamedDog: Frog is a frog. Toad is a toad. According to John Clark Matthews, who animated the stop-motion adaptation, he once asked Lobel why he didn't give them actual names. Lobel didn't respond well to the query.
-->'''Matthews''': There was a pause while his furnace heated up. [[BerserkButton Then he exploded]]: "Yeah, sure! Frank the Frog! Tom the Toad! Sid the Snail! (etc!)" I felt like a small bug with a tiny brain. But mostly he was a sweet guy - if you didn't ask too many questions.

* StreisandEffect: In-universe. Toad has Frog ask a turtle to leave the pond they're swimming in because he doesn't want it to see how funny he looks in his OldTimeyBathingSuit. It backfires in that not only does the turtle ''not'' leave when asked, but the other animals hear about it and gather round because they now want to see Toad's funny-looking suit.