Since the original arcade title, released in 1981, the franchise has been referenced in a variety of media, including video games, films, and TV series.
Games[]
Video games[]
Dead Island[]
A "Zombie Survival Quiz" was held in 2011 in anticipation to Dead Island's TGI (Total Game Integration) event. Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Frogger series, players could win a Frogger Mascot Head, an animated Frogger t-shirt, and even a companion for their PS Home avatar.[1]
Evolution Skateboarding[]
Frogger in his more anthropomorphic form from The Great Quest appears in the game as a playable character.
Glover[]
This bizarre-themed 3D platformer game features a frog minigame that looks and plays like Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge, and it also has a cheat code that turns Glover into a Frogger lookalike. This is likely because Glover was developed by Interactive Studios, which later rebranded to Blitz Games, developers of Swampy's Revenge; and in fact, many of the programmers who worked on Glover also worked on Swampy's Revenge.
King of the Monsters 2[]
Huge Frogger is a giant humanoid frog who wears a high-tech futuristic helmet. He was introduced in King of the Monsters 2 as one of the new playable characters. It is unknown if he is actually a reference to Frogger, although his name seems to hint so.
Krazy Kart Racing[]
Frogger is available as a playable character.
Metal Gear[]
Some games feature collectible figurines of Kerotan, a cartoonish frog character who is possibly modeled after Frogger.
Metal Chicken Ray is also a reference to Metal Gear RAY from the series.
New International Track & Field[]
Frogger is available as a playable character and comes with his own set of missions.
Pixel Puzzle Collection[]
Two of the sprites from the original arcade game that depict Frogger and a Car are featured as nonogram puzzles. Each picture has a brief blurb that allude to their respective roles in the game.
Pop'n TwinBee[]
In this shooter game, also by Konami, there is a giant robot frog-like boss named Furogga. Furoggā is Japanese for "Frogger", most likely being a reference to the frog protagonist of the series of the same name. The body of the boss is apparently modeled after Frogger's in-game sprite from the original arcade game.
Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Castle[]
In this 1991 Famicom crossover game (sequel to Konami Wai Wai World), the initial section of World 9 is inspired by Frogger, where the protagonist Rickle has to make it across a futuristic street with heavy traffic, then a similar highway but with flying aliens, spaceships and UFOs, and lastly by hopping on moving platforms over a deep chasm to finally reach the enemies' headquarters.
Films[]
Pixels[]
Frogger is one of the many classic arcade characters that were sent by extraterrestrial invaders to attack Washington D.C. There, he is hopping across the road like in the original arcade. The only difference is he crushes a car into tiny blocks upon touching it. Before he proceeds to crush three of the main characters, he is caught by a crane operated by another character wearing a Chewbacca mask.
Wreck-It Ralph[]
Frogger can be seen at the Game Central Station where he hops away from Ralph upon glancing at him. While doing so, his iconic 8-bit hopping noise can be heard.
An autographed drawing of Frogger can be seen hanging on the wall of Tapper's bar among many other video game celebrity drawings.
Additionally, a turtle character named Glenn is believed to be one of the diving Turtles from the original arcade Frogger game. However, there is no official source confirming this, neither do Glenn and Frogger seem to know each other, and Glenn seems to hold a grudge against Ralph instead (in a possible reference to how Mario, another worldwide famous video game character like Ralph, is widely known to stomp on turtles).
Music[]
Buckner & Garcia[]
The 1982 album Pac-Man Fever by Buckner & Garcia, in which each song is about a different arcade game from the era, includes the song "Froggy's Lament" as its second track.
TV series[]
Castlevania (animated series)[]
An effigy of a Kerotan (from the Metal Gear series, read above) can be spotted in the library beneath the Belmont Hold during the show's second season.
Frogger (game show)[]
A game show involving an obstacle course based on the arcade game was announced by NBCUniversal and started streaming on Peacock in September 2021. Competitors navigate the course by avoiding obstacles like recreations of cars that push them into a pool below, to high-pressured water steams. The show follows a similar style as American Ninja Warrior and the popular children's game, The Floor is Lava.
Robot Chicken[]
In the episode The Sack (S01E08) of this stop-motion parody series, there is a sketch titled "Frogger Car Wreck" which parodies the original Frogger game, where Frogger (voiced by Seth Green) provokes a multiple car wreck while trying to cross the highway. After a truck explodes and clears some of the way, Frogger calls his many friends to safely cross the highway together.
Seinfeld[]
The popular 1980s-1990s TV show Seinfeld has an episode named "The Frogger". George and Jerry are in Mario's Pizza which is closing down, and they find a Frogger game still there. They realize that the high score of 860,630 points has George's initials GLC (George Louis Costanza). They reminisce about the night it happened and George decides to buy the Frogger machine to immortalize his high score, but Jerry informs him that unplugging the game will erase all of the scores. George calls an electrician and assembles a team and hatches a plan to salvage the game, but when he arrives, he finds the team playing the game, which only has three minutes of battery life left. They can't get it back in the closed pizzeria, but there is an open pharmacy across the street where it could be plugged in. George decides to push the machine across the highway, and an overhead shot of this feat looks much like the Frogger game itself, and the music from the game is played. At the end, George is unable to push the game onto the sidewalk and it gets destroyed by an oncoming truck.
Teen Titans Go![]
- A scene in the thirty-ninth episode of the second season, Video Game References, features a training simulation that parodies the original Frogger game called Cross the Street. There, Beast Boy must navigate his way through oncoming traffic in the shape of a frog that resembles Frogger. After ten failed attempts, he grows frustrated, so he bypasses the gameplay mechanics by shapeshifting into a chicken. He successfully reaches the other side; that is, until he is bitten by a crocodile, therefore, costing him his last life.
- Cross the Street was released in 1981, the same year the original Frogger was released.
