Another April 1st has come and gone, and ToughPigs has once again done a silly thing to celebrate the day for pranks and foolishness. It’s a long-lasting tradition that we’ve been upkeeping since 2008(!!), and we had a lot of fun putting together this year’s April Fools Day gag too.
In honor of the recent Muppet Show special, we paid homage to the barely-seen Armadillo in a Tutu. In case you don’t recall, Seth Rogen is cut from the show, and he later laments that even the Armadillo in a Tutu got to be on stage. A character, as he claims, isn’t even “canon”. So we took it upon ourselves to make the Armadillo canon. Whatever that means.
As it turns out, it means that Disney would be editing the Armadillo in a Tutu into old Muppet Show episodes and other Muppet productions. To start, we Photoshopped the Armadillo into some old Muppet scenes, like so:
Next up, Disney announced (well, we announced…) that they would be re-theming the upcoming Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster not just to the Muppets, but specifically to the Armadillo. You can read Matthew Soberman’s full article on the “news” here.
These April Fools Day gags are always more fun when we can include more folks from the Muppet fan community. So we were pleased to receive a bunch of fan art from our talented, artsy friends! They were tasked with either illustrating the Armadillo, or to create a piece that inserts them somewhere in Muppet productions of the past. As you can see, they’re all incredible, and some are even surprisingly touching.
We got even more fan art from the offspring of some of the ToughPigs crew! Below, you’ll find some artwork of the Armadillo from some of their youngest fans.
Notably, the Armadillo had made a very brief appearance in Muppets Most Wanted, so we chose to expand on that. This concept by Beth Cook was edited by Shane Keating, and it came out hysterical. This is what happens when you add armadillos to Muppet songs. Chaos.
Finally, after we debuted our April Fools Day gag, a few more of our friends decided to play along. Check out these art pieces by Lar DeSouza and Lucas Ross!
Thanks to everyone who helped us to put this year’s April Fools Day gag together! Including ToughPigs team members Matthew Soberman, Beth Cook, Shane Keating, Becca Petunia, Anthony Strand, Katilyn Miller, Drake Lucas, J.D. Hansel, Meagan Barbeau, Ryan Roe, Jarrod Fairclough, and Joe Hennes. Thanks to all of our artist friends Chris Smigliano, Will Carroll, Dave Hulteen, Richard Gomez, Noah Ginex, Cameron Garrity, James Carroll, Addison, Iris Strand, Miles Strand, and Maggie Ginex. And thanks to Lar DeSouza and Lucas Ross for joining in!
And thanks to YOU for joining us for another April Fools Day! But mostly, thanks to the Armadillo in a Tutu. We literally couldn’t have done it without them.
Click here to wear your finest tutu to the ToughPigs Discord!
by the ToughPigs Team
