“Hey, Pete, here you go! Two zeroes on a trampoline with a side of Joan of Arc."

If you know, you know. If you don’t, you’re not cool enough for this diner.

Who Is Yolanda?

Yolanda Rat first appeared in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), part of the scrappy community of rats that Rizzo introduces to the gang. She’s got a blonde ponytail, purple eyelids, and a voice that sounds like it’s been refined by decades of New York attitude.

She disappeared for years, popping up occasionally in group shots, until the 2015 ABC series The Muppets gave her the spotlight she deserved: as Kermit’s assistant. Not secretary. Assistant. The distinction matters.

She’s described by fans as “the queen of sass herself,” which is accurate, but also undersells her competence. Yolanda isn’t just mouthy — she’s good at her job. She just also happens to have zero patience for anyone’s nonsense.

Why Yolanda Matters

There’s a specific type of exhaustion that comes from being the only competent person in a room full of chaos. The person who actually makes things happen while everyone else is having feelings about having feelings. The person who keeps the trains running while the conductors argue about the color of the locomotives.

That’s Yolanda.

She works for Kermit, which means she works for a frog who’s perpetually stressed, surrounded by egomaniacs, dealing with crises manufactured by his own employees. She does it without drama. She does it without credit. She occasionally does it while hungover at her desk muttering “Cheese Louis.”

Yolanda represents every assistant, every coordinator, every “office manager” whose actual job description is “prevent everything from falling apart while the people with titles have meetings about having meetings.” She’s the backbone that nobody notices until it’s gone.

And she does it with style. With sass. With the kind of withering one-liners that make you feel seen even when they’re not directed at you.

The Unhinged Analysis

Yolanda Rat is the only female rat in the recurring Muppet cast, and that fact alone should tell you everything about her survival skills.

She’s navigated a male-dominated environment (both rat-wise and entertainment-industry-wise) for decades. She’s outlasted multiple iterations of the Muppet franchise. She’s gone from “one of Rizzo’s friends” to “Kermit’s right hand.” She did this without a character arc, without a romance subplot, without any of the narrative scaffolding that usually supports female characters.

She just showed up. She was good. She stayed.

This is the Yolanda method: be so competent and so no-nonsense that there’s no room for anyone to question your presence. Don’t explain yourself. Don’t justify yourself. Just do the work and make everyone else look slightly foolish by comparison.

In a world of Miss Piggys demanding attention and drama, Yolanda is the quiet flex. The proof that you can be memorable without being loud. That sass is its own form of power.

Two zeroes on a trampoline with a side of Joan of Arc. Nobody knows what it means, but nobody’s going to admit that to Yolanda.

This is an installment of Muppet Monday Mornings, a weekly series where I write about felt creatures with more emotional depth than most prestige TV characters. Start your week with a Muppet.