The ballad of the Tango Frogs

In the 1980s, Greenville Avenue facilitated the rise of one of the most storied bands in our neighborhood’s history — the Tango Frogs.

No, they didn’t release music — steel doesn’t have vocal cords. But the Frogs have written themselves into the folklore of Dallas, of Texas as a whole and (possibly) of Nashville.

The Tango Frogs are named after the nightclub that they were created for on Greenville Avenue. Shannon Wynne, a Dallas restaurateur and art collector, opened Tango in the 1980s. His other claim to fame is that his father was the brains behind the amusement park Six Flags Over Texas. Hence, the amphibian statues were sometimes called “Six Frogs Over Greenville.”

Wynne knew the late artist Bob “Daddy-O” Wade and was looking around his studio one day and found a stuffed frog playing an instrument, according to an article on the nonprofit Memories Inc.’s website. They agreed creating art inspired by the stuffed frog would be a neat idea, so Wade moved forward with the project.

The Frogs are described as 8-10 feet tall, made of steel and heavy enough to have to be lifted atop Tango’s building via crane. Their heads and bodies rotated and “danced” to music. And they cost tens of thousands — The Dallas Morning News reports $16,000 to $25,000 while Memories Inc. says about $20,000.

The Frogs first showed up publicly in the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Greenville Avenue on the tack of a flatbed truck, according to Memories Inc. When they were set on top of Tango, the City of Dallas initially ordered the Frogs be taken down, saying that they were a form of prohibited advertising. Wynne got this ruling overturned in court with the reasoning that the Frogs are art, not advertising, according to Memories Inc. and a 2014 D Magazine article.

Fireproof Frogs — 1990

But the Frogs had to go anyway when Tango closed in the mid-1980s. They went out

with a bang — according to Memories Inc., a party was held in their honor at the nearby Fast and Cool Club. After Tango closed, Wynne sold the Frogs to Monk White, co-owner of the truck stop Carl’s Corner south of the Metroplex, for $2,500. Three of the them traveled in a sculpture show while the others stayed at Carl’s, but they all wound up at the truck stop again, The Dallas Morning News reports.

Carl’s burned down in 1990, but the Frogs were relatively unharmed.

Then, the band split up. The career-oriented musicians of the bunch — the ones playing the saxophone, guitar and maracas, respectively — went to work for the Chuy’s restaurant chain. Memories Inc. and a 2014 D Magazine article report that they were first at a location in Houston before landing in country music heaven (Nashville).

Home Sweet Greenville — 2014

The other three Frogs — the dancing couple and the trumpet player — seemingly stuck around the Carl’s Corner area, near Hillsboro. Maybe they were a little less ambitious than their siblings, but they made their next big move by coming back to Greenville Avenue. The Taco Cabana where Tango used to be acquired the trio in 2014.

Our neighborhood celebrated the Frogs’ homecoming that included an ’80s-themed party where the amphibians took photos with their fans.

Taco Cabana on Greenville Avenue closed in early 2020 prior to the start of the pandemic in the U.S. By the end of the year, Taco Cabana donated the Frogs to Truck Yard in Lower Greenville, where they are today.

“I couldn’t be more hoppy,” Truck Yard owner Jason Boso said in a previous Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate article. “Truck Yard has always desired and worked toward being an iconic Dallas location that our city can be proud of. We will position the ‘Tango Frogs’ so they can be an Instagram-worthy staple in our city and to show appreciation of this ‘unfrogettable’ artwork.”

Getting the band back together — 2025

The return of the saxophone, guitar and maracas-playing amphibians came with the relocation of Chuy’s in Dallas from the other side of U.S. 75 in the Knox District to Lowest Greenville.

“When we brought them back to Greenville, three blocks from their original spot at Tango, it just felt right,” Chuy’s decor manager Scot Aubuchon told Memories Inc. “From a marketing standpoint, it was a no-brainer. From a cultural standpoint, it was bringing them home.”

When taking the Frogs back to Texas, Aubuchon took them to visit their old stomping grounds, Carl’s Corner, where they received a warm reception.

“As soon as we pulled up, the women there said, ‘Oh, the frogs are back!’” Aubuchon said in the Memories Inc. article.

Both sets of frogs have received facelifts. Ken Robison repainted the Truck Yard bunch a couple of years ago, and Faith Schexnayder revived the Chuy’s trio more recently by adding features like shoes and eyelashes, according to Memories Inc.

Where will the Tango Frogs go next? Will we ever get to see them all in one place again? Time will tell — and we’ll cross our fingers for a reunion tour.

Note: Like any biography of a band, this sextet of musical amphibians’ story contains contradictions. We sourced this story from our own archives and articles from The Dallas Morning News and Memories Inc, and some details have been reported differently. We tried to piece together the consensus here. Just keep that in mind.