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Amphibians in Movies   The Sound of Music (1965)   Spoiler Alert ! Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.   This musical won the Academy Award for Best Picture along with a few other Oscars, and it was the highest-grossing movie ever made for years. Because music and movies are two of my favorite things, over the years I have forced myself to watch a lot of highly-regarded movie musicals, but I have rarely enjoyed any of them. This one I enjoyed. It has great songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and it's the rare musical with an interesting plot. I had not seen it in decades, but after seeing a Sound of Music tour bus full of the movie's fans in Salzburg Austria, where the movie takes place, I decided I should watch it again. It's definitely my favorite movie musical with Nazis. (Sorry "The Producers.") And I was pleasantly surprised to find that it includes a not insignificent scene starring a toad. At the beginning of the movie, Maria (Julie Andrews) tries to become a Nun but fails, so she leaves for the huge Von Trapp estate where she has been hired to be the new governess to seven bratty children who have scared off their previous governesses. Hoping to scare away Maria, too, the children sneak a toad into one of her pockets. When she discovers the toad, Maria freaks out and tosses it across the room. It lands on the floor at the children's feet and hops out the door. The housekeeper tells Maria that she is lucky because one of the previous governesses found a snake in her pocket. Instead of getting angry at the children, Maria uses a bit of sly reverse psychology on them to make them feel guilty, and it works. When they are all seated at the dinner table, Maria thanks them for the kind and thoughtful gift they left in her pocket to make her first moments in the house so warm. And she doesn't even sound sarcastic saying that. When they hear how nice she is, the children begin sobbing, feeling bad about the toad prank. Afterwards, the children start to behave. Yada yada yada, they sing a lot of songs and hide from the Nazis. The End. I wish all movie musicals were that short.