WASHINGTON – It isn’t easy being green. It isn’t easy getting on a U.S. postage stamp either, but Kermit the Frog will manage it next year, along with his Muppet friends.

New stamps also will recall President Reagan, singer Marian Anderson, actor Henry Fonda, songwriter Yip Harburg, notable scientists, famous Marines and sports cars, the U.S. Postal Service said yesterday.

“U.S. commemorative stamps portray individuals, subjects and events that are instrumental to the American experience,” the executive director of stamp services for the Postal Service, David Failor, said.Thousands of suggestions are culled for a few dozen stamps to be issued each year.

If he had to pull strings to get on a stamp, Kermit did it effectively, with no less than 11 stamps honoring the Muppets and their creator, Jim Henson, scheduled for debut in March.

Among those appearing in the set are, of course, Miss Piggy, as well as Statler and Waldorf, the Swedish Chef and Dr. Bunson Honeydew, and his assistant Beaker.

Beloved as they are, Kermit and friends aren’t the first puppets to make it on stamps: Charlie McCarthy managed the feat in 1991, along with his assistant Edgar Bergen.

On the more serious side, the stamp program will be recalling the Civil Rights Movement.

A 10-stamp set honors the courage and efforts of those who took part in that effort with stamps recalling President Truman’s order integrating the military, the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, sit-ins at “white only” lunch counters, and the first black students to attend Central High School in Little Rock.

In addition to that set, singer Marian Anderson will be honored in the Black Heritage stamp series, and tennis star and humanitarian Arthur Ashe will be recalled.

Other stamps planned for release in 2005 include a 12-stamp series featuring the animals associated with the Chinese new year cycle.

In February, the Postal Service issues the Marian Anderson stamp, the 28th in the Black Heritage series, as well as a stamp honoring Reagan, the nation’s 40th president.