Fraggle Rock (also known as Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock or Fraggle Rock with Jim Henson's Muppets) is a children's musical fantasy comedy puppet television series created by Jim Henson. It follows a group of interconnected societies of Muppet creatures.
An international co-production of Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, Fraggle Rock was co-produced by British television company Television South (TVS), the CBC, American pay television service HBO, and Henson Associates. Unlike The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, which had been created for a single market and later adapted for international markets, Fraggle Rock was intended from the start to be an international production, and the entire show was constructed with this in mind. At least four different versions of the human wraparound segments were produced separately to air in different countries.
Following the success of the Fraggle Rock: Rock On! shorts which aired on Apple TV+ in April 2020, a reboot of Fraggle Rock was ordered by the streaming service. Known as Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, it premiered on January 21, 2022.
History Fraggle Rock debuted in 1983 as one of the first shows involving the collaboration of Henson International Television (HiT Entertainment from 1989), the international arm of Jim Henson Productions. The co-production brought together British regional ITV franchise-holder Television South (TVS), CBC Television (Canada), and U.S. pay-TV service Home Box Office and the Jim Henson Company (then known as Henson Associates). Filming took place on a Toronto soundstage. The avant-garde poet bpNichol worked as one of the show's writers. In the early days of development, the script called the Fraggles "Woozles" pending the devising of a more suitable name.
Henson described the Fraggle Rock series as "a high-energy, raucous musical romp. It's a lot of silliness. It's wonderful."Random House, 1993. Jim Henson The Works: The Art, The Magic, The Imagination The program proved accessible to audiences of all ages, and used the fantasy creatures as an allegory to deal with serious issues such as prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, the environment, and social conflict.Down at Fraggle Rock documentary; 1987, HBO and Jim Henson Productions
In 2009, as part of the Jim Henson Foundation's donation of puppets to the Center for Puppetry Arts, the Atlanta museum displayed many of the original puppet characters from Fraggle Rock in their exhibition Jim Henson: Wonders from his Workshop.
International co-productions The producers made the series with the intention of it airing in various forms internationally. That concept grew out of Jim Henson's experience adapting Sesame Street to the requirements of foreign markets. The human "wraparound" segments were produced separately in several countries, so the viewer could always relate to the world of the program. The series has appeared now in over 10 countries and languages. The head producer was Wesley James Tomlinson. The original North American version, filmed in Toronto, features an inventor named Doc (played by Gerry Parkes) and his dog Sprocket. This wraparound was also used in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, Scandinavia, Spain, Japan, and Eastern Europe. Dutch, Scandinavian, Spanish, Japanese, and Eastern European shows were dubbed in their respective languages. The British inserts were filmed first at the TVS Television Theatre in Gillingham, Kent (since closed and demolished), and later at their larger studio complex in Maidstone, and presents Fraggle Rock as a rock-filled sea island with a lighthouse. Exterior footage was that of St Anthony's Lighthouse located near Falmouth in Cornwall. The lighthouse keeper is The Captain (played by Fulton Mackay), a retired sailor who lives with his faithful dog Sprocket. In the third season, as Mackay had died in 1987, the role was played by John Gordon Sinclair as P.K., (the Captain's nephew) and in the fourth and final season by Simon O'Brien as B.J. (son of the lighthouse's owner, Mr. Bertwhistle). In 2014, 35 of these British wraparounds were still missing, believed wiped, although subsequent recoveries have gradually reduced this number. As of December 2020, all 96 wraparounds have been found and handed over to the BFI, confirming that the entire UK production still exists in some shape or form.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Nickelodeon repeated it in the UK from 1993, as did Boomerang and Cartoonito in 2007. The episodes shown were the original North American versions. In France, the wraparound segments take place in a bakery with its version of Doc (played by Michel Robin) who worked as a baker and a French Sprocket called Croquette. Doc inherited the home from his eccentric Uncle Georges (who was a noted inventor). Thus, when the frame story required the use of a mechanical device, Doc would find yet another of Uncle Georges's machines. Plot-lines also frequently involved an unseen character, Madame Pontaven, an elegant lady whom Doc repeatedly attempted to impress and invite to dinner with no success. Not all of the 96 episodes were produced in French. The original French broadcast only aired the first three seasons of the series, lasting from October 16, 1983 until September 1, 1986 on FR3. In the German version, the action takes place beneath the workshop of the inventor Doc (played by ) and was filmed at FSM Television Studio in Munich. The series was named Die Fraggles and was first broadcast on ZDF on November 12, 1983. Out of the 96 produced episodes in total, only 85 episodes were presented in German. The remaining 11 episodes (three episodes from Season 4 and eight episodes from Season 5) used its original English audio.
Characters
Besides humans, whom the Fraggles refer to as "Silly Creatures", there are three main intelligent anthropomorphic species in the Fraggle Rock environment: Fraggles, Doozers and Gorgs. The Fraggles and Doozers live in a system of natural caves called Fraggle Rock that are filled with all manner of creatures and features and which connect to at least two different areas: The Land of the Gorgs. "Outer Space" (our world).
One of the main themes of the series is that, although the three species depend on the other for their survival, they usually fail to communicate due to vast differences in their biology and culture. The series mainly follows the adventures of five Fraggles, each with their own personality: pragmatic Gobo, artistic Mokey, indecisive Wembley, superstitious Boober, and adventurous Red. Some of the characters' names are film industry in-jokes. For example, Uncle Traveling Matt is a reference to the traveling matte technique used with blue screen to give the impression a character is somewhere they are not; Gobo is named after a shaped metal grill placed over a theater light to produce interesting shadows (window shapes, leaves, etc.) and Red is a reference to a "redhead", another name for an 800w film light.
Fraggles
Fraggles are small anthropomorphic creatures, typically tall, that come in a variety of colors and have fur tuft tipped tails. Fraggles live a generally carefree life, spending most of their time (they have a thirty-minute work week) playing, exploring, and generally enjoying themselves. They live mainly on radishes and Doozer sticks, made of ground-up radishes and the material with which the Doozers build their constructions. The Fraggles seek wisdom from Marjory the Trash Heap, who is located in a corner of the Gorgs' garden. Marjory the Trash Heap is a large, matronly, sentient compost heap. According to her rat-like companions Philo and Gunge, the Trash Heap "knows all and sees all." By her own admission, she has "everything".
Doozers
Within Fraggle Rock lives a second species of small humanoid creatures, the pudgy, green, and industrious Doozers. They stand about tall ("knee-high to a Fraggle"). Doozers are in a sense the opposite of Fraggles; their lives are dedicated to working and industry. Doozers spend much of their time busily constructing all manner of scaffolding throughout Fraggle Rock, using miniature construction equipment and wearing hardhats and work boots. Doozers build their constructions out of an edible candy-like substance (manufactured from radishes) which is greatly enjoyed by Fraggles. This is essentially the only interaction between Doozers and Fraggles; Doozers spend most of their time building just for the sake of it, and Fraggles spend much of their time eating Doozer buildings which they consider delicious.
The Doozers say in an early episode that "architecture is meant to be enjoyed", and in the episode "The Preachification of Convincing John", Mokey prevents the other Fraggles from eating the building work, believing it to be insensitive to the Doozers. As a result, the Doozer building eventually takes over Fraggle Rock, and once full, the Doozers plan on moving out as they have nowhere left to build. They explain that they want the Fraggles to eat their work to create space for more building work to go up again. Despite this co-dependence, the Doozers generally maintain a low opinion of Fraggles, considering them frivolous. The Doozers also seem to have little knowledge of the universe outside Fraggle Rock; early in the series, they are unaware of the existence of the Gorgs or their garden. However, there was also one time when Doc found, in his workshop, an ancient-looking Doozer helmet, indicating that the Doozers may have explored outside Fraggle Rock into "Outer Space" at some time in their forgotten past.
Adolescent Doozers come of age with a "taking the helmet" ceremony, in which they proudly accept their Doozer helmet from the Doozer Architect, after swearing to live a life of hard work. Rarely, a Doozer will refuse to "take the helmet"; a once in a generation occurrence that is generally met with shock and disbelief in the Doozer community. Such non-conformist Doozers can, however, find places of high regard in Doozer society, due to the advantages of their more creative way of thinking.
Gorgs Outside another exit from Fraggle Rock live a small family of Gorgs, fat furry humanoids standing about . The husband and wife of the family, Pa, and Ma, consider themselves the King and Queen of the Universe, with their son Junior Gorg as its prince and heir-apparent, but to all appearances, they are simple farmers with a rustic house and garden patch. In "The Gorg Who Would Be King", Pa says he has ruled for 742 years."Episode 511: The Gorg Who Would Be King"
Fraggles are considered pests by the Gorgs, as they often steal radishes from the garden. The Fraggles do not consider it stealing. The Gorgs use the radishes to make anti-vanishing cream, without which they disappear headfirst."Episode 119: The Great Radish Famine"
The Silly Creatures of Outer Space In the North American, French, and German versions of Fraggle Rock (along with most other foreign dubs), the connection between Fraggle Rock and Outer Space is a small hole in the wall of the workshop of an eccentric inventor named Doc and his (Muppet) dog Sprocket. In the British version, the situation is much the same, except that the hole leads into the living quarters of a lighthouse where the keeper lives with his dog, Sprocket.
Gobo must go out into Doc's workshop to retrieve the postcards from his uncle Matt from the wastebasket where Doc throws them, assuming they are misdelivered. Traveling Matt (a pun on traveling matte, the film compositing technique used in his segments) is exploring the wider world, observing humans, and reporting humorously false conclusions about their everyday behavior.
Sprocket often sees and chases Gobo, but can't convince Doc anything lives beyond the wall. Sprocket and Doc have many similar miscommunications throughout the series, given the language barrier, but overall, they understand each other quite well.