Fraggle Rock
From Muppet Wiki
| First aired | January 10, 1983 |
| Last aired | March 30, 1987 |
| Network | HBO |
| Seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 96 |
Fraggle Rock was a children's television series created by Jim Henson, primarily featuring a cast of Muppet creatures called Fraggles.
The vision of Fraggle Rock articulated by Jim Henson was to depict a colorful and fun world, but also a world with a relatively complex system of symbiotic relationships between different "races" of creatures, an allegory to the human world, where each group was somewhat unaware of how interconnected and important they were to one another. Creating this allegorical world allowed the program to entertain and amuse while seriously exploring complex issues of prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, environment, and social conflict.
The show was also specifically designed for international co-production, constructed in such a way that it could be easily be tailored to different countries and cultures.
Fraggle Rock generally refused to over-simplify any individual issue, instead simply illustrating the consequences and inherent difficulties of different actions and relationships. Though the Fraggles do learn important lessons, they rarely are aware that they are learning them. The ideals of friendship, being true to yourself, and learning to love those who are incredibly different, were the cornerstone of Jim Henson's work throughout his career, and he considered Fraggle Rock to be one of the purest and most successful expressions of that vision.
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The inhabitants of Fraggle Rock
Fraggles
Fraggles are small humanoid creatures, about 22 inches tall, that come in a wide variety of colors and have tails that bear a tuft of fur on the end. They live in a system of natural caves called Fraggle Rock that are filled with all manner of creatures and features, and which seem to connect to at least two different worlds and may therefore be interdimensional in nature. Fraggles live a very carefree life, spending most of their time playing, exploring, and generally enjoying themselves. They live on a diet of vegetables (mainly radishes) and Doozer sticks. Fraggles have the unique ability to "share dreams": if they touch their heads together before falling asleep, one can enter the dream of the other Fraggle. More than one Fraggle at a time can enter a single Fraggle's dream, provided all the participants heads are touching before they fall asleep.
The series focused on one group of Fraggles in particular; Gobo, Mokey, Red, Wembley, and Boober. They form a tight-knit group of friends, and each has a distinctive personality type. Gobo is the "leader", level-headed and practical, and considers himself chiefly an explorer. Mokey is highly spiritual and artistic, being quiet and contemplative. Red, on the other hand, is exuberant and athletic; she is one of the best swimmers among the Fraggles. Wembley is nervous and pathologically indecisive, though no coward when push comes to shove. Boober's cardinal trait is depression and worry, and his favorite activity is washing socks -- Fraggles, however, do not seem to use footwear most of the time.
Doozers
Within Fraggle Rock lives a second species of small humanoid creatures, the pudgy green ant-like Doozers. Standing only 6 inches tall, Doozers are in a sense anti-Fraggles; their lives are dedicated to work and industry. Doozers spend much of their time busily constructing all manner of pointless scaffolding throughout Fraggle Rock, using miniature construction equipment and wearing hardhats and work boots. To ensure that they always have a steady stream of work to do, 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, and Fraggles spend much of their time eating tasty Doozer buildings. They thus form an odd sort of symbiosis. The symbiosis was part of an episode where Mokey called the Fraggles not to eat the Doozers constructions - because they spend so much time making them. Fraggle Rock was quickly filled with constructions and the Doozers had no space left to build. After running out of space, the Doozers finally decided that it was time to move on to a new area because the Fraggles would not eat their constructions, and there was even a tragic scene with a mother explaining to her daughter about how things don't always work out but that they would find a new place to live where their constructions would get eaten. They finally convinced Mokey that they didn't mind that the constructions were eaten, because this enabled the Doozers to build ad infinitum.
The series had several episodes that featured a Doozer as a main character, the young female named Cotterpin, and reveals much of Doozer culture; it is surprisingly well developed.
At one point, there was a series of Fraggle Rock books, one entitled The Legend of the Doozer Who Didn't. This book details the story of a Doozer who went against Doozer tradition when he stopped working and going to school. According to this book, a Doozer who doesn't Do in fact becomes a Fraggle.
Gorgs
Outside another exit from Fraggle Rock live a small family of Gorgs, giant furry humanoids standing 22 feet tall. The husband and wife of the family consider themselves the King and Queen of the Universe, with their son Junior Gorg as its prince and heir, but to all appearances they are really simple farmers with a rustic house and garden patch. Fraggles are considered a pest by the Gorgs, as they steal radishes. (In one episode it is revealed that the Gorgs use radishes to make "anti-vanishing cream" that prevents them from becoming invisible. Thus, the three main races of the Fraggle Rock universe - Fraggles, Doozers and Gorgs - are all dependent on the radishes for their own particular reason). Also in the Gorgs' world is a sapient compost heap called Marjory, and her two rat-like sidekicks Philo and Gunge. The Fraggles consider Marjory the Trash Heap to be all-wise and go to her for advice regularly.
The Silly Creatures of Outer Space
Gobo's uncle Matt, known as Traveling Matt, has gone into "Outer Space" (which is what the Fraggles call the normal human world) to explore, and he sends postcards back to Gobo regularly. In the North American version, the connection between Fraggle Rock and Outer Space is a small hole in the wall of the workshop of an eccentric inventor called Doc, and Gobo must go out into Doc's workshop to retrieve the postcards from the wastebasket where Doc throws them. Doc is unaware of the Fraggles' existence, but his dog Sprocket has seen them and goes to great efforts to attempt to prove them to his master. Humans are known to Fraggles by the name "Silly Creatures," bestowed by Matt after observing and interacting with them in his travels.
In the UK version of Fraggle Rock, the entrance to Outer Space leads to a lighthouse manned by a lighthouse keeper known as the Captain, who shares many of the same characteristics as Doc, only he's a little more harsh on Sprocket.
Co-Productions
The first episode aired on January 10, 1983, and the last episode aired on March 30, 1987 for a total of five seasons, with a total of 96 episodes. The show was a co-production between British television company Television South (TVS), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, U.S. pay television service Home Box Office and Henson Associates.
Unlike Sesame Street, which had been created for a single market and only later adapted for international markets, Fraggle Rock was intended from the start to be an international production, and the whole show was constructed with this in mind. The bulk of the show would consist entirely of puppets, which could easily be dubbed into another language. Human "wraparound" segments could then be shot separately for each nation, so that the child viewer could always relate to the world of the program; no matter where it was aired, it would look like a locally produced show.
The Muppets were in an ideal position to take on a project of this kind; thanks to the worldwide success of their last series, The Muppet Show, they already had the international recognition and appeal that would be needed to secure the necessary business deals.
The internationality of Fraggle Rock informed the whole tone of the show. The knowledge that it would reach children all over the world prompted Jim Henson to suggest that the show be about conflict resolution, with the ultimately ambitious goal of helping to stop war. This in turn led to the notion of different kinds of creatures who have to learn to live together.
The three full co-productions occurred in France, Germany, and the UK, producing local Doc and Sprocket segments and Traveling Matt postcards. Other international versions were simply dubbed into the appropriate language, with no localized footage. In Down at Fraggle Rock: Behind the Scenes, Jim Henson reported that the series had been seen in over 90 countries and dubbed into thirteen languages. In 1989, it became the first Western show to be seen in Russia.
Episodes
See Category:Fraggle Rock Episodes
Video and DVD Releases
HBO Home Video originally released videos of the show in the United States. These releases had only one episode each. At the same time, in the United Kingdom, Virgin Video released some episodes as part of its Jim Henson Presents video label, with two episodes per volume.
In 1993, Jim Henson Video released five volumes, with two episodes each. The first four were released at the same time, and the fifth one, A Festive Fraggle Holiday, was released later in the year. The original closing was replaced with a new closing, which had a plain blue background and a small edge of rock on the top right corner, with the closing theme audio playing. The openings and closings were only shown once, instead of in both episodes.
Starting in 2004, HIT! Entertainment started releasing the show on video and DVD. The videos only had two episodes, while the DVDs had three episodes as part of the main feature, and with the exception of the first release, all DVDs have had trivia games that unlocked bonus episodes. However, the first few releases only had the openings and closings shown once, instead of in every individual episode. This changed starting with the release of the first season.
Following the sale of The Muppets to The Walt Disney Company in 2004, the title logo has occasionally been changed on DVD releases. Originally, the logo read Fraggle Rock with Jim Henson's Muppets, but the first few DVD releases from HIT! Entertainment changed the logo to read Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock, and the logo also changed design. When the first season was released on DVD, the original logo was used for every episode, and the single-disc releases that followed also included the original logo.
When the second season was released on DVD, all episodes on the first disc had the replaced logo, but the rest of the episodes in the set had the original logo. The newer logo also replaced the old one in the closing, and this logo has been used in all Fraggle Rock merchandise since 2004.
Credits
- Creators: Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl, Michael K. Frith, Duncan Kenworthy, Jocelyn Stevenson
- Producers: Jim Henson, Duncan Kenworthy, Lawrence S. Mirkin, Martin G. Baker, Jerry Juhl,
- Writers: Jerry Juhl (head writer), Jocelyn Stevenson, Jim Henson, Susan Juhl, B.P. Nichol, David Young, Laura Phillips, Sugith Varughese, Carol Bolt, David Brandes, Bob Sandler
- Directors: George Bloomfield, Jim Henson, Perry Rosemond, Norman Campbell, Peter Harris, Martin Lavut, Richard Hunt, Terry Maskell, Wayne Moss, Les Rose, Eric Till
- Puppeteers: Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Kathy Mullen, Karen Prell, Richard Hunt, Terry Angus, Jim Henson, Cheryl Wagner, Rob Mills, Bob Stutt, Mike Petersen, John Pattison, Trish Leeper, Gord Robertson, Sandra Shamas, Myra Fried
- Human Cast: Gerry Parkes
- Conceptual Designer: Michael K. Frith
- Music: Philip Balsam (composer), Dennis Lee (lyrics), Don Gillis (musical director)
External links
- The Fraggle Rock DVD Petition Website
- IMDb
- Chris' Fraggle Rock Page
- Elin's corner of Fraggle Rock - Lyrics and guitarchords to a lot of the songs
- The Unofficial Fraggle Rock Site
- Fraggle Rock at TV.com
- Unofficial Fraggle Fan Site
