Episode 219: Doomsday Soup

Boober tells Wembley and Gobo that he's making a radish gumbo. However, he has a problem. His kitchen has every vegetable but a radish, so he makes rutabaga gumbo with dried greaseberries and skunk cabbage. He is also doing laundry, but somebody put yeast in his Rock Soap. Boober mixes the soup and wash water, and unwittingly creates a substance that turns Fraggles invisible. The Fraggles use the invisibility soup to raid the Gorgs' garden at the same time when Junior Gorg is helping Ma Gorg and Pa Gorg with their spring cleaning. However, Boober worries that the new mixture is too good to be true.
Meanwhile, Doc and Sprocket end up doing some spring cleaning in the workshop until another plumbing problem happens.
==Fraggle Facts==
*The Gorgs live for a very long time. Pa Gorg has been saying that he's going to fix the same clock for 104 years.
==Notes==
*In a shot during the rock quake, Wembley, Red and the rest of the Fraggles shake along with the set. Boober shakes along too, but after a few shots, he, along with Gobo, stands perfectly still and apparently unaffected by the quake.
*All of the songs in this episode were written by Tim Wynne-Jones, instead of the usual lyricist, Dennis Lee.
*Episode writer Sugith Varughese recalled filming of the episode in 2020: "Jim actually directed one of my scripts, Doomsday Soup, which was kind of amazing but also not. In that Jim was just a very good experienced Muppet director and knew how to do the job really well. He was just as you’d expect, soft spoken, never got upset. I remember there was a gag with Sprocket’s dish in that show and for some reason, the dish never fell right and it took something like 20 takes to work right. And he never got perturbed. Just kept going until it worked. (Now since it was Jim, no one was going to tell him not to or to hurry up, but I always remember how unflappable he was.)""Part two of our interview with Sugith Varughese!", The Muppet Collection Page on Facebook, 3 June 2020.
==International versions==
*UK: When Sprocket gets the hiccups, the Captain has to think of a way to cure them. Medicine doesn't work. Mrs. Widgets sends over a home-made soup that will act as a cure. In Uncle Matt's postcard, Matt is strolling by a large Fraggle pond (at the seaside) and notices many silly creatures eating a pink cloud (cotton candy). He concludes it must be one of their basic food groups. When he tries to eat it himself, it turns out to be a woman wearing a pink wig. The Captain is preparing Mrs. Widget's soup, but Sprocket insists that the Captain tries it himself first. He says it tastes delicious, but it also gives him the hiccups.
==Songs==
*"Dump the Stuff Out (Yucky for Sure)"
*"Spring Cleaning"
*"A Fraggle You Can't See"
==Video releases==
*Fraggle Rock: Complete Second Season (HIT!, 2006)
*Fraggle Rock: Complete Series Collection (HIT!, 2008)
==Sources==
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