Fraggle Rock

***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 about interconnected societies of Muppet creatures, created by Jim Henson.

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 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), U.S. pay television service Home Box Office (HBO) and Henson Associates. Unlike *The Muppet Show* and *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 entire show was constructed with this in mind.

## Characters

There are four main intelligent anthropomorphic species in the Fraggle Rock environment: Fraggles, Doozers, Gorgs, and Silly Creatures. 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 which they consider part of the "Universe".
* "Outer Space" where the "silly creatures" (in other words humans) live.

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 Travelling 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 theatre 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 on mainly 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. Standing 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 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.

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.

### 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.

In the final episode arc of the original North American version of the show, Doc himself finally meets Gobo and befriends him. Gobo tells Doc that Fraggles refer to humans as "silly creatures", and apologizes. Doc tells him that he thinks that it is a very good name for humans. Unfortunately in the final episode, Doc and Sprocket have to move to another state, but the Fraggles discover a magic tunnel that allows them to visit Doc and Sprocket's new home easily at any time.

## Episodes

For a list of Fraggle Rock episodes, visit here.