Fraggle Rock

***Fraggle Rock*** (also known as ***Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock*** or ***Fraggle Rock with Jim Henson's Muppets***) is a children's 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, U.S. pay television service Home Box Office (HBO) and Henson Associates. Unlike *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.

## 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 Henson Associates (later Jim Henson Productions). Filming took place on a Toronto soundstage (and later at Elstree Studios, London). 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." 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.

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 main version, filmed in Toronto, features an inventor named Doc (played by Gerry Parkes) and his dog Sprocket. This wraparound was also used in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, Scandinavia, Spain and Eastern Europe. Dutch, Scandinavian, Spanish and Eastern European shows were dubbed in their respective languages.
* The British inserts were filmed at the TVS Studios in Southampton, and later at the TVS Television Theatre in Gillingham, Kent (both studios since closed and demolished) 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 the role was played by John Gordon Sinclair as P.K. (the Captain's nephew) and in the fourth Simon O'Brien as B.J. (the Captain's son). In 2014, 35 of these British *wraparounds* were still missing, believed wiped, although subsequent recoveries have reduced this number to one with 95 known to exist. Nickelodeon repeated it in the UK from 1993, as did Boomerang and Cartoonito in 2007. The episodes shown were the Canadian versions.
* In the German version, the action takes place beneath the workshop of the inventor Doc (played by Hans-Helmut Dickow). The series was named *Die Fraggles* with 85 of the 96 produced episodes being presented in German.
* 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 the elegant but unseen Madame Pontaven (who Doc repeatedly attempted to impress and invite to dinner with no success). Not all of the 96 episodes were produced in French.

## Setting

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" (or 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 travelling 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 22 inches (56 cm) 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

"Doozers" redirects here. For the spinoff TV series, see The Doozers.

Within Fraggle Rock lives a second species of small humanoid creatures, the pudgy, green and industrious Doozers. Standing about 6 inches (15 cm) tall ("knee-high to a Fraggle"). Doozers are in a sense the opposite of Fraggles; their lives are dedicated to work 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 in order 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 the 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 264 inches (670 cm). 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 travelling matte, the film compositing technique used in his segments) is exploring the wider world, observing humans and reporting humorously false conclusions about their everyday behaviour.

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 of the original North American version of the show, 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.

## Broadcast history

The CBC/HBO version of the series has been broadcast and dubbed in 95 countries. The series airs on Channel 7, Doordarshan, and Workpoint TV. Others were broadcast on Coub as an uploaded video, and others broadcast on TVtropolis (Canada), Bolivision (Bolivia), and CNC3 (Trinidad and Tobago).

After the show ended on HBO in 1987, the channel started to rerun the series. In 1988, it ran on TNT. The show aired on Disney Channel from October 1, 1992 to 1996. From 1999 to 2001, the show moved to Odyssey Network, which had recently been purchased by Henson and Hallmark. After Hallmark took full control, it discontinued the reruns. In 2010, reruns began airing on The Hub as part of the channel's launch.

In 2007, *Fraggle Rock* reruns aired on television internationally. On July 23, 2007, Boomerang and Cartoonito started repeating episodes of the original North American production of *Fraggle Rock* in the UK, as they were unable to use the UK edits. In January 2013, ITV broadcast two episodes of this version as part of its Old Skool Weekend feature on the CITV channel.

On December 12, 2015, the remastered "The Bells of Fraggle Rock" episode debuted alongside Henson's remastered *Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas* on ABC Family in its *25 Days of Christmas* programming block. *Fraggle Rock* was available on HBO Now in HD  and in 2016 the series began to air reruns on HBO Family.

In 2019, *Fraggle Rock* debuts along with the Henson classic content on Prime Video in North America, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Finland and Iceland.

On May 26, 2020, Apple TV+ announced that, alongside a series order for a reboot, they had acquired the exclusive streaming rights to the previous seasons of *Fraggle Rock* in the 100 countries the service is available in, making the series the first piece of non-original content available on the service.