Forty years later, fans still want to be “in Fraggle Rock,” the fantastical world created by Muppet mastermind Jim Henson for a television show that premiered on HBO on January 10, 1983.
fraggle rock It followed the main characters, a species of radish-loving creatures that dwell underground, as they interacted with the societies of Doozers, Gorgs, and the goofy creatures from outer space. (That would be us humans.) And during his five-season run, fraggle rock it taught young viewers valuable lessons about the real world.
“For decades, those involved with fraggle rock they’ve laughed smugly about their supposed mission, which was supposed to be ‘save the world,’” said producer Michael Frith. GeekDad in 2013. “But maybe that’s not as ridiculous as it might sound at first glance… fraggle rockit’s simple ambition [was] to open children’s eyes to the interconnectedness of all things and the indisputable fact that their own actions would have consequences.”
Added Frith: “The audience we were reaching was one that we felt, at least as far as television was concerned, hugely underserved: the ‘middle child’, beyond Sesame Street but not yet, as we put it so succinctly then, ‘reading Playboy,’ still able to get lost in the magic of fantasy, music and storytelling… all in an impossible world brought to life by brilliant puppets.”
As we celebrate 40 years of fraggle rock — and as the reboot Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock streams on Apple TV+: keep reading to learn trivia about the series.
Different countries have different scenes of “outer space”
The human scenes of fraggle rock varies by region HOUR. In the North American and German versions of the show, Doc is an inventor. In the French version, he is a lighthouse keeper. And in the French version, he’s a baker (with a dog named Croquette, not Sprocket).
The actor behind Doc was Doc in The chosen onestoo
After playing Doc in fraggle rockthe late actor Gerard Parkes played a bartender named Doc in the 1999 film The chosen ones and its 2009 sequel, The Saints of Boondock II: All Saints’ Day.
Fraggles are almost called Woozles
According to a Jim Henson Company archivist cited by HOURthe show was called woozle world until the creative team realized that the Woozles were already creatures of the world of winnie the pooh.
fraggle rock It was HBO’s first original series.
Quentin Schaffer, former executive vice president of corporate communications for HBO, said Al Jazeera America in 2013 that fraggle rock it was HBO’s first original series and fundamental to the development of the premium cable channel.
It was the first North American television program to reach the Soviet Union.
In other fraggle rock First, the series was the first North American television show broadcast in the Soviet Union. “We always joke about it. fraggle rock led to the end of the Cold War,” shared Karen Falk, director of archives for The Jim Henson Company, in the book Illustrated Imagination: The Diary of Jim Henson (for Al Jazeera America). “At the end of the year, as the show’s lessons of tolerance and understanding were floating on the airwaves, the Berlin Wall fell.”
Some Fraggles are named after equipment or techniques from the movie.
According to mind threadthe names of two Fraggles are in-jokes to filmmakers: Traveling Matt refers to “travel matte”, a special effects technique, while Gobo is also the name of a plate or screen used to shield a lens from light or to project a shape from a focus
fraggle rock generated animated derivatives
the spinoff Fraggle Rock: The Animated Series aired a single 13-episode season on Saturday morning NBC in 1987. And the doozersa computer-animated spin-off, it debuted on Hulu in 2014 and aired for two seasons.
you can detect fraggle rock characters in muppets films
Characters of fraggle rock appeared in multiple muppets films, including those from 1984 The Muppets take over Manhattan1987 A Muppet Family Christmas1992 The Muppets Christmas Carol2011 The Muppetsand 2014 The Most Wanted Muppets. Call it the Jim Henson movie universe?
You Can Also See Fraggles In A Ben Folds Five Music Video
Red, Gobo, Wembley, Boober, Mokey and Traveling Matt appear in Ben Fold Fives’ 2012 music video “Do It Anyway”. And Chris Hardwick and Anna Kendrick honor the Gorgs of fraggle rock in the video, sporting a Junior Gorg tattoo and a “Boy Gorg” T-shirt, respectively.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was once attached to a fraggle rock feature film project
Development of a fraggle rock feature film started in 2005, according to Muppet Central. The idea went in and out of various studios over the next decade, until Joseph Gordon-Levitt signed on to produce and star in a film. fraggle rock film for New Regency in 2015. However, in 2020, the actor confirmed that the film was not going to work, saying Variety, “There are so many projects that are in development. … We all spend a lot of time working on a lot of things that don’t become real. This was one of those.”
