Rediscovering Fraggle Rock: Jim Henson's Endearing Puppet Legacy

If you grew up in the 80s and you had HBO, odds are you can sing the entire theme song to Fraggle Rock, the fantastically weird but wholesome little brother of the Muppets and Sesame Street. But how did this strange and obscure brainchild of the 20th century's most famous puppeteer come to be? Today, we're uncovering the story of Fraggle Rock, the forgotten Jim Henson puppet show. For now, let's let the music play down in Fraggle Rock. In an alternate reality, we would all be watching a show called Woozle Rock. Before the show was too far into development, the Fraggles were supposed to be called Woozles. The Woozle plan was changed once somebody watched Winnie the Pooh and heard the Heffalump and Woozle song for the first time. Woozle World was also the original name of the 70s television show The Great Santa Claus Switch, which, interestingly enough, featured characters called Fraggles. The name Fraggles was eventually decided on with no particular meaning attached to it, because those tend to be the easiest words to trademark. While the theme song and the title indicate that this is a program about fraggles. There are actually four separate communities interconnected throughout the caves of the titular Fraggle Rock. The human world is known as outer space. And that's the outermost layer, where Sprock the dog and humans like Old Man Doc, the Fraggle viewers at home, and George Clooney live. Fraggle Rock is home not just to the fraggles, but also to the doozers, tiny green creatures who love to be the work-oriented counterpart to the dancing fraggles. Seems like a crap deal for the doozers, But they love it. And finally, there is the royal Gorg kingdom, home to the Gorg family, the self-proclaimed rulers of the universe and occasional foils to the Fraggles. All of these communities work together to survive. The Fraggles grow radishes with water from the human realm and are guarded by the Gorgs. The Fraggles use the radishes for food. The Doozers use them to build towers. And the Gorgs use them to keep from turning invisible. Listen, it was a weird show. We could be making half of this up and not even die hard Fraggle Rock fans would be able to tell. The connection between the different communities of Fraggle Rock is explored in an episode called The River of Life. The human, Doc, makes a profitable deal that pollutes the water everyone relies on, like a real douche. This water is contaminated. But once he recognizes that several ecosystems of charming puppets are being affected by his deal, he changes his mind. Eh, imagine that. The Fraggles in Fraggle Rock looked for wisdom and enlightenment in the form of a literal pile of trash. If that's not a metaphor for the 2020 so far, we don't know what is. Marjorie the Trash Heap was the wise and matronly counselor to the Fraggles. Made of orange peels, coffee grounds, and wisdom, Trash Heap was able to use her years of experience as well as some telepathic and telekinetic powers to give the Fraggles some much-needed good advice. It makes a lot of sense. When we need advice, we turn to the internet, which is the closest thing we have to a sentient garbage pile. Each one of Marjorie's suggestions comes with an upbeat bluesy song, making her a character that truly embraces all five senses. The bridge between the human outer space world and the realm of the Fraggles was not often crossed. But when it was, it was done by Uncle Traveling Matt. Gobo's Uncle Matt was the connection between universes, sending postcards back to Gobo of all his adventures. The morality of Fraggle Rock was always nuanced, but it was there. Sure, there were classic kids' show lessons like friendship and sharing and kindness and all that stuff. But from time to time, Fraggle Rock would deal with some heavier subjects. For instance, there was an episode called Wembley and the Gorgs that subtly taught viewers about the intricacies of oppression. In the episode, the character Wembley is captured and forced to work for the Gorgs. Instead of threatening Wembley, the Gorgs shower him with appreciation and praise, which only makes Wembley work harder to earn their favor. Wembley drinks the Gorgade so deeply that he turns his friends away when they come to rescue him. He only comes to his senses once the Gorgs attack his fellow Fraggles. Some reflection is done at the end of the episode where Wembley reveals he didn't realize the Gorgs were exploiting him until they tried to hurt his friends. A powerful message for children and anyone about to enter the job market. Speaking of the Gorgs, they're at the center of another episode about the appeal of the Fraggle culture compared to the Gorgs' authoritarianism. One day, Junior Gorg is shrunk down to the size of a Fraggle. After learning the ways of the Fraggles and becoming part of their society, Junior Gorg decides he doesn't want to be an authoritarian ruler anymore. He decides having power over anybody is uncool, and they create a new society. The political messaging probably went over the heads of the children at the time. But hey, a ruling gorg knocked down to size? I think the kids got it. Musical shows for children starring adorable dancing puppets typically don't confront mortality. And when they do, they tend to tiptoe around it. Fraggle Rock was different. Several episodes deal with the uncomfortable subject of inevitable death head on. Like one episode, Marooned, where a rock slide traps the characters Boober and Red in a cave. With no way out, the two candidly admit their fears about what is going to happen once they inevitably shake loose their mortal coils. Thankfully, they're rescued before any of that happens. But the emotional and existential tone of the episode was totally unique for children's television at the time. The Fraggles are forced to confront the relentless passage of time once again in an episode where Wembley goes on a hike but gets trapped in a rock slide. Starting to think these puppets should stay the hell away from rocks. Wembley is rescued by Mudwell the Mud Bunny, who nurses him back to health and promptly kicks him out. But as it turns out, Mudwell isn't being a jerk. He's dying. And by throwing Wembley out, he was trying to spare the young Fraggle from having to witness the end of his natural life. Wembley sticks around, and all the young children watching at home get to sit through an excruciating sequence as Mudwell finally slips away into the next world while a grieving and emotional Wembley looks on. Pretty heavy stuff for a show with a song called Pucka Pucka Pucka Pucka, Squiddly Boink. Fraggle Rock was also not shy about tackling religion. They had ribbed the idea of cults in a bit in an episode where Marlon Fraggle tries to start a cult that nobody wanted to join. Poor Marlon. But Fraggle Rock also decided to hone in on evangelical preachers, their character Convincing John. Wearing his Sunday finery and performing in high-energy songs, John was able to convince anyone of anything, hence his name. The characters played for laughs, but he demonstrates that Fraggle Rock wasn't afraid to poke some fun at religion. John persuades Red Fraggle to walk around blindfolded and talks Mokey into wearing cups on her hands. What a sicko. Convincing John even gets the Fraggles to stop eating doozer radish towers, not because it would inconvenience the doozers, but because he lied and said that it would turn them into humans. Given the choice between human and Fraggle, you go Fraggle every time. As the theme song clearly states, Fraggles would rather dance their cares away than do anything else, which is another way of saying that they're all basically unemployed. like some kind of puppet remake of Office Space, which we would totally watch. The Fraggles really only put in about a solid 30 minutes of actual labor a week and spend the rest of their time goofing off and making music, like your college boyfriend. The Fraggles can only afford to live their bohemian lifestyle by eating the radish towers built by the Doozers, a super-industrious species who pride themselves on their work ethic. They create towers out of radish dust, which are subsequently devoured by the Fraggles. We're sure these towers are important, but they don't seem to serve any other purpose in the show from being ready-made piles of Fraggle Snacks. Fraggle Rock was the brainchild of Jim Henson and his company, Henson Associates. The company has long been an innovator in the field of puppetry and is behind the massively popular shows Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. And when you're at the top of the biz, you must stay on top of the technology. That's why the staff of Fraggle Rock had to start getting creative with their tech innovations. One of the best examples is the technology that brought the Gorgs to life. Performers would dress up in the full-bodied Gorg costumes, while a technician offstage controlled the facial expressions using animatronic controls, like a dystopian Cyrano de Bergerac. Animatronics were regularly used with green screens, technologies which were both in their infancy at the time. While the show may not seem cutting edge today, it boasted some of the best technology the 80s had to offer. The technology wasn't the only impressive component of the show's production. Most shows are designed with one audience in mind, but Fraggle Rock was designed to be international. While the scenes which focused on the puppets were all done in Canada, the outer space human world featuring the old man Doc were filmed in multiple locations and languages. This meant the puppet scenes could be dubbed while also filming separate scenes for French, German, and Canadian versions of the show, giving them each their own unique traits. Aside from the language changes, Doc's job also went through shifts depending on where you were watching. In France, Doc works in a bakery instead of as an inventor. In England, he works in a lighthouse. Not sure why. Apparently, they don't have bakers or inventors in England. The stories themselves were unchanged, since the themes were a beat everyone could dance to no matter where they watched. And remember all the postcards Uncle Traveling Matt would send? The Uncle Matt puppet actually traveled to all these exotic places, but his puppeteer, David Goels, didn't always go with him. Though Goels did spend some time in New Zealand and Australia for a Fraggle Rock special, oftentimes local actors were hired to perform the character. If you think the show was fun to watch, you should hear what was going on behind the scenes. The crew of Fraggle Rock absolutely loved to prank each other once the camera stopped rolling. Legendary voice actor and puppeteer Frank Oz had a phobia of seeds. He found himself doused with his greatest fear one day after writer Jerry Jewell filled his Venetian blinds with bird seed. Jocelyn Stevenson even wrote a prank into the plot of the episode Scared Silly, after being on the receiving end of a backstage gag. Before the recent Apple TV revival of the series, there hadn't been much Fraggle content in many years. But artist Ben Folds gave us an incredible bit of nostalgia in 2012. His music video, Do It Anyway, was a collaboration between Ben Folds 5, Nerdist, and the Jim Henson Company to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Fraggles. Almost every puppeteer from the original show was there, save for Dave Goels, who was unavailable for the shoot. Classic Uncle Traveling Matt. However, Goels' voice is still used. For a show that really took music seriously, it was inevitable that this sort of collaboration would happen. Hey, Folds made an album with Shatner. Working with puppets was probably a cakewalk.