Fraggle Rock the 1987 animated puppet series
Fraggle Rock (original English title Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock) is a television series of animated puppets for children about the characters of the Muppets, by Jim Henson.
An international co-production of Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, Fraggle Rock was co-produced by the British television company Television South (TVS), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the U.S. pay television service Home Box Office (HBO) and Henson Associates. . Unlike The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, which were made for a single market and only later adapted for international markets, Fraggle Rock was to be an international production from the start and the whole show was built with that in mind. . At least four different versions of the human "enveloping" segments were produced separately to be broadcast in different countries.
After the success of short films Fraggle Rock: Rock On! which aired on Apple TV + in April 2020, the streaming service has ordered a new series of Fraggle Rock. Production of the new full episode series began in January 2021. Known as Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, premiered on January 21, 2022.
The program, never broadcast in Italy, premiered between 1983 and 1987 and until 2020 an animated series was also produced on Apple TV + with Italian subtitles.
History
The vision of Fraggle Rock articulated by Jim Henson was to represent a colorful and fun world, but also a world with a relatively complex system of symbiotic relationships between the different "races" of creatures, an allegory to the human world, where each group is unaware of being interconnected and important to each other. Creating this allegorical world allowed the show to entertain and amuse viewers while seriously exploring complex issues of prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, environment and social conflict.
Characters
There are four main intelligent anthropomorphic species in the Fraggle Rock environment: Fraggles, Doozer, Gorgs, and Silly Creatures. The Fraggles and Doozers live in a system of natural caves called Fraggle Rock which are filled with all sorts of creatures and features and which connect to at least two different areas:
The Land of the Gorges which they consider part of the "Universe".
"Outer space" where "stupid creatures" (in other words humans) live.
One of the main themes of the series is that although the three species depend on each other for their survival, they usually fail to communicate due to the large differences in their biology and culture. The series primarily 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 character names are jokes from the film industry. For example, Uncle Traveling Matt is a reference to the travel matte technique used with blue screen to give the impression that a character is somewhere they are not; Gobo gets its name from a shaped metal grid placed over a theatrical light to produce interesting shadows (shapes of windows, leaves, etc.) and Red is a reference to a "red head", another name for an 800 film light. W.
Fraggle Rock
Fraggles are small anthropomorphic creatures, typically 22 inches (56 cm) tall, that come in a variety of colors and have tufted tails of fur. The Fraggles live a generally carefree life, spending most of their time (they have a thirty-minute workweek) playing, exploring, and generally having fun. They live mainly on radishes and Doozer sticks, made of ground radishes and the material from which Doozers build their constructions. The Fraggles seek wisdom from Marjory the Trash Heap, found in a corner of the Gorgs garden. Marjory the Trash Heap is a large, sentient, matronly compost pile. According to its mouse-like companions Philo and Gunge, the Trash "knows all and sees all". By his own admission, he has "everything".
dozer
Within Fraggle Rock lives a second species of small humanoid creatures, the plump, green and hardworking Doozers. Standing approximately 6 inches (15 cm) tall (“knee-length for a Fraggle”). [9] Doozers are in a sense the opposite of Fraggles; their lives are dedicated to work and industry. Doozers spend much of their time building all kinds of scaffolding throughout Fraggle Rock, using miniature construction equipment and wearing hard hats and work boots. Doozers build their constructions with an edible candy-like substance (made from radishes) that is highly prized by Fraggles. This is essentially the only interaction between Doozers and Fraggles; Doozers spend most of their time building just for the fun of it, and Fraggles spend most of their time eating Doozer buildings they consider delicious. The Doozers claim in a first episode that "architecture is meant to be enjoyed" and in "The Preachification of Convincing John" Mokey prevents the other Fraggles from eating the construction work, believing that he is insensitive to Doozers. As a result, the Doozer building eventually takes over Fraggle Rock, and once full, the Doozers plan to relocate as they have nowhere to build. They explain that they want the Fraggles to eat up their work to make room for further construction work. Despite this co-dependency, Doozers generally hold a low opinion of Fraggles, considering them frivolous. Doozers also appear to have little knowledge of the universe outside of Fraggle Rock; at the beginning of the series, I am unaware of the existence of the Gorgs or their garden. However, there was also a moment when Doc found an ancient-looking Doozer helmet in his workshop, indicating that the Doozers may have been exploring outside Fraggle Rock in "Outer Space" at a time in their forgotten past. .
Doozer teens come of age with a “take the helmet” ceremony, in which they proudly accept their Doozer helmet from the Doozer architect, after vowing to live a life of hard work. Rarely, a Doozer will refuse to "take the helmet"; a once-in-a-lifetime event that generally encounters shock and disbelief in the Doozer community. Such non-conformist Doozers may, however, find highly regarded places in Doozer society, due to the advantages of their more creative thinking.
Gorgo
Outside another exit from Fraggle Rock lives a small family of Gorgs, fat hairy humanoids about 264 inches (670 cm) tall. [9] The husband and wife of the family, dad and mom, consider themselves the king and queen of the universe, with son Junior Gorg as prince and heir, but apparently they are simple farmers with a rustic house and garden patch. In "The Gorg Who Would Be King," Dad says he ruled for 742 years.
Fraggles are considered pests by the Gorgs, as they often steal radishes from the garden. The Fraggles don't consider it a theft. The Gorgs use radishes to make an anti-vanishing cream, without which they disappear headlong. [
The silly creatures of 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 workshop wall of an eccentric inventor named Doc and his (Muppet ) Pinion for dogs. In the British version, the situation is more or less the same, except that the hole leads into the quarters of a lighthouse where the keeper lives with his dog, Sprocket.
Gobo has to go out to Doc's workshop to retrieve his Uncle Matt's postcards from the trashcan where Doc throws them, assuming they've been misdelivered. Traveling Matt (a pun on the travel matte, the film's composition technique used in its segments) is exploring the wider world, observing humans and jokingly misleading conclusions about their daily behavior.
Sprocket often sees and chases Gobo, but fails to convince Doc that something lives beyond the wall. Sprocket and Doc have a lot of similar communication issues throughout the series given the language barrier, but overall they understand each other pretty well.
In the arc of the final episode of the original North American version of the show, Doc himself finally meets Gobo and befriends him. Gobo tells Doc that Fraggles refers to humans as "silly creatures" and apologizes. Doc tells him that he thinks he's a great name for humans. Unfortunately in the final episode, Doc and Sprocket have to move to another state, but the Fraggles discover a magical tunnel that allows them to easily visit Doc and Sprocket's new home at any time.
Production
Fraggle Rock debuted in 1983 as one of the first shows involving the collaboration of Henson International Television (HiT Entertainment since 1989), the international arm of Jim Henson Productions. The co-production brought together UK regional ITV franchise holder Television South (TVS), CBC Television (Canada) and US pay-TV service Home Box Office and the Jim Henson Company (then known as Henson Associates). Filming took place on a stage in Toronto (and later at Elstree Studios, near London). The avant-garde poet bpNichol worked as one of the writers of the show. In the early days of development, the script called the Fraggles "Woozles" while waiting for a more suitable name to be devised.
Henson described the Fraggle Rock series as “a high-energy, raucous musical game. That's a lot of stupidity. It's wonderful". with serious problems such as prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, environment and social conflict. [5]
In 2009, as part of the Jim Henson Foundation's puppet donation to the Center for Puppetry Arts, the Atlanta museum exhibited many of the original Fraggle Rock puppet characters in their Jim Henson: Wonders from his Workshop exhibit.
Technical data
Country USA, United Kingdom, Canada
Year 1983-1987
Format TV series
Gender Children
Seasons 5
Episodes 96
Duration 30 min (episode)
Original language English
Relationship 4:3
Author Jim Henson
First original TV From 10 January 1983 to 30 March 1987
Television network HBO
First TV in Italian Unpublished date
Television network Unpublished
