Does It Hold Up: Fraggle Rock
A few months back, we had the amazing Kirby Heyborne on an episode of Authors & Dragons Side Quest to talk about his life, career, and wealth of voices. It’s a great time, and an episode I’d really recommend to anyone who enjoys learning more about audiobooks. In the course of our discussion, it came up that Kirby narrated the Jim Henson biography, kicking off a segment where we talked about our love for the Muppets as a whole.
If you go listen to the episode, you might notice I flounder when asked about my favorite Muppet movie. Truth be told, I didn’t see many Muppet films growing up, to me they were a foundation of the small screen. I grew up on old TV, as mentioned recently, so between the outdated format and guest stars, The Muppet Show was right up my alley. And of course, that’s not including all of the other Henson properties like Sesame Street, Muppet Babies, and obviously, Fraggle Rock.
After that podcast interview, I went on something of a Henson deep-dive, including watching an excellent online documentary series from Defunctland on his life and exploits. I decided it was time to revisit a classic for this segment, the only question was which one. Much as I loved The Muppet Show, it was heavily tied to it’s times due to the pop culture aspect, and based on ratings evidently I was the only one who liked the 2016 reboot, plus that would be a bit too recent. Most of Henson’s content, like Sesame Street, skewed too young to have much to talk about, but Fraggle Rock is something of an exception.
While this is a show clearly meant to impart lessons to the watching children, it doesn’t take the instructional tone of Sesame Street. Instead, there are several distinct characters with their own virtues and vices who get themselves into trouble, muddle through, and learn from the experience. Obviously not breaking new ground, even when it was released, but there’s a reason this format is considered tried and true: when done well, it works. And to no surprise, a Jim Henson production did their shit very well.
In my first few episodes of viewing, I was impressed by how much larger the world was than I remembered from childhood. Between the gorgs, doozers, and fraggles, to say nothing of the living trashheap, the show does a terrific job of making you feel like you’ve stumbled in a hidden world, rather than just a subterranean bungalow. I also really appreciated Gerard Parkes as Doc, the only human character, who plays off nothing but a dog puppet in all his scenes and does a genuinely incredible job. The man injected a lot of heart and humor into what easily could have been little more than a bookend segment.
The core cast is charming and wonderfully voiced, with five main fraggles and tons of side-characters who pop-up and re-appear through the episodes. I was kind of shocked to discover that this kid’s show had bothered with keeping continuity, though that had nothing on the surprises still in store. Of the episodes I watched, which were more than planned but we’ll get to that soon, most held up pretty well. They are, of course, targeted to a younger audience than myself, however the stories were well-constructed, the characters were consistent, and the lessons were nicely imparted.
In short, it had the level of quality we tend to expect from a Jim Henson production. The man did not fuck around when it came to his craft. For a while, I honestly wondered if there would be enough content to even warrant this blog. Picking apart the oddities of a show featuring puppets is like punching a cloud, you’re the one who ends up looking silly. Then I chanced upon an episode from Season 1 titled “Marooned” and learned something else about this childhood classic.
Fraggle Rock can get dark as fuck.
In Marooned, the characters Boober and Red are trapped inside a cave-in, and the other fraggles scramble to set them free. As attempt after attempt fails, Boober and Red have to deal with the fear they’ve been hiding, and open up to each other, getting to understand one another better. You might think it ends there, but oh no, there’s still run time. As the minutes tick by, Red and Boober explicitly state that they are running out of oxygen, Boober warning Red not to fall asleep. If that wasn’t enough, the characters then start discussing what they think happens when they die. There are no punches pulled, these fraggles are full-on staring down the Grim Reaper. While they are finally saved, by the end I was wracking my brain to recall if the show just full-on snuffed characters out.
That was definitely a standout experience, so I kept hunting around, curious if it was just some outlier they tried and never went back- nope! Two episodes later a radish famine strikes Fraggle Rock and they all begin starving to death. That one is more implied than shown, other than characters being hungry, but by this point I’d started looking at episode titles, and when I saw “Mokey’s Funeral” I knew I had a good one.
In this episode, Mokey overhears the other fraggles discussing how terrible her plans and poetry are and sets out to prove her plans work. The fraggles’ main exit to the radish garden has recently been blocked off by gorgs, large monster-like puppets, with a trap. Making a dummy of herself, Mokey hurls it into the trap, tricking the gorg into thinking he’s caught a fraggle. But since it is a cloth doll and not alive, the gorg believes his trap accidentally killed the fraggle, a fact he mourns while Gobo and Red look on.
Now I realize that was a lot of setup with words that sound like gibberish, but there is no way I’m not talking about the scene in a children’s show where one of the main characters breaks down screaming “She can’t be dead! She’s my best friend!” And remember how I mentioned the high quality? The voice actors were part of it, and they didn’t dial back the skill just because a scene was sad. None of this is implied, by the way, the gorg literally digs a grave in the garden and holds a funeral, infuriating the other fraggles who believe her body should go back to their home.
That was all I had time for on this viewing, though I might keep poking around on this one. It’s a great show made by a staff that was putting in tons of effort and with a level of quality that makes it nearly timeless. On the question of does it hold up… absolutely. The level of care shines on the screen, even after all these years.
But if you’re a parent wondering whether or not to bring this one into rotation, make sure you’ve had the mortality talk with your kids. That’s probably one life lesson best not instilled by puppets.
PS: For those curious, the scenes discussed are embed below: