Fraggle Rock

I remember watching this as a kid with my family. I loved it. It showed so many different types of creatures (Fraggles, Doozers, the Trash Heap...etc) that all made up one world. Everyone lived in relative peace with one another (with a few exceptions.) It showed our world from a different perspective and taught me (remember I was watching this at a young age) different things about the world that I may not have noticed.

Leave it to Jim Henson and crew to come up with this. It seems that everything that he touches is great. Now, I have a young son, and thanks to an old video store that I found tapes of the series that I have bought for him. He loves to watch these shows as much as I did, and I hope that he learns as much from them as I did.

This show ruled!! I watched when I was a little kid when it used to air on HBO, then I watched the reruns of the show when it aired on the Disney channel a few years back. This show was really cool since it had an assortment of strange characters like the Fraggles, the Doozers, and the Fraggle capturing Gorgs. It was also good for it's morals as well. Fraggle Rock like many classic children's shows of its time did not talk down to kids nor underestimate their intelligence for that matter. I my honest opinion, they should bring this back to T.V.

By the way, Wembley, and Boober Fraggle Rule!

Shows like Fraggle Rock don't get the chance to grace the TV screens anymore. Indeed, back in the 80's and early 90's when the show was most popular among kids and (some) of their parents, there was almost nothing else like it on TV. While it shared its connection to the other Jim Henson driven show, Sesame Street, it wasn't restricted to all of the same conventions. I remember the show as a kid bringing some memorable songs, lovable characters, and some morals that rivaled most of the animated cartoons. It was also at times, along with the tradition of the muppets, very funny. The dynamics of the world of the Fraggles, of their middle-world between the world of humans and the flip-side to the Gorgs, is something of fantasy fascination even as I'm now an adult.

Once the basic premise is set-up from episode 1- Uncle "Travelly" Matt goes off into the real world to explore leaving his nephew Gobo and his pals (Mokey, Boober, Red, and Wembly) to have to retrieve a postcard each episode. In each episode, however, the Fraggles- along with their little friends the dozers, and the ominous Gorgs who think of themselves as the "rulers of the universe"- learn some new lessons, and sing some catchy songs. The whole concept of the show is practically never cynical, and like the best animated kids shows they give a variety of characters for kids to identify with and simple adventures for them to go through. There's also the wonderful touch of Doc and his dog Sprocket, who sort of keep a parallel to what the Fraggles learn.

Was this as groundbreaking as the Muppet Show or Sesame Street? Yes and no; the humor and general storytelling is definitely at times more geared to kids, and for some adults it could be a little boring. But on a technical level it's still a marvel- the little dozers especially seem hard to control, which goes to show how much ahead of the game Henson was with his creations (and the mechanics of them). The sad thing is, those who are kids right now have an idea and have seen many of the Muppet stuff- the movies, the show maybe, the cartoons- as Fraggle Rock lays dormant. Luckily there is the new DVD of the first season out, which can provide a glimpse into what made it such a cult favorite in the 80's. I still like watching an episode every so often, and like with the other Muppet films and such, it brings a smile to my face, and not very cheaply either.

Here we have a children's series that creates a world with a totally believable and frighteningly delicate ecology of creatures who really want nothing to do with each other (though they never really say so) but are completely dependent on one another. A series for children that's unafraid to tackle issues such as death, war, religion, self-sacrifice, self-actualization, and interdependency, all without resorting to "preachification" (a term from the series). The fact that "Fraggle Rock" achieved all this *and* kept the tone light and the attitude playful is nothing short of a true miracle.

"Fraggle Rock" has to be my all time favorite series as a kid, and looking back as an adult, I realize how ambitious it was. Leave it to Jim Henson to build an entire world that was so believable, you wanted to visit it. I am certain that this was a once in a lifetime thing. There will *never* be another series with this much imagination or dedication to its young audience. Too bad, as today we need this series' gentle messages more so than ever.

Recently, a few episode of "Fraggle Rock" were released on video. For many of us, these are the only ones we have access to, and I believe that a *real* "Fraggle Rock" fan should have been put in charge of which episodes were preserved. Instead, while volume three (entitled "the Fraggles Search and Find") has the two greatest episodes of all time in my opinion, the remaining tapes' episodes appear to have been chosen at random. Get tape three if you can!

Jim Henson's "Fraggle Rock" was one of my all-time favorite shows when I was a kid, and it still is one of my all-time favorite shows now that I'm an adult (at 26 years of age, as of this writing). "Fraggle Rock" was about an underground civilization of subterranean creatures and their daily trials & tribulations. They also must contend with the elderly man who lives in the house above where their civilization is located. As many people here and abroad have commented, "Fraggle Rock" tackles a number of important real-world issues but is able to deal with such issues in a way that it doesn't pander to its young audience. That is a rare feat in children's shows these days, and is in fact something that always has long been a problem with children's entertainment. It was also able to do all this and still not lose its appeal as a show for young people. I'm also proud to say that I recently purchased "Fraggle Rock" when it was first released on DVD a few years back and fell in love with one of the most important shows from my childhood all over again.

Long live "Fraggle Rock."

10/10