Fraggle Blog - Born to Wander

Episode IIIxv, written by B.P. Nichol.

Gerry Parkes is so, so, so great.

So is Matt's Uncle Gobo still alive?

It just occurred to me, but I guess they tried hard to leave all visible writing of any sort out of the Fraggle parts of the show, so that they could be dubbed and work internationally.

A fun episode. Neat to have a flashback about how things were when Matt was a kid.

Fraggle Blog - The Great Radish Caper

Episode IIIxiv, written by Sugith Varughese.

So they made a gigantic Junior Gorg hand to be in scale with the full-size Fraggles!

Mokey is wearing a pull top from a can. Is that new?

Junior's farewell letter writing speech sounded weird, like it was recorded at two different times and edited together.

Mokey thinks she can make everything right by returning Geraldine to Junior Gorg...but of course, by picking the radish, the Fraggles have killed Geraldine, who was after all a living thing.

Also...why does Geraldine have a regular human-type name? Well, I guess there are a few Fraggles with regular names. Like Marlon Fraggle.

"What are friends for?", is what Mokey asks at the end. And that's one of the very best things about this show: The aversion to overt moralizing. There's no one moment when Junior and Mokey realize that they have become friends. No bonding moment. It happens, and we realize it, but it seems that the characters themselves never quite do. That, of course, is a bit more difficult to write and play successfully than the obvious, hit-em-over-the-head type moment most shows would have.

Fraggle Blog - Scared Silly

Episode IIIxiii, written by Jocelyn Stevenson.

Now that's nice consistency. It was just an episode or two ago that Doc installed Sprocket's doggie door, and Sprocket just used it.

Seriously...how the heck does Wembley's eye mechanism work?

Marjory speaks out against revenge. Good for her!

Goelz is Philo, Hunt is Gunge. Not sure I knew that.

A Traveling Matt postcard with no intro. (Only an outro.)

I love the way Goelz makes Boober walk, especially towards the camera. Very funny.

Okay, Boober just kissed Wembley. Wow.

Hmm, this "Very Scary" song has great staging and cutting too. It's a trend!

Is it quite, quite perfectly in character for Boober to be such a connoisseur of scaring people?

Um...Wembley is being pretty stupid. Not that he was ever a font of intelligence...but he's being really dumb.

In all, an enjoyable episode.

Fraggle Blog - Gobo's School for Explorers

Episode IIIxii, written by David Young.

Okay...Sprocket's barking at Gobo. And he and the other Fraggles seem to regard Sprocket as a scary creature. I thought that was a communication barrier that had been eroded. Isn't that what's supposed to be happening as the show evolves? All the characters grow to understand each other? Disappointing.

Sure had been a while since we saw Gobo retrieve a postcard.

A couple of good songs in this episode. And the last one, "Face Facts, Pack Snacks, Make Tracks" had some very clever, well thought out staging and editing. Very nicely done.

Matt is really sort of a Cantus-like character. I love that about this show, that the authority figures are very questionable.

Wow, some really great staging in this episode in general. Great camera shots. Kudos to George Bloomfield.

Maybe part of the pleasure of this episode is that we're getting some brand new sets?

Wow...couldn't they have lowered that parachute a little more smoothly?

Okay, this was a really neat episode, the lapse in Fraggle/canine relations notwithstanding. Think for yourself! Throw away the rules! Of course, this thinking could get you into a lot of trouble too. But this was definitely one of the best episodes. Seems like it had a bigger budget than most, and we got new sets and elaborate staging. Yay!

Fraggle Blog - The Beanbarrow, the Burden, and the Bright Bouquet

Episode IIIxi, written by B.P. Nichol.

Okay, the Traveling Matt introduction by Gobo and Wembley seemed to actually be ironically aware that the segment was being shoehorned into the episode.

Lanford is funny. The timing seems right that he might be inspired by Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, who was of course designed and built by Marty Robinson.

Not an especially distinguished episode, but I enjoyed the evolving relationship between Red and Lanford. It's great that there are off-the-wall characters in Fraggle Rock like Lanford.

Fraggle Blog - The Secret Society of Poobahs

Episode IIIx, written by Jerry Juhl.

I like the Fraggle in the opening with the mustache. Not many Fraggles have mustaches.

I think that Sprocket is never right-handed when he's in his bed. Hole must have been too small for two puppeteers.

Well, that was a fun episode, and yay for Convincing John making an appearance! "Don't take life too serious son; it ain't nohow permanent" would seem to be the moral. The Poobah costumes were really neat and elaborate. Will we ever hear of the Poobahs again?

Wikipedia tells us that "poobah" stems from "The Mikado", and has come to mean a self-inflated person, perhaps fond of titles. Odd that the Fraggles would use this term, and not have their own word. Kind of like them having a genie in the last episode.

Fraggle Blog - Wembley and the Mean Genie

Episode IIIix, written by Robert Sandler.

I wonder if there will be any more new writers?

Interesting how important the subplot with the inn is in the Doc/Sprocket segments. It's almost like they ran out of things for Doc and Sprocket to do, and so they had to create this new environment for them to talk about...but we never get to actually see it.

Wembley's nose seems to have gotten dirty...

Interesting that such a human, "real world" concept like the "genie in a bottle" is playing out inside Fraggle Rock. I thought they had their own myths and magic.

So the overall concept of this one seemed a bit labored. Why a genie? And I'm sitting here, trying to remember what exactly the genie was supposed to prove, or teach, or make clear. Why wasn't it granting wishes? That kind of slipped by me. Not one of the best.

Fraggle Blog - Believe It or Not

Episode IIIviii, written by Jocelyn Stevenson.

An interesting episode. I suppose Skenfrith represents the power of our minds to create our own realities. If we believe something is a problem, then only then does it become one.

I'm not sure exactly how true all that is...but there's at least a grain of truth to it!

Only two Fraggles in this episode, Red and Wembley!

Fraggle Blog - Home is Where the Trash Is

Episode IIIvii, written by Sugith Varughese.

Yay, Philo and Gunge get an episode!

According to Muppet Wiki, this would be the first episode shot after the break in production. Pure hindsight, but things do have a slightly different feel to them. And the "Home" song, which was very catchy, seemed to have different instrumentation than typical Fraggle Rock songs.

Why does Wander McMooch seem like a visitor from the world of Sid and Marty Krofft?

Wow, they sure didn't know how to end the Doc/Sprocket storyline for this episode!

A nice episode. Marjory is dependent upon Philo and Gunge, the Fraggles are dependent on Marjory, so the Fraggles go help Philo and Gunge. And so it goes.

Fraggle Blog - Pebble Pox Blues

Episode IIIvi, written by Laura Phillips.

Gobo's teeth feel ticklish. Gobo has teeth?

Wembley's got the roll-y eyes again. I really think there was just one Wembley puppet with those trick eyes, or Whitmire would use them more often.

Wembley's so sick, he has eyelids! Is that a symptom?

Traveling Matt is attracted to cows? He just said "Hubba hubba" to one. Are all of Dave Goelz's characters attracted to farm animals?

Wow, incredible and cool how far they pulled back from Boober and Wembley in that shot towards the end.

A fun episode. I liked that Boober came to a self-realization about his tendency to exaggerate bad things.

Fraggle Blog - Blanket of Snow, Blanket of Woe

Episode IIIv, written by B.P. Nichol.

Did Ma Gorg just say of her mother "May she shed in peace"?

Wow, Philo and Gunge have feet!

A decent episode. It started out being about "not overextending yourself", but sort of degenerated into a wide-ranging story about Gorgs and soup. And there were some things in it that were pretty hard to believe, like that the Gorgs would just happen to have a set of Fraggle-shaped salt and pepper shakers. And the sequence with Junior sliding around on the ice was kind of hard to believe as well. Not one of the greats, but not without its pleasures.