Fraggle Blog - The Riddle of Rhyming Rock

Episode Vii, written by B.P. Nichol.

Herkimer's cool looking. I like the wrinkles.

The Storyteller has a falsetto voice not unlike Mr. Moose on Captain Kangaroo.

Hmm, I wonder if that entire shot was shot backwards. Would have been fun to lip sync backwards.

Kind of a weird episode. I felt like it should have been built around Da Vinci Code-like riddles (except actually clever), but it wasn't. It's always nice though when we discover a new area of the Rock that we've never seen before. Who created Rhyming Rock? What's its history? I wonder.

Fraggle Blog - Mirror, Mirror

Episode Vi, written by Jocelyn Stevenson.

The Magic Mirror has an unusual-sounding voice.

So Doc's mirror is the twin of the mirror Red found?

So...what's Red's motivation for running into the Gorg's castle to try to save Mavis the Mirror? Mavis was being kind of an inscrutable jerk.

This is suffering from hazy motivation. Things seem to be working out well, so why is Red still so dead set on getting Mavis away from Ma Gorg?

Ooh, Fraggle, Doozer and Gorg all in the same shot! Is that a first?

Doesn't that glue need to dry?

Gobo kissed Red! Now Boober too! More firsts?

So, I wonder if Doc's mirror is magical too? Can magical objects exist outside of Fraggle Rock, and into Outer Space? Of course, since Outer Space also contains a mystical land with golden apples and a blue dragon, I guess anything is possible.

Fraggle Blog - Boober Gorg

Episode IVxiii, written by Sugith Varughese.

Sprocket is one gorgeous puppet.

Amnesia! Has there ever been a TV show that didn't have an amnesia episode?

Gee, what was that Three Stooges move that Gobo just did to Boober? Tummy poke and nose twang?

This episode is all about brainwashing! Strange topic for a show, and carrying it through both the Fraggle and Doc/Sprocket storylines.

So, that's the end of what was broadcast as season 4, even though there was no break between the shooting of this episode and the next one. Wow, only 13 episodes to go!

Fraggle Blog - Space Frog Follies

Episode IVxii, written by David Young.

I feel like even if I hadn't read that Rob Mills was puppeteering Gobo to Jerry Nelson's voice, I would be able to tell that something's up. Things are really weird with Gobo. He's very subdued. But why wasn't Nelson doing the puppeteering? There must be a reason...

Okay, Wembley's "watch my lips" was a definite nod to Kermit and The Muppet Movie.

So how do Fraggles stick pickles to their noses?

The resolution of the Doc/Sprocket story was extremely farfetched. Ned Shimmelfinney likes for people to destroy his clothing! Of course!

A fun episode though. Neat to see a real life animal in Fraggle Rock. And they showed remarkable restraint in making only one Kermit reference!

Fraggle Blog - Wonder Mountain

Episode IVxi, written by Robert Sandler.

Okay, I guess Whitmire does show us Wembley running offscreen right in the opening, just before he's entirely out of the camera range. Which makes it a little more feasible that he could make that jump into the water.

Lanford is funny. How is it that two of the funniest characters on this show don't even have eyes? How do they do that?

Okay, those singing cacti were weird. A very Sid and Marty Krofft idea.

The Avalanche Monster looks like a demented gray Elmo.

Okay, Mokey and Red trying to work out their interpersonal relationship while they're hiding terrified from the Avalanche Monster just isn't working for me...

"We have got to think of a way out of this mess!" Yes, you certainly do...

All this talking about their feelings! Feelings! Feelings! Just do stuff, and let us figure it out!

Yeah, somehow this episode made me appreciate the writing of other episodes...the "moral" and "lesson" were just far too explicitly spelled out.

Fraggle Blog - Red's Blue Dragon

Episode IVx, written by Susan and Jerry Juhl.

Okay...so...why is Gobo retrieving a postcard from Doc's garbage when Matt has come back to stay?

Oh, okay...I guess they've accounted for the seeming discrepancy.

Now this is interesting...Red's "outer space" seems to be some sort of mystical fairy land!

Ooh, Red with a practical hand!

That was a fun episode. And it really revealed something interesting about the whole Fraggle Rock world..."Outer Space" isn't necessarily what we think of as "reality". It can also be a fictional place (fictional to us, anyway) like a fairy land where dragons live.

Fraggle Blog - Wembley's Flight

Episode IVix, written by Jerry Juhl.

Okay, so in the opening, don't we see Wembley standing there singing, and just as soon as he's out of the shot, he's jumping into the water? It doesn't seem as though he'd have enough time to get to wherever he's jumping from.

I think the Spiderfly almost went a bit Shakespearean on us. Something about "more things than are dreamt of in your...(philosophy)".

That Spiderfly (or "Odd Old Man") is a great looking puppet!

1986, and Doc's got a personal computer he uses to authoritatively prove things. I guess computers were just beginning to capture the public's imagination.

Marlon Fraggle! Yay!

Wembley's singing voice sounds really pinched and nasal this episode.

Weird that the shot of Wembley flying in his and Gobo's room was so slowed down. It really felt out of place in the sequence.

Aw, I wanted to see Sprocket fly!

Another Doc/Sprocket concluding sequence that felt like it needed a tag line or something.

Okay, really, this episode was pretty much exactly like the one that came before it. Wembley was motivated principally by jealousy, and he learned the lesson that you should do a thing simply for the pleasure in doing it, and not for less pure motives. It was a fun episode, and the Spiderfly was a fun and funny character and great puppet, but it was odd having two such similar episodes back to back.