Fraggle Rock has nearly slipped into the ether as 'that thing my parents keep mentioning to their friends'. Surely everyone knows the theme song, as it modernized the irresistable hand-clap before Friends got there. But not everyone is familiar with the series that followed it.
The Jim Henson Company is on the brink of an attempt to change that with the release of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock in less than a week; and if this weren't the creative bachelorminds behind The Happytime Murders I might actually be openly optimistic, but let me honor Mokey's wishes and focus on the positive. Here's what you need to know:
Debuting in 1983, Fraggle Rock was the family show that was meant to end war. Do I mean that literally? No, unles it does, then yes.
Jim Henson was coming off the success of The Muppet Show and found himself in a position to do practically any project he wanted. His creative inner circle (save Frank Oz, who'd been following his own path towards film directing) was at the height of their synergy. They were tasked with a simple question: what if a television show could end war?
Now this is where the division between the artist and the entrepreneur shows itself. I think everyone who's not a truly awful human being recognizes two things here: 1. A world without war would be a good thing. 2. It isn't possible. The entrepreneur values the tangible and says "It can't be done, let's focus on what can." The artist says "It can't be done, but the conversation is still worth having, and exploring, and if we come out on the other side with a more empathetic understanding of each other then it's worth doing."
It's worth doing.
Things tend to happen in threes. For Jim Henson and the Muppets, that Tri-force was Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and Fraggle Rock. Sesame Street is a permanent staple of educational television. The Muppets are a franchise (currently under Disney's infallible leadership). But the Fraggles haven't been in the public eye much. They were Gen X's thing, and kind of the Millennials depending on where and when you were. But aside from that, the little furry guys have all but become relics of a more innocent time. Maybe that will change in a week, maybe it won't, but while the zeitgeist sorts that out it's worth taking a few moments (or hours of blog writing) to look back on the things we love and celebrate why.
Today I'm going to do a completely biased top ten list; probably starting a war with other Fraggle Rock enthusiasts who feel differently.
Top Ten Fraggle Songs
Now there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to organize these in terms of best of the best. The music of Fraggle Rock (almost entirely composed by Philip Balsam and Dennis Lee) is as much a character as any of its lead performers, and my soul already hurts for the omission of some genuine favorites (not limited to: Go With the Flow, Sail Away, Muck and Goo, Remembering Song, I Sniff the Rose, There's a Promise, Do You Want it?, Pass it On, and The Rock Goes On). But I have to draw a line somewhere between blogpost and fully comprehensive watch guide; so I'm limiting it to ten.
I don't know what to say about the fact that six(ish) of them are from season one. I don't think the quality of the songs ever waned. It may have had to do with the way the episodes were written early on, perhaps more conscious of how the songs would fit into advancing the narrative. I don't know. But here are my top ten selections in the approximate order you'd encounter them if you went straight through the series.
1. Thimble Beetle Song
First off, I can't stress how important the character of Red is, not just to the series but to our culture. In 1983 geneder norms were blatantly divided. Competitiveness and athletics were purely for the boys; I don't even think the word 'tomboy' had made it into the colloquial vocabulary. Red broke the mold.
Curiously her wonderful performer Karen Prell was a self-proclaimed Mokey in real life, and wasn't pleased with being cast as this character she didn't immediately understand. But episode 7 "I Want to be You" where Red tries to force herself into Mokey's image gave Prell the handle on who Red was by expunging who she wasn't. And nowhere was this more delightfully on display than in the exquisite tongue twister of "Thimble Beetle Song". As a public service, here's the line where Red fails spectacularly.
See the little simple, silly, dimpled, pimpled daughters as they flirt with dirty otters while they flit 'n flatten spatulas and smack-a-whiz and rat-a-tat and flatten maddened hatters on a skitzy kitten stone.
2. The Ballad of Sir Blunderbrain
Oh man. In the first seven episodes it's established that the Fraggles sing and play and work a job thirty minutes a week, and the threats to their existence all come from external worlds. And by now you're thinking you want to pull up stakes and move in with them. And then this shit happens.
"The Terrible Tunnel" (episode 8) is a horror story. Not a Muppets Alice Cooper Halloween celebration, but a very real nightmare of a tunnel in Fraggle Rock that swallows Fraggles, that Uncle Matt seemed to have accidentally avoided, and that still exists wherever it is.
The Ballad of Sir Blunderbrain, as sung by the supporting character only know as the Storyteller, is the tale of a brave-naive Fraggle who meets a truly godawful fate. And from the moment the song's opening guitar chords start, you know this episode isn't dicking around with you anymore. Oh, by the way, it gets even worse when Wembley almost immediately after gets lured to the tunnel himself. Did I mention it's still out there?
3. Doc's Instrumental
I don't know what percentage of Fraggle Rock's creative drive was meticulously planned out versus grown organically, but there's a natural age progression of the POV characters through Jim Henson's big three. Sesame Street is the kids who are built for pretend. The Muppet Show is the range of career adulthood, incorporating grown-ups who went into an artistic field. Fraggle Rock gives us one on screen adult character and he's an elderly man.
Now I can only speak on the American/Canadian version of Doc but it cannot be overstated how brilliant Gerry Parks was in the role. He was and adult with adult issues; he paid bills, he was grumpy, he'd had a fairly normal life and career, and yet he'd held onto traces of the childlike wonder that most adults sacrifice. And as an inventor of relatively useless things he continued doing what made him happy.
His best invention was his version of a calliope which incorporated about two dozen party favors; something Spike Jones or Dr. Seuss would have snatched up on sight. Even if the patent office didn't recognize the thing's potential, Gobo did. And coming from a creature who practically lives off music, you don't get much higher an approval than that.
4. Dixie Wailin'
Episode 14's "The Challenge" starts with the power struggle that we knew had been coming. Gobo's position as 'leader' of this five player band of Fraggles is called into question when a decision of his proves inconsiderate to Red's feelings. Now from start to finish, this whole story arc is a perfect example of how to not patronize your audience. Nothing is spelled out. The script doesn't establish who's right or wrong and it doesn't resolve anything. We don't know if the Fraggles went on their picnic or if Red made her swim meet. They never make it to the Trash Heap to settle the argument. And in the end, no life's lesson is put on display.
But something feels different.
I would argue it's the fact that we've just been through the funeral dirge capable of raising the dead. If for some reason you haven't seen this episode, I'm not going to put that statement into context. I'm just going to say that the aforementioned argument escalates into a performance of the funeral dirge capable of raising the dead, and for one brief season one moment Junior Gorg and the Fraggles are dancing together.
5. Let Me Be Your Song
According to IMDB Jim Henson actually performed in about a third of the series, but we only really notice when that unmistakable Rowlf voice takes center stage. We got the hyper version a dozen episodes earlier with his evangelical salesman Convincing John. But it's the arrival of wandering minstrel Cantus that lets you know something important is about to happen.
Cantus, like Jim and most artists, is driven by something even he doesn't fully understand. This song, with its hypnotic pipe and deceptively simple lyrics, sums up in three minutes what that calling (at its best) feels like. Whether or not Cantus was in fact the embodiment of Jim, the character did seem to represent the way several people on Jim's inner circle viewed him. We all need a Cantus, and when we can't have one, we make one.
6. Ragtime Queen
It's established pretty early on that death is going to play a factor in our journey with the Fraggles. We're on episode 22 "Mokey's Funeral" now. We've already seen several dangers surrounding the Great Hall and been through a very real brush with death ("Marooned" ep. 17) but this episode deals with the concept of sacrifice.
Oddly enough, the audience is let in on the punch line from the beginning; Mokey's not dead and she's not going to be dead. But the characters don't know that, and their reactions to the illusion genuinely hurt. Gobo, who always believes he knows what to do, can't do anything but stare at the dummy. Red (my GOD Karen Prell's acting) goes through all five stages of grief in mere minutes; the moment she demands Mokey still be alive because "She's my best friend!" has made me tear up since I started this blog. Even Junior Gorg expresses a self-loathing at the possibility that he's killed a Fraggle; a peak into his character we hadn't seen before.
But it's Ragtime Queen that really sets the tone of how brutal the feelings in this episode are going to be. First Mokey does indeed fantasize about sacrificing herself to the Gorg's trap for the good of the Fraggles, but then comes up with the idea of sewing together a decoy (made in her image). Cool. Except Mokey is an artist, and she takes the time to sing to her creation about how real she is. How real is she? How much of a soul can a stuffed bit of cloth with a face have (I want to remind you we're watching a Muppet production)? We don't know, we aren't told if dummy Mokey has the feelings her creator claims she does. All we know is there's a slight toe-in-the-pool-of-insanity chance that this episode is exactly as sad as it feels.
7. If It Happened to You
Jumping ahead to episode 41, "Fraggle Wars". The show was designed to end war; it was inevitable that it would actually do it in universe. Red and Mokey stumble across a never before and never again mentioned band of Fraggles who prefer order to chaos; let's call them the Bert Fraggles to the Ernies we've been spending our time with. Mokey, with her Ernie curiosity and trust, reveals herself with no exit plan and gets locked in a cage. Red catches sight of the situation and shags it back to the Great Hall for help.
A lot goes on in this episode, not the least of which is we get to see Red assume the leadership position in Gobo's absence she's always wanted. But the first problem is that even though her fellow Ernies horrified by the thought of Mokey's capture, they still won't focus. So she pulls out the big gun, the song. But like any weapon it goes from motivating to harmful at the turn of a verse when the World's Oldest Fraggle takes Red's honest fear and turns it into hatred. Age doesn't always equal wisdom.
8. Shine On, Shine On Me
The very next episode is called "The Day the Music Died", so you just know it's going to reveal something big. In this case, Gobo has been tasked with writing the Glory Song, which is the anthem of his generation. If you don't know, that's exactly the kind of pressure that makes writing a generational anthem damn near impossible, made all the more difficult by the fact that the Fraggles around him won't shut up with every other song they know.
A misunderstood request leads the whole rock to stop singing at all. Moods start to drop because Fraggles live off this stuff. But then the actual light in the rock begins fading. We discover it has been the product of a fairy-like collective known as Ditsies who literally live off of music. With the light gone, Fraggles can no longer stay awake, making the situation even more serious than we were expecting.
This episode may have been meant as an allegory for depression; although having personally dealt with Dysthymia for about 45 years I can tell you it doesn't quite work as one, but I do see the parallels. The thing I really hone in on is at the end of the episode, Gobo is essentially about to die, and he decides to go out with a song. The song itself, which is implied to be his Glory Song, is not glorious. It's from a place of despair, wishing it could be more powerful than it is. Ironically it IS powerful enough to save the Fraggles and the Ditsies, but on it's own it's simple. It wishes it was more than it is. It's the most un-anthemed anthem of a generation. And as a member of Gen X, this f**king thing might actually have summed us up.
9. The Friendship Song/The Wind and the Pond and the Moon and Me
I know it's kind of a cheat to cram two of them together, but bite me- (sorry; Gen X, remember?) -but allow me to explain. Season one's "Marooned" is one of the heaviest episodes. A rock slide traps Red and Boober together, and the threat of death is very real for them. Boober (who's my favorite character and I've said jack sprat about him) has spent his whole life worrying about death but is strangely at peace when it's right in front of him. But for Red, this is apparently the first time she's been confronted with it.
The Friendship Song is a good song, but I didn't give it its own spot on this list because it's not actually important to the episode, serving only as a pause in a mostly bummer story arc. But the song serves as an unintended mirror to episode 59 "The Beanbarrow, the Burden, and the Bright Bouquet" (or 4B for my own stability).
4B has a similar setup as "Marooned", Red gets stuck in a situation with a character she can barely stand, in this case Mokey's pet plant Lanford, a Night-Blooming Yellow-Leaved Deathwort. A wrong turn during the Beanbarrow Race leaves the two of them in a dead-end surrounded by highly mobile killer plants. This is the second time Red has faced her impending death and she does so with three seasons of experience. It's less tragic with more humor and stronger rays of hope, especially once it's revealed is about to bloom the very flowers that repel the killer plants. But he can't quite do it, and for some damn reason he needs Red to rock him while singing a lullaby. Don't ask questions.
Red sings the mouthful of a title The Wind and the pond and the Moon and Me. This is where the episode gets dark. The lyrics are the kind of thing you'd sing to a child about a happier place than where they are, perhaps because they've had nightmares. But the implication of the line "I know, I've been there" really sounds like Red is referring to the cave-in where she and Boober almost died. During the song her voice starts to crack as if she's realizing their last hope might not work, and not helping is the fact that the plants trying to kill them are mere inches away (one of the more horrifying images in the whole of the series). This moment carries a similar weight of the scene in Titanic when the mother tucks her children in bed knowing they're all going to drown.
10. All Around the World
Again speaking only to the North American version, this song appeared in instrumental form as the backdrop for the Traveling Matt segments starting in season three. In the UK, the song appeared as a 45 RPM single with lyrics sung by Matt, Gobo, Wembley, Red and a female chorus.
Since it's opening episode Traveling Matt is presented as having a wanderlust, and even when he finally returns to the rock for good he still seems like he has one eye on the next untraveled tunnel. The beauty of All Around the World is the implication that he does in fact get homesick in a way that he never expresses outwardly.
But the song is more than that. The lyrics "It's hard to believe as I look around...a culture like ours is nowhere to be found..." aren't just about a silly Fraggle confused by the world of humans. It's the fact that the creators of Fraggle Rock really poured their souls into intertwined ecology of the place, and the world of harmony that the show spends 96 episodes earning is still a distant dream to the world of reality. It's a sad truth as much as it's a celebration of the Fraggles. Why can't we learn to understand each other the way the Doozers and the colossus Gorgs can? Why can't we all get along and recognize that we laugh at the same jokes and dance to the same music?
I don't know. I just know that in two days the Fraggles are back. Maybe they'll remind us of what magic feels like. Maybe they won't, but they'll inspire a new generation to pick up the old DVD's. In any case, welcome back.
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