AppleTV+ - Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock: We were totally won over

By Mulder, 19 january 2022

"The word of imagination is there for all of us - a sense of play, of pretending, of wonder" - Jim Henson

If, like us, you were a child in the 80's, you must have excellent impressions of animated series such as Goldorak, Cobra, Ullyse 31 but also of cult series with puppets such as the Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock. The latter remains anchored in our collective memories by its inventiveness, the quality of its scenarios, its humor, its songs but especially its playfulness. The original series consisted of 96 episodes and was broadcast in the United States on HBO between January 10, 1983 and March 30, 1986 and was a huge success. The series was broadcast in France on FR3 and rebroadcast many times on other channels (Canal J, La 5, Gulli). Created by Jim Henson, who also created the Muppet show, this series remains a favorite of many viewers. On May 26, 2020, Apple TV+ acquired exclusive streaming rights to previous seasons of Fraggle Rock in all 100 countries where the service is available, making the series the first piece of non-original content available on the service.  

A short series was released in 2020, Fraggle Rock: Rock On! showing Apple TV+'s willingness to create new content, but the short duration of the episodes (about 5 minutes) made us feel frustrated not to be able to dive back into this enchanted universe.  But this new series was a trial run that allowed us to launch the series Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock composed of thirteen episodes of about thirty minutes that easily exceeded our expectations. Not only is the magic of this cult series intact, but above all we find our favorite characters Gobo, Red, Mokey, Wembley, Booer and many others. The showrunners and executive producers Matt Fusfeld and Alex Cuthbertson have succeeded in their challenge of proposing a reboot that respects the original series but also incorporates the many advances made in terms of puppetry. 

From the first episode we find the same pleasure we had as children to discover Fraggle rock and we find Uncle Matt the great traveler who tells his adventures among humans and the many Fraggles who do not seem to have really aged and are still as endearing. Unlike the Muppet show, time seems to have less of a hold on its characters and we immediately get into this series which is not only successful but also brings us a real dose of nostalgia that allows us to escape from this current pandemic that we are going through which has changed forever our lives and our ways of seeing our existence. While the fashion is to use CGI cartoons, Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock uses the same principles of puppet animation and above all shows that Jim Henson was, like Walt Disney, a true visionary who left his mark on television and also on the cinema with the films featuring the Muppet Show characters.

While the current fashion is to numerous reboots of movies and series from the 80's and 90's, Apple TV+ has succeeded in its bold bet to offer a television program paying tribute to its picturesque characters. By taking back the characters of Fraggle Rock and by proposing a successful extension of this universe, we can only immerse ourselves completely in this series and we already hope that there will be other seasons to come. 

Another great success of this new series is as recently in Peacemaker to propose a totally addictive generic in which we follow Gobo in his universe being in the melts of a house. In the same way, far from these programs for the youth being dumbed down as much as possible, this series has a real interesting and captivating educational approach showing that to succeed we must not be afraid to go out of our habits but also we must have friends and invest ourselves fully in what we do. We also appreciate the many songs with a very lively rhythm and the many guests who bring their contributions to make this series an undeniable success and a real event.

This new series is very important to me because it allowed me to realize one of my childhood dreams to interview Mokey and Wembley and our video will soon be online. Undeniably this beautiful interview reinforces my adhesion to this series destined to be cult and especially shows how much we need series like Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock to brighten up our current daily life.

Synopsis:
A reboot of the musical and family adventures in the underground world of Fraggle Rock where furry creatures named Gobo, Red, Boober, Mokey, Wembley and Uncle Travelling Matt live.

Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock 
Directed by Jonathan A. Rosenbaum, Paul Fox, Jordan Canning, Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein
Produced by Ritamarie Peruggi 
Screenplay: Alex Cuthbertson, Charley Feldman, Matt Fusfeld, Douglas Lyons, Sabrina Jalees, Maurin Mwombela, John Tartaglia.  
With Jennifer Bain, Brendan James Boyd, Andrew G. Cooper, DeRic Starlight, John Tartaglia, Dave Goelz, Karen Prell, Donna Kimball, Jordan Lockhart, Kevin Clash, Frank Meschkuleit. 
Photography: Gavin Smith
Editing: Duncan Christie, Paul Winestock, Marianna Khoury 
Production company : Henson Associates
Original Network: AppleTV+
Original release: January 21, 2022
Running time: 25 minutes

(Source: press release)