If you are like me, hearing the opening notes of that theme song instantly takes you back to your childhood, sitting in front of the family’s television.
It’s a nostalgic feeling that’s so good…. well, just put in an IV and shoot it straight to my veins.
But the show was so much more than just a great song It tackled issues such as social conflict, prejudice, and personal identity.
Its creator even said it could end wars.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t accomplished that…. yet but it remains a beloved program that allows us to dance our cares away and leave our worries for another day.
Let the music play, and join me, Craig Baird, here on Canadian History Ehx as I share the story of Fraggles, Doozers and Gorgs and their lives on…Fraggle Rock!
When I first said I would be working on an episode about Fraggle Rock, several people told me they didn’t realize it was Canadian.
Nearly everyone assumed it was an American show because the man behind it was Jim Henson.
A television legend Henson developed the revolutionary children’s show Sesame Street, appeared on the first season of Saturday Night Live and created The Muppet Show in the mid-1970s, one of the best shows ever made.
By the early-1980s, he moved into films with The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper which were loved by critics and audiences.
Their success gave Henson the freedom to work on a passion project, 1982’s The Dark Crystal, which he co-directed with Frank Oz.
If that name sounds familiar it’s because it’s really hard to talk about Henson without Oz, who is best known for his performance as Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle on The Muppet Show , and Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover on Sesame Street and Yoda in the Star Wars.
Dark Crystal was his directorial debut, and it was a big departure from Henson’s earlier work.
Though marketed as a family film it was a much darker story with unsettling creatures like the Skeksis, and a serious message about environmental destruction and the need to find balance with the natural world.
The film received mixed reviews. Many critics didn’t like the film’s serious and dramatic tone and felt it missed the Henson-Oz trademark — giddy playful fun. Whatever they thought of the story, the visuals were praised for their use of animatronics which were considered groundbreaking for the time. While the film did turn a profit, it was still seen as a financial failure by the studio.
Like so many great films, it would be decades before it was truly appreciated by audiences.
For his next project, Henson decided to find a middle ground between Sesame Street and The Dark Crystal. A TV show that could appeal to both children and adults, with complex messages and engaging stories.
That idea became Fraggle Rock.
. Founded in 1972, Home Box Office, known as HBO, was looking to venture into scripted television and since it was the first television service to be transmitted and distributed to individual cable television systems. HBO primarily broadcasted boxing, hockey and baseball, and other media such as comedy specials and movies.
This was decades before the channel became known for creating groundbreaking television like Deadwood and The Sopranos.
Wanting to get his show off the ground, Henson started to pitch his show to networks. He had spent the previous decade-and-a-half working with broadcasters like NBC and ABC, and this time he wanted more creative control over his work and hoped HBO could promise him that.
He told them his new show could end war.
A bold claim, but it worked. HBO approved his pitch on the spot. Since it was their first scripted show, they didn’t want to go it alone.
Henson agreed because he had a network already in mind to bring in as a partner.
CBC
While he had never worked with the national broadcaster before, Henson liked what he heard about the atmosphere and the relative hands-off approach the network took to much of its programming at the time.
Having someone like Jim Henson was huge because of his prestige in the industry.
They agreed to co-produce the show and film it at their Toronto studios.
They had only one requirement, the show had to hire Canadian writers and puppeteers.
With that, Henson got to work building the world that would become Fraggle Rock.
When you first hear of the concept it sounds like a fever dream.
Follow me here.
There were four intelligent species that exist within the Fraggle Rock universe.
Fraggles are small creatures that live a carefree life, spending their time playing, exploring, and enjoying themselves. Their work week consists of only 30 minutes.
They may be on to something there.
The Fraggles live in a system of natural caves called Fraggle Rock that are filled with all manner of creatures and features, and which connect to at least two different areas:
The Land of the Gorgs which they consider part of the “Universe”.
“Outer Space” (our world).
Alongside these carefree creatures are the Doozers, who are pudgy, small creatures, shorter than Fraggles and are their complete opposite.
Doozers dedicate their lives to working and industry. They operate tiny construction equipment, wear hardhats and build scaffolding within Fraggle Rock.
The material they use to build their structures is made of ground-up radishes, the favourite food of Fraggles. As soon as the Doozers build their structures, the Fraggles eat them.
Hidden within the silliness is the message Henson was trying to give to viewers.
The idea that everything needs to work in harmony.
Without the symbiotic relationship between the Fraggles and Doozers, the world in the caves would fall apart.
This concept was demonstrated in an early episode when Fraggles are prevented from eating the Doozers’ work.
The imbalance causes construction to fill Fraggle Rock and forces the Doozers to think about leaving the caves since there was nowhere left to build.
To stay, the Doozers need the Fraggles to eat what they build. As one Doozer says,
“Architecture is meant to be enjoyed.”
The constant supply of food from the construction material allows the Fraggles to live their carefree.
But the Doozers also need the Fraggles to steal radishes from the garden of the Gorgs so they can build their structures.
Did I mention the Gorgs?
They are creatures that live outside the caves of Fraggle Rock.
These large furry humanoids stand 15 feet tall. There are only three Gorgs, Ma, Pa and Junior, who live as farmers and grow radishes which they use to make anti-vanishing cream to prevent them from disappearing.
The Gorgs consider Fraggles pests that steal their crops.,.
Within the Gorgs’ property is Majory the Trash Heap, a sentient compost pile who the Fraggles claim knows all and sees all. Marjory champions this notion whenever she states that she contains everything.
She often serves as an oracle providing sage, motherly advice to Fraggles seeking wisdom.
She was usually joined by her companions, two rats named Philo and Gunge.
The other world connected via a portal to Fraggle Rock is Outer Space, which is their name for our world.
This is where a human inventor named Doc and his Muppet dog Sprocket live.
Sprocket often sees and chases Fraggles but can’t convince Doc of it and so they live in an eternal cycle of miscommunication and frustration which is often softened by how much they care for each other.
Henson intended this world to be appealing to a global audience and with the Fraggle Rock world idea complete he had to make it a reality.
For that he turned to a deep well of very talented Canadian writer
In the 1980s, Barrie Philip Nichol, known as bpNichol, was one of the most celebrated poets in Canada.
Born in 1944 in Vancouver, his early writing consisted of fiction and lyrical poems.
In the 1960s, he transitioned into concrete poetry where the poems are shaped, so the words themselves depict the subject on the page and are more of a visual rather than a verbal experience of the written word.
For the next few decades, he wrote countless poems and other works.
He won the highest literary award in Canada, the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1970.
His best-known work was a two-decade project called The Martyology, which investigated the concept of language.
In a move that likely caught several people off-guard, Henson turned to one of Canada’s greatest and most experimental poets to be one of the first writers on Fraggle Rock.
Over the course of the show, he wrote 10 episodes, including the critically acclaimed episode titled The Secret of Convincing John from season two.
The episode centers on Wembley, one of the five main characters, and the best friend of the show’s protagonist Gobo Fraggle. Wembley ’s indecisive nature nearly gets Gobo seriously injured; he decides that Convincing John is the only Fraggle in the Rock to get him to be more decisive.
Convincing John’s technique for persuasion involves a catchy song (assisted by his backup singers, the Fragglettes) which outlines an awful fate should his listeners fail to heed his advice.
In the episode Wembley changes his name to Wilfred and decides to take on everyone else’s jobs, and becomes a bit of a problem, and it’s up to Convincing John to change him back to normal.
bpNichol was the mind behind that episode and exactly what Henson needed.
He wanted a show that was silly and wonderful, and in his words, a “high-energy musical romp”. He didn’t want sitcom writers. He wanted writers who pushed boundaries and could write episodes that were high-concept and appealed to all ages.
Along with bp Nichols, Sugith Varughese (SUGEET VAR A GHEESE) was brought into the writers’ room and wrote ten episodes of Fraggle Rock.
Unknown at the time, he was discovered by Henson collaborator Larry Mirkin, who had produced his first two scripts: an episode of a Cold War spy television series called The Phoenix Team in 1980, and the CBC’s first multi-racial romantic comedy titled Best of Both Worlds in 1983.
He has said of working on Fraggle Rock, quote.
“I had to present throughout. From table reads through final cut. Sometimes during the edit as well. That was the job. I had to be ready to rewrite as needed during the taping which took 3 days.”
Like so many others involved in the show, being hired on Fraggle Rock proved to be his big break into the entertainment industry.
As I mentioned, Jim Henson wanted Fraggle Rock to be a “high-energy musical romp” and for that he turned to Philip Balsam and writer Dennis Lee.
Philip Balsam was a Canadian songwriter, composer, and author. Prior to Fraggle Rock he created musical work for theatre and Henson’s show would provide him with a new opportunity to try something new.
Dennis Lee was already well-known as a gifted poet. He won the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 1972.
In the mid-1970s, he began writing for children with the goal of, quote reclaiming language and liberating imagination. end quote.
His children’s poems are about the daily language and activities of kids that expand into the realm of imagination and fantasy.
In 1974 he released his most famous work, Alligator Pie, a book of children’s poetry illustrated by Frank Newfeld which won Book of the Year from the Canadian Library Association in 1975 and earned him the moniker of “Canada’s Father Goose”.
Henson also hired Bernie LaBarge, a session musician, to help with the music on the show.
LaBarge had been performing since the late-1960s. In 1981, his single Dream Away earned him a Juno Award, but he said that it was when he was hired for Fraggle Rock that he realized he had reached the big leagues.
With gifted musicians and two winners of the Governor General’s Award, Henson was creating a dream team with a deep well of talent for his new show.
Now he needed performers who would bring his vision of Fraggles, Doozers and Grogs to life.
Henson leaned on various performers from The Muppet Show and Sesame Street with whom he had worked with for years, but he also hired numerous Canadian puppeteers.
Most of them were new to the industry, and excited to be working with a legend like Henson.
Two puppeteers, Cheryl Wagner and Bob Stutt, would go on to be part of Today’s Special, another iconic Canadian children’s show which takes place inside a major department store, where each night Jodie, the store’s display designer arrives for work, and carries a mannequin (Jeff) upstairs, where Muffy a very special mouse says the magic words “hocus pocus alimagocus!” which brings Jeff to life.
Wagner was the performer behind Mrs. Pennypacker also known as simply “Mrs. P” from 1984-1985, who works in the store’s stock room., while Stutt would go on to perform as Mort, Muffy’s cousin starting in 1983.
But before that ever happened, they had to get Fraggle Rock on air.
In Henson’s vision each of the Fraggles and Doozers could be operated by one person, however the huge Gorgs required two puppeteers.
One performer would be in the costume, while another operated the face by remote and provided the voice.
Ma Gorg was operated by two Canadians. Trish Leeper was in the costume, while Myra Fried controlled the face and voice.
She would be replaced by Cheryl Wagner following the first season.
Junior Gorg’s voice and face were handled by American Richard Hunt, but the body was brought to life by Canadian Rob Mills.
Pa Gorg’s two-person crew were made up of American Jerry Nelson, who operated the face and did the voice, and Canadian Gord Robertson serving as the puppeteer in the costume.
To cast Doc, the only human character on the show, Henson had to find someone who could bring a kindly and grandfatherly presence.
and he found him in Gerard Parkes.
Gerard Parkes was born in Dublin and immigrated to Toronto in 1956 and three years later began working for CBC Radio in 1959 before he shifted to television and film. His early resume included shows such as the 1960s’ ecological adventure series, The Forest Rangers and The Littlest Hobo, a children’s series based on the well-known 1958 movie of the same name.
In 1968, he won the Etrog, later renamed Gemini, for his portrayal of Uncle Matthew in Isabel. A movie about a woman who learns of her mother’s serious illness and returns to her family’s farm on the Gaspé Peninsula where she begins seeing ghosts and spirits.
He was known for mostly playing serious roles at the time, and when he saw the audition notices for Fraggle Rock at the CBC he thought it was a show about rock music and had no intention of auditioning.
But then, Jim Henson happened to walk by while they were both at the CBC building and Henson stopped dead in his tracks.
He went up to Parkes and asked him if he was going to audition for the role of Doc which Parkes replied he wasn’t, and Henson insisted he should.
Henson had found his Doc.
With that in place, it was time let the music play and introduce the world to Fraggle Rock
Fraggle Rock burst onto television screens on Jan. 10, 1983.
The series premiere was titled Beginnings. Directed by Jim Henson it follows Doc, an inventor and tinkerer, as he moves into a new workshop in a seaside town with his faithful dog, Sprocket.
Unbeknown to Doc, a hole in the wall connects the magical world of Fraggle Rock to the outside world.
Uncle Traveling Matt, a Fraggle explorer discovers the hole that leads to Doc’s Workshop and identifies it as “Outer Space — the final frontier for Fraggledom” and decides to discover this new world.
He leaves his nephew Gobo behind but lets him know that he’ll send postcards to Doc’s Workshop of his travels.
Then Gobo watches Uncle Matt venture into the workshop, where he’s chased by Sprocket leaving him terrified of having to return every few days to get Matt’s messages.
This episode set the tone for much of the series, as Uncle Matt sends postcards describing the human world as the Silly Creatures of Outer Space.
It also sets up the recurring joke that Doc’s dog Sprocket sees Gobo going into the workshop, but Doc never does.
Almost immediately, the show became a critical darling.
Macleans wrote of the show,
“Few half hours have ever delivered anything akin to magic. The imaginary kingdoms beamed out from the tube have tended to be middle American living room sets decorated in Burbank…until Fraggle Rock.”
Marc Shulgold with the Los Angeles Times wrote,
“Quality and imagination. That is what sets the show apart from kiddie fare.”
The first season had24 episodes airing d on HBO and CBC, but it wasn’t making waves in the United States among general audiences.
but it was picking up plenty of awards.
Following its first season, it won the International Emmy for Best Children’s Show and a CableACE award for Best Program Series – Children’s or Family Programming and the soundtrack won a Grammy.
For the only human face it meant newfound fame.
Gerard Parkes had acted steadily for a quarter century but now he was suddenly recognized in Canada.
In between seasons, while at the Rose and Crown Pub in Edmonton, two men called him over and said he looked like the guy from Fraggle Rock. He replied,
“I am the guy from Fraggle Rock. Only trouble is they didn’t believe me.”
While he wasn’t portraying Doc, Parkes acted in more serious productions such as Draw!, Spasms and Night Heat.
For him, Fraggle Rock was something that helped deal with more difficult roles and described it as a tonic quote.
“It is tremendous fun. I really love doing it.” end quote.
Although he believed it could prevent him from being seen as a serious actor, joking that he may never be invited back to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival again.
Maybe he didn’t go back to Stratford, but for children like me, there was no one cooler than Doc and his dog Sprocket.
They got to be part of Fraggle Rock.
For the next four years, Fraggle Rock continued to delight children in Canada on CBC, and in the US for children whose parents paid for HBO.
There were many adults who loved the show too and didn’t mind the escapades of Fraggles, Doozers and Gorgs.
In season two, writer and comedian Sandra Shamas joined the show as a puppeteer, which proved to be her big break in the entertainment industry.
She went on to be nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Stephen Leacock Award and won a Gemini Award in 1991 for Best Performance in Comedy. In January 2018, Shamas was appointed to the Order of Ontario.
Meanwhile Fraggle Rock went on to be broadcast to 95 countries around the world, creating a devoted international fan base that exists to this day.
And with each season, Fraggle Rock continued to collect hardware.
It won a second CableACE award in 1984 for Best Children’s Show, followed by another in 1987. It received nominations in the same category in 1985 and 1988.
In 1985, it won the ACTRA Award for Best Writing for a Television Comedy or Variety Show, a category in which the show had another nomination.
The Actra Awards, founded in 1972, were the precursor to the Gemini Awards that honoured the best of television and radio in Canada.
The next year, it picked up the Best Children’s Series at the first Gemini Awards. It was also nominated that year for Best Direction in a Comedy or Variety Program or Series.
In 1987, it was nominated again, but this time lost to Degrassi Junior High in the Children’s Series category. It also picked up a nomination for Best Writing in a Comedy but lost to The Canadian Conspiracy.
Those awards proved to be the last for the show.
As critically acclaimed and beloved as it was, the fact was the show was expensive to make, and HBO wanted out.
Jim Henson was also ready to move on to something else.
He had released Labyrinth in 1986 and was starting work on his folklore-oriented show The StoryTeller.
Fraggle Rock remained extremely popular in Canada, but there was no way that CBC could carry the high production cost on its own and the decision was made in December 1986 to end the show after five successful seasons and 96 episodes.
CBC did not share the news until July 1986 when a press release stated the fifth season would be the last.
Jack Craine, director of entertainment for CBC at the time, said,
“This is a big disappointment. No doubt about it. I’d have like Fraggle Rock to go on forever.”
The last episode aired on March 30, 1987. In that episode, titled Change of Address, Doc finally sees Gobo in his workshop and has a conversation with him. The two become friends and Gobo tells Doc that Fraggles call humans ‘silly creatures’, for which he apologizes. Doc replies that silly creatures is a good name for humans.
And so ended one of the most enchanting shows ever made.
Or did it….
There’s no doubt that Fraggle Rock was life changing for many.
bpNichol found he really enjoyed writing for children’s shows and lent his literary talents to The Care Bears, The Raccoons and Babar.
Five days before his 44th birthday in 1988 he died suddenly at the age of 43.
Jim Henson continued to make critically acclaimed television shows for the next few years, including The Jim Henson Hour, which earned him another Emmy to put on his shelf.
On May 15, 1990, Henson woke up with trouble breathing and coughing up blood. Two hours later he went to the hospital where suddenly stopped breathing and was rushed into intensive care. At 1:51 a.m., May 15, 1990, Jim Henson died of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome.
Dennis Lee continued to work with Henson, co-writing Labyrinth with him.
Six years after Fraggle Rock was cancelled, in 1993, a number of songs Lee cowrote with Philip Balsam were released on the album Fraggle Rock: Music and Magic.
That same year, he received the Order of Canada. Eight years later, he was named Toronto’s first Poet Laureate. Lee continues to write to this day from his Ontario home.
Philip Balsam went back to writing for theatre, including musical theatre versions of the books of Mordecai Richler books Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang and Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur. He died on March 31, 2023, from Giant Cell Arteritis.
Sugith Varughese continued to write for television but made a name for himself as an actor in the late-1980s. His acting credits include recurring roles on Little Mosque on the Prairie, Kim’s Convenience and Transplant.
Among the performers on Fraggle Rock, most continued to work as puppeteers to great success. Trish Leeper went on to work for Sesame Street Canada, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium and the 2011 remake of The Thing.
Rob Mills worked on Dinosaurs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.
Gord Robertson continued to work for Jim Henson Productions, while also doing movie work such as The Neverending Story III, Cats and Dogs and Turkey Hollow. He also did work on Sesame Street Canada.
Cheryl Wagner went on to create The Big Comfy Couch, which ran from 1992 to 2006 and became another beloved show for a generation of children. She brought on several Fraggle Rock performers to serve as puppeteers and writers on the show including Robert Mills and Bob Stutt. It was also Mill’s Radical Sheep Production company that co-produced the show.
Gerard Parkes continued to act after Fraggle Rock in dramas and comedies.
In 1999, he portrayed a Tourette’s syndrome afflicted bartender in The Boondock Saints. That character’s name, of all things…was Doc. He reprised the role in the sequel in 2009.
Parkes died on Oct. 19, 2014, three days shy of his 90th birthday.
And as I teased earlier, we weren’t done with the world of Fraggle Rock
There was a whole generation who remembered Fraggle Rock in the 2020s and got that same shot of nostalgic dopamine I did whenever they thought about it.
The entertainment industry wasn’t about to forget one of Jim Henson’s most beloved creations and efforts were made to revive it.
A series of shorts called Fraggle Rock: Rock On! were released in April 2020 to great success. One month later, it was announced that Fraggle Rock would get a reboot to launch it into the 21st century.
Filming on Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock commenced in Calgary at the Calgary Film Centre on Jan. 25, 2021. American actress and singer Lilli Cooper would portray Doc and directors for that first season included Canadian comedian Sabrina Jalees
Almost a year later Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock launched on Apple TV+ with 13 episodes.
A special holiday episode was released in November of that same year.
Two years later on March 29, 2024, a second season was released on the streaming service and five of the 13 episodes were helmed by Canadian director Jordan Canning.
This new Fraggle Rock was also critically acclaimed.
It currently has a 100% rating on Rotton Tomatoes, and earned four Emmy nominations, with one win, at the First Children’s and Family Emmy Awards.
And the Fraggles weren’t relegated to AppleTV+, as part of the promotion tour for the latest season they stopped by Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, where Red and Gobo were bartenders for the night at the Bravo Clubhouse for guests Brooke Shields and Elizabeth Hurley.
Fraggles made it to “outer space” and hung out with stars.
