Episode 101: Beginnings

Fraggle Rock
Air Date	January 10, 1983
Written by	Jerry Juhl
Director	Jim Henson

Gobo attempts to retrieve his uncle's first postcard.

Uncle Matt leaves his maps and documents for Gobo for safe keeping.

The Fraggle Five encounter a "hideous round thing" (Sprocket's toy ball).

Doc, an inventor and tinkerer, moves into a new workshop in a seaside town with his faithful dog, Sprocket. Doc doesn't know it, but a magical underground world lies just beyond the wall of his workshop -- Fraggle Rock, populated by free-spirited, fuzzy, three-foot-high creatures called Fraggles; tiny, hard-working Doozers; and gigantic, weak-minded Gorgs.

Traveling Matt Fraggle, a Fraggle explorer, discovers a hole that leads through the wall into Doc's Workshop, which he identifies as "Outer Space -- the final frontier for Fraggledom." When Matt decides to explore Outer Space, he notifies his nephew Gobo that he'll periodically send messages back to Doc's Workshop for Gobo to collect. Gobo watches his Uncle Matt venture into the workshop, where he's chased out of the door by a barking Sprocket. Gobo is terrified at the thought that he'll have to go out into that workshop every day to get Matt's messages. With the help of the Trash Heap and his friends, however, Gobo manages to summon the bravery to retrieve the first of what will be many postcards from his Uncle Travelling Matt.

Songs

• "Hip Hip Hooray"
• "Follow Me"
• "A Little Doozer Music"
• "I Seen Troubles"

Fraggle Facts

• According to Uncle Matt's book on Fraggle Rock, "The center of the universe is, of course, that marvelous land known as Fraggle Rock. It is thus called because it is a Rock and Fraggles live there."

Notes

• This episode introduces twelve main characters: the five main Fraggles, Uncle Matt, Doc, Sprocket, Marjory the Trash Heap, Philo, Gunge, Junior Gorg and the Doozers. All of the major relationships are set up in this episode, and it also provides a sense of the interdependence between the Fraggles, the Doozers, the Gorgs, Doc and Sprocket, and the Trash Heap.

• While this is the first episode of the series, it was recorded as the tenth. The producers apparently wanted the performers to have a grip on their characters by the time they recorded their introductory episode (a not uncommon tactic for television production). Most of the episodes in the series were shown in the order in which they were recorded, but the first block of episodes is entirely out of order. The first episode produced, "The Thirty-Minute Work Week," was shot in March 1982 and aired as the fifth episode; Episode 101 was produced in July.

Video releases

• Beginnings (HBO Video, 1986)
• Meet the Fraggles! (Jim Henson Video, 1993) -- closing credits cut
  
• Where It All Began (VHS and DVD) (HIT!, 2004)
  
• Fraggle Rock: Complete First Season (HIT!, 2005)

International Episode Titles

• Denmark: "Begyndelsen"
• Germany: "Der Anfang"
• Netherlands: "Het Begin..."
• Norway: "Slik begynte det"
• Spain: "Érase una vez"
• Sweden: "Så började det" (video title "Farbror Mack's resa")

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