Talk:Fraggle Rock

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DVD Petition?

Now that the last boxed set is coming out, can we take out the DVD Petition website at the bottom? -- Ken (talk) 02:57, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Though the name of the website still says "Fraggle Rock DVD Petition," it's more than that. For example, it includes episode guides, merchandise, sections on merchandise (including the international DVDs), awards, a timeline, and a nice memories page in two cases featuring unique information e-mailed to the webmaster by Rob Mills and Jerry Juhl. So despite the name, we're not linking to a petition but to a useful and informative fansite. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I didn't go that far into it. Thanks! -- Ken (talk) 03:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

New Zealand has it!

New Zealand is repeating Fraggle Rock! -- User:Nzhasfragglerocl 12 October 2007

Number of Seasons

We all know Fraggle Rock lasted 5 years (83-87), but did it last 5 seasons? Has the fan base been wrong all these years? All the fansites say that there were five seasons of Fraggle Rock, and in looking at how the episodes were spaced it may appear that way. But I just read this on Karen Prell's official website:

FOUR is the Nagic Number [1]

Okay, lots of Fraggle fans and fansites have been reporting that there are 5 seasons of the TV series Fraggle rock. Well, maybe in England and other countries things were divided up that way, but in Canada and the States and certainly in the way we originally shot the series, Fraggle Rock was always only 4 Seasons of 24 episodes each, 96 in all. So with the upcoming Season 2 DVD box set, we're halfway there!

The taping dates can be seen here on the old Henson site and we have the airing dates already listed on the wiki. It just seems that some episodes got aired a bit more spaced out and regrouped... similar things happened with episodes of Bear in the Big Blue House, Dinosaurs, and The StoryTeller but we haven't regrouped them to create new "seasons".

So is there any official documentation to say there were 5 seasons? Should we change our information to reflect 4 seasons? Is Karen just play games with us? Should we wait to see what grouping and order the official season box sets do and just reflect that? What should we do? Thoughts? -- Brad D. (talk) 06:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like they were shot as four seasons, but aired as five. HBO always started the new Fraggle seasons at the beginning of January. What we think of as "Season 4" started with Episode 401: Sprocket's Big Adventure on January 6, 1986, and ended with Episode 413: Boober Gorg on March 31st. Then "Season 5" started with Episode 501: Mirror, Mirror on January 5, 1987. That's more than just spaced out and regrouped; that's creating a 5th season.

For the Fraggle episodes, we've been following air dates, not tape dates. "Beginnings" was actually the tenth episode shot, but we call it 101, for obvious reasons. We do the same with Muppets Tonight episodes, and other shows where we know the airdates.

We actually do follow airdate order for Dinosaurs episodes, except for the "lost episodes" which aired only in syndication. In that case, the network didn't create a separate season for them; they didn't even air on the network, and it would be silly to invent a new season that takes place after the cast goes extinct.

We only follow production order for shows where we don't have access to the original airdates, like Bear in the Big Blue House or The Animal Show, or where the airdates were different around the country, like The Muppet Show.

Back to the Fraggles, I believe the DVD season sets are following airdates, not production dates. -- Danny (talk) 11:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The DVDs are following airing order (Beginnings is first, not The Thirty-Minute Work Week) but from the way Ms. Prell is taking (and she could be wrong) they are may follow the original equal sized production groupings (meaning the complete third season will have the 24 shows produced for season 3, but possibly in the order that the 24 originally aired -- a somewhat common TV-DVD practice). I'm just wondering what to do when the official DVD set of the "Complete Fourth Season" dubs Gone, But Not Forgotten episode 418 (and not 507 as we call it). This might not be an issue as there could be 5 sets that follow the order we have here (or have one 22 episode "3rd season" and one 26 episode "4th & 5th" which wouldn't contradict us either.), but then again HIT/Henson could go with just four seasons sets. I just have a hard time us calling a 5th season episode such if Henson isn't calling any episodes a fifth season episode. This really isn't an issue until we see what HIT/Henson actually does, but if the order is the same (just the number changes) and the only sources we have for saying "season 3 started here and season 4 started there" are broadcast proximity and publicity I would go with the more concrete, official, available and contemporary DVD sets for when to role over from "Episode 3XX:" to "Episode: 401:". -- Brad D. (talk) 17:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the only thing to do is wait and see what the sets look like. I don't know if Karen Prell knows about the actual plans for the DVDs, or if she's just talking from her experience working on the show. But we can't react to information that we don't have. -- Danny (talk) 20:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree we should wait and see what happens. No point getting worked up over something that might not be an issue. I did find out what happened (how 4 went to 5). Henson's deal with HBO was for 5 seasons. They produced four 24-episode seasons and to fufill the contract with HBO they shuffled around the final 26 episodes to make 4 seasons into 5. We'll just have to see what Henson considers the true season lines now (20+ years later). -- Brad D. (talk) 21:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I wonder why only four seasosn were produced if the original contract was for five. Why not just produce another full season? --Minor muppetz 18:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

International Elements

I noticed this sentence: "The series was produced with the intention of being aired in varied forms internationally. The human "wraparound" segments were shot separately for each nation, so that the child viewer could always relate to the world of the program. However, in the Norwegian, Dutch and Australian shows, the American human surroundings were used." That's rather confusing, since other versions, like Spain, Denmark, and Sweden, used the "American" (or rather, North American, given the Canadian studio and actor) surroundings. I'm not really sure where that statement came from, so there's two possible explanations. One, the original writer simply wasn't aware of the other dubs. Two, the sentence was meant to single out series which kept the Doc footage but used their own postcards. That actually seems very likely with Australia, in terms of both the details of filming in Australia, and the fact that, while two to four of the Australian-filmed segments aired within the North American-aired package, interviews in the Season 2 DVD set implied that at least 20 such bits were filmed, and several are included on the set. While they later aired as interstitials on Odyssey, it seems likely that they replaced other postcard segments. Whether this happened with Norway and the Netherlands, though, I'm not sure. I know we have some international folks here (though Kynan's more or less off the Wiki, it seems), so any input from viewers in those three countries would be appreciated -- Andrew Leal (talk) 07:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I got two episodes of the Norwegian dub and they contain the same postcard segment as the US version. Rytter 14:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Nasty "Fraggle Rock" Rumor

This is a place for facts, not rumors, but has anyone else heard the rumor about Fraggle Rock being created by Jim Henson and a Canadian friend spending a weekend smoking hash at his Canadian friend's cabin in the Canadian wilderness?

Nope. Never heard it, and it isn't true. -- Danny (talk) 01:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)