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Fraggle Talk: The First Snow of Fraggle Rock (with John Tartaglia!) · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:09
  Hello and welcome to Fraggle Talk Back to the Rock, the
• 0:13
  unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast brought to you by dumplings.com.
• 0:17
  This is the podcast where we cover Fraggle Rock Back to the
• 0:19
  Rock episode by episode, along with the talented producers,
• 0:22
  performers, writers and builders who helped put it together.
• 0:24
  I am your host, silly creature Joe Hennes.
• 0:28
  In this special podcast episode, we're talking about the brand
• 0:31
  new Fraggle Rock special, The first Snow of Fraggle Rock.
• 0:34
  Joining me is the Back to the Rock executive producer and
• 0:38
  performer of Gobo, Fraggle Sprocket, the architect Dooser
• 0:41
  and himself. It's John Tartaglia.
• 0:44
  Hi, John. That.
• 0:46
  Was the best intro ever. Hi.
• 0:48
  Hi, good to see you. Good to have you back on the
• 0:50
  podcast. Bad to be here.
• 0:53
  So I want to remind our listeners before we get started
• 0:56
  that spoiler warnings are on, so we'll be talking about this
• 1:00
  special in great detail. So if you haven't seen the first
• 1:02
  Snow Fraggle Rock yet, head over to Apple TV, watch it, and then
• 1:07
  come on back here and finish the podcast.
• 1:09
  Yes, please. Yes.
• 1:11
  And then or or. Watch it again.
• 1:12
  Go watch it twice. I think so, yes.
• 1:15
  Rewatch it and rewatch it and rewatch it, please.
• 1:17
  Right. And then tell your friends to
• 1:18
  rewatch it and make sure they sign up for Apple TV and then
• 1:21
  also write a letter to Apple and let them know how much.
• 1:25
  You are speaking my language. Yeah, right.
• 1:28
  Yeah. You know, we got a whole system
• 1:29
  here. Everyone's doing it.
• 1:30
  Everyone's doing it right now. We need you.
• 1:31
  We need. You.
• 1:34
  So I got to tell you how pleased I am not only to see a new
• 1:37
  Fraggle special, but to see another holiday special.
• 1:42
  So first of all, I want to ask, at what point did you find out
• 1:46
  that you're going to be continuing the Fraggle Rock back
• 1:48
  to the rock story through this special?
• 1:51
  I think we knew, my gosh, probably a year ago, if not
• 1:56
  more, you know, I think that that Apple was so excited with,
• 2:00
  you know, season 2 and back to the Rock and the reaction to it.
• 2:03
  And so it was like, you know, how do we do something new and
• 2:08
  different with the Fraggles? And I think that everyone agreed
• 2:12
  that like Night of the Lights was a big success and that, you
• 2:14
  know, holiday specials are something that everyone looks
• 2:17
  forward to. And it's a great, they're a
• 2:20
  great way to reintroduce or introduce people to these this
• 2:25
  world and these characters. You know, there's some people
• 2:27
  who are going to stumble upon this who are going to watch a
• 2:29
  Charlie Brown Christmas or something else that's on the
• 2:31
  surface and go, oh, another holiday special.
• 2:33
  And then they'll be introduced to Fraggle Rock and that'll
• 2:35
  that'll, you know, bring more friends into the fold.
• 2:37
  So I think it was a really smart move by Apple to want to do
• 2:42
  something that like, you know, would both continue our story
• 2:45
  forward and do something brand new for our Fraggle fans and
• 2:47
  then also give, you know, folks who maybe don't know where the
• 2:50
  world of Fraggle was a kind of way in.
• 2:52
  And was the plan always to do something that was holiday
• 2:55
  related, like you said you would just done the Night of the
• 2:59
  Lights? And of course, there's the the
• 3:00
  old Fraggle special from the old show.
• 3:03
  You know, I wouldn't have thought that Fraggle Rock was
• 3:07
  synonymous with Christmas, but here we are.
• 3:10
  So yeah, was that always part of your plan?
• 3:12
  I think so because we, we like everyone always talks about, you
• 3:15
  know, the bells of Fraggle Rock. I'm at least for, for, for
• 3:17
  myself. And, you know, everyone who grew
• 3:19
  up on it, who's working on the show on, on back to the rock.
• 3:22
  Everyone loves that special and how impactful it was.
• 3:25
  And then there's something just magical about seeing these
• 3:27
  characters in this like wintry, icy, snowy time, you know, in
• 3:32
  their, in their knit hats and their little vests and scarves
• 3:35
  and things like that. And, you know, we kind of went
• 3:37
  there with night of the lights a little bit.
• 3:38
  And then we were like, let's take it even further.
• 3:40
  And we kind of started like laying out like the Fraggle
• 3:43
  holiday lineup of like when the lights happens and when this
• 3:46
  happened. And it was kind of exciting to
• 3:48
  think about. Well, what do the Fraggles do?
• 3:50
  You know, when it's when we're close to the holidays, but it's
• 3:53
  not quite there. That feeling we wanted, we
• 3:55
  wanted this to kind of be the feeling of, you know, it's the
• 3:59
  first time if you live on the East Coast of, of the, of the
• 4:02
  country, at least I can relate to this as a kid, that that
• 4:05
  first snow was magical. That first time, you know, you
• 4:07
  get your first snowfall, it's like, Oh my gosh, it's winter.
• 4:10
  Like now all the, all the exciting winter things are going
• 4:12
  to happen. And then when you don't get that
• 4:14
  first snow, what happens? You know, if you, if you go
• 4:17
  through a dry period and you're used to having snow on the
• 4:20
  ground for the holidays and there's nothing, how does that
• 4:23
  change things? So it all just started to feel
• 4:25
  like a really good story to tell what the characters.
• 4:29
  I appreciate what you said about the line up of when each part of
• 4:33
  the holiday shows up, because I feel like there's a not really
• 4:37
  like a question among fans. I mean, we can figure it out,
• 4:39
  but but that question of So what does that mean that we're not
• 4:42
  celebrating the other holiday or like this is Christmas different
• 4:46
  every year for the Fraggles? And it's like, no, no, it's all
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  there. You could tell.
• 4:49
  Yeah, well, it's like human holidays, right?
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  Like we have, there's a, there's a bunch of holidays that
• 4:53
  happened kind of within this this span, this wintery span.
• 4:57
  And so we thought it at first, we also were kind of like, oh,
• 4:59
  is it too much? We're like, no way like that.
• 5:01
  That makes sense. Like, you know, if you're
• 5:03
  somebody, if you're someone who celebrates Christmas and New
• 5:06
  Year's and Thanksgiving and like, there's a lot of different
• 5:08
  things, you know, And so we just wanted to find a way to to also
• 5:13
  to celebrate the magic of, you know, what's what's that?
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  What's that season like in the rock for them?
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  You know, what does it mean? You know, what are they, what
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  are the kind of fun things that we look forward to as humans
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  that the Fraggles might also kind of have their spin on too?
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  And, and Alex and Matt, just, I thought when they presented this
• 5:29
  story, it was like, it was such a wonderful, relatable thing
• 5:32
  for, you know, for kids and families, especially today,
• 5:35
  right? We're like, you know, the
• 5:37
  climate's changing, you know, maybe based on your situation,
• 5:41
  maybe you're not able to celebrate the holidays the way
• 5:43
  that you would normally celebrate them.
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  And what does that mean? I'm a, I'm a massive holiday
• 5:48
  fan. I love Christmas, I love
• 5:49
  Thanksgiving, I love everything about this time of year.
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  And I also very much like that person who has like his hard,
• 5:55
  hard and fast traditions. And when you don't, when I don't
• 5:58
  get to celebrate them the way I'm used to it, definitely like
• 6:02
  I get this weird anxiety about it.
• 6:04
  Like, Oh my gosh, I'm not really celebrating Thanksgiving the way
• 6:06
  I should or I'm not really celebrating Christmas the way I
• 6:08
  usually do. And it's such a good moment.
• 6:11
  I've actually, it's just doing the special is really completely
• 6:13
  changed my view of it this year. I'm like, wait, you know what?
• 6:16
  It's different than usual, but it's but that doesn't mean it's
• 6:18
  any better or any worse. It's just different and I need
• 6:20
  to appreciate the moment I'm in. So we just realized that was
• 6:23
  like a really important story to follow.
• 6:28
  I totally agree with you, although I will say if I have a
• 6:30
  Christmas where I don't watch Muppet Family Christmas, then
• 6:33
  exactly it's all it's all out the window.
• 6:35
  I can't deal with that. No, that happens to me every
• 6:38
  year where I'll literally like get to like December 26th.
• 6:40
  We're like, Oh my gosh, I didn't watch this.
• 6:42
  I didn't watch that. Oh yeah, right.
• 6:43
  I get mad at myself and I'm like, wait, but I just wasn't
• 6:46
  supposed to. It's OK.
• 6:47
  You know it's true. Yeah.
• 6:48
  We'll be fine. Yeah.
• 6:50
  So are you already thinking about, like, are you going to do
• 6:52
  another? Are you considering doing
• 6:54
  another Christmas special at some point?
• 6:56
  I think we're open to it. I mean, I think, I think you
• 6:58
  know what, what's I think what we've discovered with this
• 7:01
  special was that like, it's a, it's a much more rich world for
• 7:08
  the Fraggles to explore. They just work really well in
• 7:10
  this in this place. And I think what's really cool
• 7:12
  is that like, it's exciting to think about how, you know, this
• 7:17
  could be something that the Fraggles are known for, right,
• 7:20
  is the holidays. I think that they match it
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  really, really well. Also, we discovered in doing
• 7:25
  this special that, you know, the, the, the way that they all
• 7:28
  choose to celebrate the holidays is really relatable to people.
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  And it was funny on set as people were talking about like,
• 7:34
  oh, I'm definitely doing the holidays.
• 7:35
  I'm definitely Wembley during the holidays, I'm definitely
• 7:37
  Moki. And it was like, oh, OK, like
• 7:39
  like this again fits that Fraggle 55 piece pie really
• 7:43
  beautifully of like, you know, Gobo's in charge of this and
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  Red's in charge of this. And we can all kind of pinpoint
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  that to ourselves or our family or our friends, you know, where
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  they fit in. So it feels like it's something
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  that could be kind of an endless trove to to pull from for the
• 7:56
  Fraggles, which is which is cool.
• 7:59
  Yeah, I love. That we want to be, we want to
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  be like, we want to be like the puppet version of Mariah Carey
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  with Christmas. Like if she owned Christmas
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  music. Fraggles want to own the
• 8:06
  holidays. I love that.
• 8:11
  That is very, I mean, yeah, it's spot on for me at least of, you
• 8:15
  know, like I'm turning on that Mariah Carey song at the same
• 8:18
  time I'm turning on my Fraggle holiday special.
• 8:20
  You get it. Also manifesting Mariah Carey
• 8:24
  cameo in the next Fraggle Rock holiday special.
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  Let's make it happen, World. Yes, right.
• 8:29
  Like, like, you know, we can. She can own Christmas music.
• 8:32
  We'll own Christmas magic. There you go.
• 8:34
  Right, yes, exactly. I love that you've also got my
• 8:37
  my gear spinning here about other holiday specials that you
• 8:41
  could potentially do and like, I mean, I'm gonna just let that
• 8:43
  linger for you. I don't want to feed ideas to
• 8:45
  you, but you know, Christmas, obviously we've got a ton of
• 8:49
  Christmas specials just generally speaking.
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  And because the Fraggles are so well known for their holidays,
• 8:55
  for creating their own holidays, you know, I, I see a lot of
• 8:59
  potential for other types of things that can kind of overlay
• 9:05
  our holidays like. Yeah, yeah.
• 9:07
  I mean, it's kind of like, like, like New Day's Day in season 1
• 9:10
  was very much like a, a New Year's Eve, you know?
• 9:13
  And so it's kind of fun to like, look at like the layout of like
• 9:16
  where where does, you know, where does first frost land?
• 9:18
  Where it is, you know, Night of the Lights, where is New Day's
• 9:21
  Day? Where's.
• 9:21
  Yeah, it's fun to think about all that.
• 9:23
  Absolutely well, it's also fun to think about this special and
• 9:27
  I'd love to dive into it with you and I be here cuz there's we
• 9:30
  have so many questions about like how this thing came to be
• 9:33
  and all the fun things that you guys got to do.
• 9:36
  So this special starts without the Fraggle Rock theme song.
• 9:41
  Yes, where? Where is it?
• 9:43
  Well, you know, we talked a lot about that and we were worried
• 9:46
  about, you know, we didn't want well, two full reason one was we
• 9:49
  didn't want it to feel like just an episode of the show.
• 9:53
  You know, we wanted it to really stand on its own as a special
• 9:55
  and feel different and feel unique, right.
• 9:58
  And I think also we we were like, well, if we do put the
• 10:01
  theme, then do we need to reshoot it to look like the
• 10:04
  holidays? It really feels like it fits.
• 10:06
  And so the more we talked about it, we're like, let's use that
• 10:07
  time for another song and make this a little bit more music
• 10:12
  packed with original songs and original moments.
• 10:14
  So I know it was a bit of a change and but I think that, but
• 10:18
  we kept saying, and I was of course, being the person I am
• 10:21
  was like, oh, is that is it? Is it too much to do that?
• 10:23
  And I was like, no, it's OK. It's like, you know, every time
• 10:25
  the the The Muppets appeared, you didn't hear the Muppet Show
• 10:27
  theme song, you know? So, yeah, so and if you love the
• 10:30
  theme, there's, you know, 27 episodes that you couldn't watch
• 10:33
  on. So that's.
• 10:34
  Right, Yeah, You got a soundtrack that you could buy.
• 10:37
  That's right. That's right.
• 10:40
  So yeah, we do start with this new song, which I I didn't get a
• 10:43
  title of it because. Can you feel it?
• 10:45
  Can you feel it? Yes, which it sounds so I don't
• 10:50
  know if this is deliberate. It sounds so much like Can't
• 10:52
  Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake to the point where I
• 10:55
  was like, is this is this just a straight parody?
• 10:57
  No, it's. Just no, no, no, yeah.
• 10:59
  Same style. Definitely like that feel of
• 11:01
  like, because we talked about like it has to feel like super
• 11:03
  positive, super anticipatory, super like the fraggles are
• 11:07
  ready to you know, it's like that, that feeling of like
• 11:09
  again, waking up and be like, Oh my gosh, it's almost time to you
• 11:13
  know, to celebrate the holidays. Like like all that's that, you
• 11:16
  know, when you see that box of decorations come, you see that,
• 11:19
  that first, you know, a peppermint mocha at Starbucks or
• 11:22
  whatever, you get that super excited feeling, you know?
• 11:25
  Yeah, and it's it's a bop. I mean, it's it's just, it's
• 11:28
  very, it's very danceable. Yeah, that was a good song.
• 11:31
  Yeah, it's definitely stuck in our heads for a long time.
• 11:36
  And as you alluded to before, we get to see one of my favorite
• 11:40
  things, which is Fraggles in winter hats and sweaters and
• 11:42
  scarves and things. I love it.
• 11:45
  I imagine that was a blast for the costuming department to get
• 11:48
  to knit all these little tiny Fraggle costumes.
• 11:51
  Well, yes, and a big shout out to them because our creature
• 11:54
  shop, you know, they always go above and beyond and they spent
• 11:57
  literally, I think they had five weeks of pre production up there
• 12:00
  getting ready for it and they they they made, you know,
• 12:04
  individual looks for every single character.
• 12:06
  So, you know, that's what I love is like, you know, it's not just
• 12:09
  let's run out to, you know, to target and buy a bunch of, you
• 12:13
  know, kids clothes and modify like they, they, they made
• 12:16
  everything you see on screen from scratch.
• 12:18
  And we also pulled some stuff from the original series too,
• 12:20
  which was, which was fun to kind of go through and be like, oh,
• 12:23
  like this. This pair of mittens from, you
• 12:25
  know, 1984 looks really cute on this Fraggle and stuff like
• 12:27
  that. So there's, yeah, there's lots
• 12:29
  of little. If you're really eagle eyed and
• 12:31
  you know, the original wintry episodes of the original series,
• 12:36
  you might see some pieces of that in, in the costuming.
• 12:39
  Someone at the Muppet wiki is already like OK so the that's
• 12:42
  Bruhl's earmuffs. Or I hope so.
• 12:46
  Yeah, Right. I hope so.
• 12:47
  They as they should, yes. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:50
  Everyone is here. We see like the Storyteller and
• 12:53
  large Marvin Pogie, world's oldest Fraggle, the Grizzard.
• 12:56
  I, I, I appreciate that you really threw everybody in there,
• 12:59
  if not just for like the, the, it's beautiful whenever there's
• 13:02
  like 100 Fraggles back there. But you know, this is an episode
• 13:06
  that features so much on Gobo that I, I feel like everyone
• 13:10
  else has to take a little bit of a step back.
• 13:12
  So if that has to happen for the story, then we might as well
• 13:15
  have everyone in there. Yeah, we just felt like it was
• 13:18
  it was a chance again, like if you've never seen the show
• 13:20
  before, you're like, wow, this is an incredible cast of
• 13:23
  characters and you get a little taste of everybody.
• 13:25
  And if you have your favorite character, if you love
• 13:27
  Storyteller, if you love Pogie, if you love Barry Blueberry,
• 13:29
  whoever you get a chance to kind of, you know, have a moment with
• 13:32
  them, which is nice. Yeah, and also props to Donna
• 13:36
  Kimball for singing as the storyteller.
• 13:39
  That like diva moment. And then right into Moki.
• 13:42
  So good you I forget. God, she's so talented.
• 13:46
  I forget that she's everyone. Yeah, so good.
• 13:49
  She's so good. I have to shout out that in the
• 13:53
  song Red is holding a pair of boots and you know, Fraggles
• 13:57
  like notoriously don't wear boots except for traveling Matt.
• 14:01
  I'm so you are so funny because on set, I'm not kidding when I
• 14:05
  say this, we literally sat there and talked about this for like
• 14:07
  20 minutes. We went back and forth like
• 14:09
  Karen. Karen was like, because Karen
• 14:11
  brought that up. She's like, I don't know.
• 14:12
  I was like, I know. And I was like, what do we do?
• 14:14
  And the more we talked about it, we're like in the Fraggle world,
• 14:17
  just like Boober always washing socks that you never see
• 14:19
  Fraggles wear. We're like, they probably have
• 14:22
  boots and they use them for something else bizarre.
• 14:26
  They decorate with them or something like that.
• 14:28
  And we're like, let's just leave it at that.
• 14:29
  But like she's excited to have them.
• 14:31
  We don't know what they use them for, but we literally said that
• 14:35
  we're like, if you're a Fraggle fan, like we all are, like
• 14:38
  you're like, wait a minute. So yeah, I know.
• 14:40
  So. Appreciate.
• 14:42
  We need to. We need to write a.
• 14:43
  Single's mind there. Yeah, we need to write a book
• 14:45
  that's like what really happens with socks and boots and Fraggle
• 14:47
  Rock, and you just explore that whole lore.
• 14:51
  There's oh, man, the the mundane mundanity.
• 14:55
  That's not a word. Like, how mundane it would be to
• 14:58
  do like, a whole episode about like, OK, we got to break down
• 15:00
  this footwear thing. Right, it's a big deal.
• 15:04
  It really is. Yeah.
• 15:05
  Just for the yeah. For continuity's sake, Yeah.
• 15:08
  Also, Barry Blueberry sings a line here.
• 15:12
  And you, of course, play Barry Blueberry.
• 15:14
  Yeah. And his singing voice is not
• 15:15
  really what I expected. He's got like this, this
• 15:17
  baritone. Tell me.
• 15:19
  Tell me about that. Was there was there a choice
• 15:21
  there to kind of alter his voice for singing a little?
• 15:23
  Bit yeah, we decided to make him a little bit like Andy Williams
• 15:26
  and kind of like like actually it's funny because we we Andrew
• 15:30
  and and Sam, who record all of our songs and you know, our Co
• 15:34
  writers on on all the all of music.
• 15:36
  They we have this like idea, this grand idea of like doing
• 15:40
  like a Barry Blueberry Sings holiday album.
• 15:43
  And it's just like, you know, it's like an Andy Williams kind
• 15:46
  of thing where it's like, you know, his face on the cover and
• 15:48
  very like old school, like, you know, nostalgic Christmas.
• 15:51
  But just like Barry singing every holiday song and just
• 15:55
  doing it in the way Barry would do it, which is very over the
• 15:58
  top and very affected and like, you know, having like guests
• 16:02
  with him to like duet, but like totally singing over them.
• 16:05
  Yes. So I really want to do that
• 16:08
  someday, just, like, help Barry, you know, like, And he probably
• 16:10
  is always talking about it in the rock.
• 16:12
  Everyone's like, yeah, we know. We know about your album.
• 16:14
  Like, you know, but yeah. We don't have record players,
• 16:17
  but we all have the album. Yeah, they, you know, they,
• 16:19
  they, he sings them live for everybody through his
• 16:21
  microphone. It gets amplified.
• 16:23
  Yeah, he, he definitely like, I think he like he, he has like
• 16:28
  that gym Nabors, like he puts on like a certain voice when he's
• 16:31
  when he's singing because what we realized like we didn't
• 16:33
  really never hear him sing before really.
• 16:35
  So yeah, it felt like a fun thing to kind of play with
• 16:37
  there. Now it's Canon.
• 16:38
  That's how he how he sounds, what he sings.
• 16:40
  He's got a very present voice. Yes, yes, he.
• 16:43
  Does very trained. He's very trained.
• 16:45
  Trained right, Yeah. So the title of special is the
• 16:48
  first snow of Fraggle Rock. And and I know when that was
• 16:51
  announced, a lot of people were like, it's snowed on Fraggle
• 16:53
  Rock. You know that's but obviously
• 16:55
  this means it's the first snow of the year.
• 16:57
  Yeah, it's the first snow of the season for yes.
• 17:00
  So yeah, well, it's going to board there's.
• 17:02
  There's been snow in the rock, but we never really saw an
• 17:06
  actual snowfall. And so we talked about that.
• 17:09
  We're like, well, that's interesting.
• 17:11
  Like how does the snow get there?
• 17:12
  Because we like in, in Bells of Frackle Rock, you've definitely
• 17:15
  seen that the caves are iced over.
• 17:16
  There's snow on the ground and it's like, wait a minute.
• 17:19
  So we talked about that and we're like, well, if the if the
• 17:21
  if the tradition is that the Doozers and Icy Joe bring it
• 17:24
  from the ice caves and spread it around so that everyone can play
• 17:28
  in it so they can still experience that.
• 17:31
  And, you know, kind of in that classic Fraggle way, you know,
• 17:34
  they're the dozers doing the work, which by the way they
• 17:36
  love, they're not doing. Of course they do.
• 17:38
  They want to, and, and then we're like, what if like for the
• 17:42
  very first time, they actually get a actual snowfall?
• 17:46
  And how do we do that? You know, so we, we kind of went
• 17:49
  through all the different ways to, to, to make it happen.
• 17:51
  And it just felt like a really lovely way to kind of, you know,
• 17:55
  give them a different version of snow than they're used to.
• 17:59
  At the end of the special. Spoiler alert, yeah.
• 18:01
  Sure. Right.
• 18:02
  Yeah. And it's one of those things
• 18:04
  that like, I wouldn't have thought of like they're in a
• 18:07
  cave, Like you can't snow. Like they there's a ceiling.
• 18:11
  Yeah. Yeah, they didn't even didn't
• 18:13
  even think about it. Yeah.
• 18:14
  Once again, so happy that you guys are thinking about these
• 18:16
  things. It's very important.
• 18:18
  These are the important meetings, the important meetings
• 18:20
  we have. Exactly.
• 18:22
  So we get a glimpse of like, what all the different Fraggles
• 18:25
  want to do once it snows. Red and Pogy are going to sled
• 18:28
  down a slippery slope and Moki's going to make snow angels.
• 18:31
  Wembley's going to make a snow Wembley that would be confused
• 18:34
  for real Wembley. Yes, he's that good.
• 18:37
  He's that good. He is very talented.
• 18:40
  OK, so Boober wants to use the snow to make recipes that call
• 18:44
  for snow. For example, using a snow
• 18:48
  reduction to prepare a radish linguine and a hot snow broth
• 18:52
  and Gluey Rudy pops up to point out that hot snow broth is just
• 18:56
  water now. I watched this special with some
• 19:01
  of the Tough Pigs crew and this was like this runner throughout
• 19:06
  with with Gluey. Rudy is easily our favorite.
• 19:09
  Part of the special every time. He popped up.
• 19:11
  It was his hysterical Not only is Glee Rudy just a funny
• 19:15
  character, but like his disdain for like this.
• 19:18
  So annoyed. He's so annoyed by it.
• 19:21
  It's it's getting big, like Elmo hating Rocco energy, you know
• 19:26
  what I mean? Yes.
• 19:28
  And my favorite moment in the entire special and 1st we were
• 19:30
  like, is it going to work? But I think it works so well at
• 19:33
  his very last moment off camera, like you don't even see him.
• 19:36
  He's like, come on, he's so annoyed and it makes me laugh
• 19:40
  every time I watch the cut now, it's so funny.
• 19:43
  It's the best. That's Frank Mushkilite, right?
• 19:46
  Playing. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:47
  And he loves doing it. And that puppet is such a good
• 19:50
  example of it is the most simple puppet in the sense of it's just
• 19:54
  basically a little, you know, foam latex shape on a stick with
• 19:59
  a little trigger. But the things that he does with
• 20:01
  it are so funny. The way he makes him hop up and
• 20:04
  turn around and do his little like little neck kind of
• 20:06
  extending when he gets pissed off, it's great.
• 20:09
  That's the best. Let's get some action figures of
• 20:11
  Gluey Rudy. Right.
• 20:13
  We need. One on my.
• 20:13
  Desk, right? Yeah.
• 20:14
  Do you remember those old toys you would, like, throw against
• 20:16
  the wall? They were like, sticky and
• 20:18
  they're like, like, climbed on the wall.
• 20:19
  It's like we need like a Gluey Rudy version of that.
• 20:22
  Yes, and they'll just be covered in dog hair by the end.
• 20:27
  Yes, yes. So Gobo is tasked with singing
• 20:31
  the new song of the season and then like, he clearly hasn't
• 20:34
  written it yet, he he procrastinate.
• 20:37
  I don't know. Just probably, yeah.
• 20:40
  But your performance here is gobo with that like nervous
• 20:44
  manic gobo I think is terrific. Like, thank you.
• 20:48
  It's relatable. I love.
• 20:50
  Doing that, it was really fun, and it was fun to like to see
• 20:54
  how far we could take that with Gobo because it's not an energy
• 20:56
  you really see from Gobo very often.
• 20:58
  So it was fun to play like when Gobo is like caught in the
• 21:02
  moment and his covering in front of like his friends were
• 21:05
  innocently just like, yeah, it's going to be so great.
• 21:08
  Like how do we play that? It was.
• 21:09
  I had a like the most fun doing that was great.
• 21:12
  Good. I'm glad.
• 21:14
  You know, on the old show, the old Fraggle Rock, Gobo's main
• 21:16
  job was that he was an explorer and that was that was his job
• 21:20
  job. And you guys have made it clear
• 21:22
  that and back to the Rock, his job is that he's a songwriter
• 21:24
  and there's all these little bits that kind of show up here
• 21:27
  and there where he's like, he writes a little ditty, you know,
• 21:29
  Wembley or whatever it is. It's always super cute.
• 21:32
  And so getting to see him here with with writer's block, or as
• 21:36
  he calls it, Rock block is, is a nice little twist on, you know,
• 21:40
  seeing Gobo's responsibilities kind of go into pot and now we
• 21:45
  have to figure out how to solve it.
• 21:47
  Yeah. And also, I think it's, you
• 21:48
  know, to me, it's so relatable as like, as someone who
• 21:51
  oftentimes feels very responsible for keeping everyone
• 21:54
  happy around him or like, you know, when it comes to the
• 21:57
  holidays, like being like the one who like, puts up the
• 22:00
  decorations, it doesn't. When you're not able to do that,
• 22:03
  for whatever reason, you do feel this intense anxiety and this
• 22:06
  intense sense of like, I'm going to be responsible for everyone
• 22:10
  else's holiday or everyone else's whatever being ruined,
• 22:13
  you know? And I so I could relate to that.
• 22:15
  I was like, yeah, I know that feeling.
• 22:17
  And especially as a writer, as someone who, like, makes a lot
• 22:21
  of stuff and creates all the stuff, sometimes it's really
• 22:23
  horrible. And people are like, and when
• 22:24
  you turn in that script, it's going to be so great.
• 22:26
  You're like, right, yes. That script that I absolutely
• 22:30
  have started writing and you're like, crap, I have a day to
• 22:32
  write it. Like, you know, we've all been
• 22:34
  there. We've all been there.
• 22:35
  So. Yeah.
• 22:36
  I, I feel like I work well on that kind of pressure deadline
• 22:40
  of like you got an hour kid. Due to I'm not sure how healthy
• 22:43
  it is. But no, it's not.
• 22:45
  It's I'm the same way though. It's like I'm a king of like,
• 22:48
  you know, procrastinate and then do it the last minute.
• 22:51
  So, but I need to be better about that.
• 22:53
  So Gobo's helping me. Good, good.
• 22:55
  I'm glad. So I I have to shout out this
• 22:58
  next scene where Gobo stumbles on Little Raggo.
• 23:03
  I, I've said this before in the podcast, I love Little Raggo.
• 23:06
  I love this running gag that Little Raggo keeps thinking that
• 23:10
  people are saying his name but it doesn't even sound anything
• 23:13
  like Little Raggo. And now Gobo literally says hey
• 23:16
  little Raggo and like you talking to me?
• 23:19
  Yeah, I love how Alex and Matt Wright so that they loved that
• 23:23
  character. And Ingrid Hansen is so genius
• 23:25
  the way that that she performs little Raggo and just, yeah,
• 23:30
  he's a great like example of like everyone's welcome in
• 23:34
  Fraggle Rock. Like even this little weird guy
• 23:36
  who just like, you know, we don't quite understand.
• 23:40
  And for like a character who has essentially one joke and it's
• 23:45
  like hardly even a full joke. Like it's so small and it makes
• 23:50
  me laugh every time. Yeah, it's such a great runner.
• 23:52
  And it's funny cuz when when they wrote a man, I was like,
• 23:55
  you know, I, he's the first like incidental character we got to.
• 23:57
  And I was like, I can't believe they put Little Rag in here.
• 23:59
  And I'm like, oh, I'm so glad they put Little Rag in.
• 24:02
  Yep, Yep. There was a time in which I
• 24:04
  really wanted more of like a back story or a feature story on
• 24:07
  Lil Rag O and like, you know, like, let's really figure out
• 24:10
  like, like what? What's Lil Rag O doing out
• 24:12
  there? And it's not.
• 24:13
  For his name or whatever, yeah and now, but at this point, no
• 24:16
  thank you. No, yeah, keep Lil Rag O exactly
• 24:18
  where he is. One one note is beautiful for
• 24:21
  this yes, and also I love that he it's an original puppet.
• 24:23
  You know, it's one of the original background cave
• 24:26
  creatures that we just kind of turn into little Raga.
• 24:28
  And I love that. Like now you can like watch the
• 24:30
  original series and go like there's little Raga.
• 24:31
  Like he's just like hanging out in the back.
• 24:33
  Yeah, that's. Right.
• 24:35
  We're going to check in with the gourds here.
• 24:38
  When we saw them last, Ma had just announced that she was
• 24:41
  expecting, and immediately now we're cutting straight to that
• 24:44
  giant egg. We see a huge egg.
• 24:47
  Yes. OK, lots of questions here.
• 24:52
  Understandably. Alright, was was the intention
• 24:55
  always that that Gorgs lay eggs? I mean, this is this is one of
• 24:58
  those things were like, I know once when you announced, when
• 25:00
  you came up the idea of like, you know, we're going to have a
• 25:02
  new Gorg. It's like, OK, now we got to
• 25:04
  figure out like gorg reproduction.
• 25:06
  Yes, we, it's so funny. We talked so much about this
• 25:11
  and, and at the time of back to the Rocks season 2 coming to a
• 25:14
  close, when we knew we were mom was going to be pregnant, we
• 25:17
  didn't really talk about the the mechanism, the mechanism of how
• 25:21
  that happens. We just kind of said that'll be
• 25:23
  a great thing to do for like, you know, next time we see them.
• 25:27
  And then when we realized we were going to do this, we're
• 25:29
  like, well, we have to talk about the baby, obviously to
• 25:31
  bring the baby into the world. And we really debated on like we
• 25:34
  went back and forth a few times about like, do we just show them
• 25:37
  already with baby in hand? And then it was like, no,
• 25:41
  there's something kind of glorious about a adding to the
• 25:44
  Canon of how Gorgs give birth, which, by the way, I don't think
• 25:47
  anyone's ever thought about or should.
• 25:50
  And and also like, like what, what for Junior?
• 25:54
  Like, what does that mean? Right?
• 25:56
  That anxiety, that exciting anxiety, but also the true
• 25:59
  anxiety of, oh, when this happens, what's it going to be
• 26:03
  like? And the again, kind of fits the
• 26:05
  expectations for the holidays, right?
• 26:07
  Like the gobo has this expectation of what what he
• 26:09
  needs to do for the holidays. The Fraggles have this
• 26:11
  expectation and now Junior has this has this expectation of
• 26:14
  having a little brother. And what's it going to be like
• 26:17
  when a little brother arrives and all the things that you
• 26:19
  think it's going to be? I remember this when I had my
• 26:21
  little sister was born, I had all these expectations of like
• 26:24
  that like Hallmark television moment of like holding the baby
• 26:27
  and, you know, the soft, gentle light and like, you know, it's
• 26:31
  never really what you think it's going to be.
• 26:32
  It's it's wonderful in a different way, but it's it's
• 26:34
  different. So, so, yeah, so we talked about
• 26:37
  that and then we talked about how hilarious it would be if
• 26:41
  forge hatched eggs like, like it's unexpected and it's
• 26:44
  different. And, you know, you look at like,
• 26:46
  to your point, look at the size of the egg.
• 26:48
  You're like, how don't talk about it.
• 26:49
  Like let's just do it. And and yeah, so we just the
• 26:53
  more we talked about, the more we're like, this seems like such
• 26:55
  a fun way to just like show this moment on camera without it, you
• 27:01
  know, being upsetting and just kind of adding to the Canon.
• 27:05
  And then, you know, making it this big giant moment that kind
• 27:09
  of, you know, in a good way shocks everybody.
• 27:11
  So yeah, it just it was a fun thing to we just started
• 27:14
  laughing. Actually, the more and more we
• 27:15
  talked about it, like this could be really funny.
• 27:18
  At one point we didn't do it, of course.
• 27:19
  At one point we thought how funny would it be to to open on
• 27:22
  like paw sitting on the egg, the like paws, the one who has to
• 27:25
  like warm the egg like like a lot of the animal Kingdom.
• 27:29
  And yeah. And then, you know, that just
• 27:31
  opened up 100 different problem. So we're like, no, let's not do
• 27:34
  that, but we'll definitely show the the the baby hatching on
• 27:36
  camera. That's fair.
• 27:38
  Yeah. And I know you don't want us to
• 27:40
  think about it, but I can't stop thinking about Ma laying that
• 27:43
  egg. It's in it.
• 27:46
  I I don't want to think about it.
• 27:48
  It's some things are better, like off camera.
• 27:50
  And so, yes, well, thank you for that.
• 27:52
  Well, and and you know, to that point, was there any thought at
• 27:56
  any point to like showing more of the process before getting to
• 27:59
  the hatching? So you know, like, I mean,
• 28:01
  hypothetically, you know, if if you had another season of the
• 28:04
  show where this was going to be part of the season, you know, to
• 28:07
  show like we've got this egg, you know, we have a few stories
• 28:10
  revolving the egg or a pregnant Ma Gord before she lays the egg
• 28:15
  or whatever it is. Like we kind of jump, right?
• 28:17
  Into it here. Yeah, we talked actually, it's
• 28:19
  funny to say that we did talk a little bit about, you know, do
• 28:22
  we spend the whole special with non hatching the yeah, you know,
• 28:26
  do we do a whole thing about anticipation and maybe not even
• 28:31
  pay it off at the end. And then it was like, no, you
• 28:33
  know, our fans, myself included, are so excited to meet this new
• 28:38
  member of the family and it and it's such a big change in the
• 28:41
  Canon. It's such a big change for the
• 28:44
  dynasty of the Gorgs and their future as Royals.
• 28:47
  And, you know, we don't really talk we don't talk about that at
• 28:49
  all in this. But, you know, down the line,
• 28:51
  it's something to talk about, you know, how does it affect
• 28:53
  junior? Is he still next in line?
• 28:56
  Is there some Gorg Cree of like, you know, that that that a baby
• 29:01
  Princess, you know, overrides the junior?
• 29:04
  Like there's so many ways we could take this now And and it
• 29:07
  just felt like we wanted to get her into our world sooner or
• 29:10
  later. And also the pizza shop when
• 29:12
  Pete Brooke, who designed the look of of baby Gorg showed us
• 29:16
  the drawing. We're like, Oh my God, we all
• 29:17
  want to meet her, like right now.
• 29:19
  So. We just decided it was like, you
• 29:22
  know, and also it also felt like a really exciting for the fans
• 29:25
  who've been so patient waiting for something new.
• 29:27
  It just felt like we can't, like we have to, we have to premiere
• 29:31
  this character. We have to show this character
• 29:33
  off. And and I appreciate that
• 29:35
  because that was such a like a story bomb that you guys dropped
• 29:38
  at the end of Season 2. Yes.
• 29:40
  And, you know, you got to find out what happens next.
• 29:42
  And it's like, don't worry, it's right here.
• 29:44
  We're going through the. First third of the episode.
• 29:46
  It's right here. And she, you know, like with the
• 29:49
  minute we saw her come alive on set, we were all like, oh, so
• 29:53
  like, this is the right. Decision.
• 29:54
  Yeah, absolutely. So Junior made as a gift for the
• 29:59
  new baby, these Fraggle dolls that these props, these little
• 30:04
  Fraggles with like walnut heads, little nut heads that are on
• 30:09
  screen for like 3 seconds. Your props department, they're
• 30:13
  so talented. You know what?
• 30:15
  That's a great example of the love and detail that goes into
• 30:20
  something that doesn't necessarily need that much
• 30:24
  detail, but it's important for the world to feel right.
• 30:27
  So and actually it's funny you brought that up because we had a
• 30:30
  whole scene that got cut. This is a great example of
• 30:33
  sometimes it's so hard to cut the things that you're excited
• 30:35
  about. We had a beautiful scene where
• 30:37
  Junior actually was put on a little puppet show with the
• 30:40
  Fraggles and did like individual voices for all of them.
• 30:43
  We got a little bit in there. We got his like slight gobo in
• 30:46
  there, which makes me go every time.
• 30:48
  But like he had a whole show that he was going to like
• 30:51
  basically be behind like the OR doing and stuff like that.
• 30:53
  And so they were, they were actually made to fit on his
• 30:55
  fingers. Like it's like really like cute
• 30:57
  little finger gourd finger puppets.
• 30:59
  And then it in the rewrites and everything.
• 31:01
  And as we got closer to production, it got cut, but the
• 31:03
  creature shop had already started building these amazing
• 31:07
  finger puppets. And I remember walking in and
• 31:10
  Scotty Johnson is one of our incredible leads of the creature
• 31:14
  shop and, and our, you know, our main kind of guy in the shop for
• 31:17
  Fraggle. He was like, yeah, well, we just
• 31:19
  thought that like, you know, it's Gorge, obviously.
• 31:21
  So he would use a lot of found things that Junior would like,
• 31:23
  use different nuts. And so Wembley's a peanut and
• 31:26
  like, which matches the shape of his nose and all these
• 31:29
  different, you know, with the raffia hair.
• 31:31
  And like, he probably took some hay from the ground that you
• 31:33
  always see on the Gorge floor. All these brilliant, thoughtful
• 31:36
  ways of like, making this feel real.
• 31:38
  And so when we saw them, we're like, we have to put them on the
• 31:41
  show somehow. We have to like, they're so
• 31:43
  beautiful. And so then Matt and Alex and
• 31:46
  John Rosenbaum, our director, came up with the idea of, you
• 31:48
  know, at least having them on the counter and referring to
• 31:51
  them. So you get a moment.
• 31:52
  But I I down the line I want to see Junior put it on a Fraggle
• 31:56
  puppet show more than anything. I absolutely want to see that
• 31:58
  puppet show. Let's imagine right?
• 32:01
  Cuz I know you guys have talked about this before about how like
• 32:03
  in Henson Company properties, whenever you can put in a
• 32:07
  reference to puppetry within a story, go for it.
• 32:11
  Especially when you can have a character like Paw or somebody
• 32:13
  be like, oh, puppet show. Like it's such a funny meta
• 32:16
  thing to do, you know? Yeah, yeah, True.
• 32:20
  So this is also a rare look inside the Gorg's castle.
• 32:26
  Had we seen this before? I'm not sure we had.
• 32:28
  We have not and well, not, not on, not on back to the rocks.
• 32:31
  So, yeah, we had an amazing, amazing new set designer named
• 32:36
  Pedro, our production designer, who came in and and joined us
• 32:41
  for these specials and his whole idea of like, you know, of how
• 32:45
  he wanted to show the inside of the castle.
• 32:47
  And you know, we had a few things we wanted to really nod
• 32:49
  to if, you know, the original series, like the hay on the
• 32:51
  ground was an important thing, the feeling that the castle was
• 32:55
  it a bit of disrepair. So if you look really close, you
• 32:57
  can see like tree roots growing through the cracks of the stone
• 33:00
  and things like that. But we also wanted it to feel
• 33:03
  warm and holiday and also safe for the baby, obviously.
• 33:06
  So we took a few made a few changes for this version of
• 33:10
  that. But when you look at that
• 33:12
  gorgeous castle that you see and back to the rock from the
• 33:15
  outside, it just opened up the doors of like, Oh my gosh, the
• 33:18
  stained glass windows. What does that look like when
• 33:20
  there's light coming through? And, you know, now we have this
• 33:23
  beautiful living area with the with the the if you know, the
• 33:26
  original series, that wonderful stove.
• 33:27
  They used to always have that boiling kettle that's there, you
• 33:30
  know, so we tried to like show all that stuff and and, and nod
• 33:33
  to it. But yeah, this is 2 brand new
• 33:36
  sets that, you know, were, were made just for these holiday
• 33:39
  specials. And it's just, it's, I'm so, so
• 33:41
  happy with how it turned out. Yeah, it's it's really
• 33:44
  beautiful. I hope you I really hope you get
• 33:46
  to tell more stories in that set me.
• 33:48
  Too. Me too.
• 33:49
  Yeah, there's more. So Junior is worried about being
• 33:54
  a Big Brother, and he has this great moment.
• 33:57
  A spotlight shines down on him and he sings.
• 34:01
  How do I know if I'm ready? I'm not going to do an
• 34:02
  impression of this little song. And immediately cut short by
• 34:05
  Pennsylvania, We're not singing. This is not a singing moment.
• 34:07
  Yes, we were like, maybe we'll like let fans think for a second
• 34:11
  that Light Junior's going to have a big song here.
• 34:13
  And then again, brilliantly, Alex and Matt wrote that they
• 34:16
  paw just cuts them right off. Like we don't time for a song,
• 34:19
  Yeah. But Paw says it's going to be
• 34:22
  weeks before this egg hatches. Got plenty of time, don't worry
• 34:25
  about it. And boom, that shell explodes.
• 34:28
  Yes. This reminded me very much, and
• 34:31
  I don't know if this is intentional of baby dinosaur,
• 34:34
  baby Sinclair and dinosaurs hatching for the first time.
• 34:37
  Was that Was that on purpose? It's a little nod.
• 34:39
  Yeah, we talked about that because it's it's such a
• 34:41
  wonderful moment. And we just decided that, like,
• 34:44
  you know, like Baby Sinclair, this baby would also make a
• 34:47
  grand entrance in a way that no one expects.
• 34:50
  So. And we were all big fans, of
• 34:52
  course, of dinosaurs, too. But but, you know, it also just
• 34:55
  felt right that like, you know, that she wouldn't just be like,
• 34:58
  tap, tap, tap, crack, that she would be like, I'm here.
• 35:01
  I'm a Gord baby. Yeah.
• 35:03
  And she's kind of got this scary in a good way, scary, like,
• 35:06
  funny scary, you know, amazing presence right away for a
• 35:11
  newborn baby. Like, she's pretty much, you
• 35:14
  know, she's ready to go. Yeah.
• 35:17
  She. Is fully formed she can talk we
• 35:19
  see in a minute she she can walk already he.
• 35:21
  Makes like dead eye contact right there.
• 35:23
  Like, like, you know, I'm in charge.
• 35:25
  I'm the baby. Like, it's amazing.
• 35:26
  Like, it's the way Keira Hall performs.
• 35:29
  The baby is so funny. And so, you know, and again, for
• 35:32
  Junior, like he's expecting this, like sweet little innocent
• 35:36
  swaddling, you know, baby, who's just finding the world for the
• 35:40
  first time and hears, you know, Princess, who just bursts out
• 35:43
  like, I got a personality. I'm here.
• 35:45
  Yeah, this is also like a good lesson for, like, any new
• 35:50
  parents or expecting parents who are watching the show to
• 35:52
  recognize that, like, you can read all the books, you can know
• 35:55
  exactly what's going to happen and you're going to be wrong.
• 35:58
  It is unpredictable. You got to just roll with it.
• 36:02
  That's right. Yeah.
• 36:03
  It's never how you think it's going to be, you know?
• 36:05
  Yeah. So back in Fraggle Rock, I see
• 36:09
  Joe and Cotter pin are bringing in the big creative snow.
• 36:13
  She I see Joe makes everyone hum adventure music while she's
• 36:16
  opening the crate like she's opening a combination lock.
• 36:18
  I don't know why it's locked. I don't know if it's locked.
• 36:21
  I mean, it's it's still a fun moment, but we.
• 36:24
  Were seeing that too. It's ridiculous that she's like,
• 36:26
  you know, I see. Joe was like, Oh, no, I got to
• 36:27
  make sure this is like, you know, sealed to the Max.
• 36:30
  That's right. Yeah, it is.
• 36:32
  It is official snow. We did not fake it.
• 36:35
  It came. Straight no one can open this
• 36:36
  but her, Yeah. That's right.
• 36:38
  Yeah. The box opens, everyone looks
• 36:41
  inside. There is a single snowflake and
• 36:43
  it's a puppet. It's a it's a character with a
• 36:45
  face. It's like, hi, y'all, it's me.
• 36:49
  You built a whole puppet just for this snowflake.
• 36:53
  We did, we talked a lot about that.
• 36:54
  We're like, is this like a just ACG character?
• 36:56
  Is it? And then then the creature was
• 36:59
  like, we have to build this puppet.
• 37:00
  So. And then, you know, we talked
• 37:02
  about like, what kind of personality?
• 37:04
  And for some reason we all thought it'd be so charming if
• 37:06
  the snowflake was a little bit like Dolly Parton.
• 37:08
  Great. Just like, hi, y'all.
• 37:10
  You know, So like, and it's just like, something about that,
• 37:12
  like, just felt right. So yeah, there she is.
• 37:16
  Well, she's so welcoming and you know, like, you know, she's
• 37:19
  happy to be there. And also like making her such a
• 37:22
  positive character helps so that when she melts in the next
• 37:26
  moment, like part of you is like Aww, but it's also like she's
• 37:30
  all right. She's like, hi.
• 37:32
  She's used to it. Yeah.
• 37:33
  Like, it's actually, we talked about that where like, she can't
• 37:36
  melt in like a really upsetting way.
• 37:37
  It has to be kind of like a magical like, what?
• 37:39
  Like she's just like, this is my thing, you know?
• 37:42
  And everyone's, everyone's like, OK.
• 37:44
  Yeah, yeah. It also makes me wonder why
• 37:48
  Cotter Pin and I see Joe even bothered.
• 37:50
  Like they knew they were bringing in one snowflake.
• 37:52
  Right. Like put it in that big.
• 37:54
  For that, yeah. Right.
• 37:56
  Like, thanks a lot guys. But thankfully for Gobo, until
• 38:00
  there's more snow, his song is postponed.
• 38:02
  He's got he's got a little extension on his deadline.
• 38:06
  So OK, so Red says, pardon my language, but this is rinky
• 38:10
  dinky sneaky. And everyone gasps.
• 38:12
  And then Moki calls Red by her full name.
• 38:18
  And if I heard it right, it's Redmond Jane Fraggle.
• 38:22
  Is that? Right.
• 38:23
  Yes, yes. Where does Redmond Jane Fraggle
• 38:26
  come from? I don't I, you know, I don't
• 38:29
  want to like jumble things up in my brain.
• 38:34
  I think Redmond was 100%, I think convention of Alex and
• 38:39
  Matt 100%. I think Jane was put in as a
• 38:43
  tribute to Jane Henson. And I don't want to I don't want
• 38:45
  to just make that up. I'm 90% sure that's true.
• 38:48
  But we always look for like little, little things like that.
• 38:51
  And, and Karen, I, I the reason I remember this, I think I
• 38:53
  remember Karen being really happy about that and thinking
• 38:55
  that was really lovely. But yeah, so that, so, but
• 38:58
  Redmond was like, I remember, I remember like I read it like 6
• 39:02
  times. I got the draft.
• 39:02
  I was like, I was like, Oh my God, like, you know, And it just
• 39:06
  felt hilarious. And then then we all talked
• 39:08
  about we're like, is that actually her full name?
• 39:10
  Or is that just like like I, I love to like jokingly call
• 39:13
  people with like a fake middle name.
• 39:14
  So I was like, is it like kind of like a, a made-up like name
• 39:17
  that Milky says when she's being very serious to red?
• 39:19
  But just we made us laugh every time on set when we did it.
• 39:23
  It was so silly. It's so good.
• 39:25
  I mean, look, we, we talk a lot about, you know, adding things
• 39:28
  to the Canon and I, I think this is going to add to the Canon.
• 39:31
  I think I think people are going to take that as official, but we
• 39:33
  did it. But also the the specificity of
• 39:37
  giving her a middle name that's a real name.
• 39:40
  Because if it could have been like if it was like Redmond
• 39:42
  Radish Fraggle, then it's like, OK, we don't know.
• 39:44
  That could have been anything or something that's like over the
• 39:47
  top Fraggly. But Jane just like just Jane.
• 39:51
  OK. And.
• 39:52
  Then it makes me go like, what if, What if, You know, What if
• 39:55
  you what if she went by her middle name?
• 39:56
  It'd be so weird if she was Jane Fraggle.
• 39:57
  Like it'd be totally Jane, Yeah. God, Jane Fraggle.
• 40:01
  Wow. I know, but now I'm happy to
• 40:02
  hear you say it adds to the cannon.
• 40:04
  I love this I. Do I mean anything you guys, do
• 40:06
  you know whether whether it works or not?
• 40:08
  I love when you add things to the cannon.
• 40:09
  It's so far everything's worked as far as I'm concerned.
• 40:12
  Good. Oh, thank God.
• 40:13
  Good. And then Speaking of adding
• 40:14
  things to the cannon, the next scene, Gobo wanders into another
• 40:17
  cave and meets these this like, living Moss.
• 40:20
  It's a big Moss wall with three faces in it.
• 40:22
  Yeah, again, incredible. I mean, this doesn't look like
• 40:25
  it was the most complex puppet to build.
• 40:27
  I mean I could be completely wrong, but that you built
• 40:29
  another unique character to this episode that really only exists
• 40:35
  so that Go has something to say out loud to someone like he did
• 40:37
  with little Rago. Yeah.
• 40:38
  And it kind of keeps that world of the thing that we all love
• 40:41
  about the original series and back to the Rock is that there's
• 40:45
  this endless trove of worlds and characters and species and
• 40:51
  places. And sometimes they're just
• 40:52
  referred to in Word and you never see them.
• 40:55
  But we're like, yeah, there probably are a live Moss faces
• 40:59
  that live all over Fraggle Rock that sometimes come out and talk
• 41:02
  and as they don't. And it just felt like, yeah, I
• 41:04
  love how the guys, Matt and Alex, used them to kind of be
• 41:07
  like the three different points of view.
• 41:09
  And that's at Kanye Chan and Andy Hayward and Ingrid Hanson
• 41:13
  doing those three. And they're so funny.
• 41:15
  Those voices are so funny. And Scotty Johnson and Jurgen,
• 41:20
  Alex Ferguson, Jurgen, we call them Jurgen built those and just
• 41:24
  I love all the detail on each one.
• 41:25
  And they're just like great little soft foam puppet faces,
• 41:29
  like just malleable. They were beautiful puppets.
• 41:32
  Yeah, they really look like it and it gives me big like
• 41:35
  labyrinth Dark Crystal vibes. As well, Yeah.
• 41:38
  I mean I want to compare them to the.
• 41:41
  The eyes, the. Stocking yes, I was going to say
• 41:44
  that the the the the stone faces in labyrinth, but but I think I
• 41:49
  already made that comparison with the echo chamber episode.
• 41:52
  So I think I think you're right. The the eyes, the the the in the
• 41:57
  in the. It was weird, like, you know,
• 41:58
  the floor and fauna that has the personality, Yeah.
• 42:00
  Totally. Yes.
• 42:01
  Very, very labyrinth. I love that.
• 42:04
  So Gobo goes to Doc's workshop to get traveling.
• 42:06
  Mets postcard slips on some water, hits his head.
• 42:08
  That'll be important later. Yeah.
• 42:11
  And we see travelling Matt, he's in Mountain Town talking to some
• 42:17
  plastic snowmen, telling them that he got Gobo an incredible
• 42:20
  gift. And the postcard, as Gobo reads
• 42:23
  it gives some some very specific instructions.
• 42:26
  So ridiculous it's. So silly.
• 42:28
  I love it so much, especially when he's like, like right now,
• 42:31
  yes, right now, like, I love it. So yeah, it's so silly.
• 42:35
  And the fact that it includes, it's not just like take two
• 42:38
  steps here and then take a jump over there.
• 42:40
  It's it's like you're going to meet this brown eared flu, be
• 42:42
  named Rick and give him a high 5:00 and you're going to follow
• 42:46
  the honk of the goose worm. Yes, yes.
• 42:49
  I mean, all these ridiculous like what?
• 42:51
  Yeah. Yeah, why are they there?
• 42:53
  Why is the goose worm there then?
• 42:55
  It's the most terrifying puppet I have ever seen on this show.
• 42:59
  We well, I think, you know, always fun to introduce like
• 43:03
  weird new characters, right? And I wonder that totally came
• 43:06
  from Alex and Matt. And then it was funny like to to
• 43:09
  basically like be say to the creature shop, like here you go,
• 43:12
  we need a goose worm. And then they designed that
• 43:14
  weird looking puppet. We're like, yes, that looks so
• 43:16
  weird and bizarre and why not? Yes, it's like a giant worm with
• 43:20
  a duck bill. And then Lockhart, who performs
• 43:24
  that character, who I just he has the best off, you know, off
• 43:27
  center sense of humor. I was like, just make it really
• 43:31
  bizarre. He's like got it and just and
• 43:33
  did that voice on the read through and it was we all just
• 43:35
  kickled it because it's so dumb. So dumb so.
• 43:39
  Dumb. Yes.
• 43:39
  Yep, now let's never see him again.
• 43:42
  Ever. Yeah.
• 43:43
  He's your sleep paralysis demon. Yeah, it's the Goose Worm from
• 43:48
  Fraggle Rock. Yikes.
• 43:50
  So Gobo goes through this portal and suddenly he's in outer
• 43:54
  space? Yes.
• 43:55
  OK, talk about adding to the Canon.
• 43:58
  That's a theme here for this this podcast episode.
• 44:01
  Yeah. So in the old show, I don't
• 44:04
  think Gobo, aside from going to Docs workshop, I don't think he
• 44:07
  ever really went into outer space right there was.
• 44:10
  One episode that we could recall where he in that wonderful
• 44:15
  episode, you know, with Red and the dragon, where they're like
• 44:17
  hitting the archways and going all.
• 44:19
  There's a great episode or great moment in that where he
• 44:22
  accidentally gets like sent out to like the porch below Dawkins
• 44:26
  sprockets. But it's for like 2 seconds.
• 44:28
  He like you see him and he's like, oh, this is wrong.
• 44:30
  And then he goes back and we just, yeah, we talked about it
• 44:34
  where like, you know, he's never really going out in the outer
• 44:37
  space. And like Matt kind of, you know,
• 44:40
  2 times, like in the 1st and 2nd season of Back to the Rock, like
• 44:43
  dangles his carrot in front of him and then kind of like, you
• 44:46
  know, kind of screws him over. It's like, never mind, you can't
• 44:48
  go. So we were like, you know, if
• 44:50
  we're going to do this special, we have to do things that just
• 44:52
  go above and beyond a typical episode.
• 44:54
  And like, you know, we probably in a 13 episode season wouldn't,
• 44:58
  wouldn't really have the the time or the ability to take him
• 45:00
  out into the real world. But this were like, no, we're
• 45:03
  going to spend a day or two out outdoors and shoot this and make
• 45:07
  it look spectacular for the special.
• 45:09
  So and it just felt like it was Gobo's time.
• 45:11
  Like it's like, you know, he's having this anxiety, this
• 45:14
  crisis. You know, he's always the one
• 45:17
  who, like, you know, is giving, giving to everybody else.
• 45:20
  Let's give him something that's super special to him and like he
• 45:22
  gets to go out and have this moment.
• 45:25
  And the more we talked about like what that could be and what
• 45:27
  we could do with it, we just got so excited.
• 45:29
  And and I love seeing puppets outside.
• 45:31
  To me, like those, you know, the classic puppet movies where
• 45:33
  you're seeing them out in the real world, it just looks so
• 45:35
  beautiful. They look gorgeous on camera
• 45:37
  outside. And, and yeah.
• 45:40
  And then we then we started talking about where we could do
• 45:43
  it. And of course, we shoot in
• 45:44
  Calgary, Canada, which we love so much.
• 45:46
  And Canmore, which is a beautiful city up, you know, by
• 45:50
  the mountains is just, it looks like a picture postcard.
• 45:53
  So, so perfect. And so, yeah, so that's how it
• 45:56
  all happened And, and it was just, it was so fun.
• 45:58
  It was so much fun. It was freezing, but it was so
• 46:01
  much fun. It was so much fun.
• 46:02
  Did. You have to like shut down the
• 46:04
  street for filming for. This Yeah, yeah, It was really
• 46:07
  cool. It felt very exciting.
• 46:08
  It was very like, you know, and it was, it was cool watching,
• 46:11
  you know, people who live there and tourists because it's a big
• 46:14
  tourist city, you know, we would shut down like one side of the
• 46:16
  street to shoot like Gobo, you know, dancing down, singing, you
• 46:20
  know, face facts. And you just see people like
• 46:22
  either driving by like like that or or huge or or fans just like
• 46:27
  pulling out the phone be like, Oh my God, go Bo like it was it
• 46:30
  was really cool. It was neat.
• 46:31
  That is very cool. I, I, I imagine, you know,
• 46:34
  whenever I see something and I actually, I think we talked
• 46:36
  about this with some of the travelling mat scenes earlier in
• 46:40
  this podcast of like, just imagine driving down the street
• 46:43
  and there's travelling mat like he's, he's real.
• 46:46
  He's just there on the street. Corner.
• 46:48
  I would have lost my mind as a kid if I'd seen that.
• 46:49
  I'd be like, it is real, yeah. And that's one of the most
• 46:52
  special things about puppets. You know, like you can't drive
• 46:55
  down the street and see Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob or
• 46:58
  whatever, right? You can't like, you can't think
• 47:00
  like, you know, like I could turn the corner and there's big
• 47:02
  bird's nest. It is very possibly there.
• 47:04
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really cool.
• 47:07
  Some of the shopkeepers, actually, to their credit, they
• 47:09
  were wonderful. They were so excited to be part
• 47:11
  of it. And they put out their own
• 47:13
  decorations of the window, some of them.
• 47:15
  And. And, you know, they were like,
• 47:16
  oh, we can be at the counters in case you see us.
• 47:18
  And it was so funny to see people's faces just like, like
• 47:21
  little kids just watching, you know, gobo Uncle Matt run by,
• 47:24
  you know, 100 times. It was.
• 47:25
  It was great. That's cool.
• 47:26
  I. Love that.
• 47:28
  So Matt assures Gobo that don't worry, I'm a seasoned
• 47:32
  adventurer, and then immediately screams that they're going to
• 47:35
  die. Turns out it was just his
• 47:38
  eyebrow which fell in front of his eye.
• 47:39
  Thought it was a huge things far away but it was a small thing up
• 47:41
  close. So it was stupid, but I love.
• 47:43
  It. But what I love about that too
• 47:44
  is now I understand how Matt could be afraid of his mustache.
• 47:49
  If it flips up, he's going Oh my.
• 47:51
  God, yeah, right. Yeah.
• 47:53
  So Manischer's gobo. Don't worry, I'm going to be
• 47:55
  there with you the whole time. And then immediately carried off
• 47:57
  by a golf cart. That's it.
• 47:58
  He's. Gone again.
• 47:59
  You're. On your own.
• 48:00
  Yeah. Bye.
• 48:01
  Bye. Good luck.
• 48:01
  Yeah. Yep, and like leaves gobo like
• 48:04
  in front of an Urban Outfitters or something.
• 48:06
  It's like such an apparel store or something like that.
• 48:10
  Yeah, so yeah, this is where Gobo gets his next song.
• 48:12
  Face facts. Pack snacks make tracks from the
• 48:16
  original Fraggle rock episode original series Fraggle rock
• 48:18
  episode gobo school for explorers.
• 48:22
  Is this cute? Because I appreciate that you
• 48:24
  don't try to go do too much. Like it's just Gobo walking down
• 48:27
  the street and we get alternating shots of like gobo,
• 48:30
  you know, like the puppet Gobo walking down the street and then
• 48:34
  his. Little feet.
• 48:35
  Yeah, I'm always curious about when you do little feet things
• 48:38
  like that. Are you like hanging down off of
• 48:41
  like a I don't even know something that's hanging.
• 48:44
  What is what are you doing? You.
• 48:45
  You tell me. It kind of depends on how tight
• 48:47
  the shot is. There's times where you are kind
• 48:49
  of like over the camera, you know what I mean?
• 48:52
  So like your your bias on the way.
• 48:53
  I think when we did that shot, we did that from the side of the
• 48:57
  frame because it was like, you know, Fraggle feet, his feet are
• 49:00
  actually kind of big for Cobo's got very long legs.
• 49:03
  They go all the way down to the ground, yeah.
• 49:05
  He's got gams, you know, but I think that we, I was, we were
• 49:08
  able just to kind of lean over and do it.
• 49:10
  But yeah, it depends. As soon as you're walking behind
• 49:11
  the camera, sometimes in extreme situations, you're like on like
• 49:15
  a, like a platform, you know what I mean?
• 49:18
  That's being that's being moved with the camera, but that's not
• 49:20
  as common. Right.
• 49:22
  Yeah, platform. That's the word platform.
• 49:24
  Yeah, I can't think of the word either, actually.
• 49:25
  So there you. Go So Gobo falls into a mail
• 49:29
  cart and he's brought into a recording studio and right in
• 49:32
  front of a celebrity. That's how it works.
• 49:34
  That's how you meet celebrities. Isn't that how this works?
• 49:36
  Right. Yeah, and he meets Lele Pons.
• 49:39
  Yes, look at that. Lele Pons.
• 49:41
  OK, so how did that come about? How did Lele Pons get chosen for
• 49:44
  the celebrity moment in this? Episode Well, it turns out she's
• 49:46
  a huge puppet and Fraggle fan. We had no idea.
• 49:49
  And, you know, we wanted someone who'd be playful and that
• 49:53
  obviously was very musical. And, you know, and she had shown
• 49:58
  interest in in doing something with us.
• 50:00
  But also when when we realized that she was pregnant with her
• 50:04
  first child, it really just fueled like, oh, wow, this is
• 50:09
  such a beautiful way to like also talk about expectations and
• 50:13
  talk about, you know, her anxiety and her, you know, not
• 50:18
  fear, but her, her, her worry about, you know, what to expect
• 50:22
  and how much for life is going to change.
• 50:23
  Which also just kind of lined up with the Gorg storyline.
• 50:26
  It lined up with Gobo storyline. It all kind of seemed to really
• 50:29
  work. And she really wanted that
• 50:32
  moment to be documented. She's like, this is, you know,
• 50:34
  I'll never have this again. I'll never I might have another
• 50:37
  baby, but I'll never have my first again.
• 50:38
  And she's like, I'm so she's literally no lies.
• 50:41
  I think she gave birth the week after we shot that like.
• 50:44
  Wow. We knew that she was very, you
• 50:46
  know, I, I kept being like, you know, this could be, this could
• 50:48
  be the momentous day of shooting.
• 50:51
  And so she really was at that edge of like, I'm about to
• 50:54
  become a mom and have this baby in front of me.
• 50:56
  So it was just exciting. And they just felt like the
• 50:58
  right kind of combination. And, and you know, what she was
• 51:01
  so great about is she didn't take it herself seriously.
• 51:04
  She was willing to play. She was willing to like, you
• 51:06
  know, have that perfect blend that celebrities need to have of
• 51:10
  like, you know, not being afraid to make fun of yourself, but
• 51:13
  also knowing that, like, the puppet is always going to be.
• 51:16
  She needs to be the funnier, goofier 1.
• 51:18
  And she was a great straight person for that as well.
• 51:21
  Yeah. And and she just, you know,
• 51:23
  again, she just, she loves, loves this kind of thing.
• 51:26
  So she was she was gay. Yeah, and, and once again,
• 51:31
  fragile cannon changing, changing the rules here.
• 51:34
  You know this aside from Matt, correct me if I'm wrong.
• 51:36
  Aside from Matt meeting the Foo Fighters and Espa, yes, this is
• 51:41
  the first time that we've really had like a celebrity with a
• 51:43
  Fraggle. In the world, in the audience,
• 51:46
  in person. In person.
• 51:47
  That's right. Yes, yeah.
• 51:47
  In person, yes, Yeah. And of course, by the way, Gobo
• 51:51
  has no idea which I love. Like, he's just like, right.
• 51:54
  Yeah. Like, hey, yeah.
• 51:57
  So yeah, that must have been a big decision for you guys as
• 51:59
  well to like, OK, we got to we got to break cannon a little bit
• 52:02
  or, or, or not to break cannon, but to to introduce a new
• 52:06
  element that really changes or could potentially change
• 52:08
  everything for how fraggles and and humans interact.
• 52:12
  Yeah. And, you know, we're very
• 52:13
  protective of like, never giving the Fraggles that pop culture
• 52:18
  knowledge that like the Sesame Street characters in The Muppets
• 52:20
  have. You know, Miss Piggy knows who
• 52:22
  Beyoncé is. She's intimidated because she
• 52:24
  wants to be Beyoncé. Right.
• 52:25
  Like Elmo can, can kid around with Jimmy Fallon and make
• 52:28
  references to current events. You know, the Fraggles, they can
• 52:31
  meet. We we talk a lot about like,
• 52:33
  they can meet someone who is, you know, well known and famous
• 52:36
  and they can meet people, but they can't have any knowledge of
• 52:39
  what that means. So they don't know what a
• 52:41
  recording studio is. They don't know what a
• 52:43
  soundtrack is. They don't know what, you know,
• 52:46
  an album. They don't want any of that.
• 52:48
  They just know that that this is a silly creature I'm talking to.
• 52:51
  And, you know, I love that moment that the guys wrote of
• 52:53
  like when she's like, well, I'm just really worried about, you
• 52:55
  know, how my life's about to change.
• 52:57
  He's like, yeah, why? Like again, that innocence,
• 53:00
  right? They don't know how customers
• 53:01
  get birth. They don't want anything.
• 53:03
  So we we kind of were like, if we're going to do this like the
• 53:06
  Foo Fighters, since that it just has to come from a place of
• 53:09
  innocence because if if the fragrance lose that it those
• 53:11
  that innocence. It just kind of destroys
• 53:14
  everything that's been laid before, and we're so protective
• 53:17
  of that. So.
• 53:18
  So they can, you know, meeting silly creatures is already a big
• 53:22
  thing, but if it's going to be a famous silly creature, they
• 53:24
  can't ever be like, I love your movie.
• 53:26
  Like, you know, it can't be like that.
• 53:27
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 53:30
  And yeah. And as you said, like she talks
• 53:31
  about expecting and go has no idea what that means.
• 53:34
  Was this a like an I Love Lucy situation where like you're not
• 53:39
  allowed to say the word pregnant?
• 53:41
  Oh, no, I don't think so. I think I think it was, I think
• 53:43
  it was I, I at least I don't, I don't think that was
• 53:45
  intentional. I think I think it was more like
• 53:48
  keeping it kind of, well, if anything, it maybe it kind of
• 53:52
  took away a need for Gobo to say, what does that mean?
• 53:55
  You know what I mean? As opposed to just keeping the
• 53:57
  generic of like expecting, like he's expecting snow, he's
• 54:00
  expecting to write the song. So it felt like that word was a
• 54:03
  better alignment. But yeah, I don't, I don't think
• 54:05
  it was like we cannot say this word.
• 54:10
  So the two of them sing a song. They sing the song Our Melody,
• 54:14
  which comes from the original series episode The Minstrels.
• 54:18
  Was Lele familiar with the song beforehand?
• 54:21
  I think she was, if I recall correctly, I think cool.
• 54:23
  I think at least she had a an awareness of it.
• 54:25
  Yeah, yeah. And I like that they're singing
• 54:29
  like he he's, you know, singing into the microphone, you know,
• 54:32
  with her, like, as if they're laying this down for her album.
• 54:36
  And then I think it raises a lot of questions about, like, is the
• 54:38
  music union going to be like, do we have to pay this person?
• 54:41
  Who's this voice? Who's this mystery vocalist that
• 54:44
  like hears? Or is it like magic where it's
• 54:46
  like in the room, you hear it and then like you play it back
• 54:49
  and you don't hear anything? You know, although we do see the
• 54:52
  people in the in the booth and they're like, like swaying.
• 54:55
  Yeah, they're reacting to it, yeah.
• 54:57
  That's true, and she gives Gobo her snowflake pin as as he
• 55:03
  leaves, which is very nice. Which is so sweet.
• 55:07
  And as he goes outside to try to figure out his way home, he runs
• 55:11
  into another silly creature. And.
• 55:13
  You're going to. This is going to sound weird.
• 55:16
  He is the spitting image of you. I want to go on a record with
• 55:23
  you by and say I really didn't think that the guys were serious
• 55:28
  when they wrote that. I thought that they put it in
• 55:30
  like the first draft to make me laugh or just make everyone kind
• 55:32
  of giggle and like what a funny like crazy thing that'll be
• 55:35
  that'll get cut. And then literally it was like
• 55:38
  every draft like Apple Reddit was like, we love this and
• 55:41
  everyone here read it and I was like, guys, wait, really.
• 55:43
  Like I was like, no, this is 2 on the no, like this is 2 on the
• 55:46
  nose. But then I kind of embraced it
• 55:48
  and I was like, it's it's such a sweet moment and kind of like
• 55:51
  lele with being pregnant. This will never happen.
• 55:53
  I was like, you know, this will be forever part of my life now
• 55:56
  that I get to say like this, this world that I have, you
• 56:00
  know, as, you know, obsessed over since I was 7 and this
• 56:02
  character that means so much to me to get to be able to, you
• 56:05
  know, share that moment was just it was really special.
• 56:08
  It was the last thing we shot actually in Canmore.
• 56:11
  And if I've been puppeteering global all day and I was so
• 56:15
  cold, I was frozen. I was just like, Oh my God.
• 56:18
  So it was actually just nice to like have a reason to put on
• 56:20
  like a winter coat and a hat because.
• 56:22
  Yeah, right. Well, I, I love it.
• 56:25
  I love that they did that. I feel like there is a grand
• 56:27
  tradition of like, you know, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, you know, they
• 56:31
  like Jerry Nelson, like everyone gets little cameos aside from,
• 56:36
  you know, the Fraggles look for jobs shorts that that was not
• 56:39
  really meant for public consumption.
• 56:41
  I think that the only time we ever see a a Muppet person on
• 56:44
  screen is we've got Dave goals on the roller coaster and we get
• 56:48
  Jerry Jewell in the finale sitting behind dock on the
• 56:51
  airplane. That's right.
• 56:53
  And I don't know just you don't need to know who they are.
• 56:56
  That's for us for the fans to look and be like Yep, there they
• 56:59
  are that we see it, we recognize it.
• 57:01
  It's. Really nice to say that and
• 57:02
  especially when you're just listed all that off, I got
• 57:05
  really emotional thinking how lucky I had to be in that
• 57:07
  company. But I also think, yeah, it was
• 57:10
  important to me and I think that we did a good job of this.
• 57:12
  So like, if you don't know who I am or don't care who I am, which
• 57:15
  is fine, that you're not sitting there going like, wait, what's
• 57:18
  happening? Why is this like, if if
• 57:20
  anything, maybe it makes you go, oh, that's interesting.
• 57:22
  Why do they have that dialogue? Maybe you look it up, but like,
• 57:24
  you know, it's just a little moment to kind of nod to
• 57:26
  everybody and kind of, you know, that I love that that we Frank
• 57:29
  who puppeted Gobo for me in that moment that we really kind of
• 57:32
  coordinated on that great little.
• 57:34
  But you know, it's such a stupid little moment, but it makes me
• 57:37
  giggle every time I watch it. Absolutely.
• 57:40
  Did you feel like, so you're credited as like John Tartaglia
• 57:44
  as himself. So for you, for your your
• 57:48
  approach, were you playing yourself or were you playing
• 57:52
  like I'm a person who's in Calgary and I don't know what
• 57:55
  this Fraggle thing? Is that's a great question.
• 57:56
  I think I was playing it. I think I was playing it as me.
• 58:02
  I just was John, but I happened to be on the street in Calgary
• 58:06
  and happened to run into Gobo. So I think I try to play it like
• 58:09
  that. Like I wasn't trying to like be
• 58:10
  a character. Like I think I was just kind of
• 58:12
  being myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 58:15
  And it's so funny even you say, you know that credit cuz even
• 58:17
  that I was like, oh, I hate that.
• 58:18
  Don't put that. Like we have to put that there.
• 58:20
  It's like for SAG, I was like, OK, I hate it.
• 58:23
  Oh my. God, I mean it could have been
• 58:24
  like John Tartaglia as man on the street.
• 58:26
  As man with cell phone, yes. Yes, yeah, cell phone man.
• 58:29
  Yeah, that's. Confused.
• 58:30
  Confused human. Yeah.
• 58:34
  So Gobo is attacked quote UN quote untacked by some dogs and
• 58:39
  he's somehow magically whisked back to Doc's workshop.
• 58:43
  Was it all a dream? He he fell and hit his head?
• 58:45
  Well, what a what an interesting dream that he had.
• 58:47
  Where? He was.
• 58:47
  We let you. We let you interpret it.
• 58:49
  We let you decide. How convenient, yes, for you,
• 58:54
  all those questions that we had out the window, don't worry
• 58:57
  about it. I mean, well, it's funny too,
• 58:59
  because we talked a lot about that like, you know, does it
• 59:02
  lose its its potency If, if it's just a dream?
• 59:05
  And it was like, no, in a way it kind of it, it really does kind
• 59:08
  of First off, gives the fans an opportunity to decide what they
• 59:10
  want to decide, which I love. And I won't tell you what if I
• 59:13
  think it happened or not. I think it's up to everybody to
• 59:15
  decide that for themselves. And I think it kind of has that,
• 59:18
  that little extra layer of like holiday magic of like, you know
• 59:22
  what I mean? Like like where like, like when
• 59:24
  Pogey comes in as the ghost of, you know, like you think he
• 59:26
  might be like a ghost of Christmas past or something like
• 59:28
  that, just Pogey. There's like these little we
• 59:30
  tried to throw in like these little nods, like other holiday
• 59:33
  specials and stories that make it feel special, special.
• 59:37
  Yep. And that just felt like a good
• 59:38
  one to to to do too of like, was it a dream?
• 59:41
  Like did Scrooge really dream all that or was it real?
• 59:44
  You know what I mean? He says that it was a dream, but
• 59:46
  was it Like, I think that that gives that, I don't know, it
• 59:49
  just makes you forgive some of the more heightened moments a
• 59:52
  little bit, you know? Right.
• 59:54
  There's already a lot of magic in Fraggle Rock.
• 59:56
  But you're right, there's a different brand of Christmas
• 59:58
  magic that shows up in a lot of different movies and specials
• 1:00:01
  and books. Yeah, although, you know, a
• 1:00:03
  really quick fun fact about that too.
• 1:00:04
  We had to actually build a separate gobo face skin because
• 1:00:09
  we were like, wait, we have to put something on the puppet.
• 1:00:12
  You know, the way you get a dog to like lick something is you
• 1:00:14
  put like, you know? Peanut butter or something,
• 1:00:16
  Yeah. Something on it and and we
• 1:00:18
  realized like, oh, the amount that we needed to put on for
• 1:00:21
  that dog to like really want to kiss Gobo like and they had to
• 1:00:25
  like use like a stunt like a doll of like gobo for like weeks
• 1:00:28
  ahead of time to get this dog ready.
• 1:00:29
  And like it was amazing. The dog was incredible.
• 1:00:32
  But they they creature shopping to build a brand new fleece skin
• 1:00:36
  to put over one of the existing Gobo puppets faces with like a
• 1:00:39
  giant glob of like I forget if it was peanut butter or Turkey
• 1:00:42
  or whatever for the dog and it was so funny.
• 1:00:45
  He just like scanned of gobo going over but but it worked.
• 1:00:49
  Wow, very Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, so things aren't so good
• 1:00:54
  in Fraggle Rock with all the snow.
• 1:00:55
  Wembley made his snow. Wembley out of rocks.
• 1:00:58
  He hates it. Moki tries to make a snow Angel.
• 1:01:01
  She falls backwards and she's like, I'm just a Fraggle on the
• 1:01:03
  floor which. Is hysterical so dramatic?
• 1:01:06
  The Doozers made some Doozer sticks snow but it's all sticky
• 1:01:11
  and so red and pogy try to slow down.
• 1:01:12
  They face plants and then they get up and they've got like like
• 1:01:15
  foam beards on. Dana beards, yeah.
• 1:01:17
  Yeah, I love that. That is a great look.
• 1:01:19
  Is it just like shaving cream or something?
• 1:01:21
  Yeah, I think it was just like dyed shaving cream or something
• 1:01:23
  like that. Yeah, cool.
• 1:01:24
  Love that Kobo shows up and Moki says to him, We're sure as
• 1:01:29
  Sheila, we can't start without your song.
• 1:01:31
  And a Fraggle pops up behind her and it's like she's right.
• 1:01:34
  And that's Sheila. You got we talk about Sheila,
• 1:01:37
  you got Sheila yes and Ali Eisner performs Sheila and just
• 1:01:41
  everything that they did with that character made me laugh.
• 1:01:43
  I just love that. I love that puppet, first of
• 1:01:46
  all, and I just love Ali's choices are always really funny.
• 1:01:49
  And yeah, we were like, that's Sheila.
• 1:01:51
  Like we need to, we need to meet Sheila.
• 1:01:52
  We need to have Sheila back. So glad.
• 1:01:54
  Yeah, glad. Glad to see Sheila here.
• 1:01:56
  It's not for Sheila. Christmas.
• 1:01:58
  You got Sheila. That's your.
• 1:01:59
  Gift that's. Right.
• 1:02:02
  And so, you know, Gobo explains to everyone, you know, the
• 1:02:04
  holidays can still come, even this one's a little bit
• 1:02:06
  different than the others. So maybe we don't need snow.
• 1:02:08
  They all of our holidays can be unique, like a snowflake.
• 1:02:13
  And maybe his song can be unique as well.
• 1:02:15
  And everyone can add their own parts to sing once again our
• 1:02:18
  melody. Lovely song.
• 1:02:20
  I love the song it's. It's such a beautiful song.
• 1:02:23
  Yeah. Yep.
• 1:02:24
  And so right for the for this moment, you know, of like we all
• 1:02:27
  belong. We all need each other for this
• 1:02:28
  moment. Yeah.
• 1:02:29
  Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what I was
• 1:02:31
  going to say is, you know, the original version of the song
• 1:02:33
  with Cantus leading the whole thing.
• 1:02:35
  And, you know, the purpose is we are coming together.
• 1:02:38
  We we have we have this unity that is so important at the
• 1:02:41
  heart of of the brand of Fraggle Rock.
• 1:02:43
  And, you know, bringing that back here to say like, well,
• 1:02:46
  it's not just about, you know, species to species or character
• 1:02:49
  to character. It's about that holiday spirit.
• 1:02:52
  Yeah, you know, brings us together during the holidays.
• 1:02:54
  Yeah, it's it was really it was really emotional to film it too,
• 1:02:57
  because we the that monologue, Global says it was one of the
• 1:03:00
  last things we shot. And, you know, we had this time
• 1:03:03
  back together after not being together filming for a while.
• 1:03:06
  And so it was really actually very difficult to get through
• 1:03:08
  that monologue for me because it it literally said everything I
• 1:03:11
  feel about this group of people that make the show about, you
• 1:03:14
  know, we're all we all need each other and just, you know, why
• 1:03:17
  don't we just celebrate this moment and enjoy being together?
• 1:03:20
  I mean, I mean, you didn't think about I'm getting tear that like
• 1:03:21
  it was just a beautiful, well written, beautifully written
• 1:03:25
  moment by Alex and Matt and just standing there in front of
• 1:03:28
  everybody having to do it. It just I was just like, this is
• 1:03:30
  my feeling for everyone here. I love you all, you know,
• 1:03:33
  beautiful. When you go into the song, it
• 1:03:34
  was just that and then that music just, it's, you know, it's
• 1:03:37
  just so lovely. Yeah, yeah, it really is.
• 1:03:41
  So over in Doc's workshop, she created this snow machine for
• 1:03:46
  her and Sprockets, and we had another little cute little shot
• 1:03:49
  of her dancing with Sprocket. So.
• 1:03:50
  Fun, right? And also, by the way, like just
• 1:03:53
  really nice to see Lily Cooper in Doc's workshop that you
• 1:03:56
  didn't have to do a Zoom thing where she just shows up on
• 1:03:58
  screen. Yes, you know, it's I, I read
• 1:04:00
  somewhere someone said something about that.
• 1:04:02
  Then they were like, you know, like why wasn't she at Night of
• 1:04:04
  the Lights? And it was like, I don't think
• 1:04:05
  we talked about this, but, you know, she was about to have her
• 1:04:07
  baby, you know, during the night.
• 1:04:09
  Like, she actually couldn't, you know, be in the special.
• 1:04:12
  And so she was really thrilled. She's like, yes, I get to be the
• 1:04:14
  holiday special with the Fraggles.
• 1:04:16
  So, well, you know, if lately ponds could show up a week
• 1:04:19
  before Lily Cooper, come on, you could have Lily.
• 1:04:23
  No, it's it's fine. It's fine.
• 1:04:25
  Yeah. So a hole bursts in the snow
• 1:04:29
  machine thing and and the winds carried into the Fraggle Hole,
• 1:04:32
  and it's snowing in Fraggle Rock.
• 1:04:35
  Presumably for the first time, they get actual falling snow in
• 1:04:38
  the rock. Yeah, that's that's practical
• 1:04:41
  snow, right? That's not.
• 1:04:42
  It is. It is.
• 1:04:43
  Yeah. We, we the the actual snow
• 1:04:46
  blowing out of the hole was CG just for because that wasn't too
• 1:04:48
  hard to control. But the actual snow falling was
• 1:04:51
  all real. And that was that was so
• 1:04:54
  beautiful on set to film. That's great.
• 1:04:57
  It looked magical. It was just gorgeous.
• 1:04:58
  Yeah, it. Really does.
• 1:04:59
  Yeah. You would think that like, well,
• 1:05:01
  it's Fraggle rock. It should be like multi colored
• 1:05:03
  snow, sparkly snow. It's like, no, just snow.
• 1:05:05
  It's magical enough. That's all you need.
• 1:05:07
  'Cause it's also like, you know, it, it, it does kind of answer
• 1:05:09
  the question then of like, you know, now it justifies why at
• 1:05:13
  the end of the show you see them playing in all a lot of snow and
• 1:05:16
  it's like, OK, it's definitely snowing.
• 1:05:17
  It's definitely. You're right.
• 1:05:20
  So everyone's happy now. The Doozers are excited about
• 1:05:22
  all the work they get to do to shovel the snow.
• 1:05:25
  The it's snowing also in the gorge's garden.
• 1:05:28
  And we get this beautiful shot of, of sweeping over the garden.
• 1:05:31
  And we see the trash heap with the Christmas lights all over
• 1:05:34
  her that she got a little moment in here too.
• 1:05:37
  In the rock. Red gets to do her sledding.
• 1:05:39
  And Wembley makes his snow Wembley and Boober makes his
• 1:05:42
  snow linguine. And here we got Gluey Rudy.
• 1:05:44
  He tastes it. He.
• 1:05:46
  Like the pasta, He gets it. The melted snow really does make
• 1:05:48
  a difference. It's so pays off.
• 1:05:50
  It's so it does. And then Gobo finds the
• 1:05:55
  snowflake pin, and maybe it wasn't a dream all along, huh?
• 1:05:59
  Huh. I don't know what to think.
• 1:06:01
  That's the thing you get to decide, right?
• 1:06:03
  It's like, it's like, it's like, did he, did Layla give him that
• 1:06:07
  pin? Has he always had the like?
• 1:06:08
  It just kind of gives you a billion different ways to look
• 1:06:10
  at it. It's.
• 1:06:10
  True, it's true, and our last shot here is that snowflake no
• 1:06:15
  longer melted, flies in front of the camera.
• 1:06:18
  Wishes everyone a happy holiday. Glad you got a little bit more
• 1:06:21
  use out of this one shot puppet. I mean, you know, it Also kind
• 1:06:24
  of to your point earlier about her dissolving, it made me feel
• 1:06:27
  better, like, OK, she's fine. She's back.
• 1:06:28
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:06:29
  She's great, she's enjoying the moment.
• 1:06:31
  Yeah, Tiny Tim, who did not die, who did not die.
• 1:06:34
  That's right. And then the the last thing I
• 1:06:37
  want to mention here is I was watching the credits and just
• 1:06:41
  curious who was playing who. One one thing I I wasn't sure
• 1:06:44
  about, Ben Durochet is credited as the fragliest Fraggle.
• 1:06:48
  Yes. Who is that?
• 1:06:50
  Who did I? Who did I miss?
• 1:06:51
  That's the Fraggle that's at the end with Wembley, who's like
• 1:06:54
  looks just like you. Oh, it looks in the cooler.
• 1:06:58
  Yeah, yeah. The most cause 'cause we were
• 1:07:01
  like, let's make a Fraggle that just feels like as over the top
• 1:07:04
  as you could possibly go in every way possible.
• 1:07:07
  So and he feels like the most fraggly Fraggle.
• 1:07:09
  I mean, that's like being the most humanist human.
• 1:07:12
  I don't know what that would look like.
• 1:07:14
  It's so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous, yeah.
• 1:07:17
  Is he the one that has the big teeth?
• 1:07:19
  Cause those teeth are so weird. I know, you know, when they,
• 1:07:24
  when they made him in the shop, it was like we all walked in and
• 1:07:27
  we just all started laughing, 'cause we're like, it is, it's
• 1:07:29
  so big and like those teeth are so big and ridiculous.
• 1:07:33
  We're like, yeah, it's very silly, like a fraggle.
• 1:07:35
  That's right. It has to be as silly on the top
• 1:07:37
  as possible. He's so fraggly he gets a giant
• 1:07:41
  roll of teeth. That's what someone I'm up at
• 1:07:43
  wiki needs to do is like because there's there's probably like
• 1:07:46
  literally probably 5 Fraggles I could think of from the original
• 1:07:49
  series and back to the rock who have teeth.
• 1:07:51
  Like who are the Fraggles who have teeth?
• 1:07:53
  OK, so you you say that, but there was AI think after season
• 1:07:56
  2 of Back to the Rock, one of our writers, Katie Lynn Miller,
• 1:08:01
  we were talking about, I'm drawing a blank on which
• 1:08:04
  character was, but there was a character with teeth.
• 1:08:06
  Oh, Barry Blueberry, probably right.
• 1:08:08
  Was it Barry? He has he has teeth.
• 1:08:10
  He does. I don't think it was Barry and
• 1:08:11
  it may actually have been a a Muppet or Sesame.
• 1:08:14
  Character. Like now, but but we were
• 1:08:16
  commenting on like how creepy it was that this character had
• 1:08:19
  teeth. And then we started
• 1:08:20
  brainstorming of like, well, when is it creepy that they have
• 1:08:22
  teeth and when is it not creepy? You know, some like it's weird
• 1:08:26
  when Elmo grows teeth, but we don't mind that, you know?
• 1:08:30
  Like Doctor teeth has them. Or doctor.
• 1:08:31
  Teeth has teeth. Yeah, right.
• 1:08:34
  So, you know, this is really like, I feel like this is the
• 1:08:38
  time now that we have a character who's almost defined
• 1:08:41
  by his, his one giant row of tooth.
• 1:08:44
  And and yet, and yet, you know, is, is loved and belongs on the
• 1:08:48
  rock and, and celebrated for that.
• 1:08:50
  And yeah, like, you know, in a very fragile way and, like,
• 1:08:53
  you're like, all right. Yeah, great.
• 1:08:57
  I'm so glad we got to the bottom of that.
• 1:08:58
  Well, I also, I was to say I also, I give credit to Ben too,
• 1:09:01
  because I, I, you know, he made that character so ridiculously
• 1:09:05
  adorable, like with the voice, you know, whatever that voice
• 1:09:09
  is. So it, it, it, you know, I'm
• 1:09:11
  excited to think of where that character could go.
• 1:09:13
  In the future, the the way that Back to the Rock has embraced
• 1:09:19
  these one off and background characters is such a beautiful
• 1:09:23
  thing. And sometimes I feel like you're
• 1:09:26
  doing it just for for the Super fans or for the muppet wiki to
• 1:09:29
  track everything. But it adds so much to the world
• 1:09:32
  that that you're you're doing it so consistently throughout the
• 1:09:36
  series. And I don't know, I just I just
• 1:09:39
  want to let you know I appreciate it.
• 1:09:40
  That's. Great, thank you.
• 1:09:40
  Well, you know what, I I, when I was watching the original
• 1:09:43
  series, but I always loved characters like Tosh and her
• 1:09:45
  beast or the original storyteller Fraggle or Granny
• 1:09:50
  Fraggle, like these characters who like would have a pretty big
• 1:09:53
  role in an episode and then maybe you wouldn't hear from
• 1:09:56
  them again. And I thought about like, that's
• 1:09:58
  just real life. You know, there's people in our
• 1:10:00
  lives that we see for a day because we get together and have
• 1:10:04
  lunch with them or something like that.
• 1:10:05
  And they're a big part of that day of our lives.
• 1:10:07
  And then we don't maybe see them again for a couple of years or
• 1:10:09
  something like that. And it doesn't take away that
• 1:10:11
  they're part of our lives. It's just, you know, and I think
• 1:10:13
  I get annoyed by series that only have like the same
• 1:10:17
  characters every single episode and just an incentive character
• 1:10:20
  that comes in. Maybe I like it when you get
• 1:10:22
  that sense of like stand on The Golden Girls.
• 1:10:25
  Dorothy pops up every now and then.
• 1:10:28
  He's a big part of their lives, but then you don't see him for
• 1:10:31
  12 episodes and it's okay, So yeah.
• 1:10:34
  Because you're, you've built a world that is growing and
• 1:10:38
  changing. And that's also kind of an, I
• 1:10:40
  feel like an important theme to the show where, you know, you're
• 1:10:43
  doing this continuation slash soft reboots of the old show.
• 1:10:46
  And it's like we have to keep evolving.
• 1:10:48
  We have to keep growing. And I think one of the many ways
• 1:10:50
  that you're doing that is by having these these characters
• 1:10:53
  who can just kind of show up. Yeah.
• 1:10:55
  Or show up for a minute and then we don't see him again ever.
• 1:10:58
  Or whatever it is. Well, and hopefully it makes you
• 1:11:00
  wonder, like I was saying earlier about the Barry
• 1:11:01
  Blueberry holiday album, you almost wanna know, you almost
• 1:11:05
  like pan the camera over and be like, okay, I'm seeing what's
• 1:11:08
  happening with Wembley and Boober, but what's going over
• 1:11:10
  here with Barry and Sherry for the holidays?
• 1:11:11
  I wanna follow them to their holiday feast.
• 1:11:14
  Like I feel like that's there's a lot of weird conversation
• 1:11:17
  happening there. What is Little Raggo up to right
• 1:11:20
  now? We got to check in.
• 1:11:21
  Doing like, is he? Yeah.
• 1:11:23
  Like, how does he celebrate for snow?
• 1:11:24
  Come on. John, this that brings us to the
• 1:11:27
  end of this special. But like it was, it was such a
• 1:11:29
  delight to get to revisit it with you.
• 1:11:32
  Thank you for making it. I really hope that there's more
• 1:11:35
  Fraggle stuff coming. From you guys, me too well and
• 1:11:38
  and you you said this in the beginning, but it's true it's
• 1:11:40
  like it is so up to us and the fans and I know I see this every
• 1:11:44
  time, but it's really true If there was ever a time where I
• 1:11:46
  will say if you want more Fraggle rock, you need to get
• 1:11:50
  people to watch the special. So please spread the word to
• 1:11:53
  your to your friends, to your family, make it part of your
• 1:11:55
  holiday tradition. Like you know, that's that's
• 1:11:57
  what we'll keep it going. So.
• 1:12:00
  Absolutely. Well, thank you again for
• 1:12:02
  joining. And everyone go to Apple TV, go
• 1:12:05
  watch the special, go revisit all of Fraggle Rock, back to the
• 1:12:08
  rock, let everyone know that they should be watching it as
• 1:12:12
  well. And everyone, happy holidays,
• 1:12:15
  John happy. Holidays to you too.
• 1:12:16
  Happy holidays. I hope it's a beautiful year
• 1:12:19
  ahead. And, and, and yeah, like you
• 1:12:21
  said, there's more Fraggle magic all together.
• 1:12:29
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• 1:12:32
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• 1:12:35
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• 1:12:37
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• 1:13:06
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