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Fraggle Talk Episode 3: "The Merggle Moon Migration" with Fraggle Rock Writers · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:17
  Hello and welcome to fraggle, talk on the fish'll.
• 0:20
  Fraggle Rock podcast brought to you by tough tix.com.
• 0:23
  This is the podcast where we cover Fraggle.
• 0:25
  Rock back to the Rock Episode by episode along with the talented
• 0:28
  producers performers. Writers and Builders who helped
• 0:31
  put it together. I'm your host silly creature
• 0:33
  Johannes. Today, we are talking about
• 0:36
  episode 3, The merggle Moon migration in which Mochi.
• 0:39
  Ignores the facts, involves our guts, and we miss out on the
• 0:42
  myrtles dance party. I'm sure it was great.
• 0:45
  Today, we'll be chatting with three folks, responsible for the
• 0:47
  writing of the show. No, I don't mean traveling
• 0:49
  Matt's post cards. Our first guest has written
• 0:52
  and/or, produced episodes of New Girl, American Dad in one of my
• 0:55
  all-time non Hudson favorites Community.
• 0:57
  We are pleased to welcome, executive, producer and writer.
• 1:00
  Our Alex Cuthbertson. Hello, Alex.
• 1:02
  Hey, good to be. I actually do right.
• 1:04
  Uncle Max postcard. So, you know, I just want to be
• 1:06
  totally accurate. I meant like the penmanship of
• 1:09
  his Pono. I do it all.
• 1:11
  I'm saying, you ready? Yeah, I'm just sitting light
• 1:14
  off, right off screen. Handwriting, each one.
• 1:17
  Nice to meet you. Nice to be here.
• 1:19
  Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
• 1:20
  Of course, of course, our second guest has almost the exact same
• 1:24
  credits as Alex having written and produced a whole bunch of
• 1:26
  familiar TV shows they just mentioned what a coincidence.
• 1:29
  We are. Pleased to welcome, another
• 1:31
  executive producer and writer. Matt, fusfeld a Matt wait.
• 1:35
  Hi Alex. You were on those things?
• 1:37
  Yeah, I know it's kind of odd that we never had.
• 1:46
  Thanks for having me. Thanks for having us.
• 1:48
  Thanks for being here, our third and sorry, Alex and Matt, most
• 1:52
  exciting guest is one of the co-creators of the original
• 1:55
  Fraggle, Rock. Okay kid.
• 1:57
  She's very exciting at the shyest.
• 1:59
  Very Get ready for this folks. She has written over a dozen
• 2:02
  episodes of Fraggle, Rock including other Henson projects,
• 2:05
  like tail to bunny, picnic, the episodes of Sesame Street, go
• 2:08
  staff after Hall, the animal show, a ton of storybooks and a
• 2:11
  lot more she serves as the Consulting producer of back to
• 2:15
  the Rock and she's the writer of this episode that we're going to
• 2:18
  be talking about in just a few minutes.
• 2:19
  We are extremely pleased to welcome Jocelyn Stevenson.
• 2:23
  Hello Jocelyn, hello Joe and Hello Alex and that.
• 2:29
  So I'm Jocelyn. Thank you for that intro.
• 2:33
  That was nice. Of course.
• 2:34
  It's really is it really is such a treat to have you here.
• 2:37
  I've been a huge fan of your work for my entire life and just
• 2:41
  to have you here on this podcast talking to directly is just it's
• 2:45
  a real treat. Thanks anytime.
• 2:48
  So Jocelyn I'm going to start with you, okay.
• 2:53
  Were you familiar with Fraggle Rock before joining the rock?
• 2:57
  That was the first question I asked her to A shot.
• 3:00
  Jocelyn? Yeah.
• 3:01
  And I had and I had the I think audacity to tell Alex and Matt
• 3:07
  that I was declaring that myself, the I was naming myself.
• 3:11
  The essence Checker in the writers room because I thought
• 3:15
  Essence, wood needs to be checked and and that I was I was
• 3:20
  qualified to do that. It was it was a term that Jim
• 3:23
  Henson used to use for a puppet Builder packet called Don
• 3:26
  saline, and Don was able to just Look at a muppet and he could
• 3:31
  just tweak and I and it would suddenly go from just being the
• 3:36
  sock with some stuff on it to being a muppet and it would Jim
• 3:40
  call that Essence checking. So, yeah, so, I actually kind of
• 3:44
  cheeky that I did that but I thought, no, I thought it was
• 3:47
  very well, disquiet and warranted it.
• 3:51
  You know what we were all thinking when we were doing it.
• 3:54
  And anyway, the essence was checked, they, it's it's done.
• 3:58
  They did a great job. Great.
• 4:00
  I'm so happy with the series. It's, I mean, who could do this?
• 4:04
  It's really hard. It's hard.
• 4:07
  And, like I said, the essence is there.
• 4:09
  That's the thing that I think all the fans are really picking
• 4:11
  up on is it's not just oh, hey, what?
• 4:13
  If it's the same fraggle characters doing new things?
• 4:16
  It feels like Fraggle Rock. All the things that is really
• 4:20
  satisfying to have that feedback from fans.
• 4:23
  From fans, really satisfied. It was really satisfying.
• 4:26
  It was scary. I think it was like that.
• 4:28
  Was that the I think the The number one thing that we are all
• 4:31
  sort of like worried about as the show.
• 4:34
  You know, we worked on the show, we all collectively worked on it
• 4:36
  for so long. So when it finally went out into
• 4:40
  the world there was that kind of that little, pause that moment
• 4:43
  where we were wondering if people were going to respond to
• 4:46
  it in sort of the way that we intended, which is that it's
• 4:49
  like a loving continuation. You know, more than a reboot or
• 4:53
  a rethinking of the series and it was yeah, it was really
• 4:56
  satisfying, and awesome and heartwarming, that That was the
• 5:00
  response. Hmm really well you did a good
• 5:03
  job. That's the really what I'm
• 5:05
  saying. That's a good job.
• 5:08
  Well I was in the I was in the room because I'm in the UK in
• 5:11
  the room and they were all in La.
• 5:13
  So for me the day started at 5:30 in the evening so I was in
• 5:17
  the writers room from 5:30 to 8:30, not my peak time, but
• 5:22
  never mind. And I was, I was there for the
• 5:26
  first for the first three weeks. And one that when Alex and Matt
• 5:28
  asked me to write One of the first four episodes I can't tell
• 5:32
  God. I was, I was so happy, it was
• 5:35
  just great to be asked. And so, yeah.
• 5:40
  So, I mean, I was only there for a little while and I've been I,
• 5:42
  but I mean, I was involved in of what?
• 5:44
  The first seven or eight scripts, Maybe I Deserve, I
• 5:46
  think. So, I'm gonna be the ultimate
• 5:47
  lie, you were there for more than a month, you know, between
• 5:51
  sort of getting the show up and running and then writing your
• 5:53
  first episode and getting into the sort of process for that and
• 5:56
  to give Jocelyn a deeply felt. Felt not to use them up upon
• 6:02
  deeply fault compliment. Jocelyn came in, in, was in
• 6:08
  every way, just fraggle. He was open-minded.
• 6:11
  Open-hearted did not sort of. Try to keep the show in any
• 6:16
  particular space. I think that we were always
• 6:18
  really committed to making sure the essence felt, you know,
• 6:22
  correct. And that it felt like Fraggle
• 6:24
  Rock, but Jocelyn was never sort of, never scolded us, to not try
• 6:28
  new things, I think. Because you I don't know like I
• 6:31
  don't speak for you but it seems like your experience writing the
• 6:33
  original was that you guys were constantly inventing and being
• 6:36
  open and feeling. Oh yeah, you know, new things
• 6:39
  have. Yeah, it was made, it was too
• 6:41
  bad because we couldn't all we couldn't carry on when we
• 6:45
  couldn't meet each other for one thing, and then and then all the
• 6:48
  Riders couldn't be on the set that to me was one of the one of
• 6:52
  the scent because just because of covid and how it all worked,
• 6:55
  I mean there's no noticeable effect.
• 6:57
  It's just that's just To be able to do that.
• 7:01
  But the room felt very much like, I mean, the way it felt
• 7:04
  when we were doing the original thought we were all in that and
• 7:06
  I kept, you know, we kept reminding we were on the service
• 7:09
  of the best idea and Matt and Alex, know how to run it for all
• 7:12
  Riders from. I can tell you that for nothing
• 7:14
  and they, you know, they kept steering us there.
• 7:18
  And, and we didn't always agree, did we?
• 7:21
  Sometimes I said to my didn't like that, and he said, oh,
• 7:24
  okay. It was too much doing it anyway.
• 7:29
  No, you Examples. I want to know what the fights
• 7:33
  were about. Who won.
• 7:35
  Oh, I can actually tell you when they because because I because
• 7:38
  of my schedule, I hope you guys don't mind me telling you this
• 7:41
  telling this, but I'm going to because of my schedule.
• 7:43
  I couldn't be in the writers room all the time so that when
• 7:46
  the rewriting was going on, I wasn't there.
• 7:49
  And so the I think I think part of it was that putting fade in
• 7:54
  for the first time at the top of a fraggle script for the first
• 7:57
  time in 40 years was Mind-blowing I have to tell you
• 8:03
  and I was scared because I didn't have Jerry juhl there and
• 8:06
  Larry Merkin, my you know, my creative Pals that I had all
• 8:10
  through the all through the original series and Matt and
• 8:15
  Alex. And they had some day rewrote my
• 8:17
  first episode and I had to tell them.
• 8:19
  I really don't like this to remember that you guys, I'd be
• 8:22
  careful. I really, I really don't like
• 8:26
  this. And then and so then we talked
• 8:27
  and they said they were like, okay?
• 8:29
  And they we talked That and know what was really interesting was
• 8:32
  because this is how great they are, they'd already distributed
• 8:36
  it, the way it had to be. You know, the system is
• 8:38
  different than what we used to do.
• 8:39
  What we did in the original series.
• 8:40
  There's, you had so many more people giving you notes and we
• 8:43
  ever did we ever had one note from HBO or eggs or the CBC not
• 8:48
  one, right? And you guys never mind.
• 8:51
  So they had also knows coming in and they distributed the script
• 8:54
  and then when they came back to me and they said, you know what
• 8:58
  everything because I sent, you know, notes and I wrote notes
• 9:01
  and sent and he said everything that you've said other people
• 9:04
  have said to. And so the second draft that
• 9:07
  they then we all talked about. The second traffic did was it
• 9:10
  was so good that and so much of it with the funny parts were.
• 9:15
  There's, they made it so much funnier that, I'm very happy to
• 9:18
  have my name on it. I think it was what it was, you
• 9:23
  know, especially being one of the First episodes that we did
• 9:25
  for the season. There was a lot of still finding
• 9:27
  the voice of the show and obviously, Matt and I come A
• 9:30
  certain background and we were kind of totally, I guess, zoning
• 9:35
  in on what we want to do with the show and with sort of the
• 9:38
  pace of it and still sort of finding some of the little
• 9:42
  character beats that we that we wanted to kind of employee for
• 9:45
  the rest of the season. And I come from really just
• 9:48
  half-hour comedies. We've always been in half hour
• 9:50
  comedy rooms. And I think to what Jocelyn the
• 9:53
  settings that we always sort of had kind of beat into us, this
• 9:59
  idea that nothing was He's ever done, you know, I mean, like if
• 10:01
  you write a draft, you turn it in.
• 10:04
  You met me and be in love with certain parts of it or hate
• 10:07
  certain parts of it. But it's sort of like not to
• 10:10
  worry because in the room takes over and I think we're really
• 10:12
  like big Believers in the room so we take drafts.
• 10:15
  Everybody reads them. Everybody pitches everybody
• 10:17
  contributes ideas. Everybody sort of has a hand in
• 10:20
  re jiggering things as we go. So I think we hopefully were
• 10:24
  able to take something and just kind of keep it moving.
• 10:27
  Our goal is always to keep advancing the At each stage.
• 10:30
  So, like Joseline said, there's moments where you're, like, I
• 10:32
  don't know. This may have taken a step back
• 10:34
  this got worse. We don't want to do that.
• 10:36
  We don't want to hurt anything. So then it's just a
• 10:38
  conversation. We keep building and keep
• 10:40
  building it together. But yeah, it's a, it's such a
• 10:43
  process. It was just too bad.
• 10:45
  I couldn't have been because of the time difference I just
• 10:48
  couldn't have been I couldn't be in the room for the for the
• 10:50
  rewriting because I that would have been really fun.
• 10:52
  Amen. You know but nevermind it came
• 10:55
  out really well and the funniest lines are your guys that did the
• 11:00
  I think it was mad, he came up with the rousing doozer apology,
• 11:03
  the way, the way that the arc with the Jackhammer.
• 11:07
  That really me. I was reminded of that watching
• 11:10
  it tonight. That was.
• 11:11
  All right. I was reminded of that moment
• 11:14
  watching the episode last night. Yeah, I had some, you know, some
• 11:17
  some, some poem it was going to say some, you know, sort of
• 11:20
  chant or something, but they just went right to.
• 11:22
  It was so funny. But I really was pleased that
• 11:26
  the horns, you know, in in World's oldest fraggle those
• 11:31
  horns that keep black. That was my idea.
• 11:34
  And I was really good. That's great.
• 11:37
  Well, as we go through this episode, we will definitely try
• 11:40
  to call out. Who's, who can claim we were all
• 11:43
  in the service idea? Distilled into the final
• 12:01
  product. And some, some of that's just
• 12:03
  sort of saying humility was really, really is a product of
• 12:10
  the room in an awesome way. Speaking of Fraggle writers
• 12:12
  definitely do want to ask you this because his name came up in
• 12:16
  a, he's obviously the most important person to the entire
• 12:21
  Fraggle. Rock Mythos that's Geri Jewell,
• 12:23
  who know, of course, passed away several years ago, but did you
• 12:28
  feel his presence in the writing room?
• 12:30
  I'm sure it must have been weird to be back on, Fraggle Rock and
• 12:33
  to not have him there with you. That was weird being back on it
• 12:37
  and without him without him there, but I think he would be
• 12:40
  loving it. I think he.
• 12:43
  Yeah, when we didn't do writers for me so it was a different
• 12:45
  process and I don't think they ever really well.
• 12:51
  No, we're not. Even on The Muppet Show wasn't
• 12:53
  really a writers room in the same way that you guys do a
• 12:55
  writers room. But um, but yeah, Jerry I did
• 12:59
  miss him. A lot, I just but it, but it's
• 13:01
  that whole idea, the whole idea of, you know, the ethos being
• 13:07
  being preserved, that's that's a huge.
• 13:10
  That would be something he would just be so pleased about.
• 13:13
  And yeah, so he's dancing around what I think about.
• 13:20
  Yeah, he's writing, I really think about you like really sort
• 13:23
  of complex and sophisticated ideas being presented to an all
• 13:28
  age audience but without The sort of nothing didactic or
• 13:33
  pedantic about it. It's really sort of he didn't
• 13:36
  never ever spoke down to the audience.
• 13:39
  And also it was sort of a hybrid of like really sophisticated
• 13:44
  high level ideas but with like extreme silliness and just just
• 13:47
  like never enough silliness. And I think that that was the
• 13:50
  sort of that was the sort of mix, we are trying to hit and
• 13:54
  that made for a really fun room because the writers room would
• 13:57
  kind of weave back and forth between really see serious
• 14:00
  conversations. I think a lot of this,
• 14:01
  particularly a lot of the themes from the episode came from
• 14:05
  writers, personal experiences and personal stories, and things
• 14:08
  that they really felt deeply. And then it's just like just
• 14:12
  making up gibberish Inna half the time and making up chance,
• 14:16
  and getting each other really laughing with some of the
• 14:19
  silliest stuff that like, I think a lot of us didn't
• 14:21
  necessarily have a place for, in some of the other half-hour
• 14:24
  comedies that we've worked on. You know, there isn't always a
• 14:26
  spot, you know, for Loop and loop and that kind of thing, you
• 14:29
  know. That was really an opened up.
• 14:31
  It opened up people's minds and I think was really satisfying.
• 14:35
  I think I saw an episode of new girl where they did flip.
• 14:37
  Whoop, whoop. Okay.
• 14:38
  I was. Yeah, partially shot, right?
• 14:41
  Yeah, let's get into the episode itself.
• 14:45
  Our episode begins with, in mokey's, dream.
• 14:49
  She's dreaming about a giant talking radish.
• 14:51
  Who vomits a giant rainbow. All right?
• 14:53
  Who wants to take credit for that one?
• 14:54
  Whose ideas is them idea of going to say this all day?
• 15:00
  But I really, I remember the broom, you know, I really,
• 15:03
  really remember. I mean, the, the whole bit that
• 15:05
  we're trying to think of just obviously absurd things that can
• 15:08
  only be taking place in a dream realm, and then Mochi not like
• 15:11
  understand. She's in a dream until she
• 15:12
  remembers that her hair was down and made that was, that was
• 15:16
  obviously the bit. But the, you know, that's
• 15:21
  floating bradish. Vomiting a rainbow is something
• 15:23
  we can really only do on fraggles, there you go.
• 15:27
  That is true. The chain radish warns, her
• 15:31
  something big is going to happen.
• 15:33
  She wakes up, you know, continuity her hair's down,
• 15:37
  which I appreciated and the fraggle horn is blown because
• 15:42
  something big is going to happen.
• 15:44
  Boober reminds everyone remember, big doesn't mean good.
• 15:48
  That's why you don't wish someone big morning.
• 15:49
  I thought that was a funny line. Who was that?
• 15:52
  Who's point? I think, I think I was more than
• 15:54
  one Bala. Wasn't, it wasn't that more?
• 15:56
  I have more in the, we say it was.
• 15:57
  Yeah, I think we should give someone credit each.
• 15:59
  A joke but it's like, yeah, we're going to falsely credit
• 16:03
  and individual writers, but I really do.
• 16:06
  I for some reason, I have more voice in my head.
• 16:08
  I'm so sorry if I'm wrong about the way I want to just quickly,
• 16:11
  just sidebar, Geri Jewell, strike as it relates to this.
• 16:15
  There was a, there was a script I was working well with cherry
• 16:19
  and you know, we'd have a notes meeting and blah blah blah.
• 16:21
  And then I want to weigh and and Road and came back and and he
• 16:25
  read this. First of all Jerry would always
• 16:29
  say something good. The script, even if he was
• 16:31
  telling you, he loved the typeface.
• 16:32
  You used to know you were in trouble.
• 16:36
  He complimented the paperclip, but other than that, but anybody
• 16:40
  else. But he also said, so, he read
• 16:43
  the script and he just takes it. Oh my God.
• 16:45
  I really love that bit there. That was so funny.
• 16:47
  I said Jerry, that was totally your idea.
• 16:52
  Here we are. Well, the line I pull out a lot
• 16:55
  is what Jim Henson famously said to Caroll spinney when they met,
• 16:59
  which was Was I liked what you were trying to do.
• 17:03
  I find myself saying that more often than I?
• 17:05
  Probably, that's so Jim. You know?
• 17:07
  He's Rich. He's also a whole thing though,
• 17:11
  right? It's like taking a step back.
• 17:12
  It's like, you know, like sure what is the intent behind and
• 17:15
  they're made up, but that's really, that's this.
• 17:17
  That is like, the starting place for trying to fix something,
• 17:19
  right? It's like I was.
• 17:20
  So what are you trying to do? I like what you're trying to do?
• 17:22
  I like the soul behind what you're doing, so let's just
• 17:24
  tweak it and tweak it together, right.
• 17:26
  So it's like as a writer in a writers room.
• 17:28
  A lot of it as a sort of like Letting go of the perfect thing
• 17:31
  that's in your head and then letting the essence of it or the
• 17:35
  soul of it, be the pitch sometimes.
• 17:37
  And I think they're, you know, different writers rooms run
• 17:39
  differently. But I think Matt and I were
• 17:40
  always in really supportive positive rooms where that was,
• 17:44
  that kind of lead, you know, the idea.
• 17:46
  Okay, look you may say something, it's not right, it's
• 17:48
  not what's going to be in the episode, but if it gets somebody
• 17:51
  else excited about an idea that it eventually gets in the
• 17:53
  episode, it's kind of just as good a totally.
• 17:55
  So yeah, that's that's that's just important.
• 17:59
  Yeah. Just as important to get there,
• 18:02
  right? And like you say it invites
• 18:03
  collaboration, which I feel like is the most important thing
• 18:06
  we've heard stories of right after.
• 18:07
  But everyone's, you so afraid because you're sitting there and
• 18:10
  you try to phrase this sort of pitch, exactly right.
• 18:12
  And it needs to be fully formed at all that I was like, okay
• 18:15
  well then why doesn't everyone just go off individually and
• 18:17
  right? I mean if we're going to work
• 18:18
  together let's not be afraid to sort of lob ideas in and then
• 18:22
  let somebody else pick up in a pick it up and run with it a
• 18:25
  little bit. Yeah.
• 18:27
  So in the scene everyone has been Up the middle nights.
• 18:30
  Throw wearing adorable fraggle pajamas, which allows the whole
• 18:33
  thing by the way. That was just that was
• 18:35
  definitely John tartaglia AIDS, awareness of old costumes and
• 18:40
  things that he wanted to bring out as like we had, whatever
• 18:42
  we're doing is going to be pajamas.
• 18:43
  Here, they have cute pajamas. Early conversations words like
• 18:46
  they're going to be wearing winter clothes.
• 18:48
  At some point, which we obviously did in a later
• 18:50
  episode, it's got to be in pajamas at some point.
• 18:53
  And I feel like, man, I've always talked about this where
• 18:55
  we love episodes movies, whatever it is that sort of take
• 18:59
  place. In one night, there's something
• 19:01
  really fun, and satisfying about a one-night adventure story, and
• 19:05
  they're just so cute in their pajamas, but I completely agree.
• 19:10
  Well, next season, you should do one-on-one take.
• 19:13
  That's your that's your challenge 1917.
• 19:17
  Really appreciate that. Wembley has a little doll of
• 19:19
  himself. I don't know how ya been
• 19:23
  believe, right? I think I'm Pam.
• 19:24
  Butley yeah. What's his name Bentley?
• 19:29
  We cut all the scenes where he was interacting with them bleep,
• 19:32
  but he went, there was a, there was more interaction with family
• 19:35
  at one point. That's where you're like, oh my
• 19:37
  goodness. Were working with the Henson
• 19:39
  Creature Shop and they will just make the cutest and most sort of
• 19:43
  perfect them bleed. All on a moment's notice and
• 19:47
  it's just, it's so fun to watch. I love it.
• 19:50
  Give us those Bentley, deleted scenes, apple plus TT V +.
• 19:55
  So in this scene, we also read meet the world's oldest Fraggle.
• 20:00
  Which is first time we've seen him in this season.
• 20:03
  Jocelyn, you must have written him.
• 20:05
  A bunch of times the first time around.
• 20:07
  Yeah. Is he a fan favorite of yours?
• 20:09
  He's a, he's a well, yeah, he's pretty funny.
• 20:13
  It's also just a really interesting side of Dave gold,
• 20:17
  which office. Those are interesting, but we,
• 20:22
  but we changed his assistant. And, and Dave, and I had a
• 20:26
  little bit of a, not a, we had a little bit of a discussion about
• 20:29
  that because Because he's God. He used to love how the world
• 20:33
  ought world's oldest fraggle would clog.
• 20:35
  You know what clock is assistant would, and I just said, no we
• 20:38
  can't. I did I hated it during the
• 20:40
  Reagan for the original Fraggle Rock and I just saw, can't we
• 20:43
  change that? No, let's not and his assistant
• 20:45
  now as a woman as a female and there's no way you can be
• 20:48
  hidden, you know. So that was and I think is very
• 20:51
  funny. Their interaction particular
• 20:53
  moment at the very end where he says where he where he is it.
• 20:57
  The old world's oldest fraggle sees the merggle.
• 20:58
  Queen again. He says Okay, I'm gonna faint.
• 21:01
  Catch me and she's like a whole new Dynamic that wasn't
• 21:25
  there the first time around and it's the bit more 2020 2021.
• 21:29
  What you do, isn't it really I'm not done right?
• 21:32
  Oh, totally. Well obviously, yeah.
• 21:33
  That car, our whole sort of understanding that, whatever the
• 21:36
  way we think about interpersonal interactions, that kinda thing.
• 21:39
  Well, we were obviously never going to happen hit her and that
• 21:42
  it's not, you know, it's not funny and it's also not like
• 21:46
  what we want to portray, but what you're saying is really
• 21:50
  interesting is that she actually knows a lot more than he does,
• 21:53
  which became really important in this episode because, you know,
• 21:55
  episode we're talking about reliable resources, facts.
• 21:59
  Following actual reliable information.
• 22:02
  We needed a reliable sort of element to the world and world's
• 22:08
  oldest is presenting facts. He's obviously not the most
• 22:11
  reliable sort of narrator in that way.
• 22:13
  So hence she stood in as someone who's actually we could actually
• 22:16
  trust with this sort of providing this information as
• 22:19
  being legitimate, and this like a perfect example to until they
• 22:23
  give another huge asset of Jocelyn's which was, you know,
• 22:28
  if we went to Dave goal, With like I don't even think that he
• 22:31
  should hit you should hit anymore.
• 22:33
  He might lay out. What do you guys know?
• 22:35
  And it may become more thing but Jocelyn who he's had this.
• 22:39
  She has this Gratata she coming from Jocelyn.
• 22:42
  He might be want to do to take it more seriously.
• 22:46
  Maybe we're old friends, we worked on, you know, it's like
• 22:49
  yeah you're right. The relationship is really
• 22:51
  important and I invented the other side of bouguereau, I
• 22:54
  invented. Sidebottom still one of my
• 22:56
  favorite characters and Dave and I did that together.
• 22:59
  Whether that was so yeah. So it was he thought, you know,
• 23:03
  he didn't fight me but he really he didn't, he didn't think I was
• 23:06
  right. But but I knew I was so you're
• 23:09
  right. Look at to me might not have
• 23:11
  taken it from anybody else. I hadn't thought of that.
• 23:15
  Does that why you sent me in? Don't ya, you're very good at
• 23:21
  delivering the tough news. Yeah the facts as will say for
• 23:27
  himself. Exactly.
• 23:29
  Yes. So the world's oldest fraggle,
• 23:33
  I'm henchy are here to tell everybody that the merggle moon
• 23:36
  migration is happening soon according to the fraggle folio
• 23:39
  of facts which you guys should definitely publish.
• 23:42
  As a real book, I would buy it. I was actually just thinking
• 23:44
  that I think that that's something that we should be.
• 23:47
  Yeah, after a few seasons of the show at, do you think that the
• 23:50
  fraggles polio vaccine should go out there?
• 23:51
  Because the artwork, even just the artwork that you see in the
• 23:56
  fraggle, folio facts of this episode is is awesome.
• 23:59
  But I feel like If that were the sort of like the aesthetic of an
• 24:01
  actual book, could be a really fun kind of a collector item,
• 24:05
  who did that our work, as I know, that's tile shows up a few
• 24:08
  times throughout the series. Is it just someone in the props
• 24:10
  Department? Yeah, it's so easy.
• 24:12
  It was definitely, it was an art department and I don't, was
• 24:15
  that, that wasn't Tyler himself drawing.
• 24:17
  That was it that my prediction is einar.
• 24:18
  It Skylar Heron is in the crow of artists, but I don't think
• 24:21
  that he himself drew that. We should we should find out
• 24:24
  because I'm whoever did draw your right there.
• 24:27
  Work appears throughout the series.
• 24:29
  Yeah. It's terrific.
• 24:30
  It's actually it's Barry blueberry.
• 24:31
  I just remembered. Yeah, right.
• 24:35
  So Mochi correctly, guesses that the fraggles are all going to
• 24:40
  watch the migration when she is correct.
• 24:42
  She starts chanting her name mokey mokey, which is cute.
• 24:47
  She's feeling very in tune with the universe.
• 24:48
  And she doesn't even need a map to get there, which is the first
• 24:52
  sign. That's maybe maybe she's not
• 24:54
  100%, right? Yeah, we'll see what happens.
• 24:57
  There we have a cutaway Here to Dock and sprocket sprockets
• 25:02
  howling at the moon. Doc has a drone.
• 25:05
  She's going to send off so they can watch the baby sea turtles
• 25:08
  hatching and there's a moment where they're howling over their
• 25:13
  excitement and they are shushed by an off-screen.
• 25:15
  Mrs. Shimmelfinney. Jocelyn was this one of yours,
• 25:19
  mr. Shimmelfinney.
• 25:20
  When we had mr. Shimmelfinney, in the original
• 25:24
  series and shimmelfinney was a name of this of the Woman that
• 25:30
  used to look after my father when he was a kid and and I've
• 25:35
  had many, many was her when I only knew her as many and then
• 25:38
  discovered that her name was many shimmelfinney.
• 25:41
  And it's exactly the kind of thing you say to Jerry juhl.
• 25:46
  I said that to Jerry juhl. That was it?
• 25:48
  Next thing we know? Docs neighbors mr.
• 25:51
  Shimmelfinney! Wow, that's where I came from
• 25:55
  and heard multiple stories about where shimoff the name
• 25:57
  shimmelfinney cry, have you okay?
• 25:59
  Well, That's yes. But that's the real one.
• 26:02
  That's not the staff. They're back.
• 26:02
  The real one. There's not a doubt in my mind
• 26:05
  that you're you're telling the truth but that's what we've been
• 26:10
  told. We've been told falsehoods
• 26:11
  before about even get into it and they were guess it really
• 26:14
  clear that up Max matter. And then and then I don't know
• 26:31
  who's mrs. Sherwood Family, mr.
• 26:32
  Shimmelfinney was kind of old and those days but you know,
• 26:35
  hey, maybe he married a young woman.
• 26:38
  Yeah, baby. I think I think she's that, you
• 26:40
  know, this is where we get into the conversation about.
• 26:42
  OK, what is the time structure that we're dealing?
• 26:44
  Yeah, it's not the same sprocket, or whatever it is
• 26:47
  that, you know, obviously the fraggles sort of exist in their
• 26:50
  own, you can never leave the red plans.
• 26:52
  You can never leave the magic. It's fine.
• 26:54
  Yeah can't leave the magic if you try to look at it the more
• 26:57
  you sort of diminish the magic of it but I like To believe that
• 27:00
  there is sort of a spiritual connection between the original
• 27:02
  mr. Shimmelfinney.
• 27:03
  And this mrs. Hamilton as there is between the
• 27:05
  original sprocket and the sprocket one doesn't replace the
• 27:09
  other or negate, the other just sort of simultaneously yet on
• 27:14
  different sort of life. I was really glad diminishing
• 27:16
  the magic and its really nice that she's that she's around for
• 27:24
  the new Doc. I love that.
• 27:27
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 27:29
  Yeah. I love I love that little bit of
• 27:30
  continuity and really like, it's a wing to the fans which also,
• 27:34
  you know, there's a lot of that in this show.
• 27:36
  Yeah. And it's very much noticed and
• 27:38
  appreciated by us with us, like, also, recognizing the fact that
• 27:42
  we are not the core audience for a fraggle, Fraggle Rock show so
• 27:46
  where we were. Yeah, and we saw our a audience,
• 27:51
  a core audience for shall not be denied.
• 27:53
  He core audience but but you know like that just like that.
• 27:56
  Just to say, where would we be right now?
• 27:58
  If Johnny tartaglia hadn't been a major fraggle fan when he was
• 28:01
  a kid. I mean, certainly not having
• 28:03
  this conversation again be here. Yeah.
• 28:06
  Anyway, I had to stop and I can see like, you know, the company
• 28:09
  obviously Jocelyn like, you know, being one of the original
• 28:11
  writers, really helped us tap into it.
• 28:14
  But John John tartaglia his knowledge of Fraggle Rock is
• 28:18
  such that he may as well have been in that original writers
• 28:21
  for him. And he really does know
• 28:24
  everything about the show with Jocelyn Teacher Johnny was like
• 28:28
  the really annoying student in class whose like pointing out
• 28:31
  her mistakes. Sometimes he knows the
• 28:33
  curriculum better than her just because he had that Benton.
• 28:38
  Yeah this is did John ever actually you about Fraggle Rock
• 28:43
  facts. Did he ever try to correct?
• 28:44
  You me you got me. Yeah you do yes.
• 28:47
  John sorry yes. No no no I feel like he might I
• 28:51
  don't know I wouldn't that sounds like Actually Jocelyn and
• 29:00
  he would have felt free to do that.
• 29:02
  Let's put it that way. Yeah, accent.
• 29:03
  Yeah, absolutely. And similarly he was incredibly
• 29:06
  helpful in, you know, some of the early conversations where
• 29:08
  we're kind of deciding what a fraggle do this with a fraggle.
• 29:11
  Not do this. And Johnny was always pretty
• 29:14
  easy is a fraggle, he really is a fraggle.
• 29:16
  Exactly. He's really the essence Checker.
• 29:19
  Come on. I'll share the title with him.
• 29:21
  But no, no, no, don't talk yourself out of it, you know,
• 29:25
  maybe one. Yeah.
• 29:27
  Keep your tire body. I mean, how talented could
• 29:28
  anybody be any? He's so talented to my
• 29:31
  everything that guy's acting all the episode and Junior, you
• 29:35
  know, just just channeling Jerry Nelson even when he sings.
• 29:38
  I mean, it's that's that's bad that takes doing.
• 29:42
  Because Jerry Johnny is a he's a force of nature is
• 29:45
  extraordinary. Yes, okay, a moment for me.
• 29:49
  Yes, thank you. Johnny, for all you've done for
• 29:51
  all you continue to do and thank you, Jocelyn for creating the
• 29:55
  myrtles. Those who hear this episode.
• 29:59
  So you wrote the first, I think the only merggle episode from
• 30:03
  the original Fraggle, Rock from season five called beyond the
• 30:07
  pond on the pond. Was that an idea that you
• 30:11
  created back then or was it like it came up from Jerry juhl or
• 30:15
  someone else and you just kind of created the lore for the
• 30:19
  episode. Well, well, it's like Alex and
• 30:22
  Matt were saying with the main ideas, then didn't have her come
• 30:25
  sort of from one person. I think we were trying to figure
• 30:27
  out where, what, what, you know, what kind of creature could live
• 30:32
  in different elements in this hole in this environment.
• 30:35
  So it was a it was a kind of ecosystem decision.
• 30:38
  I remember almost nothing about that original story.
• 30:42
  I have to tell you except that it probably took.
• 30:46
  I had this way of writing shows that took really along the time
• 30:51
  to shoot they'd be standing there at 4:00 on Saturday.
• 30:56
  Earning having shot anyway. It was there was one when the
• 31:00
  Doozers were flooping, so we put the Doozers on, we put the
• 31:04
  Doozers on pogo sticks. Well, it was really hard to
• 31:08
  shoot and then and then the myrtles I think is also just
• 31:12
  having to, you know, used all the water and stuff.
• 31:14
  I mean, what we can do now me, technically, oh my God, my mind
• 31:17
  is regularly blown by this new series.
• 31:20
  Just what you can do, just what you can do, Technically, when
• 31:23
  the fraggles running across the gorgs garden.
• 31:25
  Oh my God, that whole thing in your show where they're
• 31:28
  underneath the bridge and could you, it's just, but I was
• 31:32
  incredible, but it, but what's amazing.
• 31:33
  Is it still so much of it is practically built like that
• 31:35
  bridge? We're talking about in 113, you
• 31:38
  know, the final episode of the Season.
• 31:40
  Yeah, that bridge was built and built that bridge and most of
• 31:42
  the time when you see the fraggles in water or the myrtles
• 31:45
  and water, the water is real. So it's just about sort of
• 31:48
  hiding, the Puppeteer and finding the ways that they can
• 31:50
  actually, I think been on set for this episode.
• 31:52
  Jocelyn Europe was sewed, I was on set during the shooting of it
• 31:55
  and you continue that Legacy. To this day, it was a very
• 31:57
  difficult lady. Was it?
• 32:02
  Oh, I'm so pleased to hear that, man.
• 32:04
  I mean, the rousing doozer apology, for example, not easy.
• 32:07
  I mean so much. He was okay.
• 32:10
  Yeah, these are the Doozers. They're not easy.
• 32:12
  I li was I'm reminded as I rewatch the series how much I
• 32:15
  love them and it's a good I think everyone needs to check
• 32:18
  back in with how much we love them because making the show
• 32:21
  with them is next to impossible. So it is really good.
• 32:24
  That they're so cute because they earn their keep.
• 32:26
  But whoa, I remember one time when this dues are truck they
• 32:30
  were what with it because it is is they all those guys always
• 32:33
  had Tom newbie and fast as I could say, always had some story
• 32:36
  going on with the Doozers. So we had nothing to do.
• 32:38
  We never knew what it was right. But they had concocted this
• 32:41
  whole thing but there was this on the others is one time where
• 32:44
  this doozer truck was just going along in the background and it
• 32:47
  went off the set. And somebody do to catch it
• 32:53
  because if that and doozer truck and smashed, it would have been
• 32:56
  Yeah. Bowser mean, you know, they were
• 32:59
  intricate little things. So yeah, it was they were
• 33:03
  nerve-wracking the issue, right? So what about the water stuff?
• 33:07
  That was that hard to do? Yeah, I mean this was more of a
• 33:12
  heavier. I mean that whole that whole
• 33:16
  song in the end with yeah, that so much of that actually ended
• 33:21
  up being a lot of post stuff but no it was very complicated and
• 33:25
  very, I'm Gigi Johnson directed this one and he had a very
• 33:30
  specific choreography. He wanted wanted done and it was
• 33:36
  tough. It was tough.
• 33:37
  It was a tough one for sure. The puppets had to be Very
• 33:41
  strategically heading and they couldn't move a lot, which was
• 33:44
  challenging for the performers because they were kind of stuck
• 33:47
  in certain spots that's interesting there.
• 33:49
  But the Kate that I don't, I was like definitely like how is this
• 33:53
  ever going to work? And I was really pleasantly
• 33:56
  surprised with the final guy I know JJ.
• 33:59
  So I wrote to him because what I really miss again, I was like
• 34:05
  saying writers being on the set but also the meetings that would
• 34:08
  have happened before an episode with With writers performers set
• 34:11
  designers directors you know that everybody would would meet
• 34:14
  and I don't you guys did you guys have those meetings?
• 34:17
  Yeah we're a part of that. I mean the way the way we wrote
• 34:20
  this season as the entire writers room took place in for
• 34:22
  20 weeks before we even got as a production before we were up
• 34:25
  into Calgary shooting. So but then Matt and I obviously
• 34:28
  stayed on for the entire thing. So yeah, we were part of the
• 34:31
  economy production meetings and that sort of thing.
• 34:33
  But yeah, it is it's I mean we have missed that part of it.
• 34:36
  So I mean I said that I just said it was, it was Like to
• 34:40
  point it was pretty awesome. I was, I was up there for for a
• 34:43
  lot of it and yeah, anything special.
• 34:46
  You get so many. I just the greatest.
• 34:48
  You get some new ideas watching the puppeteers.
• 34:50
  Interact to that. I oh yes.
• 34:53
  Total, I always mean, you think the Bentley thing that we happen
• 34:57
  to write that one, but so many times it would just be the
• 35:00
  Creature Shop, like, coming up with something on their own and
• 35:03
  like putting it there and always plus tit.
• 35:05
  That's right, all the performers are all really amazing
• 35:08
  improvisers. So we have incredible
• 35:09
  improvisers on. Stage, we haven't unbelievably
• 35:12
  committed, our department, who will just just, you know,
• 35:17
  they'll pretty much make anything happen and so I think
• 35:20
  there's there's the version of the show that's written.
• 35:22
  And there's the version to show that shot and obviously, they're
• 35:25
  deeply related. But there's so much life that
• 35:27
  comes into it on set. It's pretty incredible.
• 35:29
  Watch again, it's all about the collaboration.
• 35:32
  That's what makes us such a great show.
• 35:34
  Totally. So whose idea was it to bring
• 35:36
  the myrtles back for this series because It's interesting that
• 35:41
  there's to basically two new fraggle offset species.
• 35:45
  The fraggles I'm certainly more goals and the prodigals but the
• 35:49
  crackles are brand-new the mughals are from the old show.
• 35:53
  I remember, you know, I was thinking about this because I
• 35:57
  dissipated you asking this question and I want to have a
• 35:59
  good answer. No.
• 36:00
  But you know, one of the first things we knew about the season
• 36:02
  is that we're going to use water as this physical metaphor to
• 36:05
  connect all of the world. So I think that really pretty
• 36:08
  pretty soon in that conversation about water.
• 36:10
  Are and how we wanted it to tell stories about interdependence
• 36:13
  and resource management and all that stuff with water.
• 36:16
  Merkel's were really natural thing that came up.
• 36:18
  So I think it really wasn't the early conversations about it.
• 36:21
  And then, when obviously we were in the room talking with Jocelyn
• 36:25
  that the excitement of using the Miracles and revisiting the
• 36:27
  Myrtle started to take over and it felt like a really natural
• 36:30
  spot for them. And how lucky was it?
• 36:33
  That Joseline happens to be the person to write the original
• 36:37
  series episode. Let the water run, which really
• 36:39
  started the whole All fraggle doozer.
• 36:43
  Gorg silly creature. Wiki you did.
• 36:48
  Yeah. Oh, I wrote.
• 36:54
  Yeah, I remember when we, when we discovered this, the
• 36:59
  original, the Jerry Larry. Well, do you know, we sort of
• 37:02
  that we realized that there was this connection, but one of the
• 37:06
  one of the writers, David, David Young had a lot to do, with this
• 37:09
  whole idea to because anyway, but it was, it was a, it was a
• 37:13
  group idea, like everything else on on Friday, but it wasn't, you
• 37:16
  know, we didn't create it again. We always say this to, we
• 37:18
  discovered it, it was already. There was just waiting for us to
• 37:21
  see it and I just love what, you know what this series is done to
• 37:26
  make it even me even more tangible.
• 37:31
  To see what and is n and to be, you know, really straightforward
• 37:34
  about, you know, they take the water here and these people
• 37:36
  don't have it there. I mean Hello we need don't need
• 37:40
  to get this kind of information. It's great.
• 37:42
  Well and expanding that interconnectivity where you know
• 37:45
  the old Fraggle Rock. There was really just for
• 37:47
  species fraggles Doozers, gorgs, silly creatures.
• 37:50
  And now we've got all the other all we have the Dixie's,
• 37:52
  ditches, Joe. All the deities were your that
• 37:55
  is true. I guess I'm thinking
• 37:57
  specifically about the water some but yes that its Reliance
• 38:00
  on the free. As well.
• 38:01
  But now we've got all these subsets of fraggles.
• 38:05
  We've got the Manticore over there.
• 38:07
  We've got these Rock creature, like everyone is being affected
• 38:10
  by, you know, in one way or another, I'm kind of excited to
• 38:14
  see, you know, if the show gets a second season how much further
• 38:18
  you can be able to take that idea, so put the pin in that
• 38:22
  hay. So so are we going to be really
• 38:26
  excited to see where I'm at now. Like state, it can take that.
• 38:28
  Yeah, we in Erupt this podcast for a special postcard from our
• 38:34
  uncle traveling. John's Heart A glia and A
• 38:37
  fraggle fast facts. Today's fraggle fast fact, is
• 38:40
  mokey looks different. Yes, Moki had a makeover.
• 38:44
  If you are a fan of the original series you definitely notice.
• 38:46
  She looks a little different on back to the Rock and this is not
• 38:50
  the first time that's happened. In fact, if you watch the
• 38:52
  original series of Fraggle Rock, you'll see that in the middle of
• 38:55
  season 1, Gobo had a massive makeover as did Ma gorg and
• 39:01
  Can't and the trash Heap. Look completely different from
• 39:03
  the pilot throughout the rest of the series.
• 39:06
  So this has happened before even the on The Muppet Show you know
• 39:09
  Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear and Gonzo.
• 39:11
  All those characters got makeovers through the years and
• 39:13
  the reason why is because you know you want to every every
• 39:17
  season and every time you get the opportunity to dive back in,
• 39:21
  you get to look at how can we make things better?
• 39:23
  How can we make things? Feel fresher and mochi was a big
• 39:26
  topic of discussion. We had What's called the fraggle
• 39:29
  Gaggle at the beginning of back to The Rock production where we
• 39:32
  gathered friends from the original series and those of us
• 39:35
  working on back to the rocket, we talked about big hopes and
• 39:37
  dreams for back to the Rock and something that came up quite
• 39:40
  quickly was rethinking Mochi. A little bit Mochi, on the
• 39:43
  original series was meant to be older and bigger.
• 39:46
  That's why she had those live hands.
• 39:48
  And we decided we wanted this version of Mochi to be a little
• 39:51
  younger and a little bit more energetic and not feel so adult.
• 39:55
  We wanted her to be one of the kids and make her a little more
• 39:57
  relatable to kids watching today so that that wonderful Robe that
• 40:01
  she wore originally and that kind of hippie look that she
• 40:04
  had. We wanted to kind of freshen
• 40:05
  that up and Donna, Kimball who's mokey's new performer?
• 40:08
  Brings so much humor and so much energy to the Smoky.
• 40:11
  We wanted to match that in her look.
• 40:12
  But she still, you know, in touch with the creative Vibes of
• 40:15
  the rock, she still loves meditation, she still is
• 40:17
  Artistic and loves poetry and all those things we love about
• 40:20
  Mochi are still there. She just feels a little bit
• 40:23
  more. Relatable.
• 40:23
  And if you look really closely, mokey's original robe.
• 40:28
  Her green robe is still there. It's hanging in mokey red.
• 40:31
  Ed's cave on the wall because we wanted to keep it there as a
• 40:34
  part of her, it will always be a part of her and one, more fun
• 40:36
  fact, Rowley crewson who built red and Wembley on the original
• 40:40
  series, found the original patterns for Mochi.
• 40:43
  And so the puppet itself, The Head, and the body are the same
• 40:47
  patterns as the original. So Mochi, still there.
• 40:49
  Her soul is still there, it's still Mochi, just with a little
• 40:52
  bit of a new look. Anyway, back to the podcast.
• 41:00
  So back to the episode, The fraggle fiver running behind the
• 41:03
  rest of the group on their way. To see the myrtles everyone
• 41:07
  wants to follow the map except for Mochi.
• 41:08
  She's dead set on following her gut which is sending her
• 41:13
  directly into a black swirly blob called the echo chamber.
• 41:17
  According to boober. I also appreciate that red is
• 41:22
  really angry about the delay because Says, she has to see the
• 41:26
  marble Moon migration a thing that she didn't know about until
• 41:28
  an hour ago, but will freak out if she doesn't see which is so
• 41:31
  very red. I loved it so much.
• 41:34
  It's got the right amount of like, red self-aware, you know?
• 41:37
  It's absolutely, she's excited. Jill myth that she wasn't
• 41:40
  excited five minutes ago but he's excited.
• 41:44
  Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly.
• 41:47
  Also heading in this direction or the Doozers, we have Cotter
• 41:50
  pin and the architects who are caught up in things because The
• 41:55
  water has been shifting, there might be new radishes down, you
• 41:58
  know, some new cave. The architect does not believe
• 42:02
  her. This is a whole nother situation
• 42:04
  about fact versus research versus new information.
• 42:09
  As we already discussed, cotter pin has said that if she's
• 42:13
  wrong, she will give the architect an RDA arousing doozer
• 42:18
  apology which we'll see later on in the episode which was, well,
• 42:23
  we could just talk about that. Now, the Roz, This Rapala G is
• 42:26
  hilarious. And does like, now that we've
• 42:29
  talked about it a little bit, does look a bit like he's
• 42:32
  flooping? Yeah, it does.
• 42:34
  Who knows he's over again, I had thought that to make its head my
• 42:38
  the popped off from their heads were always so happy.
• 42:44
  They just start shaking and it almost looks like they're going
• 42:47
  to explode. Sometimes the head falls off.
• 42:49
  I mean, it's truly a nightmare but it's so it's so great.
• 42:54
  It's worth it. He's our storyline.
• 42:56
  I thought it was I thought that was one of Tyler hair in our
• 42:59
  production designers, just greatest sets the bottoms of
• 43:03
  those radish. So beautiful.
• 43:05
  It is like a piece of art. And again, it doesn't look real.
• 43:09
  It look. I mean I'm shocked that you
• 43:11
  actually built it because it looks so good.
• 43:14
  There's no way it could be real and that was always the
• 43:17
  experience of looking at this. Looking at the shop set up on
• 43:19
  the monitor thinking like this is looks like a painting.
• 43:22
  Looks like a piece of, I mean, it really does look like a
• 43:24
  sculpture. Each set with sort of that had
• 43:27
  that level of detail is really, really incredible.
• 43:30
  Absolutely. One of the thing I wanted to
• 43:32
  mention about this doozer story line is, there's a bit where the
• 43:35
  fraggles pass over the dangerous dip and of course, it's just
• 43:39
  sort of small dip to them, but it's a huge tits dangerous for
• 43:41
  producers and we see doozer has gotten hurt and it's being taken
• 43:47
  away by a doozer ambulance. They tell the students are that.
• 43:51
  Oh don't worry you'll be back to work in two to three minutes as
• 43:54
  she's being Towed it away. She goes, if I'm not
• 43:56
  constructing. Who am I?
• 44:00
  That's all it takes. That's all it takes for a
• 44:02
  doozer, to have a real identity crisis, but I got inspired by
• 44:08
  one of my favorite scenes in the series Mad Men.
• 44:11
  And which was when the guy, I think I forget has a character's
• 44:16
  name. Was played by one of the murder
• 44:18
  of Joel Murray. He gets fired, and Dawn takes
• 44:23
  him out for one last night on the town before he's banished
• 44:26
  from the Ad Agency and at the end of the episode, And they put
• 44:29
  him in a taxi cab. He's drunk and rolls down the
• 44:32
  window, it's like Don. If I don't go into that office
• 44:35
  every day, who am I? And that was always an
• 44:37
  inspiration for a doozer, not knowing what their identity
• 44:40
  would be without being able to work for 2 to 3 minutes.
• 44:43
  Wow. Yeah.
• 44:44
  The add the admin of Madmen or basically just giant users who
• 44:48
  drink and stuff. Yeah yeah yeah.
• 44:52
  So she finds herself in the Echo chamber which reminds me very
• 44:56
  much of the Wrong way. Statues from Labyrinth, that
• 45:02
  kind of worn, Sarah and Hoggle to the other going the wrong way
• 45:06
  when they're really not because they're basically just giant
• 45:08
  Stone heads. Yeah.
• 45:10
  It was kind of going into that guy that's, you know, I think
• 45:12
  about as dark as the series went as far as set and I think you're
• 45:16
  totally right to draw that comparison.
• 45:18
  I think it's sort of like going into the little more of The
• 45:20
  Surreal dark Henson space, but I love that set.
• 45:24
  I think that's that's that was one of my favorites of the
• 45:26
  series particularly how it was used in.
• 45:29
  The in the song, I thought they're the kind of rock face
• 45:32
  accompaniment was, was really cool and I also really
• 45:37
  appreciate the fact that as these giant Stone creatures are
• 45:40
  repeating mokey's thoughts back to her.
• 45:43
  It starts with them, whatever she's thinking, they're like
• 45:47
  you're totally right. Because she's saying they're
• 45:49
  wrong and they go they're wrong and she says I'm going the right
• 45:52
  way and we go right way and she's like doing the right thing
• 45:55
  and it's so subtle how that shifts to Ali Scene where she
• 45:59
  starts saying that she's worried and they're saying worried,
• 46:02
  she's like I get out of here and they say get out of here and
• 46:05
  it's pretty scary. So well done on that.
• 46:08
  That really that was effective. Hold on.
• 46:10
  Notice that's very well. It's so fun.
• 46:15
  I think this sort of like the mix of the super over, you know,
• 46:17
  like hit you over the head with it and then the very subtle is
• 46:20
  something that Fraggle Rock can do really well.
• 46:22
  That others just can't do where it's like, yeah, we were doing a
• 46:24
  show about Echo Chambers. We can call it an echo chamber,
• 46:27
  they go into an echo chamber. You're obviously not so subtle,
• 46:30
  but then yeah. What.
• 46:31
  Actually happens in an echo chamber.
• 46:33
  It's validating things in a really positive way, but then,
• 46:36
  what it starts to turn on you. What does that look like?
• 46:38
  I think that's something that shows able to do really subtly
• 46:41
  and also musically, which makes I think the the lesson more
• 46:45
  interesting in the see, more interesting for sure.
• 46:47
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 46:49
  It's so funny like you're not you're not hitting us over the
• 46:51
  head with it, you know about, you know, she's not saying you
• 46:55
  know, like well I'm obviously going the right way and they're
• 46:58
  saying well, you went the right way.
• 46:59
  It's like what you're not because you're stuck.
• 47:01
  Like there's the, you know, we're like she still coming to
• 47:05
  those conclusions on her own and then it's so interesting.
• 47:08
  Also, How It Ends with her utilizing that Echo chamber to
• 47:13
  actually get help when she stuck, you know, she can, it's
• 47:16
  just like, like us on the internet where like what we
• 47:18
  might read, things that aren't true and accidentally believe
• 47:21
  them. But we can also use the internet
• 47:23
  to, you know, say like, well, I need help.
• 47:26
  I need more, I need better information.
• 47:28
  I You'd better assets. You know, I need my friends to
• 47:30
  come and help me and we can help amplify through through those.
• 47:35
  Totally. I think it's exactly what it's
• 47:37
  like anytime. Someone says, oh, the internet
• 47:39
  to health scape or whatever, it's like, well, no, it
• 47:41
  actually, also amplifies really important and really positive
• 47:44
  things, and it can actually raised voices.
• 47:46
  But the danger is it, is that you actually have to sort of be
• 47:49
  careful with where the information is coming from.
• 47:51
  I think when we first started the series we put up a whole
• 47:54
  list of themes and topics that we want to get into this kind of
• 47:58
  idea of Facts in sort of confirmation bias and media
• 48:02
  literacy was really big for us. I know like Matt was raised by
• 48:06
  like a journalist and you know newspaper newspaper guy in the
• 48:11
  newspaper family and you know I was way back in the day I was a
• 48:15
  journalism major my father-in-law's a journalist I
• 48:18
  feel like we're right you know that shift has been so extreme.
• 48:23
  I think in our lifetimes between sort of what is established fact
• 48:26
  and what is kind of To interpretation.
• 48:29
  And I think there is a whole conversation that's to happen
• 48:31
  around it and it's not, it's not one thing or the other.
• 48:35
  There's a lot of nuance in there and I think the Mochi was a
• 48:37
  perfect character to tell that story because yeah, her
• 48:40
  intuition is important. She should follow her into
• 48:42
  intuition sometime, it can't replace facts, it's not, you
• 48:46
  know, but but but they're it's not truly one thing or the
• 48:49
  other. I think that there's just the
• 48:51
  conversation and the care has to happen.
• 48:53
  And that was clear. I mean we did a good job.
• 48:55
  You guys that was good at that but that because Remember the
• 48:59
  discussions in the room, you don't want her to feel like you
• 49:02
  know, she's to abandon how she feels and in favor of facts you
• 49:06
  know it was I just I just really liked how that worked.
• 49:09
  It was great. Yeah I completely agree.
• 49:12
  Why not Pat ourselves on the back now and then yeah, sort of
• 49:16
  pattern to now the what again back to what Alex was saying
• 49:20
  earlier about what you can do with Fraggle Rock, I just love
• 49:23
  the idea that an echo chamber, is a place where the Rocks talk
• 49:28
  mean that's just Because it's fraggle rocks.
• 49:30
  You can do that. I love that.
• 49:31
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 49:32
  And it looked like it did, it looks really, really cool.
• 49:37
  Maybe you'll have a reason to go back there someday.
• 49:40
  I don't know, I hope so. Yeah.
• 49:41
  Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do that.
• 49:43
  Yeah. Well, also, like those puppets
• 49:45
  are already builds like, they just gonna like sit in a drawer.
• 49:47
  Yeah, for really turn into dust. It's really a question.
• 49:50
  We can put hats on them and try to use them in a different
• 49:53
  sequence. Okay, that's it, was repurposed
• 49:55
  into, can't remember what, but it was At this point, I think
• 49:59
  that becoming does that become the museum said, maybe that was
• 50:03
  a there's a couple of sets that were a are unrecognizable from
• 50:07
  one scene to the other but we were reused and it's again just
• 50:11
  a credit to the art Department. What they're able to do.
• 50:13
  It's incredible. I'm sure they have it on the old
• 50:16
  show as well. There's only so many rocks in
• 50:18
  the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but why are
• 50:21
  you still? So we also use does ultimate, we
• 50:24
  use those ultimate tunnels and all that kind of thing at the
• 50:26
  time. Oh sure.
• 50:27
  Ya do use more. More fake sets than the new
• 50:32
  show. Did it does.
• 50:34
  Oh yeah. No, yeah we didn't have.
• 50:37
  I mean I heard the kind of space these guys had.
• 50:40
  Oh my God and we didn't we didn't have that and yeah and
• 50:47
  I'm Jim really Jim was a tech freak as you probably know.
• 50:50
  And so he I remember him just loving trying to figure out how
• 50:53
  would, you know, go running down these these virtual basically
• 50:57
  virtual tunnels Because at that time it wasn't you didn't do
• 51:02
  that that much, right? And so and so he really liked
• 51:06
  doing that and also that we used that we used it up a bit in that
• 51:09
  we use in the gorgs garden with now how do you guys do that with
• 51:13
  the little fraggles jumping around and do it?
• 51:15
  How do they do that? It's actually incredible.
• 51:18
  I mean like this. So we had an entire blue box
• 51:20
  bill. So we've asked just a fully like
• 51:23
  it all encompassing blue box where the performers dressed in
• 51:26
  blue can completely manipulate their puppet.
• 51:28
  It's as puppeteers and then that puppet can be put into rate, but
• 51:36
  that's one of the few times that, that sort of, I mean, we
• 51:39
  do that when they're standing on the top of the rock about to
• 51:41
  dive, we did that in the gorgs garden.
• 51:45
  But for the most part, because our sex was so giant, a lot of
• 51:48
  the magic had to do with, you know, a puppet disappearing
• 51:51
  behind something in that a new puppet popping up on the other
• 51:53
  side of making it look seamless. It was more of that kind of, you
• 51:55
  know, sleight-of-hand magic trick that was used.
• 51:59
  But we obviously have the ability to do incredible CG and
• 52:03
  use it really sparingly he spots where I don't think that's
• 52:06
  amazing but also it was based on puppetry it wasn't like yeah, it
• 52:10
  was there all puppeted for sure. They're only there.
• 52:13
  I think. I only maybe two or three
• 52:15
  sequences that are so you could call animated, you know?
• 52:18
  And they're never used for long. It may be just used to get red.
• 52:22
  I remembered hip hip hooray. I think in 102, there's a
• 52:24
  sequence where she sort of jumps up onto a rock with a little bit
• 52:27
  of a flip and part part. That is blue screen blue box
• 52:31
  puppetry then part of it is CG animated but that's really one
• 52:34
  of the few times I can think of that was actually used.
• 52:36
  You guys learn a lot about puppets.
• 52:41
  To go from zero to like three or whatever we are down.
• 52:44
  Yeah. Oh my God, they're so good.
• 52:47
  It's good puppetry. That's what's so satisfying to
• 52:49
  is two kids seeing really good puppetry like that.
• 52:54
  Did you do? There was a comment from one kid
• 52:56
  that's who said his mother wrote in to us and said that the kids
• 53:00
  said it was so weird. I couldn't stop watching it.
• 53:06
  I love that. That's a great compliment.
• 53:08
  That's a good question for men, Alex, like, was there were there
• 53:12
  times where you wrote something where later on someone had to
• 53:15
  say, technically, you forgot like they're puppets.
• 53:18
  We can't do that. Oh yeah.
• 53:20
  Oh absolutely. Yeah.
• 53:24
  I feel like we wrote The Pilot as if it was animated and no one
• 53:27
  told us until very close. What was actually going to be
• 53:31
  achievable? Oh yeah, I've even given going
• 53:37
  on because we were talking about Like, there's even that we're I
• 53:39
  think the growth, the initial dream sequence that go boats
• 53:42
  having with all of the characters holding hands and
• 53:44
  sort of like a daisy chain of fraggles and, you know, even
• 53:49
  even in 113, we're still kind of learning.
• 53:51
  Okay, that can't be done, but actually, what can be done?
• 53:54
  Because of incredible magic can happen is that Junior who were
• 53:56
  can hold on to gobos hand and it's long.
• 54:00
  As you have one side of the frame that you can work with
• 54:03
  pretty much anything can happen. But it was, I think, just
• 54:06
  tweaking our scope a little bit sometimes because like Matt
• 54:10
  said, we are first job together was on an animated show, we're
• 54:14
  truly, the sky was the limit. We had cold opens that took
• 54:17
  place on the moon. And it's like, all right, do
• 54:19
  whatever you want to do. And I think we did have to kind
• 54:21
  of adjust ourselves from there, but I think in a cool way, what
• 54:25
  opens up is this whole new world in which he's actually started
• 54:28
  thinking in the puppets face, that's actually kind of more
• 54:30
  impressive because it's tactile and physical.
• 54:34
  And right you know right there in front of you and it really is
• 54:36
  that like the power of illusion Used instead of just sort of
• 54:39
  like, hey, throw whatever you want against the wall, well,
• 54:43
  that goes both ways. You know you, if you want to
• 54:45
  write something that's completely Fantastical and it's
• 54:47
  a little too big, but then I'm sure you've also come across the
• 54:50
  challenges of, like, a simple thing where maybe right where,
• 54:53
  you know, Wembley picks up a banana and it's like, well, we
• 54:56
  have to figure out how Wembley's actually going to doesn't have
• 54:58
  real hands. So like total it's a little bit
• 55:00
  more. I mean, I assume you came up on
• 55:02
  some of those roadblocks as well in the solution there would be
• 55:06
  like when we start thinking of it banana Right.
• 55:09
  Yeah, yeah yeah. Or it's like its own to his hand
• 55:12
  and he has the banana out of the entire scene.
• 55:14
  We got the whole thing. It's like it's like transferring
• 55:16
  objects. I remember we did that 104 and
• 55:19
  the we did pop and pop. Yeah.
• 55:22
  Yeah. But they're playing this game
• 55:23
  pop and pop, which is sort of like hacky sack and we with blue
• 55:26
  with a gourd with a little gourd and then kicking this board
• 55:29
  around. I mean, the gourd had to be on
• 55:31
  the end of a pole made a lift, the pole, and move the gourd
• 55:33
  from place to place and then we dance it out later.
• 55:37
  But I mean it's and That's an example of a very simple thing.
• 55:40
  That was incredibly difficult and you kind of constantly doing
• 55:43
  that sort of accounting of like, all right, is this worth it?
• 55:46
  Okay, this is gonna take half a day.
• 55:48
  Do we want it? Sometimes the answer is yes, we
• 55:50
  want it because it's silly and it's great and sometimes it's
• 55:52
  like no it's not worth it right. Well in Fraggle Rock is supposed
• 55:55
  to be there. Select Fantastical things that
• 55:56
  are happening. You don't want it to be too
• 55:58
  grounded. That's a hard to balance on.
• 56:03
  Yeah, we don't want to do like August Osage County and just
• 56:06
  have like characters sitting around talking and all that You
• 56:09
  know, yeah, you gotta get pretty silly and physical with it.
• 56:13
  Although I would always tell ya what we could actually shoot in
• 56:30
  the time we had because he's still only had about that.
• 56:34
  How many days did we have? We, we did, like, we did them in
• 56:36
  blocks, but five. Six days and episode it all day.
• 56:40
  Ultimately, we were always shooting three or four episodes
• 56:43
  at a time because we're you block by block shot.
• 56:45
  So if you could say like, oh we're doing, you know, the first
• 56:48
  few episodes that I'm all the scenes that were taking place at
• 56:51
  the fraggle Pond, we would do in one or two days to present setup
• 56:54
  is there. It's just more efficient but it
• 56:56
  means you're juggling all these different story lines at the
• 56:59
  same time. And like Matt said, sometimes it
• 57:01
  came down to sort of looking. I mean the crew is incredible,
• 57:05
  they can break down how long each thing is going to take to
• 57:07
  shoot. Shoot and you're looking at days
• 57:09
  to do just saying we can't physically do it all today so
• 57:12
  there's a lot of rewriting service tongs or always it's
• 57:15
  huge chunk of time those music videos.
• 57:17
  Basically for anything it was always to some kind of rewriting
• 57:21
  up to the very minute that you're shooting because you're
• 57:23
  just trying to make the schedule work and there's just which I
• 57:26
  think could be fun though too. Because a lot of time, I mean
• 57:28
  you lose stuff, you lose your babies, but then you're coming
• 57:32
  up with new stuff all together and sometimes you come up with
• 57:34
  and I'm trying to think of an example.
• 57:36
  I'm sure there are a million of them.
• 57:38
  You just we had to lose something but because of that we
• 57:40
  came up with something silly or and became more of a favor.
• 57:44
  That's the crash course version of we were talking about earlier
• 57:46
  is like you're in the writers room you can't really get too
• 57:48
  precious about your ideas because ultimately it's you
• 57:51
  might six months later being a physician.
• 57:54
  We're like we gotta cut this whole page because we got to
• 57:55
  choose we are out of time and it's like okay one way or
• 57:59
  another that the little sort of preciousness has to be like,
• 58:02
  sort of like do. And it's actually so much better
• 58:04
  because then when you open up is the sort of collaboration and He
• 58:08
  becomes all of us and that's obviously the whole theme of the
• 58:11
  series to be able to sort of live it, as you're making, it is
• 58:15
  satisfying, literally, the title of an episode literally title
• 58:19
  minute. It's right there.
• 58:20
  Precious Precious. Nobody, it's really true.
• 58:38
  You know, a poet, a playwright, and novelist and, and Charlie.
• 58:42
  And I were the only two people in the room that really were
• 58:44
  kids had done kids TV, or movie? Yeah, that's weird.
• 58:48
  That you were the only two that had actual kids TV experience.
• 58:50
  The rest was a combination of conflict, really comedy.
• 58:54
  People Comedians and playwright. Yeah, it was, it was a really
• 58:59
  diverse room in all sorts of ways and certainly in writing
• 59:02
  experience and perspective, it's great.
• 59:05
  And I mean, I've always heard, you know, it's easy.
• 59:08
  See to teach writers and Comedians and such to write for
• 59:13
  kids, it's harder to get people who know, kids entertainment to
• 59:18
  be funny. You can't teach humor.
• 59:21
  So it sounds like I mean having had such a diverse writers room
• 59:24
  was was like the way to go for some freshly kids and I've
• 59:29
  written a couple funny lines now and then you you're one of the
• 59:34
  lucky ones that you were already funny when you start reporting
• 59:37
  that away. All right, moving on before I
• 59:41
  embarrass myself. So next, next up.
• 59:43
  The the fraggles make it to the merggle moon, migration, and
• 59:47
  they missed it, they miss the whole thing.
• 59:49
  There was supposed to be a big fat chance.
• 59:51
  I'm sure look great off camera. That was of actually buy.
• 59:54
  That was intentional really smart of us.
• 59:56
  Yeah, you have to do it. I think that we talked about
• 59:59
  that we were like yeah, you would have been funny.
• 1:00:11
  Two notes of the song and you see all the fraggles.
• 1:00:14
  And they've just finished a big dance, they're all out of
• 1:00:15
  breath, like the end of a Broadway show.
• 1:00:20
  Yeah, well, they're all sad, obviously boobers tells mokey.
• 1:00:25
  Don't worry. Doom is inevitable.
• 1:00:27
  So, all this is ultimately meaningless and that's where the
• 1:00:31
  episode ends now, that's, yeah. And cut.
• 1:00:38
  So feeling that something else is going to happen.
• 1:00:40
  And she's right because usually when all the fraggles leave they
• 1:00:44
  miss out on what comes after the big merggle dance which is a
• 1:00:48
  birth of a new generation of Miracles.
• 1:00:50
  We could see baby myrtles. You just pretty exciting.
• 1:00:54
  Don't fraggle has seen it before.
• 1:00:55
  No silly creature seen it before.
• 1:00:57
  Now we all have. That's it.
• 1:00:59
  So Jocelyn, I have to ask you because there's been some debate
• 1:01:05
  in the fan Community about how Those are born some believe that
• 1:01:10
  they are hatched here. We see, maybe they're born.
• 1:01:14
  Some of them are born in bubbles, in the in the lagoon.
• 1:01:18
  Is there anything official about where baby fraggles come from
• 1:01:21
  without getting too graphic about it?
• 1:01:23
  You know, I have no idea but I'll tell him what you told us
• 1:01:28
  the first time behind closer together, this is what happened.
• 1:01:33
  Yeah. Miracles Miracles was felt
• 1:01:35
  different to me because they are slightly.
• 1:01:37
  There's like, No, they're sea creatures are slightly
• 1:01:39
  different, but I think it was Karen prell had this whole idea
• 1:01:43
  of how how fraggles actually with the other very good
• 1:01:47
  drawings and illustrations and everything.
• 1:01:50
  And I think Jerry, and Jerry juhl and and Larry looked at him
• 1:01:53
  with her, yeah. Okay.
• 1:01:55
  Now we're trying to do, we can do death, we can do War, we
• 1:02:05
  could have been fed birth. It's like a family structure,
• 1:02:11
  obviously. It's like it's really important
• 1:02:13
  that they don't have parents for reasons where it's like, they're
• 1:02:16
  not kids exactly how they don't have their birthdays.
• 1:02:38
  Experiences and emerge from them slightly changed.
• 1:02:41
  And we love doing stories about growth but they're not
• 1:02:44
  adolescents. They're not kids, they're not
• 1:02:46
  adults. They obviously, they're, they're
• 1:02:48
  kind of like their structure of the responsibilities totally
• 1:02:50
  outside of the mainstream and that way and we know that they
• 1:02:54
  have uncles or at least some of them do and aunts and uncles.
• 1:02:57
  And that's something that we can explore more.
• 1:02:59
  But yeah. As far as their actual sort of
• 1:03:02
  birth and early development, I think that it's kind of, it's
• 1:03:06
  important that we sort of leave some of that.
• 1:03:08
  A out of it, I think that's kind of what is special about the
• 1:03:11
  fraggles. Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Do you think sense Goods to the sort of to do the math?
• 1:03:15
  You know, if they appeal across the board two little kids
• 1:03:19
  medium-sized kids grown-ups? I think that might be, but I
• 1:03:22
  never thought about that before Alex, that's thank you for that.
• 1:03:25
  Hey, handy, anytime I think you've been thinking about this.
• 1:03:31
  My, the second, my eyes open in the morning.
• 1:03:35
  Dumb parents. Just the kind of thing that,
• 1:03:38
  like, we think about, as fans, where when we have not had any
• 1:03:42
  fraggle content for four decades.
• 1:03:46
  So when all we have is these Ninety Six episodes to revisit
• 1:03:48
  over and over again. Then when you get a question and
• 1:03:50
  you're like, well I'm just going to think about that for my
• 1:03:53
  entire life knowing that no one will ever answer these
• 1:03:56
  questions? So I had to ask.
• 1:03:59
  Yeah, you know, it's like, it's funny, you can feel a little
• 1:04:01
  self important when you put it this way.
• 1:04:03
  But every we had early conversations before, Before we
• 1:04:05
  even got in the breaking of the stories for glass season where
• 1:04:08
  we had a big fraggle Gaggle and it was there people from the
• 1:04:11
  original, the you know, original designers and Larry Birkhead was
• 1:04:15
  in Aaron's Originals performers. And then we also just had, you
• 1:04:18
  know, incredible poet writer and Kwame Alexander who is on.
• 1:04:22
  And we're just talking about the nature of Storytelling and
• 1:04:25
  philosophy, and all of that. And I think Dave goals was like,
• 1:04:29
  you know, we really approached it like literature and not to
• 1:04:31
  get all sort of like that sounds very self serious.
• 1:04:34
  But like you're saying, Like you know, sometimes you read a book
• 1:04:37
  and not all the answers are there and you do have to sort of
• 1:04:41
  keep thinking about it and you get to put yourself into it yet
• 1:04:44
  to think about what you want to take out of that and that's just
• 1:04:46
  as valid as what someone else might want to take out of it.
• 1:04:50
  I think unlike a lot of the TV development that Matt and I have
• 1:04:52
  gone through where you really, like, from the moment.
• 1:04:55
  You're like, who am I, what exactly do I want?
• 1:04:57
  Where do I come from? What are my problems?
• 1:04:59
  And he just know everything. It's so over-the-top.
• 1:05:02
  Like the amount of information that just kind of reduces people
• 1:05:04
  takes People's Humanity away. I feel like there's something
• 1:05:07
  about Fraggle Rock that gets to exist into the soup.
• 1:05:09
  That is constantly being discovered Jocelyn, use that
• 1:05:12
  word earlier Discovery. It's like we're not creating it.
• 1:05:15
  We are discovering it because it's all out there.
• 1:05:17
  But because it's all out there that means, there's always more
• 1:05:20
  and yeah, that's terrific. That's fun.
• 1:05:24
  It's fun, it's a bum, it's not really a fraggle, Lord, that you
• 1:05:29
  can continue to create totally. So this episode ends with The
• 1:05:36
  Merkel Queen singing the classic Fraggle Rock song Shine On Us
• 1:05:41
  Now by the great boltzmann lie. First of all I'm so grateful.
• 1:05:44
  I've been saying this over and over again I'm so grateful that
• 1:05:46
  you're using classic songs from the old show here in the new
• 1:05:51
  back to the Rock. I adore adore.
• 1:05:54
  All those songs and it's a crime that first of all they're not
• 1:05:57
  better well-known. And second of all that we don't
• 1:06:00
  have official releases of most of them.
• 1:06:03
  So now that we're going to To re-record some of these and give
• 1:06:08
  new meaning to a lot of them as well.
• 1:06:10
  Is really special for us old time fans, totally the new
• 1:06:13
  composer and Lyricist. They've done a really good job.
• 1:06:16
  I think the guys who were right original song.
• 1:06:19
  Yeah, that's that's Harvey Mason Junior who's really a sort of
• 1:06:22
  Genius in his own way and his team is incredible and there.
• 1:06:25
  Yeah there and they obviously tasked with writing new music
• 1:06:28
  and with rearranging the originals and I felt the same
• 1:06:31
  way about the originals and that you know, there's so many
• 1:06:34
  amazing Singing songs that nobody knows and nobody but you
• 1:06:37
  know, they very few people know. So it's like yeah that's what an
• 1:06:41
  opportunity to get to. I mean in bringing a star like
• 1:06:44
  Patti LaBelle I mean it's just like yeah, yeah be cheap but
• 1:06:48
  also I feel like you were on that report.
• 1:06:50
  I wasn't she kind of just like nail it in one take 120, say
• 1:06:53
  made in her like home studio. She's basically standing in her
• 1:06:56
  living room with a really good microphone and she's just kind
• 1:06:58
  of walks in cold and and Nails it was like, okay that's that's
• 1:07:03
  really don't worry. I'm going to put in some She say
• 1:07:05
  like Patty isms are some yeah. But obviously there's so much
• 1:07:10
  just like musical interpretation there, that nobody gave her.
• 1:07:13
  He just did. Yeah, it's pretty cool to see
• 1:07:23
  her. I mean, you know, you all know
• 1:07:25
  like Fraggle Rock. Never worked with celebrities
• 1:07:27
  before so the fact that you're able to integrate them a little
• 1:07:31
  bit more seamlessly and have someone like LaBelle fit into
• 1:07:36
  the universe as opposed to not to knock what they did but the
• 1:07:40
  the series of Fraggle shorts the federal Fraggle Rock rock on
• 1:07:43
  shorts where they're literally talking to celebrities, felt a
• 1:07:47
  little less natural. It was interesting, don't get me
• 1:07:50
  wrong. But here with the exception of
• 1:07:52
  the Dave Grohl Cameo which actually worked really well, we
• 1:07:56
  get these celebrity voices, we got people playing in the
• 1:07:59
  Fraggle Rock sandbox and then you end up with someone like
• 1:08:01
  Patti LaBelle singing a classic fraggle song which like I'm not
• 1:08:04
  gonna say No to that's great. I totally agree.
• 1:08:07
  That was the kind of rule, we gave ourselves.
• 1:08:09
  It's like, okay, well they're going to the fraggles.
• 1:08:10
  Don't interact with silly creatures for the most part if
• 1:08:13
  they do it's going to be really special and not now we're not
• 1:08:16
  going to do it you know it's like I think in the original
• 1:08:17
  there was one scene is at the very end, you know, we're go
• 1:08:21
  about interacting with Doc and it's like, yeah we're not just
• 1:08:24
  going to do that. But if we can in and
• 1:08:27
  non-distracting way, get some incredible voice talent in to
• 1:08:32
  bring some of these old songs Back to Life.
• 1:08:34
  Hey. Let's do it.
• 1:08:35
  I mean, it all feels like part of the celebration obviously and
• 1:08:38
  then the, you know, the Foo Fighters stop that was Uncle
• 1:08:41
  traveling. Matt is our is our way out into
• 1:08:43
  the world, so he was interacting with them.
• 1:08:46
  And in a way that I think that we that's something we could do
• 1:08:48
  to again with interaction with kind of celebrity interaction,
• 1:08:52
  if that's what you want to do again.
• 1:08:53
  But only in that context, right? Yes.
• 1:08:56
  And of course he never knows who he's talking to you.
• 1:08:58
  Anyways they're not celebrities to have John.
• 1:09:03
  John tartaglia just anytime We were breaking these stories to
• 1:09:06
  be like, I know what this moment.
• 1:09:07
  I know exactly what song would fit this woman.
• 1:09:09
  He's just Encyclopedia of these songs and I did the album,
• 1:09:14
  that's on Spotify, I believe. But of the new songs
• 1:09:18
  reinterpreted so good. We'll play it in my car all the
• 1:09:22
  time at the kids. Love it.
• 1:09:23
  Yeah, they're great creates. All the songs are just terrific.
• 1:09:26
  I mean that's that musics. Always been so important in
• 1:09:28
  Fraggle Rock. So I'm glad you gave it the
• 1:09:30
  importance that it deserved. So now that the three of you
• 1:09:35
  have Revisited this episode, you have any final thoughts about it
• 1:09:38
  and the any other special memories you want to share.
• 1:09:42
  I'm really glad we did it. I was thinking about it.
• 1:09:44
  I just like I constantly just on Facebook.
• 1:09:47
  I just have friends throughout my life and there's so many
• 1:09:50
  reposting of these articles are like this is not a website.
• 1:09:55
  This is not a real. This is not real and it's just
• 1:09:58
  like it's a very like Alex mentioned.
• 1:10:00
  My dad was a newspaper reporter. And so, I grew up in a house
• 1:10:04
  with these papers. It just see the interior ation
• 1:10:07
  of the trust that people have in the mainstream media is.
• 1:10:11
  So Aging to me and just it's just such a mess and like Alex
• 1:10:16
  said, I think we're going to have to be teaching this sort of
• 1:10:18
  media literacy moving forward. And if, if that message came
• 1:10:24
  across in this episode and just a fun little way, then it feels
• 1:10:29
  really worth it to me. Totally.
• 1:10:32
  And I just was pleased as heck that you asked me to write it?
• 1:10:36
  That was all we were lucky to get.
• 1:10:39
  Yeah, really really, really We didn't.
• 1:10:44
  Sorry, I didn't somebody say that they wanted their didn't.
• 1:10:47
  Didn't you guys tell me the word that somebody said they did.
• 1:10:49
  He really wanted his local government to watch that but
• 1:10:53
  yeah, you know. Yeah there was a review that,
• 1:10:55
  right? Yeah, we were sort of like you
• 1:10:57
  know, junket day when the show first came out we were talking
• 1:11:00
  to so I apologize for not remembering who it was but it
• 1:11:03
  was you know the kind of feel like yeah.
• 1:11:06
  You're talking like a hundred people over three hours or
• 1:11:08
  whatever and there is. Yeah but somebody who's saying I
• 1:11:11
  You want my local government to watch this because I don't know.
• 1:11:14
  I think that's the what I'm sort of proud of in the episode is
• 1:11:16
  that it presents sort of a nuanced idea.
• 1:11:20
  Which is that yes like faxed matter and the source of the
• 1:11:23
  facts matter but also there needs to be room for new
• 1:11:27
  research to update me. We can't get stuck.
• 1:11:30
  There's no such thing as sort of the final answer for things
• 1:11:33
  there that we need to be able to evolve, but we also need to be
• 1:11:37
  really careful about that. Balance of what information is
• 1:11:41
  actually legit. Emmett and what New Perspectives
• 1:11:44
  and new information is actually legitimate to add to that
• 1:11:46
  conversation. So I think that the in our own
• 1:11:49
  frankly, we were able to talk about that which was pretty
• 1:11:52
  satisfying. And I just also like to shout
• 1:11:55
  out to Donna because I thought her performance was, she's
• 1:11:59
  uncomfortable. It was great.
• 1:12:01
  Donna's amazing. She has a way of making Mochi so
• 1:12:03
  funny, but at the same time, grounded, she's really, really
• 1:12:07
  was a really nice good performance.
• 1:12:10
  She could write a character for that.
• 1:12:11
  That idea. Absolutely.
• 1:12:14
  Well, thank you all so much for helping to continue the legacy
• 1:12:19
  of Fraggle. Rock making the world a better
• 1:12:20
  place. Thank you for joining me.
• 1:12:24
  Alex, Cuthbertson, and Matt fusfeld.
• 1:12:26
  You guys are terrific. Thank you for for bringing
• 1:12:28
  Fraggle, Rock back into our lives and Jocelyn Stevenson.
• 1:12:33
  This has been such a treat, you're a legend in our circles
• 1:12:36
  and not only for all the work you've done with the original
• 1:12:41
  Fraggle Rock. But the fact that you get to
• 1:12:43
  bring that girl, The toss to the new series, it really shows.
• 1:12:47
  So thank you. Couldn't agree, more.
• 1:12:52
  Thanks. All of you for being here, that
• 1:12:54
  brings us to the end of another podcast, but stay tuned as tough
• 1:12:57
  big Zone. Beth cook talks more about the
• 1:12:59
  themes of this episode in our dive deeper segment coming up
• 1:13:02
  next. Welcome to dig deeper.
• 1:13:14
  This is Beth cook and I am joined once again by executive
• 1:13:17
  producer and president of television at the Jim Henson
• 1:13:19
  company Hallie Stanford. We were talking about episode 3,
• 1:13:23
  The merggle Moon, migration just when I think that the lessons of
• 1:13:29
  the reboot can't get any more timely and appropriate a
• 1:13:33
  century, right? Well, I absolutely and you know
• 1:13:38
  I can't say Like exactly who on the show was like we have got to
• 1:13:43
  like really big like manifest the echo chamber that we all see
• 1:13:48
  out in the world, specifically in social media, and the
• 1:13:52
  internet, but I'm gonna guess that probably outs Cuthbertson.
• 1:13:58
  And that Festival were the ones that are like, yes, let's do.
• 1:14:01
  Let's do, let's do fake news. Let´s do Echo Chambers, the
• 1:14:04
  political, and the social media landscape and reflect it back
• 1:14:08
  and frog. Gerak in a really funky way
• 1:14:11
  where we see one of our characters really going along
• 1:14:16
  with something that just without any facts or evidence and
• 1:14:19
  getting themselves in a lot of trouble.
• 1:14:22
  And, you know, it would seem that we would pick one of the
• 1:14:24
  other characters. Right.
• 1:14:25
  Let's do boober, or Gobo or Wembley know we were like, let's
• 1:14:30
  do the one person that you actually wouldn't expect to not
• 1:14:34
  be in touch with what's really happening.
• 1:14:38
  Let's do mochi. And I think it really worked.
• 1:14:41
  I thought that was brilliant to me.
• 1:14:42
  It made a lot of sense that because Mochi was so in touch
• 1:14:46
  with her intuition that she saw that as just as important if not
• 1:14:52
  more so than the facts that the others had and we're trying to
• 1:14:56
  share with her. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:14:58
  And so then, you know, as we've done in Fraggle Rock you've seen
• 1:15:02
  and the other episodes we actually wanted to do a visual
• 1:15:04
  representation of the echo chamber.
• 1:15:06
  So you see her going into To this area where actually the
• 1:15:10
  Rocks themselves or echoing back and it gets scarier and scarier
• 1:15:14
  and scarier. But in the beginning, they're
• 1:15:16
  validating everything she's saying.
• 1:15:17
  She's like I'm a genius. I love this one more.
• 1:15:20
  She's like, I could paint in here, you know, like she thinks
• 1:15:22
  this was fantastic. But what she's doing learns is
• 1:15:26
  she's all alone. She's put herself in danger and
• 1:15:28
  she really should have listened and followed the map.
• 1:15:30
  So we actually want to show something physical like, this is
• 1:15:33
  the map. This is the information that
• 1:15:35
  will help you get from a to z and she ignored it.
• 1:15:39
  And so, she doesn't eat your friends to rescue her.
• 1:15:42
  And luckily, there is a good results from that.
• 1:15:45
  But it was really important to show that this this adventure
• 1:15:50
  did not go well, and and better friends didn't follow her, we
• 1:15:53
  didn't have her get them in danger, right?
• 1:15:55
  She got herself in danger. She went forward without them
• 1:15:58
  and then of course, They go for her and they help her, but that
• 1:16:02
  was also important that she had to have her own journey to learn
• 1:16:06
  this information and I think that everybody has to go on
• 1:16:08
  their own journey of facts versus beliefs, right?
• 1:16:12
  And I think everybody is going through their own Journey right
• 1:16:15
  now. You can think of it regarding
• 1:16:18
  the pandemic vaccination, and you can look at it from politics
• 1:16:24
  and everything happening schools.
• 1:16:27
  And some people think one thing about critical race Theory.
• 1:16:29
  And so, Another group makes another.
• 1:16:31
  And so we all have to start reading and educating ourselves
• 1:16:36
  on real information. But I do want to say, but in the
• 1:16:40
  end, there is something to intuition, right?
• 1:16:43
  Like you do, like sometimes you do have a feeling about
• 1:16:46
  something and I hope that the message isn't confusing two
• 1:16:51
  families at the end, but we did want Mochi to have a win.
• 1:16:55
  And so that her intuition does manifest itself a little bit and
• 1:16:59
  that Because of her taking this journey, she is rewarded.
• 1:17:04
  And she does get to see something that nobody's ever
• 1:17:06
  seen before which is the birth of a new Merkel generation and
• 1:17:12
  getting to hear the queen of the merggle.
• 1:17:14
  Sung by Patty sing, amazing song.
• 1:17:17
  So anyway, she does get rewarded for it.
• 1:17:19
  So I kind of love that too. And like I said, I hope it
• 1:17:21
  didn't. I hope it wasn't confusing but
• 1:17:24
  thought it was important to also, say, sometimes you do have
• 1:17:26
  to trust your get a little bit. Me too.
• 1:17:29
  I really love that quote. There's a time for feeling and a
• 1:17:32
  time for facts. Yes, and absolutely.
• 1:17:36
  I was I think and I think I probably gave that notes like,
• 1:17:39
  you're going to need a line in there that explains it.
• 1:17:42
  So there you go. Wonderful.
• 1:17:45
  And I really appreciated the B plot of cotter pin and the Chief
• 1:17:51
  Architect discovering, that new information can lead to new
• 1:17:56
  facts and the facts can change. Yeah, I love that, too.
• 1:17:59
  I love that. Like she has this mentor and
• 1:18:02
  teacher. Who actually, like, no.
• 1:18:03
  I have I know what that area is. And she's like, no, I know to
• 1:18:08
  and I need you to believe me. I need you to listen to me, and
• 1:18:11
  that was a very tricky balance in the writing as well, because
• 1:18:13
  you didn't want it to come off as condescending or sexist or
• 1:18:18
  ageist. But I think they, I think we did
• 1:18:21
  a good job with that. And I'm, I love that the
• 1:18:24
  architect in the m has to give her a rousing doozer apology.
• 1:18:28
  And he's happy to do it, you know?
• 1:18:30
  Like he owns it. That's what we said.
• 1:18:32
  Like, you know, own it, if you want to apologize and he got it
• 1:18:35
  on it, so definitely characters own it in Fraggle Rock when they
• 1:18:39
  say they're sorry. But yeah, so she discovered
• 1:18:42
  something new and that's a very important Discovery, right?
• 1:18:46
  So just telling I love that too. Because for cotter pin because I
• 1:18:50
  feel like she does represent this, like, modern child.
• 1:18:53
  You know, she's like the tech child that digital native like,
• 1:18:56
  she's saying we're saying to them.
• 1:18:58
  You can make discoveries, you are inventors, your scientists
• 1:19:02
  or engineers and you may discover something that nobody
• 1:19:04
  else seemed do not be afraid to go out there and tell them what
• 1:19:10
  you found and even when they say I don't believe you believe in
• 1:19:13
  yourself. She believed in herself, she
• 1:19:15
  could have very easily been. Like, okay, I don't want to rock
• 1:19:17
  the boat that is her belt, but she stood up for herself and
• 1:19:21
  they listened to her and then made a great discovery.
• 1:19:30
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