Muppet fans have been counting the days until the premiere of the second season of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock on Apple TV+ on Friday, March 29. In these 13 new episodes, our favorite characters (Gobo, Red, Boober, Mokey, Wembley and Uncle Travelling Matt) will be joined by new Fraggles and Doozers voiced by special guest stars including Ariana DeBose, Brett Goldstein, Catherine O’Hara, Daveed Diggs, Adam Lambert and K-pop group aespa. The Fraggles, Doozers and Gorgs will confront their past and celebrate their interdependence as they face new adventures and sing and dance at Fraggle Rock.
We had the chance to chat with three of the show’s big creatives, exec producer Halle Stanford (Jim Henson Company’s president of TV), John Tartaglia (Avenue Q) and Matt Fusfeld (Community, New Girl), to learn more about the new season:
Animation Magazine: Congrats on the fantastic new season of Fraggle Rock. To begin, can you tell us when did you start work on the new season and how long does it usually take to deliver each episode of the show?
John Tartaglia: Well, it takes about six months to write the show (which is led by Matt Fusfeld and Alex Cuthbertson). Then we moved up to Calgary where we shoot the series, and that took about six more months. It takes us about seven days per each episode. Then, of course, there’s the post-production work for another three or four months. So it takes about a year to make a season of Fraggle Rock.
It seems that Back to the Rock continues to hit all the right spots and deliver what the fans have loved about the original show while exploring new themes and introducing new characters this season. Can you each tell us what you loved about the second season?
Matt Fusfeld: I have to mention the music first, because it has aways been the heart of Fraggle Rock. Our music exec producer Harvey Mason Jr. has done such a fantastic job. We have performers like Ariana DeBose, Adam Lambert and K-pop group aespa (we actually traveled to Seoul to film that). We also have Brett Goldstein and Catherine O’Hara, who also gave us a couple of great song. There are also lots of really funny, silly bits that I’m very proud of. A lot of it was improv, and this season, we were able to play a little bit.
Halle Stanford: I love the show and I love working at the Jim Henson Company because we’re always trying to meet families and kids where they’re at in the moment. So in terms of the big messaging and take-away when we talked to families around the world was most important to them and what they came back to again and again was climate change and food insecurity. That was really what they are concerned about the most. So we thought about how to deliver the tools to have conversations about this and to inspire model behavior. I feel that everyone really did a successful job delivering on those messages. That’s why I’m really what the show was able to say this season.
John: I think for me, it was a chance to dig deeper with the characters. We really wanted to show more sides of the characters: We called it the shadow side. You know there’s one side, which is the one you present to the world. Then, there’s the other part of you that you’re maybe insecure about it or you don’t let shine as much. It’s about taking the characters on more epic adventures and go through these somewhat difficult situations. They reveal so much about the characters. I think for a performer, it was a wonderful challenge to explore that side and it was fun to discover those parts. For example, my character Gobo, he’s the leader and in charge, but when he doesn’t know what to do, he takes being a leader too far: He becomes toxic with his power. So, we just had this opportunity to dig a little deeper and explore more than what you usually get in a TV series.
I recall reading a great review of Fraggle Rock, which pointed out that what sets it apart is that we can feel that it’s evidently handmade, and at the same time, the Fraggles feel alive and like something that you can potentially make yourself. Can you tell us why you think the show and its characters have been so popular with the fans for such a long time?
Halle: I will just jump in and talk about the power of puppets: They’re magical, powerful and wonderful. Our performers and our puppet builders bring them to life in a way that nobody else could. I really think that audiences that are watching Fraggle Rock are are part of the magic because like you said we know that they’re puppets and they’re handmade but somehow we want them to be real. We can hopefully deliver on that, and the show continues to build this powerful relationship between the puppets and our audience.
John: I would say that puppets are the last magic trick that we have. We live in a world where we know how everything is done, how every film is shot and how every effect is produced. But when there’s a puppet on a puppeteer’s hand, it’s being brought to life in a way that is believable. There’s a magic to it: There’s this intangible thing where you can’t quite explain why you believe it and why it feels so real. To be honest with you, as a performer, I can’t even tell you exactly why, but there’s just something about it. For example, there when you have scenes between Yoda and Luke Skywalker, if it was animated, no matter how great the animation was, you just knew that Yoda wasn’t really there, but when you see Yoda perform with Mark, it felt so real. I think we live in an age where people want that tactile sense. As a kid who watched the original series, I wanted to make my own puppets immediately and I did, using things from around the house and cutting up (God bless her) my mom’s old dresses and fabrics and blankets. It was something I watched and I wanted to make it myself as well. I think it’s fantastic that our audience is also inspired like that
Matt: I have two young kids and this is something that’s just so universal: Everybody has stuffed animals and what’s the first thing you do when you pick them up? You create a little voice for it, and it it’s the most universal thing in the world. So, to see it done really well, it’s really about wish fulfillment. Take Sprocket for example, anyone who has a dog talks to their dog and imagines that the dog is interacting with them it’s just one of the most human things in the world. Then, there’s nothing quite like seeing these master Jim Henson puppeteers bring these puppets to life.
You have quite an impressive guest star list this season. Did you write the guest roles with these specific actors/performers in mind or did you write the scripts first and then find the best performer for the roles?
I think we all always had in our heart of hearts who we would love to come on the show and be a part of it, particularly with music guests. But we also knew which kind of new characters we wanted to meet new characters on the show. From our perspective, we definitely wanted to get a K-pop band. We knew that Brett Goldstein was a massive Fraggle fun, so we wrote the part for him. We also wrote the character played by Catherine O’Hara with her voice in mind and just hoped that she would say yes. So, I guess it all went hand in hand.
You start with what is the message we’re trying to convey here, but it pretty quickly becomes, “Oh, who would be exciting and a good representative and have just kind of a soulful connection between the character and talent.” Fraggle has been a real great talent magnet and Apple was an incredible partner in bringing aboard the talent and all these top level singers to the production.
What has been the most challenging or favorite episode of the new season for each one of you?
Halle: For me, it was going to Seoul and filming the aespa music video with Uncle Traveling Matt on top of a helipad. That was quite challenging to coordinate Uncle Traveling Matt with aespa and the whole production on top of a helipad. The trailer already dropped and it’s gotten over 6 million views, so it was all worth it. We were there for a week the extensive prep work, but the shoot itself was only a day.
John: For me, as a performer, the big challenge is the physicality of everything: We don’t write these characters for what they can’t do we. We write them for what we want them to do, and we always put the limits in the best possible way. But sometimes we are shooting all these difficult scenes day after day. We have the Fraggles in water, and we’re literally in scuba suits going underwater with these puppets, and the next day, I’m under a floor performing with Sprocket, and my arm has to be up for over two hours. So that’ the physical aspect of it. From an emotional place, you know the journey of these characters and all their emotional moments. There are moments when they are losing hope and feeling isolated. When it comes to climate change, we wanted to convey the message that we can all really do something about it. We can make a difference, so it was so cathartic to have these storylines about never losing the power of hope and the ability of facing things together. It really kind of reinvigorated me as a person.
Matt: I love all the episodes this year but as I was rewatching them, I really enjoyed the episode where the gang is basically all restarting the night over and over again, kind of like Groundhog Day. Alex and I were really excited to tell that kind of story, but it was really challenging to do in a way that was that was Fraggly and and not too heavy. It took a long time and a lot of collaboration to get it to where we wanted it to be. It was a challenge for us because it’s all about repeating the same sequence over and over again.
I think we have time for one last question: What is the most memorable reaction you have had from Fraggle Rock audiences?
Halle: I was going back home after finishing the second season and going through customs and security. You always get nervous when they ask you where you were and what you were doing. But this time, when I said I was working on Fraggle Rock, suddenly this man’s face completely changed and he flashed a smile and he was like, “I love Fraggle Rock! Come on in.” That was so nice. I’ll always remember that moment.
John: For me, it happened recently. I was on the Jim Henson Company lot and I had Gobo there. On that day, there was a group of tourists coming through that we’re getting a tour of the lot. There was a girl that day who casually mentioned that Fraggle Rock was her favorite, and I just happened to have the Gobo puppet there., so I brought him out to meet her. When I brought him out, these tears just poured out of her eyes. She started to cry really hard. She said, “This was my only friend when I was a kid. Gobo was my best friend.” It made me start to cry, too. It was such a reminder of … through all the hard and all those physically exhausting days, it’s beyond worth it when you see how these characters and this legacy effects people. It really reminded me of the privilege and the power we have to do that.
Matt: My genuine answer to that is how my own kids responded to the first season. There is a Hollywood kind of answer too: It happened when I ran into a friend of mine with whom I had written on a show before. I really respected his comedic talents, but he’s also a very acerbic and cynical writer. He says to me, “Hey, hey … I watched Fraggle Rock. That was funny. That was funny, man!” That was the greatest compliment coming from such a hard, comedian type of person.
The complete second season of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, March 29. The “Night of the Lights” holiday special and the original 1980s Fraggle Rock series can also be streamed on Apple TV+.
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock is executive produced by The Jim Henson Company’s Lisa Henson, Halle Stanford and John Tartaglia, along with Matt Fusfeld and Alex Cuthbertson. Co-executive producers are Dave Goelz and Karen Prell, and executive music producer is Harvey Mason Jr. The new season is produced by Chris Plourde and co-produced by Tim O’Brien.
