Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fraggle Rock: Rock On!’ On Apple TV+, Where The Fraggles Find A Way To Connect, Even While Apart

These days of lockdowns and quarantines has brought out such creative solutions to making original content. And when Fraggle Rock: Rock On! appeared on Apple TV+ in April, it was a pleasant surprise. Not only was it new Fraggle content in 33 years, but it was an early sign of the potential of what can be done with a fully-remote production. Read on for more.

FRAGGLE ROCK: ROCK ON!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Gobo Fraggle (John Tartaglia) is impressed with the Doozertube that the Doozers drop off in his cave. He mentions that the little workers are building them and putting them out all over Fraggle Rock.

The Gist: Fraggle Rock: Rock On! is a series of six shorts, ranging from 5 to 8 minutes each, that serve as a bit of a reintroduction to the residents of Fraggle Rock, the underground world that we on the surface have no idea exists. Apple TV+ has acquired the original 1983-87 run of Fraggle Rock, and will start producing new episodes whenever production of new shows opens up.

But it also serves a second purpose: Produced during this current lockdown, with the various Fraggles hunkering down in their own caves (and the Muppeteers that work them in their homes), it’s supposed to show that, via technology like the Doozertubes, we can all stay connected, even when we’re apart.

Gobo calls in all his friends: Red (Karen Prell), Wembley (Frankie Cordero), Mokey (Donna Kimball) and — of course — Boober (David Goelz). Everyone’s happy to be able to use the Doozertube in their cave to talk to each other. Well, almost everyone; Boober is awakened from a deep sleep to see this device in his cave and he’s pretty scared of it at first.

But after they end up singing a song together, everyone’s happy to have the Doozertubes there. In the second episode, we see Gobo’s explorer uncle, Travelling Matt (Goelz) in “outer space”, i.e. above ground, telling Gobo about his adventures in the “cave” of the “silly creatures,” complete with confrontations with the homeowner’s tiny dog. In Episode 3, the gang has a virtual talent show, where Wembly wembles between balancing a cucumber and a radish on his nose.

Episode 3 shows Matt deploying more Doozertubes; the first one is in Common’s recording studio, where he gets to sing along with the Fraggles. In Episode 4, the doozers push a tube out in a field that just happens to be in Jason Mraz’ farm. And in the final episode, more tubes are deployed, and celebs like Neil Patrick Harris (whose name Boober always gets wrong), Tiffany Haddish, Alanis Morissette and Ziggy Marley join Common, Mraz and the Fraggles for a dance party to the Fraggle Rock theme.

Our Take: Fraggle Rock is one of those shows that has gathered a huge following because HBO ran it for years after its initial run on the network, then it was sold into syndication and appeared on home video. That’s a lot of kids getting to know the world of the Fraggles; those fans now have kids, and they have been looking for new Fraggle content for years. When Fraggle Rock: Rock On! was released by Apple six weeks ago, it was a bit of a surprise, but it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise, from both a technical and a quality standpoint.

The series, with Halle Stanford and Tartaglia as executive producers, pretty seamlessly carries on Jim Henson’s vision of Fraggle Rock, even if many of the voices are different than they were in the original series (Goelz and Prell are the holdovers, giving the show some continuity). It’s hard to rebuild a world as complex as Fraggle Rock when all the characters are in their own caves, literally and figuratively, but Tartaglia and Stanford manage to give more than enough of an idea of what the world is like to the uninitiated, while still tapping the nostalgia buttons of the show’s adult fans.

What we found amazing is that the folks at Jim Henson Productions were able to get this together so quickly, given that it came out in late April, and involved multiple Muppeteers and at-home celebrities. Cousin series Sesame Street was able to put together their virtual playdate episode pretty quickly, but this series (total running time was about 33 minutes) had higher production values, especially with the celebrity segments. We were especially gratified to see NPH get laundry tips from Boober, and Tiffany Haddish celebrate scoring a rock hockey goal with Red. But the episode with Common was especially fun to watch, as he added a great rap to the Fraggle classic “Let Me Be Your Song.”

It’s a promising taste of what’s to come in the new series, whenever that debuts (we’re thinking in late 2021 or early 2022).

What Age Group Is This For?: This is pretty much for all ages, just as the original series was.

Parting Shot: At the end of the first episode, Gobo tells everyone to come back in 20 seconds, which just happens to be the time it takes Apple TV+ to switch to the next episode. At the end of the sixth episode, there’s a tag where NPH continues to teach Boober how to say his name.

Sleeper Star: Did we mention how much we liked the song with Common? We also liked Morissette playing the watermelon bongos.

Most Pilot-y Line: How did Travelling Matt get in the same room as Common? Was that a VFX trick? Or did the Muppeteer (Goelz only does the voice these days) socially distance from him?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Your kids will like Fraggle Rock: Rock On!, and you’ll think the show never left. It’s the perfect taste for when the original episodes appear on Apple TV+ in the near future.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Fraggle Rock: Rock On! On Apple TV+