I’m a huge fan of Fraggle Rock. I’ve been a huge fan since its inception in the 80s when it premiered on HBO. It featured a lot of material that related to children that focused on insecurities, and generally made anyone who watched it feel good about being unique. It also provided a lot of laughs, which is what you want with polite preachiness. It’s the same type of theme that has been present in nearly every Jim Henson production, which made Henson’s productions special for the family. That’s what I remember about Fraggle Rock, and that’s how I felt about it.
Color me super-duper happy when Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced that they were going to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the classic Henson series by releasing the entire collection on Blu-ray. While the announcement was fantastic, I had seen this series released before on DVD in pieces, and how much better could it really be? The show was developed in 1983, there is a limitation on how clean it could look, and what type of special release were they really going to offer for this show that hadn’t been offered before on DVD? There are limitations for this sort of stuff, especially for a show that is 35 years old, right? Well, apparently Sony decided to go all in on the release. When I say ‘all in’, I mean they went ALL IN.
The first beautiful thing about this release, outside of the wonderful characters, is the the packaging for the Blu-ray, which is superb. Each Blu-ray has a page dedicated to it in the collection. The pages are full of pre-series prep pictures that show off the character models on paper, written pieces of ideas for the show, and people who helped develop it, as well as voice the characters over. Essentially, there is a treasure trove of information about the show from behind-the-scenes within each Blu-ray page of the box. That’s a lot of money going into that box, as well as a lot of work drumming up pictures for it, so instantly this release is far more endearing in design, as well as intention. If that wasn’t enough, they also included a paper doll cutout of Uncle Traveling Matt to take around on trips to take photos of while one is out and about in the world. I intend on doing this when I leave for the in-laws again this year (they’re in Maryland). The gimmick of that paper doll is right on par with the character, and his adventures within the series. Again, good intentions.
In short, this wasn’t a money grab. Sony really wanted to tug at the heartstrings of us goofballs who have never forgotten how great that show was back in the day.
As for the actual episodes, all of them are there in one fine package. You get 96 gorgeous episodes that have been perfectly crafted for this release. If you had a hankering for Gobo, Red, Wembley, or that freakish royal family, then you’re going to be happy with this release. What’s even better is that the stories translate well to younger kids. For example, I have five kids, three of whom are under the age of 12. When I popped in the first disc of this collection, my two youngest sat down and started watching it with me. The youngest asked what it was, the second youngest asked what streaming channel this was airing off of on my PS4 (bless his heart). Both continued to watch episode after episode until we had to leave for some silly family event. I mean, who interrupts Fraggle Rock? Pssshh. Anyway, it was neat seeing that the show was somewhat timeless. The other nice observation that I had was that I found myself still very much enjoying the content. Henson has always has had a way of balancing adult/child content in everything his workshop did, and this was just another example of that type of Henson magic. It still was present in each episode. Again, timeless.
Stories and characters aside, the real big question that I had about this release was about the quality — is it good enough to warrant a purchase? The answer is that Sony did a good job of cleaning things up for Blu-ray from these 35 year old episodes. You’re still going to get that 80s imperfection from the time period in the shot, but the picture has been cleaned up as best as possible. In fact, I will say they are the best looking episodes on this release than in previous releases of the show. The extra money for Blu-ray version of the release ($45.85 total) is worth it, as it looks absolutely stunning.
If all of that wasn’t enough, each disc comes with its own set of features. For example, you get a lot of behind the scenes features, old HBO promos, and a good feature about working with Jim Henson. There are a bunch more features. Here’s the complete list:
• Fraggle Music Celebration (NEW)
• Life on Set: Moments with Jim Henson (NEW)
• 1993 “The Today Show” Segment featuring Uncle Travelling Matt (NEW)
• Down at Fraggle Rock: Behind the Scenes (48-minute version)
• Fraggle Songs & Doozer Music
• Interviews with Fraggle Rock Creators and Puppeteers
• Seasons 2, 3 and 4 Overviews
• Docs and Sprockets
• “All Around the World” Music Video
• Travelling Matt
• 20 Travelling Matt Segments
• Special Tribute to Jerry Juhl
• Scared Silly: Art Imitating Life
• Production Design Featurette
• Electro-Mechanical Puppetry
• Doozer Design
• How the Trash Heap Came to Be
• Gorg Design
• Interviews with Michael Frith, Kathy Mullen and Gerry Parkes
• HBO Promos
• You Cannot Leave the Magic: Excerpts from the Last Day of Shooting
• Dance Your Cares Away: The Evolution of the Theme Song
• The Inner Gorg: An Interview with the Performers Inside the Costumes
• Let the Music Play: An Interview with Phil Balsam and Dennis Lee
• Celebrating Fraggle Rock: Excerpts from the Wrap Party
• Designing the Puppets: An Interview with the Puppet Makers
• Directing the Fraggles: An Interview with Eric Till and George Bloomfield
• Additional Interviews:
◦ Dennis Lee with Mokey
◦ Jerry Juhl with Gobo
◦ Jocelyn Stevenson with Red and Mokey
◦ Faz Fazakas with Cotterpin Doozer
◦ A Minute with Travelling Matt
• All 13 Episodes of Fraggle Rock: The Animated Series
◦ Animated Series Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
◦ Animated Series Character Galleries
◦ Animated Series Opening Scene Storyboards
Overall, Fraggle Rock: The Complete Series is a great release for a cheap price. This show still works for kids and parents, so it’s worth checking out. In addition, it has a ton of features, and a gorgeous packaging scheme that will make you happy that you spent the $45.
