you must watch the fraggles

Here's why. The Fraggles are absolutely fantastic, and I have to say, I was not quite aware of just how fantastic until recently, when I started watching Season 1. (Thanks to L and H for a most excellent birthday/baby present). I watched Fraggle Rock back in the day and loved it, but remained a bigger fan of the Muppets. And I will still always love the Muppets. But, about the Fraggles--did you know:

• Jim Henson originally conceived the idea for Fraggle Rock, intending to create a kid's show that would inspire world peace. He wanted to do a show with "the concept of understanding other people's points of view to understand why countries don't get along with each other on a very childlike level." And knowing Jim Henson, no one laughed at this pitch.
• Included in the Season 1 DVD is an actual replica of Jim Henson's idea notebook (which is awesome) for Fraggle Rock, scribbled into while he was on a Concorde flight from London to NYC. From this notebook, you find out that the Fraggles were going to be called the Woozles, what became the Gorgs were the Giant Woozles, and the Doozers were actually going to have their own separate world as well and be called the Wizzles.
• The show was going to be filmed/distributed to several countries the world over, and for the most part the format would be exactly the same. The different part of the show for each country would be the "Outer Space" landscape, which in our country is the old guy and Sprocket's work room. Also, the things that Traveling Matt saw and reported on via postcard to Gobo would be different as well, according to that country's culture.

I'm a few eps in, and here's what's fun:

• The characters echo certain Muppets. For instance, Wembley is totally Rizzo the Rat in both personality and voice. The Head Gorg guy has the face and voice of the Ghost of Christmas Present from The Muppet Christmas Carol. Gobo reminds me a lot of Scooter.
• And Mokey... I love Mokey. She totally reminds me of one of our professors at Art Institute. She's la-de-da, just soft-voiced, yet inspiring. She kind of even looks like PM, just a little bit. It's hilarious.

• K.Lo will also watch the Fraggles, and yesterday sat through an entire ep before naptime. Granted, she will also watch NASCAR (shudder), but she did seem particularly into the Fraggles.

And lucky her, thanks to her super-duper Aunt Kim, two real live Fraggles, Gobo and Boober, happen to live in her crib.

• As with any Muppet-type production, you've got great writing, very witty. Appeals to both children and adults, in surprising ways.
• And, it is so not heavy-handed. As an adult viewer, you can totally see the message they're trying to get across, but you won't be exasperated. Instead, you'll think, people of every age should watch The Fraggles. It is so smart, and about the things we all discuss daily: relationships, jobs, entertainment. It's brilliant, like it's truly got the whole world figured out. Go watch it now, and spread the word. It's a Fraggle Revolution!

P.S. If you're really a fan, you must also know about this.