The Fraggles are back for more epic, fun adventures and handling big changes as they are forced to confront their past and celebrate their interdependence as they move through challenges together with hope, silliness and brand new songs, all while dancing their cares away… down at Fraggle Rock.
We talked with the Executive Producers from the Emmy Award-winning series, Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. Matt Fusfeld, Halle Stanford & John Tartaglia shared about creating family content, the themes, songs, guest stars and how they name the Fraggles!
Interviewed for Family Entourage
Family Entourage: How do you make all the decisions for Fraggle Rock?
John Tartaglia: How do we make all this decision? Well, you know what? We honestly work together, and it’s important for us behind the scenes when we’re writing the show and producing the show and on set when everyone’s performing and filming it and shooting, did everyone gets to be part of that, and everyone’s ideas are heard and that everyone feels like they’re part of one big mission. So I think it’s a big teamwork. It’s like a cool family working together.
Halle Stanford: And I also think that there’s two ways that we make decisions. One, we think ahead, we make a plan. So we have to think like, oh, what’s that Crystal Cave going to look like? And we’re going to plan it all out, and how are we going to shoot that moment when Red does a big dive into the pond? But then another way we make decisions is just on the set. That’s television production. We pivot.
FE: Well, what’s one of our favorite parts of the show.. the songs! We love to sing and dance to them all. Which one have you been singing? The beginning and also Radishes and Strawberries.
HS: That’s everybody’s favorite song. Strawberries, strawberry…
JT: Are you team Radish or Strawberry? Would you be a Radish?
FE: Strawberry. When you’re doing the songs, are that something that everyone sings together? Do you do it in pieces? What does that look like for that kind of delivery and execution?
JT: Yeah, we work with the amazing Harvey Mason Jr. Who’s our executive music producer, and of course, the head of the Grammys and just a legendary producer. And he and his team, Andrew Hay and Sam Ramirez, they’re literally the greatest to work with because they make you feel so comfortable and they’re so much fun. They make us laugh a lot, and each of us goes in and records our part, and then they mix it all together, and then they’ll go in and add more vocals. So it sounds like a big giant chorus of Fraggle. And so it’s kind of cool. It kind of builds and builds and builds and builds and builds and builds. It is fun for all of us because we get to go into the recording booth and record the voices, and then sometimes we’ll cheer each other on. So when we were in Calgary and Canada filming, we would all go to the recording studio and cheer each other on from the sound booth, and that was just fun. That was a fun, very ragley way to do it.
HS: And then what we do in production is that the song’s already prerecorded, so it may not have the final arrangement, but it’ll be prerecorded with the voices, and that’s what the puppeteers will puppeteer to the songs, so it’ll already be done
JT: So we don’t have to keep singing it over and over.
FE: This season’s great because you have some really fun guests that come on from Catherine O’Hara to Brett Goldstein. So talk to me about, do you create characters for them? Do you create a character and then say, here’s our wishlist of people we think could play it. What does that process look like?
Matt Fusfeld: I think it’s a little bit like that in the writer’s room. We have fun with just coming up with what the idea is, and it becomes clear that with the Brett Goldstein episode, we need this type of charismatic character from a different place who has this different idea of looking at things, and there’s such a love for Fraggle Rock. Brett Goldstein, for example, was someone who has a relationship with Halle and the Henson Company who was like, I want to do Fraggle Rock. And we were kind of keeping that in the back of our mind, what would be good for Brett Goldstein. But then there’s ones like the Catherine O’Hara one where that was really a thing where we’re like, when you’re coming up with that character, this is a Catherine O’Hara type. And then we actually got Catherine like it works out perfectly that way. But it’s definitely a combination, again, of teamwork with Apple Music and everybody to get some of these amazing. We got Aespa, the pop band, when Uncle Traveling Matt went to Korea. That was a huge effort. And Adam Lambert. Ariana DeBose. Yeah. So it’s kind of a combination of all of it.
FE: We got to talk to some of the Fraggles.
JT: You talked to Red Not many kids get to talk to the Fraggles, so you’re pretty lucky.
FE: What were you just telling me about after reading that? It’s my favorite show!
JT: Well, that’s it. We’re done. You just made our day.
FE: I have to say, Halle, you do such a great job of creating such great family content, but especially with the rags, talk to me about what it means to be able to have programming that I enjoy and my five-year-old daughter is enjoying it too.
HS: Well, it means everything to me personally. It means everything to the company. I have two sons, my oldest, who’s now 26, was the original Sid the Science Kid. So I would just say, I think as a mom, I understand how important it is to sit and watch programs with your kids and share the love of it, but also as a mom, you’re like, can I get some help? So definitely with Fraggle Rock, there’s so much opportunity to give parents all of this tools to help them with bigger topics. The whole point of Fraggle Rock is to bring about world peace… in our own way. What’s going to make our house peaceful? What’s going to make our family peaceful? What’s going to make us inside and our own hearts peaceful? And what’s going to maybe deal with some bigger topics like climate change? So that was a pleasure to work on with Fraggle Rock, to be able to give that back to families.
FE: We’re able to have some discussions about some of those topics because with brother, the whole Repeaty Birds. That episode was one that we wanted to make sure we was saying positive things and getting that repeated and so forth.
HS: We love that you picked up on that.
JT: That was one of our favorite ones to shoot too. Like, oh, this is applicable not only to kids on social media, but a lot of adults too.
MF: And just that one in particular. I really love how Doc’s storyline is about the way that we talk, the words we use in our own heads, and how you should choose really carefully to use positive good words with yourself.
FE: How do you make up all the Fraggle names?
MF: Great question. Johnny’s the historian of Fraggle Rock.
JT: Well, some of them are funny things like Gobo, his name actually comes, that’s a lighting term for a certain kind of special light. And then traveling. Matt is a takeoff on a movie making term, and then there’s things like Red. Red. Just the color red is exciting and vibrant. So that felt right. Boober just sounds like a funny name. And then actually Matt and Alex, Alex’s, Matt’s writing, they came up with Pogi, which was the first main new Fraggle that had ever been invented. How did you guys come up with Pogi?
MF: That was just, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s just these, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. It was just a sound.
HS: Every dozer is named after something you could find in a hardware store.
JT: That’s right. Cotter, pin, turbo, measure, wrench… Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
FE: Thank you so much for taking the time. We’re over here doing our little clap.
JT: Yeah. You have to think of your Fraggle name.. What would your Fraggle name would be?
FE: Oh, we will think about that. You got to think about that. We’ll let all our friends know about the new season coming out!
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock now streaming on Apple TV+.
