--- title: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Fraggle Rock’ description: It might be difficult, for some, to understand the magic of Fraggle Rock: the Fraggles are puppets, they live in a cave next to the... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7119033/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-fraggle-rock/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-05-14T18:24:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-25T05:56:04.841Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 10 'Fraggle Rock' Facts for the Show's 30th Birthday og:description: The man behind the Fraggles Travelling Matt and Boober takes TIME behind the scenes of the Henson classic og:url: https://time.com/archive/7119033/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-fraggle-rock/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebed43897b74f810/698a8ee99862f5b96889b4ff/dave_boober1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Dave Goelz and Boober og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 'Fraggle Rock' Facts for the Show's 30th Birthday twitter:description: The man behind the Fraggles Travelling Matt and Boober takes TIME behind the scenes of the Henson classic twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebed43897b74f810/698a8ee99862f5b96889b4ff/dave_boober1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # 10 Things You Didn't Know About 'Fraggle Rock' > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) May 14, 2013 6:24 PM UTC  Dave Goelz and Boober the Fraggle Dave Goelz and Boober the Fraggle The Jim Henson Company by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) May 14, 2013 6:24 PM UTC It might be difficult, for some, to understand the magic of _Fraggle Rock:_ the Fraggles are puppets, they live in a cave next to the home of a man named Doc, they love music, their neighbors are Gorgs and Doozers and an oracular heap of trash. But if you were of a certain age in the early ’80s, there’s no denying the feeling brought on by the words “dance your cares away.” The beloved Jim Henson production – which ran for five seasons — turns 30 this year. And marking that anniversary is the release of a special-edition complete-series DVD set, out May 14. TIME talked to Dave Goelz — a longtime Henson puppeteer who brought to life Boober Fraggle, Traveling Uncle Matt Fraggle and Large Marvin Fraggle — about what it took to make the Fraggles happen. **The Fraggles were almost called … the Woozles.** “It’s a variation on a character group that dated back to the early ’70s called Frackles. I think it was probably just that they were looking for a word they liked as much as that one,” guesses Goelz, who says “Fraggle” has no specific meaning. An archivist at the Henson Company, however, confirms that—while Jim Henson and _Fraggle Rock_ writer Jerry Juhl liked the sound of “Frackles,” who were the bad guys from _The Great Santa Claus Switch_—the show was originally called _Woozle World._ That name was abandoned when they discovered that Woozles were characters in _Winnie the Pooh_. A later working title, _Fraggle Hill,_ was abandoned for sounding too British. **Each Fraggle was created with a specific puppeteer in mind.** Goelz, who had been working with Muppets since 1974 (and had played Gonzo since 1975), remembers going to [New York](http://topics.time.com/new-york/) to “meet” the puppets that had been created for _Fraggle Rock_. He was immediately suspicious that the puppets had been made with their certain puppeteers in mind, even though the writers denied that was the case. “I looked at the characters and I thought, ‘Well, I’ve gotta be Boober,'” he remembers. “Years later, Jerry Juhl did cop to it.” **Things backstage at** **_Fraggle Rock_** **were…scary.** Competitive scaring was not new to the Muppet universe—Goelz says that the legendary Frank Oz had a phobia about seeds and once, years ago, Jerry Juhl put birdseed between the slats of venetian blinds in the Muppet workshop nap room right before Oz went in there and closed the shades, causing the seeds to fly everywhere. Here’s an example of the extent of the pranking: Goelz once had a plan to get revenge on his “fake enemy” Don Sahlin, from the Muppet art department, who had once rigged Goelz’s desk to “explode” with puppet-making materials. The plan was hatched knowing that Sahlin would often leaving work around 4:00 in the afternoon and return to work later that night — and that when an employee entered the unoccupied building, he would have to throw a master switch in a breaker panel located in a small bathroom. --- > “” --- **Things in front of the camera were scary too.** Another scaring victim was writer Jocelyn Stevenson. Goelz got her during a lunch break once by sneaking up on her while she was in an ATM vestibule—and then foiled her attempts to get back at him. She eventually took out her frustration another way: by writing the Season 3 _Fraggle Rock_ episode “Scared Silly.” (**MORE**: [The Whimsical World of Jim Henson](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2076821,00.html)) **Working on** **_Fraggle Rock_** **was, for some, a wonderful never-to-be-topped experience.** “Our video editor, Pat Hamilton, who, sadly, died recently—I saw him last summer at a little impromptu gathering in Toronto— it turned out he had left video editing when he was about 30,” says Goelz. “He was about 25 when he worked on our show. He left video editing and became an IT person. I said, ‘Why did you change careers?’ And he said, ‘I peaked too early.’ After _Fraggle_ there was just not going to be anything else like it. I do feel like that feeling in the room gets on the screen.” **Not every audience saw the same** **_Fraggle Rock_** **.** The outer space (a.k.a. human world) scenes that frame episodes of _Fraggle Rock_ varied according to audience. Goelz says the idea was inspired by [_Sesame Street_](http://topics.time.com/sesame-street/)‘s use of different-looking streets to personalize the episodes. (In some markets, _Sesame Street_ doesn’t look like NYC.) Doc, the _Fraggle Rock_ human, is an inventor in [Canada](http://topics.time.com/canada/) and Germany. In England, he’s a lighthouse keeper. In France, he’s a baker—and his dog, named Sprocket elsewhere, is named Croquette. The actors were local talent. **Traveling Matt went all over the world—but Goelz didn’t go everywhere Matt did.** Local actors were also used to fill in for Goelz in some of his “Traveling Matt” sequences, during which Matt Fraggle files dispatches from various corners of the world. Goelz did, however, get to go to Australia and New Zealand for a month to shoot Matt’s travels Down Under. (Unlike the Doc scenes, Matt sequences were aired worldwide.) (**MORE**: [The Global Politics of _Sesame Street_](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/09/the-global-politics-of-sesame-street/)) **The theme song wasn’t the tune that got stuck in the puppeteers heads.** Is the _Fraggle Rock_ theme stuck in your head? Sorry about that. But for those who worked on the show, the music that appears in individual episodes was a bigger problem. “Anything that we shoot gets stuck in our heads when we’re working on it, for a day or two,” says Goelz. “A lot of times, we’ll cover songs in our normal Muppet work and there’ll be things that I don’t even like. Once you perform them you start to find out how they work, and you start to kind of like them. Then you can’t get it out of your head.” What’s in Goelz’s head now? A song Tina Fey will sing in the upcoming Muppet movie—in which Goelz “plays” Gonzo, Zoot, Beauregard, Waldorf and Bunsen. **Goelz couldn’t make it to the Fraggle-themed Ben Folds Five video shoot — but he’s in it anyway.** The Fraggles made an appearance last year in the video for Ben Folds Five’s “Do It Anyway,” but the plan came together last minute and Goelz couldn’t make it to L.A. to do the puppet work for Boober and Traveling Matt. But at the end of the video, when that catchy theme song shows up, that is Goelz’s voice. He was dubbed in later for the “Down at Fraggle Rock.” **A** **_Fraggle Rock_** **movie is in development.** Though Goelz had no news to share about the progress at this point, the Henson Company did confirm what _Fraggle_ fans have long hoped for. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7119033/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-fraggle-rock/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7119033/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-fraggle-rock/"},"headline":"10 Things You Didn't Know About 'Fraggle Rock'","datePublished":"2013-05-14T18:24:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-25T05:56:04.841Z","description":"It might be difficult, for some, to understand the magic of Fraggle Rock: the Fraggles are puppets, they live in a cave next to the...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7119033/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-fraggle-rock/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebed43897b74f810/698a8ee99862f5b96889b4ff/dave_boober1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebed43897b74f810/698a8ee99862f5b96889b4ff/dave_boober1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Dave Goelz and Boober","caption":"Dave Goelz and Boober the Fraggle","creditText":"The Jim Henson Company","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7119033/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-fraggle-rock/","name":"10 Things You Didn't Know About 'Fraggle Rock'"}}]}] ```