Later this week will see the release of season two of The Jim Henson Company’s acclaimed reboot series Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock via Apple TV+, and recently Laughing Place was invited to participate in a virtual press conference in promotion of the return of the show.
During the junket, I had the pretty wonderful opportunity to speak with Mokey and Red Fraggle together about the recent adventures they’ve shared throughout season two.
Watch "Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock" Season 2 Interview with Mokey and Red Fraggle:
Mike Celestino, Laughing Place: Hi, my name is Mike Celestino with LaughingPlace.com, and hello to you Mokey and Red. It’s so good to see you.
Mokey: Silly Creature Mike! Hello!
Red: Hi! Hello!
Mokey: You’re in a place where there’s lots of laughing.
Red: Sounds like Fraggle Rock! Haha!
LP: How’s it going down in Fraggle Rock, by the way?
Mokey: So good. So good.
Red: So good. Haha.
Mokey: Lots has been going on, as you may have heard.
Red: Yup.
Mokey: Lots of adventures… big, big, big stuff.
Red: Epic, yes.
LP: I have heard that. And I heard that you guys had a windstorm recently. How have you been dealing with the aftereffects of that?
Mokey: Yeah, it was intense. Not gonna lie.
Red: It was scary for a while. I was thinking I could control the wind by blocking it off, but in the end I had to let go of that and get some help from my friends. We all had to work together to figure out what was going on with that, and how to work together to solve it. It took a while…
Mokey: But we did it together.
Red: We did it together!
Mokey: We all had to work together– the Gorgs, the Doozers, the Fraggles, but we did it. So proud of us.
LP: I’m so glad to hear that. Mokey, can you tell me about somebody called Lanford? I think he might be a new friend of yours.
Mokey: Lanford, my leafy love.
Red: [groans]
Mokey: Lanford is… so much more than a plant. Lanford is…
Red: Challenging.
Mokey: Challenging?
Red: Well, I know he was very important to you, Mokey. And you were very important to him. But it took a while for him to… grow on me! Hahaha! It’s a plant joke!
Mokey: I get it! Because he’s a plant! Haha! It just never gets old. Yeah, but you’ve come to embrace Lanford.
Red: Yes, and he ended up being quite a hero.
Mokey: Yes, Lanford is very talented. Lots of abilities we never knew about. Ah, Lanford.
LP: That’s great. And then Red, I wonder if you could tell me about something called the Great Radish Ball. What can you say about that?
Red: Oh my gosh, it’s so amazing. There’s music, and so many kinds of radishes, and games, and dancing… although it kinda went weird this time around. There was something happening with Boober. I don’t quite understand what it was…
Mokey: Yeah, nor do I.
Red: But it worked out in the end.
Mokey: Oh, indeed. We celebrated all things radish, and it was just tremendous. Magical in all kinds of ways. It was lovely, the Radish Ball.
Red: Oh yes. Epic! Epic again.
Mokey: Yeah, epic. We got to dress up. Always fun.
LP: Well that sounds like a lot of fun. How have you two been getting along as roommates?
Mokey: Pretty good.
Red: Pretty good. I’m working on my snoring, a bit.
Mokey: Yeah, I appreciate that. I really appreciate that. And then of course, having Lanford, that was a bit of a challenge, but you know what? Red is Red. Mokey is Mokey. We’ve come to embrace our differences…
Red: Yeah.
Mokey: Accept them… and really celebrate them, wouldn’t you say?
Red: Yeah, inspiring each other and just appreciating each other’s perceptions, and the way they approach things, and the things they appreciate. It’s just been mind-opening sharing the space with Mokey.
Mokey: Ah, so nice of you, Red!
LP: Well, it’s been mind-opening getting to speak with both of you. Thank you for your time!
Mokey: Thank you! You take care now.
Red: Yeah, bye!
Next I spoke with Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock executive producers Matt Fusfeld, Halle Stanford, and John Tartaglia (who also performs the character of Gobo Fraggle, among others) about the return of the series for its second season on Apple TV+.
Watch "Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock" Season 2 Interview with Executive Producers:
Mike Celestino, Laughing Place: It’s great to be chatting with you guys.
Halle Stanford: Great to chat with you!
LP: I’m so glad that the show is back for season two, but before we get into that I want to ask you guys, how did you feel about the reaction from season one of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock?
Stanford: I think we were all blown away, and so proud, and maybe a sigh of relief, because we’re really all fans, and just wanted to make sure we honored the fans– hoping that they’d all be excited about it. And then of course all the new fans, as well, but we really were like, ‘Oh, we hope that the Fraggle fans feel we delivered.’
John Tartaglia: I don’t think we slept the day or two before, because all of a sudden you start going into that fear-based thing of, ‘Did we do enough this? Should we have done that?’ So I think that the morning it came out, hearing everyone’s reactions, and reading all the reviews– it was just a dream come true. It really was.
Matt Fusfeld: I agree with all that. It’s such a responsibility to take something that’s so beloved… and there’s so many reboots, too. We know we loved what we did, but you just never know. You’re inside a bubble. And [it was an] awesome, awesome reaction. [We were] so happy, and [are] really feeling hopeful that this season, as well, [gets] the same [response]. Because having been given that confidence, it allowed us to hopefully have even more fun– go even deeper.
LP: Going into this second season, what goals did you have for the show and how did you build on what you learned from making the previous batch of episodes?
Stanford: At the Jim Henson Company, we always try to meet families where they’re at in the moment– what’s important to them right now. So with Fraggle Rock, we always keep Jim Henson’s mantra of, ‘Let this be a show that brings about world peace.’ So for this season, we were like, ‘What is it gonna be this year that kids and families around the world feel like will help bring them to that peaceful place?’ And what they said to us was, the things that they care about the most right now are climate change and food insecurity. And we were like, ‘Whoa, those are heavy, but we’re on it! The Fraggles are on it!’ So that was the way that we launched the messaging and heart of it, and then we built around it.
Tartaglia: Yeah, I think we just felt even more so a responsibility this season to, ‘How do you take it a step further? How do you make it even more epic? How do you make it even more exciting? How do you make the music even better? How do you make the sets more beautiful?’ It’s taking us around another corner in the caves to something even more magical than we had the first season.
LP: John, you’ve served as a writer, a producer, and a performer on this series. Can you talk about how you go about balancing all of those different roles for a Jim Henson production like this?
Fusfeld: Director now, too!
Tartaglia: Yeah, I directed an episode. You know, it’s really just putting on hats and taking them off. The good thing about being a puppeteer is we’re watching a monitor all the time. And so, in a way, we’re always kind of self-directing, and we’re always helping establish the shots. One of our responsibilities is to see everything that’s happening in the monitor at all times, so we can react to it and do things that are appropriate. So I think in a way it was easier because of that, but I’m also the Puppet Captain, which means I’m in charge of all the puppets on screen, all the puppeteers, and the choreography. And so I always have to be watching 25 things at once. I don’t know, maybe I’m lucky that my brain is already 50 miles an hour. [laughs] But I think the joy is always when I can just sit into a performance and enjoy being Gobo, or enjoy being Sprocket or Architect, and just really focus on that and take that producer hat off for a little bit. And also I have the best executive producers in the world with me, and we all share that duty. It’s a collaboration. That’s what lets me do that.
LP: Thank you so much for chatting with me. I love the show.
Tartaglia: I also love Laughing Place! I love your website.
Stanford: Thank you! Bye!
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock season 2 will be released in its entirety on Friday, March 29th, exclusively via Apple TV+.