Fun Friday: Fraggles and Death

Close friends know that I'm really ignorant of YouTube. For example, aside from looking up a music video that everyone was talking about on Facebook, I'm not sure the last time I used YouTube. This is a stark contrast from the average user, who spends an hour and 41 minutes per month on YouTube. (the number might actually be much higher, as this source suggests the average viewer spends 7.7 hours a month watching Google sites, of which YouTube is a part!) This explains how I'm late to the game on viral videos. Oops.

But, the video I'm talking about today isn't even viral... in fact, fewer than 10,000 views have been logged over the past 3+ months. However, it's still pretty exciting (and, therefore, fun), at least for a Muppet lover like myself. I actually have studied Fraggle Rock pretty extensively and even presented a paper on it at a national conference back in 2009, so this compilation fascinates me, and I thought you might find it interesting as well. Now, it's no surprise that Fraggle Rock examined death, as there are a couple episodes (most notably, S01E17 "Marooned") that deal directly with the concept, but the sheer number of mentions in 96 episodes is impressive. (you can skip ahead to 2:19 if you don't want to hear the intro. and there's a minute of commentary at the end, too.)

Some highlights include:
- How many ways to die are mentioned... flattening/crushing, starvation, sacrifice, being eaten, poison, explosion, and freezing.
- Wembley hitting Sprocket in the face when he thinks the dog ate Gobo.
- How lightly Boober takes death... "we've all got to go sometime!"
- Junior Gorg believes that he's killed Mokey, and we see the reactions of Ma Gorg, Gobo and Red.

Rhett Pennell

what stands out to you about this compilation?