Big screen 'Fraggle Rock' movie in the works

Posted Friday, October 20, 2006 at 10:25 AM Central

by Tim Briscoe

Fraggle Rock, the Jim Henson TV creation from the '80s, is coming to the big screen as a live-action feature film. Musician and author Ahmet Zappa will be an executive producer for the project.

Zappa met with The Jim Henson Company's co-CEO Lisa Henson (Jim's daughter) where the idea was presented. "During that conversation, I had an intuition that he might be a 'Fraggle Rock' fan. He jumped out of his seat when he heard our idea of making 'Fraggle Rock' into a feature-length movie," Henson told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Fraggles were a puppet creation, much like Henson's famed Muppets, which lived inside a wall. The Fraggles were part of a hidden community (known as "Fraggle Rock") which also included enterprising Doozers and ogre-like Gorgs. The series aired for five seasons on HBO beginning in 1983.

Talk of a Fraggle Rock movie was first discussed by the Henson Company in early 2005. The original puppets used for the series (which included Fraggle characters Gobo, Wembley, Mokey, Boober and Red) will reportedly be refurbished and updated for the film.

Zappa, son of avant-garde musician Frank Zappa, will write the film's outline which will bring the Fraggles outside of their hole-in-the-wall homes for the first time. "The Fraggles didn't really get into the human world on the series, so we plan to make the movie more about the intersection between the Fraggles and the humans," Lisa Henson said.

No release date for the Fraggle Rock movie has been determined.