'Fraggle Rock' Movie Going Forward with Some Writers

With The Muppets having provided an positive test of human nostalgia response to charming puppet stimuli, New Regency is moving forward with long-running plans to make a Fraggle Rock adaptation, hiring on writers Jim Byrkit and Alex Manugian to bring the Fraggle world of caste systems and living trash to audiences who now get those things from E! programming.

Somewhat promisingly, Byrkit shared a writing credit on Gore Verbinski's entirely-decent recent family film, Rango; Manugian did some voice work on that film, has been an executive at the Cartoon Network, and recently worked with Byrkit on Fleeced, an in-development script described as "a sort of Ocean's 11 meets Jason and the Argonauts."

For those that didn't have CBC or HBO, and were thusly confused when I was Gobo for our 3rd grade Halloween party, Fraggle Rock was a Jim Henson, puppet-based production about various species--Fraggles, Doozers, Gorgs, a trash heap, an old guy--living together in and above the titular realm. Through their interactions and songs, we learned about such heavy topics as symbiotic balance, ecology, religion, identity, and other things that will probably deeply upset Fox News.

Though the Jim Henson Co. is thankfully co-producing, one might notice that the Hollywood Reporter story makes no explicit mention that the Fraggles will even be puppets, so there does remain the possibility the characters could become weird animated things--as there is sort of a precedent for that happening. But, as the Fraggles sing, those are worries for another day. Probably the day when Raja Gosnell signs to direct and Betty White is cast as the old guy.