The First Snow of Fraggle Rock debuts today. The holiday special finds Gobo Fraggle experiencing problems writing the yearly holiday song as the first snow of thee season produces a mere single snowflake. In order to get him out of his funk, Gobo heads into Outer Space (our world) to find some inspiration.
Recently, we spoke with John Tartaglia, the man behind Gobo. He spoke about The First Snow of Fraggle Rock including bringing back a song from the OG series, his duet with guest star Lele Pons, and his small on-screen cameo.
One aspect between the original series and the current reboot is the catchy songs. Writers Alex Cuthbertson and Matt Fusfeld went back into the vault and dug up the song “Our Melody.” It seemed like a nice fit for the themes of the holiday special.
“[W]e needed a song that kind of connected all the Fraggles and all the worlds and was really about how each person needs to contribute something to make it the best thing possible,” Tartaglia said. “The best holiday celebrations are when everyone’s giving something and we’re all together. So, ‘Our Melody’ seemed like the perfect song because that’s the whole thing. Each melody lays on top of the next one to make this beautiful, beautiful group sound. It just felt like a nice metaphor for what the holidays should be.”
“Our Melody” is sung several times in The First Snow of Fraggle Rock. It appears for the first time during a duet between Tartaglia’s Gobo and musical artist Lele Pons. She was a big fan of the franchise, and found time to film her scenes even though she was pregnant at the time.
Tartaglia explained, “What was really neat about it when we filmed that segment with Gobo, she was a couple weeks away I think from having her baby. She was really excited to have that time in her life forever captured and being part of the story. We realized that storyline of a first time mom who is anticipating and excited and nervous and not sure what it’s going to be like, the expectations, really aligned with Gobo’s story of having all of these nerves. All of these expectations. All of these worries of things changing. It kind of aligned in a beautiful way that made sense for the story and for the song.”
Although Tartaglia spends most of the holiday special out of sight while puppeteering Gobo, he does appear on-screen in a very meta and surreal moment. Viewers might not even realize that it’s him.
“I honestly didn’t think it would really happen. I was actually like, no one wants this you guys. I was talking bad. No, no, no, no, no. They kept keeping it in the script. They kept keeping it in the script. Then, everyone seemed to be really excited about it. Okay, maybe because it’s me I just couldn’t look outside the lens to see that. But, I’m really glad I did it. It was really fun and it was really surreal I guess is the best word.”
He continued, “As a kid, nothing I wanted more was to be in Fraggle Rock. I was seven years old. I just want to find a Fraggle hole, crawl through and be in Fraggle Rock. Hang out with the Fraggles and go exploring with Gobo and everything. Then to be standing there all these years later and to be talking to Gobo, sharing a scene with him, was just so weird. We shot all that outdoor business in Canmore in Canada, which was a beautiful place. The sun was setting behind the mountains and I was standing on the street with Gobo having a conversation. I was like, ‘What is my life? This isn’t normal.’ It was really neat. It was really neat.”
Stream The First Snow of Fraggle Rock on Apple TV+.
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