ABSTRACT
The Fraggle Rock TV series first aired at a time when the Reagan Administration had made its mark on American popular culture. This chapter examines Fraggle Rock's debt to Sesame Street to show how the 1980s series set itself an educational mission fed by the progressive impulse of the 1960s. It focuses on the narrative strategies of those fantasy stories while laying the emphasis on the construction of "Fraggledom," an ever-growing secondary world remarkable for its international appeal. Not satisfied with merely dubbing the show, Jim Henson had the far-reaching ambition of adapting Fraggle Rock, linguistically and culturally, to the various countries in which the series could be sold and watched, notably England, France, and Germany, thus spreading its message of love and peace worldwide. The chapter demonstrates that while Fraggle Rock was a commercial entertainment product, the show, with its liberal undertones, can nonetheless be seen as a place of resistance against the prevailing ideology of the New Right.
