How many seasons of Fraggle Rock were there?

[BradFraggle]

We all know Fraggle Rock lasted 5 years (1983-1987), but did it last 5 seasons? Has the fan base been wrong all these years? All the fansites say that there were five seasons of Fraggle Rock, and in looking at how the episodes were spaced out and run on HBO it may appear that way. But I read this on Karen "Red Fraggle" Prell's official website:

FOUR is the Nagic Number
Okay, lots of Fraggle fans and fansites have been reporting that there are 5 seasons of the TV series Fraggle rock. Well, maybe in England and other countries things were divided up that way, but in Canada and the States and certainly in the way we originally shot the series, Fraggle Rock was always only 4 Seasons of 24 episodes each, 96 in all. So with the upcoming Season 2 DVD box set, we're halfway there!

It seems that some episodes got aired a bit more spaced out and regrouped…similar things happened with episodes of "Bear in the Big Blue House", "Dinosaurs", and "The Storyteller" but we haven't regrouped them to create additional "seasons".

Is their any official documentation that says there were 5 seasons? Where did the notion of 5 seasons come from? Is Karen just play games with us? Can we assume that the season box sets remaining are seasons 3 & 4 (each with 24 episode) not season 3, 4 & 5 (with 22, 13 & 13)? What's going on here?

 

[The Count]

Lemme see if I can help.

We're both right in terms of the total number of seasons.
If Karen Prell says that the show was shot/produced intended to be aired as four seasons of 24 episodes each, then I give her theory some creedence since she was involved in the show directly as one of the main Muppeteers/characters on the show.
However, the show ran for a total of five seasons on HBO in USA.

This can be explained a bit better with the DVD boxset releases.
We got Season 1 which covers Episodes 1-24, and Season 2 which contains Episodes 25-48. Well, the next boxset release would be Season 3 with Episodes 49-72. After that, there'd be only one boxset left. This last boxset would contain all remaining episodes from 73-96 if there were a total of 96 episodes during the show's entire run. Thing is that HBO in the USA split up these episodes airing one handful of episodes as "Season 4" and the remaining second handful as "Season 5".
So the last boxset would cover all the remaining episodes, just depends on whether you'd call it all Season 4 as Ms. Prell or Seasons 4 and 5 as most of the fansites have them classified.
Hope this helps.

 

[Fragglemuppet]

Well, of course I wasn't around for the original HBO run, but that sounds like it very well could have been what happened. As for my thaughts, splitting it up into four seasons is the only fair and logical way to do it, giving each season an equal number of episodes.

 

[Giar Fraggle]

I concur, Fragglemuppet. Besides, I think it would cost less to only produce four box sets instead of five, especially when the fourth and fifth seasons combined are roughly the same size as the previous seasons and would fit perfectly into the production format they've used for the first two sets.

And if Karen says, so it must be.

 

[Traveling Matt]

The Count is correct. As it's been understood, the original deal between HBO and Henson called for five seasons to air. There were, however, only four seasons produced. Therefore the final production season of 26 shows was split to air as 13 and 13.

So the most likely scenario for the DVDs would be just as The Count said: a third boxset containing all 22 episodes from Season 3, and a fourth (and final) boxset containing all 26 episodes from both Seasons 4 and 5.

Of course this is all guesswork, but it does seem the most logical approach.

 

[BradFraggle]

So the real question now is will we get "Fraggle Rock: Complete Third Season" (with 22 episodes) and "Fraggle Rock: Complete Fourth and Fifth Seasons" (with 26 episodes). Or as Karen implies "Fraggle Rock: Complete Third Season" (with 24 episodes) and "Fraggle Rock: Complete Fourth Season" (with 24 episodes). Either way we would get all 96 shows...but I wonder how they'll lable and group them.

 

[The Count]

Well... At the moment all we can do is go out and buy the Season 2 boxset to show HIT that there's continued interest in the seasonal boxset releases to the point that they see it's a good thing to continue and release the third season next year if not sooner.

 

[BradFraggle]

At the moment all we can do is go out and buy the Season 2 boxset to show HIT that there's continued interest in the seasonal boxset releases

Well, I bought two...now what?

According to Phillip's season 2 review here, HIT will be making the call on season 3 by the end of the year....but, of course, I can't wait 'till then to start speculating!

 

[fraggleroxs]

Wow, i forgot all about this show until i just happened to find this post white searching for a totaly different show. Me and my sister use to wake up every saturday morning bright and early to watch this. I guess now i have to go to youtube and check out that theme song again and catch up on all the characters that i forgot about.

Also, i just remembered how i once had these fraggle rock toys that came from either Mcdonalds or Burger King. I know somebody on here remember those toys. Man, those were the days.

 

[Yorick]

All 4 seasons have been released now. Hooray!
(That info is for anyone just joining the forum)