In contrast, when they tried bringing Fat Albert into the modern real world...well it had its nice moments but overall the jokes fell flat and the plot was confused. Not to mention it bore little resemblance to the original cartoon show. Consequently it did not do well in the theaters.
The problem is that it was written by Bill Cosby, and while he was involved in the production, the characters were based off his comedy routine, and he did half the voices, he never actually wrote the series. Plus, I didn't like the stuff about them not being able to eat or do anything unless the writers told them.
Same with Bewitched and Rocky and Bullwinkle (again in my opinion); both had nice moments but overall the plots were incoherent and not entirely true to the original shows.
The Bullwinkle Movie would have been much, much better had it involved Rockey and Bullwinkle aiming around freely. That stupid girl spy (I'm sure some bonehead studio exec forced them to write her in there for some focus group) ruined the movie. Everything but that plot scar was fine.... they even used the same old jokes, including the mistaking Washington the city with Washington the person schtick. Bewitched was just illadvised all around. only one I liked in it was Steve Carell doing a dead on Paul Lynde impersonation.
But I don't think we'd have the same kind of jokes as the other projects mentioned. And that's due to the fact the Fraggles going into outer space in the 80's wouldn't be as different as them going out into Outer Space now, since the Fraggles are mystified by everything that the silly creatures do.... not just make jokes about putting CD's on record players or mispronouncing technological advancements. Everything is a new experience for them. And that's their strength.
That said, whoevwer decided the Dudley Do*right movie had to take place in the 90's, and not the 1890's with out of place technology (like in the cartoon) was ignorant of the source material.