Why are FR songs so short?

[Emosewa]

They play that song during with the Fraggle Float from the '84 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. There's even some silly-creature-sized fraggles who breakdance to it. I kid thee not.

One can find this song on the " Music and Magic " CD too.

Hahah, oh I wish I had seen that Macy's parade ^_^ .

And yes, I think they needed the songs short, since they had to put the story first. But the songs are nice as they are, even if a few extended ones like for cds would be great.

 

[BEAR]

I think I'll agree with the others by saying that there was only so much time in the episodes. Also, there were times when there was more than one song in an episode. If they were any longer than the episode would be entirely songs. Not that it is bad, the songs are great, but there needs to be room for story (book only). I mean, not even the Sesame Street songs are much longer than that and its an hour long show.

 

[minor muppetz]

Many of the songs on The Muppet Show and Sesame Street were short as well. Though in this case it's usually shorter than two or three minutes. In the booklet for The Muppet Show 25th anniversary album, it was said that Jim Henson didn't want The Muppet Show to have very many musical that lasted more than two minutes. I think that a lot of the song covers on The Muppet Show were shortened, often shortening or leaving out instrumental breaks and leaving out parts of songs that get repeated. I've noticed that a lot of the songs in A Muppet Family Christmas are shorter than their original versiosna s well (I remember one christmas listening to a lot of these songs on the radio and noticing that many verses or lines got repeated a lot more than in MFC).

A year ago I started to notice that Muppet Babies usually only had one song per episode. I don't know why it took so long for me to notice this, and I don't know why most episodes only had one song.

 

[BEAR]

A year ago I started to notice that Muppet Babies usually only had one song per episode. I don't know why it took so long for me to notice this, and I don't know why most episodes only had one song.

Probably because for a daily half hour cartoon, only one song is necessary and simpler. I think more goes into cranking out a bunch of episodes of an animated series. There's just no time to write that many songs. Plus, one was enough.

 

[minor muppetz]

Are there very many animated shows that regularly include more than one song, besides the theme song? I think that many episodes of Garfield have multiple songs, though not in the same short story (many episodes have a song in one of the Garfield segments and one of the U.S. Acres segment). I think there are episodes of Alvin and the Chipmunks that have multiple songs. It's weird that I didn't notice for such a long time that a lot of the cartoons that I grew up watching had such a lack of songs and musical numbers. I don't think Tail Spin or Darkwing Duck had any songs in the episodes.

 

[Foodie]

Hahah, oh I wish I had seen that Macy's parade ^_^ .

And yes, I think they needed the songs short, since they had to put the story first. But the songs are nice as they are, even if a few extended ones like for cds would be great.

I did manage to see that when it aired in '84, which was before I'd ever seen Fraggle Rock. In fact, that may have been my first exposure to them thar fraggles.

I have a copy of that parade on tape & DVD ( I think ) now. John Schneider follows them on a giant dog float that I first thought was Sprocky. T'wasn't though.

 

[Foodie]

Are there very many animated shows that regularly include more than one song, besides the theme song? I think that many episodes of Garfield have multiple songs, though not in the same short story (many episodes have a song in one of the Garfield segments and one of the U.S. Acres segment). I think there are episodes of Alvin and the Chipmunks that have multiple songs. It's weird that I didn't notice for such a long time that a lot of the cartoons that I grew up watching had such a lack of songs and musical numbers. I don't think Tail Spin or Darkwing Duck had any songs in the episodes.

I believe they crammed in a few brutalized songs from the original series into each cartoon. The voice actors made ME feel embarassed for them. Red's singing voice on the 'toon was... * shudders * And Ma Gorg! * gags * And the Trash Heap ... * explodes *

I think they did one song per show and most of the shows consisted of 2 short stories.

 

[BEAR]

Are there very many animated shows that regularly include more than one song, besides the theme song? I think that many episodes of Garfield have multiple songs, though not in the same short story (many episodes have a song in one of the Garfield segments and one of the U.S. Acres segment). I think there are episodes of Alvin and the Chipmunks that have multiple songs. It's weird that I didn't notice for such a long time that a lot of the cartoons that I grew up watching had such a lack of songs and musical numbers. I don't think Tail Spin or Darkwing Duck had any songs in the episodes.

Tale Spin has songs sometimes, as did some of the other Disney Afternoon shows, but it wasn't a regular occurance. Animaniacs had songs as a regular part of their show.

 

[Princeton]

Does anyone remember the Disney Channel show "Adventures In Wonderland" from the early 90's (ya know, with the White Rabbit on rollerskates)? Well, on that show, every episode had at least four songs. Granted, it was a live-action show, but I just thought I'd mention it to go along with the "kid shows" argument.