Adored by the Network / Screwed by the Network: Fraggle Rock is an arguable example of both with regards to HBO. The pay-TV network ran the show in "family viewing" time in the early evenings instead of burying it in an early morning slot as was usually the case with children's programming, a move that paid off with a strong ratings showing. However, when the network began having financial troubles, it pulled its funding for Fraggle Rock's production in Toronto, and despite CBC wanting to continue with the show (which had been considerably more popular in Canada), Jim Henson decided the series should end on a high note rather than continue with reduced funding and sacrifice quality. Most of the performers were ready to move on by then anyway.
Richard Hunt was very proud of his work on Fraggle Rock and is said to have been frustrated that the series never found a home on broadcast television (as opposed to pay TV or cable TV) in the United States, which gave it a significantly smaller American fan base.
Cross Dressing Voices: Marjory the Trash Heap, Brio the Minstrel and Storyteller Fraggle are all females who were performed by men (Jerry Nelson and Terry Angus, respectively). Averted in Back to the Rock, in which all three characters were performed by female puppeteers for the first time. Back to the Rock also averts this trope with some characters performed by non-binary puppeteers.
He Also Did: Gerard Parkes, who played kindly old Doc in the North American version, appeared in a CBC TV version of Harold Pinter's The Basement in 1969, which nearly got the producers prosecuted for obscenity over a scene in which he appeared with an apparently naked Belinda Montgomery (who had herself worked with Jim Henson in Hey Cinderella! and The Cube). Oh, and then there was that Wham! Episode of Today's Special where Parkes played an alcoholic who got nasty when he drank.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Many Muppeteers performed in this show, both established (Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz) and (at the time) lesser known (Steve Whitmire, Karen Prell, Kathy Mullen). That's Jim Henson himself as Cantus and Convincing John.
Mona Marshall was the voice of Mokey and Cotterpin in the Animated Adaptation. Hilarious in Hindsight since both characters also shared an actress/puppeteer in Kathryn Mullen (and are still performed by the same woman, Donna Kimball, in Back to the Rock).
Believe it or not, Rob Paulsen provided the voice of Boober in the animated series.
Anyone who's watched The Muppet Show or Sesame Street is likely to recognize the voices of Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz and Richard Hunt. Because he performs so many characters in this series (including the main protagonist), Jerry Nelson's voice is easily recognizable. Gobo sounds like a slightly deeper-voiced Robin the Frog/Emmet Otter/Farley with a Canadian dialect, which is even more noticeable in A Muppet Family Christmas when the two characters share a scene.
Karen Prell has performed relatively fewer characters in comparison to the others, but one who immediately rings a bell as sounding like Red is Maureen the Mink in A Muppet Family Christmas.
Wembley Fraggle sounds like a younger, more innocent Rizzo the Rat — only without the Brooklyn accent. No wonder, since Steve Whitmire played both (and has even described how he had some problems making Rizzo's voice distinct from Wembley's). Then there's Bean Bunny, who sounds almost identical to Wembley.
John Tartaglia, a Tony Award nominee for Avenue Q and also known for Johnny and the Sprites among other projects, has puppeteered and voiced Gobo since 2013 (and also now performs Sprocket, Architect Doozer and Gunge). Another Avenue Q alumnus, Ben Durocher, performs minor characters in the new series as well as serving as the body performer of Junior Gorg.
Plenty of celebrity voice cameos in Back to the Rock, among them Daveed Diggs, Patti LaBelle, Cynthia Erivo, Kenan Thompson, Ariana DeBose, and Adam Lambert.
Missing Episode: In addition to most of the episodes in NHK's Japanese dub being lost, the episodes "Sprocket's Big Adventure" and "The River of Life" were skipped entirely in the NHK broadcast. The subtitled Apple TV+ release in 2020 marked the first time those episodes were available in Japan.
Those Two Guys: The "Wembley and Boober" episodes were among the earliest examples of the dynamic between Muppet performers Steve Whitmire and Dave Goelz (respectively), which would come to fruition in the later "Gonzo and Rizzo" pairings starting with The Muppet Christmas Carol.
The Other Darrin: Due to the passage of time and several performers from the original no longer being available due to death (Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, and of course Jim Henson himself), retirement (Kathryn Mullen) or being fired (Steve Whitmire), the 2020s reboots feature a largely new cast of puppeteers (note that they can no longer be called Muppets as they are not owned by Disney).
John Tartaglia has been performing Gobo since 2013 (the year after Nelson's passing).
Donna Kimball took over performing Mokey beginning with Rock On!, and now also performs another of Kathy Mullen's characters, Cotterpin Doozer.
Wembley has been recast twice since Whitmire's firing, with Frankie Cordero in Rock On! and Jordan Lockhart in Back to the Rock (due to Cordero's being unavailable due to his work on Donkey Hodie); Whitmire's own Wembley voice is considerably raspier now due to age, so it's likely Wembley would have been recast even if Whitmire had not been fired.
Dave Goelz still voices Boober, Uncle Matt and the World's Oldest Fraggle, but as he was unable to be on set in Calgary due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those characters are now puppeteered by others (namely, Frank Meschkuleit, who also worked on the original show, and Muppet veteran Kevin Clash), and some of his minor characters, such as Large Marvin (now performed by Meschkuleit), have been recast.
Karen Prell is the only performer from the original who still both voices and puppeteers her principal character (Red), and even added a new major supporting character (Icy Joe).
And of course, as was the case with Muppet Babies, none of the Muppet performers voiced any of their characters in the animated series, although some of them at least wanted to. Jerry Nelson was complimentary of Townsend Coleman's performance as Gobo, but according to Karen Prell, Richard Hunt (who was also quite vocal in his dislike of Muppet Babies) was very disappointed he didn't get to work on the animated version and was very unhappy with Michael Laskin's take on Junior Gorg.
In Japan, the new Apple TV+ dub of the classic '80s series recast every character (Back to the Rock is as of yet unreleased there).
The iconic theme song went through a couple of drafts before becoming the final version fans know and love. The verse melody of one of the earlier versions survives as the scatting bridge sung by Gobo and Wembley on the extended version of the final theme.
Each of the Fraggle Five were to have a turn at saying the "Down at Fraggle Rock" tag at the end of the opening sequence. The Gobo and Wembley versions were only used once; the Red and Mokey versions, if they were ever even filmed, are lost. Boober's version proved so iconic that it became the standard, and reruns and video releases would replace the Gobo and Wembley versions with Boober's.
Jerry Nelson initially wanted to perform Boober, Kathryn Mullen had Red in mind, and Karen Prell had her heart set on playing Mokey. Jim Henson had other ideas.
Brian Meehl (nee Muehl), who had originated cjharacters such as Grungetta and Barkley on Sesame Street, was asked by Henson to audition for Fraggle Rock, and declined, feeling unhappy with the Henson corporate climate at the time.
A few spinoffs were discussed, including a Fraggle origin story (which would have been part of The Jim Henson Hour had it not been canceled) and even a spinoff series for Uncle Traveling Matt (which would have teamed him with two new, original Fraggle sidekicks). None materialized. Fans may want to keep an eye out, however, now that John Tartaglia (Gobo and Sprocket's current performer) is in charge of the franchise: with Tartaglia promising lots of exciting things to come, some of these ideas may finally come to pass.