Fraggle Rock was a children's television series created
by Jim Henson, primarily featuring a cast of Muppet creatures
called Fraggles. The vision of Fraggle Rock articulated
by Jim Henson was to depict a colorful and fun world,
but also a world with a relatively complex system of symbiotic
relationships between different "races" of creatures,
an allegory to the human world, where each group was somewhat
unaware of how interconnected and important they were
to one another. Creating this allegorical world allowed
the program to entertain and amuse while seriously exploring
complex issues of prejudice, spirituality, personal identity,
environment, and social conflict. Fraggle Rock generally
refused to over-simplify any individual issue, instead
simply illustrating the consequences and inherent difficulties
of different actions and relationships. Though the Fraggles
do learn important lessons, they rarely are aware that
they are learning them. The ideals of friendship, being
true to yourself, embracing magic, and learning to love
those who are incredibly different, were the cornerstone
of Jim Henson's work throughout his 40 year career, and
he considered Fraggle Rock to be one of the purest and
most successful expressions of that vision.
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