Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock has a new holiday special available on Apple TV+, titled “The First Snow of Fraggle Rock.” John Tartaglia, who voices Gobo in the series, talks about the significance of snow and the Fraggles, getting to work with Lele Pons while she was pregnant, and more.

Lele Pons rose to prominence via her YouTube, Vine, and Instagram content. Her single “Celoso” has over 300 million views on YouTube, and her album debuted in 2023.

“Lele was amazing,” Tartaglia tells Nerd Reactor. “Knowing that she was a Fraggle Rock fan and that she was so game to play and to be goofy and have this wonderful self-referential moment with Gobo. When she was very close to giving birth to her child, we shot that. And so I think she was very excited to have that moment forever captured on film. And we really realized that her journey to soon be a mother, with Gobo’s journey of his nervousness, of this new change in the world of Fraggle Rock, and expectations that they really lined up beautifully.”

The First Snow of Fraggle Rock has a message about living in the moment and not getting caught up in trying to make things perfect. That may set things up for disappointment, which Gobo has to learn the hard way.

“There is a beautiful power and a beautiful piece of living in the moment, and just trusting the moment and knowing that you can’t control the future,” Tartaglia explained. “You can’t control what will happen. And you can only control what’s happening in that moment and how you react to it. And I think that Gobo getting that message of embracing the change and embracing the possibilities is very freeing. And I think it was a good reminder to me as a worrywart and as someone who is sometimes worried about the future to just kind of go, ‘You know what? Think of it from the Fraggle perspective. Just be in the moment, trust the moment.’ And that’s all we have.”

The Fraggles do have a wintertime, but since they’re inside a cave, where does the snow come from? There are episodes in the original series where there was snow.

“We started talking about that,” he explained. “We’re like, ‘Well, there’s no sky in the Rock. So how does the snow get there?’ And then we came up with this hilarious, fantasy canon of the fact that the Doozers go to the ice caves and they bring back snow and they kind of spread it around Fraggle Rock.

“So everyone can still play in it and enjoy it. And then we’re like, ‘Well, what if that doesn’t happen? What if there’s no snow? What if we’re in a time of climate change?’ We’re in a time where things are different. Maybe if you grew up as a kid, and it snowed every November/December, and maybe that’s not happening where you live now, right? So we were like, ‘What happens when all of a sudden those traditions, those expectations change and they shift.?’ And what does that mean?

“And that really does align with the holidays, right? Where we have these, ‘I do this, I put up my decorations on this day, I get my Christmas tree from here.’ We can be very rigid in our traditions. And we’re like, ‘Well, what if the Fraggles had to embrace the not knowing, embrace the change, embrace the possibility that they won’t have snow. And then we talked about, ‘Well, what would be if they did get their snow. What would be an unexpected way for it to happen?'”

The First Snow of Fraggle Rock is now available to stream on Apple TV+.

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If that’s not enough special guests for you, the K-Pop girl group Aespa appears in the show, and the “Get Goin'” official music video has been released.

Nerd Reactor was invited to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in Los Angeles. John Tartaglia, the voice and puppeteer of Gobo, gave us a tour and talked about how the team brought the Fraggles, Doozers, and Gorgs to life.

All 13 episodes of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock Season 2 are now available on Apple TV+. Viewers can enjoy all the Fraggle Rock goodies on the streaming platform with Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock Season 1, Night of the Lights Holiday Special, and the original 1980s Fraggle Rock series. Bonus specials are also available including “Down at Fraggle Rock,” “Doozer Music” and “Fraggle Songs.”

About Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock

Synopsis: Jim Henson’s fun-loving and musical Fraggles – Gobo, Red, Boober, Mokey, Wembley, and Uncle Travelling Matt, appearing alongside new Fraggles and Doozers voiced by special guest stars including Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose, Emmy Award winner Brett Goldstein, Emmy Award winner Catherine O’Hara, Tony and Grammy Award winner, Emmy Award nominee Daveed Diggs, Grammy nominee Adam Lambert and K-pop group aespa – are back with more epic, fun and zany adventures, this time with big changes affecting the Rock. The Fraggles, Doozers, and Gorgs will be forced to confront their past and celebrate their interdependence as they move through challenges together with hope, silliness, and brand-new songs, all while dancing their cares away…down at Fraggle Rock.

The show is executive produced by The Jim Henson Company’s Lisa Henson, Halle Stanford, and John Tartaglia, along with Matt Fusfeld and Alex Cuthbertson. The co-executive producers are Dave Goelz and Karen Prell, and the executive music producer is Harvey Mason Jr. The new season is produced by Chris Plourde and co-produced by Tim O’Brien. The series is produced in association with New Regency with Arnon Milchan and Yariv Milchan executive producing.

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