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Fraggle Rock

Sesame Street

Fraggle Rock 1990 - 2011

Last updated: June 3, 2020

Although they haven't been seen on TV for awhile, home video and DVD kept Fraggle fans wanting more fragglish stuff. In 2003 Sababa Toys introduced a new line of 9 inch Fraggle dolls. At first only Red, Gobo, and Wembley were available. Boober was added to the series later on (he's shown below with Wembley). Fans waited for Mokey to follow but unfortunately she never arrived on store shelves leaving the set forever incomplete (you can't NOT have Mokey in the collection!). This is too bad as this collection of Fraggle dolls is my personal favourite out of all that have been made to date. The characters look just like how they are supposed to, even Wembley with his funny shaped nose. The 9" size is also more or less to scale with how big a Fraggle would be to a Gorg or a human, which I like. A plush toy of Uncle Traveling Matt would have looked awesome in this style!

The Muppet Wiki website also has pictures of these 9 inch Fraggle dolls packaged in boxed sets of two with a DVD. When these boxed sets were released Sababa also offered 12 inch dolls of Gobo, Red, and Wembley. Here is a link to the Muppet Wiki page with those images:
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Fraggle_Rock_plush_%26_DVD_sets


When Red, Gobo and Wembley were first issued, Sababa also produced three 2.5" PVC Doozer figures, shown above. This was quite exciting as they were proportioned in size to the 9 inch Fraggle dolls, leaving room for the possibility that a Junior Gorg or Sprocket doll would join the series, but this too never happened. Many people have e-mailed me to ask if I would sell these PVC Doozers. Apparently they are hard to find. By the time Boober was added to the set these PVC figures were no longer available. Sababa also produced three different plush Doozers that were very similar to the Hasbro plush Doozers. These too were discontinued early and were no longer available by the time Boober was added to the collection.


In 2009 Manhattan Toys introduced a new series of large Fraggle dolls. Shown above are Gobo and Red. Below are Wembley, Mokey and Boober. These are great representations of the characters, and Mokey is back with the gang where she belongs. My only complaint is that the arms on all the characters seem to be a bit too short. Mouth puppets of all five Fraggles were also produced at the same time. The heads on the puppets are a bit larger than these dolls but otherwise look the same. To my knowledge, this is the first time puppets of Wembley, Boober and Mokey were made. (Puppets of Gobo and Red were made in the late 1980s by Dakin). A Jumbo sized plush toy of Red Fraggle was also made. It was priced at about $120 or so.


In 2010 plush toys of Junior Gorg, Uncle Matt and Sprocket the Dog were added to the Manhattan Toys series along with three small 7.5 inch Doozers (5 inches sitting). The Doozers are shown above. One Doozer has a moustache and a red hat, another has a yellow hat and no moustache, and the third one is Cotterpin Doozer (she is shown in the centre above). Curiously these follow the same character designs as Sababa's PVC Doozers (shown above in the boxes).

Here are the plush dolls of Uncle Matt and Sprocket the Dog. I find that Sprocket doesn't really look like the original character but it is still a nice plush toy none the less.

Uncle Matt doesn't have fur at the end of his tail like the other Fraggles. His hat is made out of fabric and sewn to his head.

Sprocket has fur at the end of his tail, he also has a brown dog collar which is barely visible in this photo. This is a very floppy and soft plush toy.

Puppets of Junior Gorg and Uncle Matt were released at the same time as their matching plush toys. Puppets of Sprocket and the Doozers were not made. This is the first time Junior Gorg was included in a plush toy series, and the first time a puppet of Uncle Matt and Junior Gorg was made. The puppet of Junior Gorg was quite different from the plush toy version as it had a much larger mouth.

The Junior Gorg plush toy is quite large. Here is a comparison of the sizes for the three plush toys.

In 2011 Manhattan Toys added three Bobble Head dolls to their Fraggle Rock collection: Gobo, Red and Wembley. Gobo is shown above, Wembley is below. I have yet to get the Red bobble head. These have a spring at the neck to make the head bounce and are smaller sized plush toys, about 8 or 9 inches tall. They're very cute!



Beginning in January 2011, a series of three Fraggle Rock comics were published by Archaia. Above are the "B" covers for issues number one and three. I assume this means there are also  "A" covers with different artwork. The comic are square shaped rather than being the standard rectangular comic book size.

Text and Photos © Mike Artelle 2011, 2013

3 comments:

  1. i had a red doll I lost her when house got destroyed from a storm. all i have ais a picture of her with me and i can't figure out where to find her her hair is red not orange and looks silkie not like the dolls they have now and i think she was definitely bigger than 12 inches . do you know what year she may of been and where to find her. shes is important to me for deep meaningful reasons i would love to find her.

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    Replies
    1. Hello Coven Radio
      Firstly, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss and hope that you are doing well. I can't imagine what you've been through! Glad you're okay. The only Red Fraggle doll that I know of that has silky hair is the one made by Sababa Toys shown at the top of this page. That doll is 9 inches but the same company did make a 12 inch version that was sold with a DVD containing a few episodes of the TV series. The Muppet Wiki site has a picture here: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Fraggle_Rock_plush_%26_DVD_sets
      I've added a link to this Muppet Wiki page after the text for the Sababa Toys above so that you can take a look. I don't have the 12 inch version of the doll so I don't know for certain if the hair was made out of the same silk fabric, I'm just assuming that they would have simply used the same materials as the 9 inch dolls. Otherwise I don't know of any Fraggle dolls that were larger than 12 inches other than the jumbo sized Red doll made by Manhattan Toys which was actually the size of a small child, and the hair was fun fur rather than silky. So I don't think that's the one you mean. Hope this helps! All the best!

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  2. Hey Mikey, it's Leon I do know for a fact through an industry friend that Sababa Toys had intentions to release Mokey and Uncle Mat. However, there was some problems going with the license at the time unfortunately.

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