Fraggle Shrugged

The epic conclusion to the bonkers adventure. When we last heard from Sigfred, he had gotten captured by the Eternians, his co-host Robo-Henrik had been killed and turned into an Amazon Alexa device. And Skeletor had ordered his evil army to invade the poor, unsuspecting Fraggle Rock.

Things have gone horribly wrong for Sigfred and Robo-Henrik. Their quest to Eternia has backfired horribly, and instead of enlisting He-Man's help to protect Earth from the evil Skeletor, they have ended up in a dank and moist dungeon. But things are about to get much, much worse...

After the dramatic events of the last episode, Sigfred has made a big decision. He cannot stand idly by, as evil forces decimate Earth. He must do something (also because this is kinda, sorta all his fault).

Things are little different on the podcast. Robo-Henrik needed the week off, but luckily, Sigfred was able to find a replacement. He met a fellow named Dave in the laundry room of his building, and it turned out that this guy was really into the idea of cross-analyzing Thus Spoke Zarathustra and He-Man.

Sigfred gets deeper into his big passion project: uncovering all the deep, hidden connections between He-Man and Thus Spoke Zarathustra that are obviously there. Obviously. This time we cover the He-Man episode "Teela's Quest", and Zarathustra tells us about the Three Transformations. So that's exciting!

This week we really begin to dig into Thus Spoke Zarathustra and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Sigfred and his buggy robotic companion Robo-Henrik go through the entire opening section of the book, and get their first taste of what Nietzsche thinks about the world. And in particular, his infatuation with what he calls an “Overhuman”. A fitting counterpiece to this, is the first episode of He-Man to be broadcast, “The Diamond Ray of Disappearance”. Here we learn about the odd and confusing world of Eternia — good thing that that place doesn't exist!

Finally the time has come – the podcast event of the year.

Fraggle Shrugged is finally back for season 2. In this episode, Henrik and Sigfred are preparing for part 2 of Atlas Shrugged by doing a quick recap of part 1 and laying out their expectations for the next ten chapters. They have also watched the remaining episodes of season 1 of Fraggle Rock. However, something may be off this time. In fact, the podcast of Fraggle Shrugged may be facing the crisis of a lifetime, as dark and dirty secrets are revealed and difficult decisions made…

There’s a video version of this episode with clips and other good stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGNFX2CxAXI

Finally, we get to the end of Part 1 of Atlas Shrugged, with chapter 10: “Wyatt’s Torch”. Here, Dagny goes on a long and mostly pointless quest to find the man behind the magic moter, and like all mythical heroes, she finds the answer at the top of a mountain (in a greasy diner). Meanwhile in episode 10 of Fraggle Rock, “Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk”, Doc invents his own kind of magic motor and it is wonderful. And Gobo gets trapped in the human world, causing the other fraggles to do the only logical thing: to sing a merry song about how sad they are, and do their darndest to not cry over spilled milk.

What suits a long, meandering chapter of Atlas Shrugged better than a long, meandering podcast episode? As the book's off-putting nonsense starts to become really repetitive, Henrik and Sigfred become desperate to talk about anything else. Sadly, this episode of Fraggle Rock (“The Lost Treasure of the Fraggles”) doesn't have all that much going on either. Throw some French cider and some bad wine into the mix, and the conversation is bound to get off track. Along the way, they dip into the obviously related topics of Star Trek, the music of Carly Rae Jepsen and the bizarre novel Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Cook up some peach pie with garlic and strap in – this time we're going all over the place.

Part 1 of Atlas Shrugged reaches its glorious climax in chapter 8, “The John Galt Line”, when Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden furiously rides a train for 18 hours. It's as fun as it sounds. Meanwhile in Fraggle Rock, our gang of Fraggles encounter a terrible tunnel in the episode “The Terrible Tunnel”. It's as frightening as it sounds. Listen along as Hank and Dagny have a threesome of capitalist feverdreams with Ellis Wyatt (and then a good ol' fashioned rapey sex scene), Wembley questions the line between objective reality and subjective perception, and the good dog Sprocket finally gets a little revenge on his deranged and sadistic owner.

Here comes a big one. Faced with the fifty page long 8th chapter of Atlas Shrugged, “The Exploiters and the Exploited”, Henrik and Sigfred are starting to break down. The icky sex stuff and the faulty logic of Rand's capitalist ranting is becoming too much to bear. And to make matters worse, it seems the writers of Fraggle Rock gave up halfways through episode 8, “I Want to Be You”, and forget to finish the script. We see no other way to respond to this than handing in a long and messy episode ourselves.

Guys, we need to have a talk about some basic economic concepts, because it’s becoming increasingly clear that Ms. Ayn Rand was too busy at school fantasizing about greedy and emotionally abusive boys to learn anything about how money works. In chapter six, “The Non-Commercial” she throws a party for all of her characters, and that goes about as well as you’d expect. And while she serves up some questionable views on the free market, Fraggle Rock drops some actual economic truth in the sixth episode, “The Preachification of Convincing John”.

Buckle up for some #RealTalk about gender and sexuality on this episode of the podcast. Because Ayn Rand tries to be romantic and erotic, and it does NOT go well. Prepare your safe spaces and emotional support animals, cuz you gon’ need ’em.

This episode goes all in on the Fifty Shades of Galt reading – the steaming hot capitalism of Atlas Shrugged simply demands it. In addition to a long and moist reading from chapter 4, "The Immovable Movers", Henrik and Sigfred watch episode 4 of Fraggle Rock, "You Can't Do That Without A Hat". Here, the fraggles learn a lesson that is completely besides the point of the story, and Doc indulges in some light animal abuse.

Things are getting moist as hell in both Atlas Shrugged and Fraggle Rock. Henrik and Sigfred read the chapter "The Top and the Bottom" and watch the episode "I Can Do It On My Own", and they discover some similarities between Dagny Taggart and Red Fraggle. They also try out a stressful method for summarizing that may not return. With less than 1000 pages left to go in the book, the worst must surely be behind us now…

Hope you like metal (and not the genre of music), because it's about to get so metally up in here. When Ayn Rand likes something, she's not shy about it, and be warned – she really loves metal. Henrik and Sigfred read through chapter 2 of her 1000+ pages capitalist fever dream of a novel Atlas Shrugged, which is titled “The Chain” (no relation to the Fleetwood Mac song, sadly). To maintain their sanity, they also watch episode 2 of Fraggle Rock, titled “Wembley and the Gorgs”.

After fumbling their way through an introductory episode, Henrik and Sigfred embark on their mad journey for real. In this episode, they read the first chapter of Atlas Shrugged, called "The Theme", and watch the first episode of Fraggle Rock, called "The Beginning".

In this introductory episode of Fraggle Shrugged, the two hosts Henrik and Sigfred present the concept for the podcast: They will read through Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's very long libertarian mystery novel from 1957. For each chapter, they will also watch an episode of Fraggle Rock, a Jim Henson Muppet TV show from the 80s.