Synopsis: When Wembley is granted the gift of flight, he wants to show off to his friends, but they don’t believe him and try to stop him from hurting himself.
Original air date: March 3, 1986
What do you do when it feels like everyone but you has a special gift? How do you become secure enough in yourself to no longer feel the need to show off? Despite his chronic wembling, I think Wembley has the strongest sense of self of the Fraggle Five, and this episode is a great example.
Wembley starts out understandably envious of Red:
Red: What can I tell ya, Wembley? The three-rock hand balance takes practice, dedication, and hard work.
Wembley: Oh, I’ve been practicing, I’m filled with dedication, and I’m tired from all the hard work!
I get it, buddy! It’s incredibly frustrating to see others succeeding when, despite all your hard work, you can’t achieve the same results. This can be especially tough for those of us living in the U.S., where the insidious myth of meritocracy is baked into the culture. When the success stories are the only ones we hear about, it’s easy to forget the countless other ordinary folks who struggle along, never catching that lucky break.
Enter the Spiderfly / Fairy Godmother / Odd Old Man (who, for the sake of brevity, I’ll call the OOM). When Wembley saves the Spiderfly from a sticky Snare Blossom, the magical creature transforms and grants Wembley a wish. Our humble little guy’s attempts at humble little wishes (a toasted radish sandwich, a button for his banana tree shirt, and a new guitar pick for Gobo) are refused because the OOM heard Wembley musing how wonderful it would be to fly.
At first, Wembley can’t believe flying is possible, not even as a magical wish. Despite Wembley living in a world where something magical happens almost every episode, I suppose some things must still be impossible, and one of those things is apparently flying Fraggles.
The catch? (It’s following classic fairy tale structure, so of course there’s a catch.) Wembley can only fly three times, and he used up one in a first clumsy experiment.
Wembley is so excited to show off for his friends, but Red pulls him back from jumping out of a high window. They’ve never seen a Fraggle fly either, so they don’t believe him—not even Gobo.
It’s a tough friendship problem! On the one hand, Wembley feels frustrated, betrayed, and alone because no one believes him, but he’s still trying to show off for them in order to feel special. And on the other hand, Wembley’s friends genuinely think they’re just trying to keep him from becoming a little green pancake on the floor.
Eventually, the OOM reminds Wembley why he wanted to fly in the first place—“Just to fly! Just to feel what it feels like”—which doesn’t require any witnesses, just an inspiring song.
I taught myself how to fly in my dreams. It took me a decade of gradual lucid-dreaming work, but I did it. Nowadays, whenever I realize I’m trapped in an unpleasant dream, if I can find a way to tap into my inner freedom and joy, I can use that to propel myself up, up, and away. But until we develop the technology to record dreams like movies, I can’t show off. My flying dreams are just for me, and that’s how it should be.
I try to remind myself of this whenever I think that commercial success is my end goal as a writer. Writing can be just like flying, and there are so many of us zooming around every day in obscurity, unseen and unsung. I open a blank document and remember Wembley—even if no one else sees you, or even believes you, doing something extraordinary is its own reward.
Strongest Moment: For Wembley’s third and final flight, we get this nice long instrumental sequence of Wembley floating through tunnels, spinning around, flying over Doozers and into his own room. His delight is infectious. It’s a full minute and 23 seconds of just Wembley flying—imagine having the breathing room to do that in a children’s television script today!
Weakest Moment: I wanted the Doc & Sprocket storyline to stick the landing better than it did. While Sprocket has the same problem as Wembley—believing he can fly while his closest friend doubts him—the lesson is inverted. Instead of Sprocket learning that he doesn’t need Doc’s external validation, he learns that Doc was right to be concerned for his safety.
And while both of these lessons are correct—that’s what we call a paradox, folks!—I wish the difference had been more clearly demonstrated. We know Wembley can fly because we’ve seen it happen. But with Sprocket, the “proof” keeps shifting from “dogs can’t fly” to “dogs can fly” and back again, and I’m very skeptical of Doc’s methods.
MVF (Most Valuable Fraggle): Wembley, of course. If he hadn’t saved the Spiderfly in the first place, none of this would have happened!
First (and, sadly, last) Appearance Of…: The OOM! When the Spiderfly transforms, they claim to be a fairy godmother “currently wearing my Old Old Man disguise.” Wembley uses she/her when telling his friends about them, he addresses them as “Sir—Ma’am,” and the OOM mentions their “husband—wife.” I’m sure it was all meant to be funny in 1985, and it still is thanks to Richard Hunt’s delivery, but now I’m declaring it unironic genderfluid representation.
Musical Highlight: The original “Free and High” is still wonderful—vivid imagery, lovely harmonies, and it paved the way for the extremely important Back to the Rock version.
Coolest Puppetry Effect: While it’s more of a CGI-over-puppetry effect, the first transition from Spiderfly to Odd Old Man is really cool, even for today.
Darkest Moment: Marlon, Feenie, and Marvin believe Wembley, but they all want to take advantage of his gift for self-serving reasons. When Gobo, Mokey, and Red show up and the two groups start arguing, Wembley just sighs and says “This is worse than before.”
Fraggle Lore: According to Muppet Wiki, “Some Ditzies made cameos in ‘Wembley’s Flight’ when The Odd Old Man grants Wembley’s wish to fly.” Flying sparkles are involved, yes, but are all magical sparkles in Fraggle Rock necessarily Ditzies? How has the OOM harnessed the consume-music-and-excrete-light power of the Ditzies in order to grant wishes? Do the Ditzies have a union?
One More Thing…: I love an unexpected Shakespeare reference! When the OOM says, “Yes, well, there are many things in the Rock undreamt of in your, uh… whatchamacallit, young Fraggle,” this is referring to Hamlet’s line, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Okay, One More Thing…: Wembley’s One Thing is now a running gag! Compare with episode 105, also written by Jerry Juhl:
Red: Did he take all his things? / Wembley: Well if that’s the way you feel, I guess I’ll just pack my things.
Gobo: He only has one spare banana tree shirt. / Gobo: That shouldn’t take long, you’ve only got one spare shirt.
Red: Oh, Wembley packed his thing and left! / Wembley: Right. I’ll pack my thing.
Click here to elect Marlon King of the Fraggles on the ToughPigs Discord!
by Beth Cook
