Synopsis: Boober gets amnesia and thinks he’s a Gorg, and the Gorgs accept him as their missing Junior. The other Fraggles aren’t thrilled about it.
Original air date: March 31, 1986
Time to sit down and review this episode of Fraggle Rock! But wait — I’m holding a bowling ball! How can I type a review when I’m holding a bowling ball?! I’ll just put it down on the top shelf of the bookcase directly behind my desk. There we go.
Ah, the old “Character gets hit on the head and gets amnesia” story. It was a favorite of sitcom writers for decades. When I tried to think of examples, the first thing that came to mind was Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island getting hit on the head with a coconut and getting amnesia, but do you want to hear something surprising? As far as I can tell, that never happened!
I can find an episode where Gilligan got hit on the head with a coconut and got upside-down vision, and an episode where the Skipper got hit on the head with a metal pole and got amnesia, and an episode where Mary Ann got hit on the head and thought she was Ginger, but nothing about Gilligan getting amnesia! Isn’t that wild?
But anyway, this episode of Fraggle Rock is about Boober, who I wouldn’t say is the Gilligan of the show. Wembley is probably the closest equivalent to Gilligan, and maybe Boober is… the Professor? Let me know what you think.
When Boober is hit on the head by a flying radish, he gets amnesia and becomes a Fraggle in search of a personality. His friends try to jog his memory, but it doesn’t work (leading to my favorite part of the episode; see “Musical Highlight” below), and a trip to the Gorgs’ garden ends up convincing him that he’s a Gorg. Junior Gorg happens to be missing, so Ma and Pa Gorg assume that Boober is Junior and he’s been magically transformed into a Fraggle.
When a comedy character gets amnesia, it’s not unusual for them to take on a new identity — in addition to that Mary Ann-as-Ginger episode, I recall a certain singing and dancing frog in a movie who got amnesia right before his Broadway debut and became an advertising copywriter. But it’s a bold choice for Boober to mentally morph into one of the Gorgs, who the Fraggles think of as the “bad guys.” He could have become a Doozer or an Inkspot or something else more benign, but instead he becomes something threatening. (On the other hand, this show had already done an episode where a Fraggle becomes a copy of another Fraggle and an episode where Boober becomes the opposite of himself, so perhaps this was the most compelling scenario remaining.)
At the climax of the episode (spoiler!), the stress of thinking about being an accessory to the thumping of his friends is enough to help Boober snap out of it, which means his true personality was lurking inside all along, just waiting to return. So I’m curious: Why was it easier for Boober to believe he was a Gorg, despite the best efforts of his friends to remind him who he was, than to rediscover his true self in the first place?
At this point in the series, Gorgs are still the mortal enemies of Fraggles. You might think there would be something inside of Boober that would prevent him from so quickly saying, “Who am I? Am I a Fraggle? Nah. Am I a Gorg? Yeah, I’m one of those! That’s gotta be who I am!”
Is there, instead, something inside Boober that has always secretly wanted to try being a Gorg for a while, just to see what it would be like? It’s not incompatible with Fraggle Rock’s message of understanding and harmony between different cultures… How better to understand another culture than to live among them and help them cook beetleberry broth? Or are we all just a conk on the noggin away from becoming a more malicious version of ourselves? I’d love to see that question. explored further, but I’m not sure it would fit into a half-hour episode of this particular show.
Meanwhile, Doc and Sprocket’s story clearly parallels the goings-on in Fraggle Rock. Ned Shimmelfinney’s cat Fluffinella (Sprocket’s natural enemy) is at the vet, so Doc gives Sprocket an assignment: Go to Ned’s house and pretend to be a cat. When Sprocket returns, he’s so committed to the role that he can’t stop acting like a cat, meowing and licking himself. It’s only when Doc serves him cat food that he shakes it off.
I’m pretty sure “Boober Gorg” is intended to be a “You gotta be yourself” story, but I like that there are other ideas and potential ideas happening here. There’s the “We’re all a little bit curious about what it’s like to live as our enemies” interpretation above, and I think there’s also potential for a reading that goes “Sometimes maybe we want to try on a different personality for a while, and that’s probably okay, as long as there’s no harm done!”
That’s pretty cool too. How many Fraggle Rock kids grew up and went through various phases — punk, goth, cowboy, surfer, Gorg, cat, etc. — before settling into being a Fraggle or a dog as an adult? Probably a lot!
Hey… Does the bowling ball on the top shelf of the bookcase directly behind my desk look like it’s starting to roll towards the edge of the shelf, or is it my —
BONK!
Wha…? Who am I…? What is this website…? What’s a Tough Pig…?
Strongest Moment: There’s a fakeout where Boober pretends to be cured so he can signal Ma and Pa to spring the trap on the Fraggles, which feels like a true betrayal, and makes it that much more satisfying when he’s cured for real and rejoins his friends.
MVF (Most Valuable Fraggle): It’s Boober, of course!
Musical Highlight: The Fraggles sing an “I’m a little Fraggle” song to the amnesiac Boober, with lyrics that describe him in detail. When they ask him to sing it back, he gets it all wrong, singing “I’m a little stewpot/Laundry is my name/Boo-boos are my job here/La-la not the same…” It always makes me laugh when song lyrics are repeated incorrectly to hilarious effect.
Coolest Puppetry Effect: The real Junior Gorg has been sleeping on the parapets of the castle all day, which is revealed when he wakes up and pokes his head up as a hand puppet verson of himself! There’s also some clever switching back and forth between the Boober hand puppet and the tiny remote-controlled Boober at the Gorgs’ castle.
Darkest Moment: There’s a lot of talk about how the Gorgs are going to cook the Fraggles.
Gorg Lore: Pa Gorg thinks Junior has been transformed into a Fraggle by a sorcerer because he read about said sorcerer in The Encyclopedia of Gorgish Myth and Wisdom.
One More Thing…: Boober serves Pa Gorg garlic juice as Pa lounges in the garden with some, but not all, of his clothes on. I realize Pa Gorg is not usually fully dressed, but he still looks kinda naked here.
Okay, One More Thing…: This review originally included a few paragraphs about the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Tabula Rasa,” in which a memory spell goes awry and all the characters lose their memories, taking on new personalities as a result of incorrectly interpreting context clues about their lives. It’s only semi-related to “Boober Gorg,” but isn’t it a good Buffy episode?
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by Ryan Roe – [email protected]
