TV Alert: The Bells of Fraggle Rock on ABC Family December 12 and 13

Phillip

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 11, 2002
Messages
8,251
Reaction score
3,401
"The Bells of Fraggle Rock" holiday themed episode returns to TV this year on ABC Family. This show airs on Saturday December 12 at 11:30 am eastern and will re-air at 10:25 am eastern on Sunday December 13.

ABC Family is also airing "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas" holiday episode. Find out more info and discuss here.



If you saw this special broadcast, please like this post and share your thoughts below.
 

The Count

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 12, 2002
Messages
31,234
Reaction score
2,919
Watching the Bells of FR now... Unfortunately they edited it down due to the long promo commercials for other programming. The first break after the actual episode starts is when Cantus calls for the festival to begin. When the episode returns we have Doc explaining the traditions of a piñata to Sprocket, and :excited: is complaining to :coy: about the stronger cold because they promised they'd wait for :smirk: to return with the Great Bell. Er what? But Gobo never promised to bring back the Great Bell and Wembley never promised to wait. At least in this airing. So while I'm glad ABC Family is airing the special episode, it'd been better if it weren't edited like this.

*Crosses fingers Emmet Otter won't suffer the same problem. :sigh:
 

Drtooth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
31,718
Reaction score
6,707
I can't believe that even giving it a 45 minute time slot, they had to edit the thing down. And they used a really terrible print of the special as well. I agree. I'm glad that this thing aired and FR may have been exposed to another generation without Hulu plus subscriptions, but really!?!

I thought the commercials for LTS's initial airing were awful. And they were the same promos. Every break. Certainly didn't make me want to hate Mortal Instruments: This is TOTALLY Not a Ripoff of Harry Potter the Series any less.
 

The Count

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 12, 2002
Messages
31,234
Reaction score
2,919
Mortal Instruments? During LTS on AMC last night? Er, didn't see any of those, unless you mean ShadowHunters on ABC Family/Freeform. *Shrugs.
 

animalrescuer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2008
Messages
1,163
Reaction score
659
I wasn't really happy when the part where Gobo explains to everyone that he was going to bring the bell back and Wembley promising. They even took out one of the most important lines of the episode, "We see with our eyes, we know with our hearts, outside, inside".

While I was happy this episode was back on national television, but I wish it wasn't edited like this. Those commercials were waaaaay too long!
At least the episode is on DVD, then we can enjoy it the way it's meant to be enjoyed.
 

Drtooth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
31,718
Reaction score
6,707
Mortal Instruments? During LTS on AMC last night? Er, didn't see any of those, unless you mean ShadowHunters on ABC Family/Freeform. *Shrugs.
Yep. Shadow Hunters is The Mortal Instruments.

And Mortal Instruments was another one of those deals where the author took a fan fic and crossed out the names to make "original characters." Woman that wrote it looks like a caricature of what someone would draw a bad Fan Fic-er. It was a movie no one saw, so I guess someone said "We need to get more of these bad teen-lit things out there" and made it a TV show.

I wasn't really happy when the part where Gobo explains to everyone that he was going to bring the bell back and Wembley promising. They even took out one of the most important lines of the episode, "We see with our eyes, we know with our hearts, outside, inside".

While I was happy this episode was back on national television, but I wish it wasn't edited like this. Those commercials were waaaaay too long!
At least the episode is on DVD, then we can enjoy it the way it's meant to be enjoyed.
I don't get why they needed to cut the thing down even more than a 22 minute run-time stretched to 45 minutes. I swear, there was a 6 minute break between the theme song and the start of the show. Nice that this found a way on mainstream television, but did it have to be a hack job? Did we need to see the same Shadow Hunters commercial 3 times during the show? It's not even the fact there was so much commercial padding. The fact that the commercial padding was advertisement for the shows, and the same ones over and over.
 

The Count

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 12, 2002
Messages
31,234
Reaction score
2,919
Yep... Shadow Hunters, Recovery Road, Toy Story marathon today... It all chewed up commercial time every single break.

At least we got to see the episode on TV this year.

Cantus: "Our bells awake the Great Bell. The Great Bell rings and the rock moves on for another year."

And that's why we've taken the tradition of ringing bells or jangling keys or letting a digital bell ring app sound for us here on the forum and other Muppet fansite communities over the years. Happy holidays everyone, whatever you choose to celebrate.
 

Slackbot

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2010
Messages
3,543
Reaction score
3,155
Ouch. I'm glad I missed this showing. I would have been mightily ticked off if I'd seen such an important scene chopped. Really, if something has to go, it ought to be a Doc & Sprocket scene, which won't leave a hole in the plot.
 

The Count

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 12, 2002
Messages
31,234
Reaction score
2,919
Hmm, the only one of the three Doc and Sprocket segments that "could" be chopped off might be the first one explaining the term "solstice". Wouldn't be too bad if the episode came back from the commercial break after the theme song and started right off with the Fraggles' in the Weebabeast costume prepping for their festival. *Shrugs.

*Leaves some number 12 cookies for Slackbot and Jan.
 
Top