Ahmet Zappa Jumps Out Of His Chair

Paying a visit to The Good Henson (Lisa, that is, as opposed to Brian), Ahmet Zappa was simply intending to discuss potential projects spinning off of his Monstrous Memoirs of Mighty McFearless novel. Instead, he ended up "jumping out of his chair" when she mentioned their embryonic plans for a Fraggle Rock feature film.

I guess that tells you roughly how old Mr. Zappa is.

I don't know much else about him - he was married to Selma Blair, his dad was Frank, he has a picture book called The Wild out from Disney, and now, he is writing a treatment for a Fraggle Rock film.

(Quite what the Hensons like so much about the children of Rock legends, I don't know, but Jesse Dylan was attached to direct the Neverwhere movie for quite some time. Hopefully he is no longer - if it ever gets done, I want the gig.)

All that is known about the Fraggle film so far is that the story will see the felty ones leave their stony home for "Outer Space" - which is what they call our world. Contrary to many reports, Zappa isn't necessarily scripting the film - a screenwriter and director will be approached and attached once the treatment is in shape. Again, I'd be interested...

In different countries' broadcasts of the TV series the titular rock was situated in varying places, each one "local" to the viewers, so how a globally released film will go down in the UK and Germany, when, let's face it, the big screen Fraggle Rock is almost certainly going to be located in the US, I don't know. Will Zappa cook up some clever-clever conceit to get around this?

Convincing John, a beguiling singer-trickster Fraggle who would charm the others into doing whatever he wanted (think Alan-a-dale crossed with Derren Brown) was Jim Henson's key role in the show. He will be missed - or, worse still, replaced.

Here's hoping this all works out for the best.