My Favourite Muppet's (Sprocket) Human Sidekick Just Died

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My Favourite Muppet's (Sprocket) Human Sidekick Just Died

Postby jon » Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:42 pm

The only human character among a cast of Muppets, Doc, had a dog named Sprocket. One of the few, perhaps the only, character that could not speak, Sprocket always seemed to me to have more sense than any other character in the show. Which is why I always enjoyed the segments with the two of them.

Actor Gerald Parkes played Doc, and died Sunday in Toronto at age 90.

I looked around for a representative segment, and this is the only one that I could find that put together the multiple segments spread throughout a show that, seen together, tell a complete story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A55Uufkcpg

Gerard Parkes, Actor on ‘Fraggle Rock,’ Dies at 90
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OCT. 20, 2014

Gerard Parkes, an Irish-Canadian actor who played the kind inventor Doc on Jim Henson’s live-action HBO children’s show “Fraggle Rock” in the 1980s, died on Sunday in Toronto. He was 90.

His agent, Gerry Jordan, confirmed his death.

Mr. Parkes appeared in scores of children’s television shows, including “The Littlest Hobo” and “Shining Time Station,” as well as theatrical productions, radio dramas and films like the cult crime drama “The Boondock Saints.”

On “Fraggle Rock,” which ran for five seasons, Mr. Parkes’s Doc was the only human character in a show that revolved around fun-loving, shaggy-haired creatures named Fraggles, whose underground domain is just behind a hole in the wall of his workshop. Only Doc’s sheepdog, Sprocket, knows the creatures exist.

“We would get loads of fan mail always asking for his picture,” Mr. Jordan said of Mr. Parkes in an interview on Monday. “It was one of those roles that hit a chord with kids and adults.”

Mr. Parkes was born in Dublin on Oct. 16, 1924. He is survived by his longtime partner, Sheelagh Norman.
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