Postcards from Traveling Matt

Postcards are messages sent by Uncle Traveling Matt back to his nephew, Gobo. Matt's messages describe the interesting things he's discovered in Outer Space -- often misunderstanding what he's seen, and interpreting it from his own Fraggle point of view.

When the postcards arrive at Doc's workshop, Doc invariably throws them in the trash -- where Gobo can retrieve them. Gobo enjoys reading Matt's postcards, although some of the other Fraggles find them tedious -- especially Red.

As the series progressed the number and frequency of Matt's postcards decreased. As Jerry Juhl recalled in interviews, it was often a challenge for the writing staff to incorporate the postcards into the script and fit them naturally into the plot, and to fit the theme of the episode. This led to episodes in which the postcard is read "out of the blue."

In the fourth season episode "Uncle Matt's Discovery," Matt finds a cavern full of arches which can transport him to Outer Space or beyond. Thus, Matt returns to the Rock for good, able to do his exploring from home. Subsequently, only a handful of Outer Space segments were used, with Matt usually recounting past adventures to the Fraggles orally, and the postcard device was generally abandoned.

International Traveling Matts
Many of the international co-productions of Fraggle Rock produced their own Traveling Matt segments to replace some of the original North American postcards. These international postcards would feature locations and customs of the local culture in which they were produced. Although not every postcard segment would be re-shot and replaced, the new postcard segments would make the show feel like a local production and would also allow sharing between producers to give the allusion of Matt traveling all around the world.

Many of the foreign postcard segments used in the international co-productions were reworked with new English dialogue recorded by Dave Goelz in 1999. These 40-second channel bumpers ran on Odyssey Channel from 1999 to 2001. A collection of "20 International Traveling Matts" was included as a bonus feature on the Fraggle Rock: Complete Second Season DVD set; and 5 more of the spots were featured as hidden Easter eggs on the Complete Third Season set.

Animated Postcards
The animated version of Fraggle Rock also included postcards from Traveling Matt. Freed from the limitations of actually filming a puppet in different locales, Matt roamed more freely, participating in a roundup at a ranch, wandering in the desert, or walking directly into a highway. These segments often featured the animated character inserted infront of live photographic backdrops, a technique previously utilized on Muppet Babies.