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This may have been discussed before, but: Over at Tough Pigs, we've received some publicity info regarding the Fraggle Rock "Night of the Lights" special. In an email, the publicity folks specifically pointed out to me that Gobo's uncle's name is spelled "Travelling Matt," with two Ls. This was news to me, especially after checking the character's wiki page and finding it spelled with one L. I must confess I don't have the recent coffee table book, so I can't see how it's spelled there, but it is written with the two Ls a few times on the Henson website. I did flip through my copy of Journey to the Everspring, and found it spelled with just one L there.
Anyway. I'm not bold enough to change the name of the page, but I just wanted to mention that Henson apparently considers the two-L spelling to be officiall. I mean official. -- Ryan (talk) 04:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
- Travelling is the preferred UK spelling (including in the film term "travelling matte.") Muppet Press books used Traveling consistently, as did the title cards for Postcards from Traveling Matt (though as that wasn't contemporaneous, I wouldn't count it as much). Any time his name came up in on-screen episode titles it was "Uncle Matt." The "All Around the World" single used Travelling for the postcard jacket, but it was also released exclusively in the UK, so it would have used that spelling no matter what the show itself used internally. For newly written text at least, the visual guide uses "Travelling" (via Google Books; what's used in any reproduced images doesn't show up) but I think what might weigh more would be any copies or scans of original publicity/production materials (i.e. what Michael K. Frith used in sketches and the pitch book or Jerry Juhl in scripts, or original press releases). Some of the reproduction extras with the DVD sets might help there (my own were mislaid many moves ago), if they don't just use "Uncle Matt." If it's really just a current Henson Company preference, it would be worth noting on the page, but probably not a page move. Also, checking wiki history, the spelling question came up back in 2005 and *then* the Henson website and press releases were consistently using a single L. -- Andrew
05:09, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
- Here's an example, a 1982 HBO pop-up press kit image, which from fonts and wording looks like it *might* be reproducing the text from Frith's pitch (again, I don't have that handy to check). Googling, HBO press photo captions consistently use Traveling as well. So right now it's at least looking like something that would be worth an acknowledgement in the article if there's anything we can actually cite (the Ultimate Visual Guide shows a leaning, and public press release spellings or on-screen text related to Back to the Rock would be more citable for wiki purposes than an e-mail). We have a redirect with a double L, so right now barring a past find of intentional US spelling in production docs, it doesn't feel to me like a probable page move or reason to change what's used in the descriptions or summaries we write here (but if we directly quote any current press releases, we'll likewise know the two LLs are intentional and not a typo). -- Andrew
05:33, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
- Here's an example, a 1982 HBO pop-up press kit image, which from fonts and wording looks like it *might* be reproducing the text from Frith's pitch (again, I don't have that handy to check). Googling, HBO press photo captions consistently use Traveling as well. So right now it's at least looking like something that would be worth an acknowledgement in the article if there's anything we can actually cite (the Ultimate Visual Guide shows a leaning, and public press release spellings or on-screen text related to Back to the Rock would be more citable for wiki purposes than an e-mail). We have a redirect with a double L, so right now barring a past find of intentional US spelling in production docs, it doesn't feel to me like a probable page move or reason to change what's used in the descriptions or summaries we write here (but if we directly quote any current press releases, we'll likewise know the two LLs are intentional and not a typo). -- Andrew
- We've tracked the one L vs one Ls issue at Inconsistent character names. I was in touch with Henson publicity during the rollout of the new show and they didn't say anything about spelling, so it's good to have confirmation of what they consider to be the official version. —Scott
(talk) 13:23, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
- We've tracked the one L vs one Ls issue at Inconsistent character names. I was in touch with Henson publicity during the rollout of the new show and they didn't say anything about spelling, so it's good to have confirmation of what they consider to be the official version. —Scott
- Cool. I suspected there had been some consideration given to the subject, and I agree that it's not necessary to move the page. It's interesting how inconsistent the official sources have been over the years! I'm sure Matt himself doesn't always spell his own name right. -- Ryan (talk) 15:45, 10 November 2022 (UTC)