Fraggle Shrugged on Månegal Media

Thus Spoke He-Man 7/7 – Escape From Eternia

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 12:00:00 +0200

The epic conclusion to the bonkers adventure. When we last heard from Sigfred, he had gotten captured by the Eternians, his co-host Robo-Henrik had been killed and turned into an Amazon Alexa device. And Skeletor had ordered his evil army to invade the poor, unsuspecting Fraggle Rock.

How will all this madness resolve? Will Sigfred be able to escape from Eternia? Will the Fraggles survive? And is there a deus ex machina element that’s gonna save them all? Listen along to find out!

Thus Spoke He-Man 6/7 – The Death Of A Hero

Fri, 28 Aug 2020 14:53:29 +0200

Things have gone horribly wrong for Sigfred and Robo-Henrik. Their quest to Eternia has backfired horribly, and instead of enlisting He-Man’s help to protect Earth from the evil Skeletor, they have ended up in a dank and moist dungeon. But things are about to get much, much worse…

Luckily, they still find the time to discuss Zarathustra’s speech “On Enjoying and Suffering the Passions” and the 5th episode of the He-Man cartoon, “The Curse of the Spellstone”.

Thus Spoke He-Man 5/7 – Where No Sigfred Has Gone Before

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0200

After the dramatic events of the last episode, Sigfred has made a big decision. He cannot stand idly by, as evil forces decimate Earth. He must do something (also because this is kinda, sorta all his fault).

Robo-Henrik is back again, so luckily Sigfred will be in good company on his perilous journey to the distant and dangerous dimension of Eternia…

Thus Spoke He-Man 4/7 – A Guest Stops By

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 11:00:00 +0200

Things are little different on the podcast. Robo-Henrik needed the week off, but luckily, Sigfred was able to find a replacement. He met a fellow named Dave in the laundry room of his building, and it turned out that this guy was really into the idea of cross-analyzing Thus Spoke Zarathustra and He-Man.

So they get into what “Believers in a World Behind” believe, and what happens when “Colossor Awakes”. But Dave has a deep, dark secret that threatens the fate of our entire world. Suddenly, there is much more at stake than whether this is a good concept for a podcast (which it is).

Thus Spoke He-Man 3/7 – A Very Good Idea For A Podcast (Seriously)

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:00:00 +0200

Sigfred gets deeper into his big passion project: uncovering all the deep, hidden connections between He-Man and Thus Spoke Zarathustra that are obviously there. Obviously. This time we cover the He-Man episode “Teela’s Quest”, and Zarathustra tells us about the Three Transformations. So that’s exciting!

Sigfred has got a really good feeling about this show. He thinks it’s a good match with these two items of intellectual property. Everything’s going nice and smooth, and he and Robo-Henrik can just take it easy from here on out.

Thus Spoke He-Man 2/7 – The Overhuman!

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 13:00:00 +0200

This week we really begin to dig into Thus Spoke Zarathustra and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Sigfred and his buggy robotic companion Robo-Henrik go through the entire opening section of the book, and get their first taste of what Nietzsche thinks about the world. And in particular, his infatuation with what he calls an “Overhuman”. A fitting counterpiece to this, is the first episode of He-Man to be broadcast, “The Diamond Ray of Disappearance”. Here we learn about the odd and confusing world of Eternia — good thing that that place doesn’t exist!

And thus we are off on our epic podcast adventure into the boundless promise of a very good premise.

Thus Spoke He-Man 1/7 — This Is The Podcast Now

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 14:00:00 +0200

Finally the time has come – the podcast event of the year.

Sigfred has had the great idea to start a new podcast comparing the cheap 80s cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the nihilistic and fantastical philosophy book by Friedrich Nietzsche. Robo-Henrik – the AI recreation of Henrik that Sigfred has made to replace his lapsed friend – gets dragged along, despite being rather skeptical about the whole endeavor.

In this episode, Sigfred introduces the concept for the show, still blissfully unaware of the evil that he is about to unleash…

A Very Special Episode | Thus Spoke He-Man 0/7

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 14:35:17 +0100

Fraggle Shrugged is finally back for season 2. In this episode, Henrik and Sigfred are preparing for part 2 of Atlas Shrugged by doing a quick recap of part 1 and laying out their expectations for the next ten chapters.

They have also watched the remaining episodes of season 1 of Fraggle Rock. However, something may be off this time. In fact, the podcast of Fraggle Shrugged may be facing the crisis of a lifetime, as dark and dirty secrets are revealed and difficult decisions made…

Movie Time At Last – with special guest Kaare Olsen

Sun, 07 Jul 2019 18:34:43 +0200

There’s a video version of this episode with clips and other good stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGNFX2CxAXI

This is it, guys! We finally got to put down that brick of a book for a moment and kick back with a movie instead. We met up and made a day of it, and watched the 2011 film “Atlas Shrugged: Part I”. We also watched the last episode of the first season of Fraggle Rock, “The New Trash Heap in Town”. To get some fresh perspective, we brought along our friend Kaare Olsen to help us make sense of all this.

The movie fails spectacularly, both in delivering Ayn Rand’s trademark bombastic word salad, and just as movie in general. And Fraggle Rock gets darker than ever as it finally fully embraces its suicide-cultiness. This marks the end of Season 1 of Fraggle Shrugged. We’ll take a few weeks off to regain our breath, and maybe a shred of our sanity, and then we’ll be back with more moist metal and freaky Fraggles.

A Note on Ayn Rand's Use of a Threshold Guardian

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 15:38:37 +0000

Regarding chapter 10 of Atlas Shrugged, described in episode 10 of Fraggle Shrugged Let’s give some credit where credit is due, because Ayn Rand actually made proper use of a storytelling device. At the end of part 1 of the book, in chapter 10, Dagny goes on a quest to find the man behind the magic motor. She ends up talking to the cook in a diner in the mountains, who is supposed to know the motor’s inventor.

I Have No Desire To Talk To You About My Railroad

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 16:37:40 +0200

Finally, we get to the end of Part 1 of Atlas Shrugged, with chapter 10: “Wyatt’s Torch”. Here, Dagny goes on a long and mostly pointless quest to find the man behind the magic moter, and like all mythical heroes, she finds the answer at the top of a mountain (in a greasy diner). Meanwhile in episode 10 of Fraggle Rock, “Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk”, Doc invents his own kind of magic motor and it is wonderful. And Gobo gets trapped in the human world, causing the other fraggles to do the only logical thing: to sing a merry song about how sad they are, and do their darndest to not cry over spilled milk.

We celebrate reaching the end of part 1 of the book by trying – and failing – to record a short and focused episode, and looking forward to watching the movie adaptation next time. We also get a heavy dose of the always delightfully sassy Lillian Rearden, the return of the one-minute summaries that went so well last time, and a taste of Doc’s vision of the music of the future.

The Viking Pirate Is Back!

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 16:22:52 +0200

What suits a long, meandering chapter of Atlas Shrugged better than a long, meandering podcast episode? As the book’s off-putting nonsense starts to become really repetitive, Henrik and Sigfred become desperate to talk about anything else. Sadly, this episode of Fraggle Rock (“The Lost Treasure of the Fraggles”) doesn’t have all that much going on either.

Throw some French cider and some bad wine into the mix, and the conversation is bound to get off track. Along the way, they dip into the obviously related topics of Star Trek, the music of Carly Rae Jepsen and the bizarre novel Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Cook up some peach pie with garlic and strap in – this time we’re going all over the place.

Wet Glistening Emptiness

Sun, 26 May 2019 15:07:54 +0200

Part 1 of Atlas Shrugged reaches its glorious climax in chapter 8, “The John Galt Line”, when Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden furiously ride a train for 18 hours. It’s as fun as it sounds. Meanwhile in Fraggle Rock, our gang of Fraggles encounter a terrible tunnel in the episode “The Terrible Tunnel”. It’s as frightening as it sounds.

Listen along as Hank and Dagny have a threesome of capitalist feverdreams with Ellis Wyatt (and then a good ol’ fashioned rapey sex scene), Wembley questions the line between objective reality and subjective perception, and the good dog Sprocket finally gets a little revenge on his deranged and sadistic owner.

It’s So Wonderfully Morose

Sun, 12 May 2019 16:29:33 +0200

Here comes a big one. Faced with the fifty page long 8th chapter of Atlas Shrugged, “The Exploiters and the Exploited”, Henrik and Sigfred are starting to break down. The icky sex stuff and the faulty logic of Rand’s capitalist ranting is becoming too much to bear.

And to make matters worse, it seems the writers of Fraggle Rock gave up halfways through episode 8, “I Want to Be You”, and forget to finish the script. We see no other way to respond to this than handing in a long and messy episode ourselves.

Plot is a Primitive Vulgarity in Literature

Sun, 28 Apr 2019 16:08:34 +0200

Guys, we need to have a talk about some basic economic concepts, because it’s becoming increasingly clear that Ms. Ayn Rand was too busy at school fantasizing about greedy and emotionally abusive boys to learn anything about how money works.

In chapter six, “The Non-Commercial” she throws a party for all of her characters, and that goes about as well as you’d expect. And while she serves up some questionable views on the free market, Fraggle Rock drops some actual economic truth in the sixth episode, “The Preachification of Convincing John”.

Get ready for a rockin’ good time, full of colorful characters, serious economic discussions, a book reading tinged with latent homoeroticism, and a crazy, rabbit-hole-diving conspiracy theory. It’s a wild ride, that may or may not include viking pirates, 90s technopop, mythical nations, and a time traveling plot. All aboard the train to crazy town!

Not A Romance, But An International Industrial Cartel Of Some Kind

Sun, 14 Apr 2019 17:37:15 +0200

Buckle up for some #RealTalk about gender and sexuality on this episode of the podcast. Because Ayn Rand tries to be romantic and erotic, and it does NOT go well. Prepare your safe spaces and emotional support animals, cuz you gon’ need ’em.

Needless to say, chapter 5 of the book (“The Climax of the D’Anconias”) weighs heavy on our minds, so its problematic aspects take up a large part of the discussion. Meanwhile in the 5th episode of Fraggle Rock (“The Thirty-Minute Work Week”), we learn that the Fraggles not only have jobs, but actually LIKE working. Since that is the case, they might like a little book called Atlas Shrugged…

Dirty Doozers & Moist Moochers

Sun, 31 Mar 2019 16:13:27 +0200

This episode goes all in on the Fifty Shades of Galt reading – the steaming hot capitalism of Atlas Shrugged simply demands it. In addition to a long and moist reading from chapter 4, “The Immovable Movers”, Henrik and Sigfred watch episode 4 of Fraggle Rock, “You Can’t Do That Without A Hat”. Here, the fraggles learn a lesson that is completely besides the point of the story, and Doc indulges in some light animal abuse.

Almighty Moisture, Nothing Happened!

Sun, 17 Mar 2019 20:17:15 +0100

Things are getting moist as hell in both Atlas Shrugged and Fraggle Rock. Henrik and Sigfred read the chapter “The Top and the Bottom” and watch the episode “I Can Do It On My Own”, and they discover some similarities between Dagny Taggart and Red Fraggle.

They also try out a stressful method for summarizing that may not return.

With less than 1000 pages left to go in the book, the worst must surely be behind us now…

The Savagely Overabundant Vitality of a Brass Meatball

Sun, 03 Mar 2019 16:45:48 +0100

Hope you like metal (and not the genre of music), because it’s about to get so metally up in here. When Ayn Rand likes something, she’s not shy about it, and be warned – she really loves metal. Henrik and Sigfred read through chapter 2 of her 1000+ pages capitalist fever dream of a novel Atlas Shrugged, which is titled “The Chain” (no relation to the Fleetwood Mac song, sadly). To maintain their sanity, they also watch episode 2 of Fraggle Rock, titled “Wembley and the Gorgs”.

Turns out the two have a theme in common. On this light and humorous podcast episode, we end up having to talk about the morality of slavery (it’s bad. That’s our official stance on that) and other fun stuff. And then it gets steamy in here on a special Metal Edition of Fifty Shades of Galt.

When I See Things, I See Them

Sun, 17 Feb 2019 17:49:55 +0100

After fumbling their way through an introductory episode, Henrik and Sigfred embark on their mad journey for real. In this episode, they read the first chapter of Atlas Shrugged, called “The Theme”, and watch the first episode of Fraggle Rock, called “The Beginning”.

Along the way, they try to make sense of the two strange worlds, and discover some compelling evidence that it might actually be the same world. They also do their first sexy libertarian reading in the segment “Fifty Shades of Galt”, and hand out awards to some noteworthy phrases and characters.

Kicking Off the Podcast

Sun, 03 Feb 2019 19:20:07 +0100

In this introductory episode of Fraggle Shrugged, the two hosts Henrik and Sigfred present the concept for the podcast: They will read through Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s very long libertarian mystery novel from 1957. For each chapter, they will also watch an episode of Fraggle Rock, a Jim Henson Muppet TV show from the 80s.

They will then analyze and compare the two, to discover the hidden connections. Will Atlas Shrugged turn out be as silly as the Fraggles? And will Fraggle Rock have anything to say about economic philosophy? Follow along on this mad journey to find out.

But before the descend into madness truly kicks off in Episode 1, we take a moment to introduce ourselves and the project in this Episode 0. It’s going to be some loose and hopefully entertaining discussions, from two baffled Danes. Let’s get into it!