Fraggle Rock goes to An Arcade 👾

In 1984, Fraggle Rock's Traveling Matt took a trip to an arcade. The episode not only provided a hilarious segment, but captured a historic Canadian arcade during its heyday.

I enjoy when old TV shows shoot on location. They open a window to the past in a realer way than any amount of art direction could accomplish. In a 1984 episode of the classic TV show, Fraggle Rock, the character of Traveling Matt visited the Undercurrent arcade in Toronto’s CN Tower. As you might guess, his observations were humorous, but the footage also gave us a rare glimpse of this classic arcade.

The CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, stands as an iconic symbol of the city's skyline and a testament to engineering marvels. Construction on the tower began in February 1973 and was completed in April 1976. Standing at a staggering height of 553.33 meters (1,815 feet and 5 inches), it held the title of the world's tallest freestanding structure for over 30 years. Originally built by the Canadian National Railway to improve telecommunication signals, the tower's design was a collaborative effort involving multiple architects and engineers. Today, it serves as a popular tourist attraction, offering breathtaking views of Toronto and its surroundings from its observation decks.

While it was famed for its size, it also featured many attractions to satisfy visitors over the years. Things like a revolving restaurant, the highest disco in the world (Sparkles), a spaceship simulator, and an arcade could keep families entertained for hours while they explored this behemoth. It is the arcade, Undercurrent, that has become my obsession since rewatching this episode, but that simulator looked like a lot of fun.

The footage from the episode if very focused on video games, but in this brochure you can see hints of other amusements in this high concept arcade. It had a rolling slide, climbing tunnels, skee-ball, and some manner of ball shooting guns. This against a neon drenched bright orange backdrop, with the occasional suited mascot making an appearance. Unfortunately, very little footage or images of the arcade can be found online, which makes this Fraggle Rock segment even more compelling.

It begins with Uncle Matt entering the arcade, and a group of kids come running down the stairs. You can see the Undercurrent signage on the upper level and a bunch of arcade games below. The stairwell appears to have a lot of staining on the concrete stairwell. This was filmed in 1983, and Undercurrent would have already been many years old at this point. So it appears that Uncle Matt caught them when they needed some maintenance.

You can see some games in the distance, but they are pretty far away and difficult to identify. Luckily for us, in the next shot, we get a close-up that gives us a good view of some games you could have played at the time, Zero Hour, Zaxxon, Space Invaders, and Berzerk.

Where is Zaxxon you ask? I believe it is the game that you can’t see in the foreground. I base that on the little montage they do of controllers and closeups. There you can clearly see the Zaxxon controller and part of the screen.

My favorite part of the segment is the part where Uncle Matt can’t stop leaning into the screen while some kid tries to play Space Invaders. This behavior is very close to how I tended to act at arcades at the time.

That was me.

The biggest problem with this visit to the arcade is that it is way too short. Still, I am happy that watching it now has made me aware of this long gone classic arcade. I will be keeping my eyes open online in hopes of finding more information, photos, and videos that I can share in the future. Thanks to Jeremiah Jones-Goldstein over on the Retroist Discord for bringing this to my attention.