| abstract | - 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.
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