When people strain their memories back to the early days of HBO original programming, they tend to think of the shows that share DNA with the ones on now — the shows that led to a revolution in TV and to HBO's general ownership of the Emmys for the past 20 years.

Viewers might think of the racy comedy "Dream On" or the cerebral insider series "The Larry Sanders Show," but both of those came nearly a decade after "Fraggle Rock."

That's right: Jim Henson's modest, beloved children's series about cave-dwelling monsters with kind hearts was the first original series that HBO (co-)produced.

"Fraggle Rock" was a joint production by HBO and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that debuted in 1983, 11 years after HBO first went live.

Former HBO communications boss Quentin Schaffer, who was a lowly member of the press team when "Fraggle Rock" was on the air, remarked that the show was an early success and critical to the network's development at the time.

That said, it only narrowly beat a couple of other, more on-brand originals to earn the "first" designation. Later in 1983, HBO launched the satirical "Not Necessarily the News," a show in the tradition of HBO's current hit "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver," and then "Philip Marlowe, Private Eye," a gritty detective show that blazed a trail for newer gritty detective shows like "True Detective."

Meanwhile, despite the early success of "Fraggle Rock," HBO didn't subsequently pursue children's programming supremacy. It was, nonetheless, proof that a pay channel like HBO could make its own shows (and make them hits).

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