The true form of Thomas the Tank Engine

Nope. It isn’t a horn, its tooth.

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Has it been scientifically established that unicorn spikes are horns rather than tusks?

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horns, teeth, or tusks, they’re all projections. That’s what unicorns do.

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Oh, well, you got me there.

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Is no one else reminded yet of the colorful designs from Cho Aniki, the series of flamboyant Japanese shmups?

The discourse on Sodor-as-totalitarian-regime is also fine reading. (Click through for full album.)

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But at least we get basic things like “who makes the toys” and such. In the Cars universe there are some fundamental questions about the nature of their society that are hard to avoid thinking about after a while.

Where do all these vehicles come from? Are they built in factories? Are they brought into the world with adult awareness? Who runs those factories? How can some cars appear to have siblings? Are all vehicles fated into the occupation they were built for? Could a tank choose a civilian life or a Mini Cooper join the Marines? How does anything get done when the vast majority of vehicles have no appendages for manipulating objects?

And then there’s the fact that sweet lovable Mater lives in a creepy compound strewn with the body parts of his fellow citizens.

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Rarely mentioned is the deleted scene in the original movie that suggests McQueen’s engine could be removed and deposited in a street-paving vehicle, which of course is an entirely sensible and practical thing that happens all the time with high-performance race car engines.

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“Wax on, wax off…or it gets the hose again.”

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In fairness that was a nightmare scene so it doesn’t have to make sense even within the rules of the Cars universe. But another unused scene had a terrified and disoriented McQueen lost in a junkyard/graveyard, suggesting “dead” cars are just left to rot/rust above ground.

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Also Gynoug, a less flamboyant but just as weird one from the same artist

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I decided to look up this show and I’m deep into Tank Engine Wikipedia now…

Also, apparently George Carlin was the conductor, which of course people have had some fun with:

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I have to take issue with the conclusion that Sodor is a communist state.

It’s The Other Railway that is the socialist nationalised British Railways. Also, I remember there being fear and anger at the possibility that the engines would be replaced by diesel or electric engines who would pull their carriages (who were all female back when I read the books last). The few diesel and electric engines that are on Sodor are treated as a lower class than the steam engines.

So, we have an island where there is propaganda causing a strong hatred of socialism, and a belief that immigrants will come to take their jobs and women. Sodor is clearly a fascist regime, not a communist one.

Sorry, Thomas and Friends are all Nazis.

I’ll be back later to destroy another treasured childhood memory.

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Never heard this before; in the UK the original series was narrated by Ringo Starr. Some of the best post-Beatles output tbh.

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Yes, in the US we got one or two seasons of Ringo, but then they changed to George Carlin as the Narrator/Conductor. My son was a big Thomas fan back in the early 2000s, and when he got older and discovered the Beatles, it blew his mind that Ringo was a Beatle. Both Ringo and George did a fine job as Mr Conductor.

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No, no, I approve of this deconstruction.
Also notice that the Isle of Sodor is a reference to the Bishop of Sodor and Man, i.e. the Isle of Man is intended. And that is indeed a backward, UKIP-loving, tax haven.

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There is also the matter of “Bulgy”; the red-painted straw-bus commie who denounces the existing mode of transportation and ends up being converted into a chicken coop for his crimes.

“Pah!” snorted the bus. “Enjoyment’s all you engines live for, taking the petrol from the tanks of us workers. Come the revolution,” he went on fiercely, “railways’ll be ripped up. Cars 'and coaches’ll (buses) trample their remains. Free the roads from Railway Tyranny!”

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I think it had something to do with this.

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