It’s Canadian.
For the record, I’m pretty sure George Carlin and Ringo Starr never provided a voice for Thomas, though they did narrate and play the live-action conductor or some such.
I was not disappointed when Thomas faded from my nephew’s radar.
Sodor is too “traditional” a place for me. An aging fat male human in charge. Few or no female humans to be seen. As for the train population, 90% of the them are “male” (with the “females” again often being relegated to auxiliary status). The “lower class” trains are portrayed as mentally deficient (eg, Ferdinand). The “express” train has a posh, snooty affect. Sodor essentially instructs the child on the basics of the English class system.
And, finally, Thomas himself is a goofy, fumbling idiot. Perhaps this is appropriate for the island of Gilligan, but for an instructive/entertaining role model for children, the island of Sodor could have done much better.
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[quote=“laynesk, post:4, topic:37565”]
The bigger question is why anyone watches Thomas in the first place. It’s unnervingly creepy. These trains…do they have free will? A soul? Do they die or are they just repaired endlessly?[/quote]
There was a CRACKED article, I think, that posted an illustration from one of the Thomas books. It showed the scrap yard. There were at least two trains depicted. One with a terrified expression as he was being picked apart. Another, in the background, was just a frame with no face.
So . . . eventually, when an engine stops being really useful, he or she goes off to the scrapyard.
I like to imagine Thomas being melted down at the beginning of the war and returning as Thomas the Tank, hero of the African campaign.
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Maybe
That,and the fact that the Fat Controller does hugely unprofitable things yet the railway wasn’t closed by Dr Beeching, suggests that it might be a quango and I think the Fat Controller got the job and knighthood for services to the government. Maggie probably gave him a seat in the house of lords later, when he helped privatise British Railways. (I know Maggie had been kicked out by the time the railways were privatised, but Sodor is a huge, rural lump of rock off the coast of Cumbria. There’s probably two Tory safe seats there and who knows what effect that would have on the politics of Britain.)
I want to build on this now.
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C’mon Muthafuckas C’MON!
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Hear hear.
I never liked Thomas the Tank Engine.
I do remember Ringo’s narration, and Gordon being an arsehole, that’s about it.
Yep.
I mean my kid doesn’t notice that these puppets have a hand up their ass. Are they really going to notice the timbre-shift of a different VO talent?
Also see: Blues Clues.
He was a better host, but if that Steve guy is replaceable, anyone is.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…
Yeah, it’s definitely on the cusp of being downright insanely creepy. I mean look at that animated GIF… WTF?
Thomas has clearly decided to destroy the house of his master and as he gazes at the destruction of his tormentor, he slips into madness when he realizes that now his life is devoid of purpose.
Cracked had a great exploration of Disney’s Aladdin too. How did the Genie know of modern-day culture when he’s living in an ancient land? Or maybe it’s in a distant, post-apocalyptic future?
That was back when the format of the show was a little different so the narrator said all the dialogue. So they “voiced” all the characters, but in a “reading a story from a book” kind of way.
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Plot of every episode (at least in the show’s early run):
- Thomas is assigned a simple task with clear instructions.
- Thomas ignores all instructions, f*cks up completely and causes massive derailments which would claim lives and millions of dollars worth of damage in real life. (Or as Sir Topham Hatt unapprovingly refers to them, “delays.”)
- Thomas “learns his lesson” and promises to do the simple task correctly this time.
- Sir Topham Hatt continues to demonstrate criminal negligence by allowing Thomas to do so.
- “Isn’t Thomas a useful engine??”
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Then there was the early episode where Henry was a jerk and Sir Topham Hatt bricked him up in a tunnel.
Several years later they let him out.
Why? Because the Rev. W. Awdry, that dear kind sweet man, disapproved of the (in)accuracy in which the illustrator had drawn Henry (in the original book). So, for the love of G-d, Montressor, for the love of G-d!
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Brio FTW. It’s probably stupid-expensive now, but when I was going up I don’t think it was so crazily priced. That being said, I wouldn’t know because I just played with it.
PS: If peeps somehow missed this meme (which I had until recently) you owe it to yourself to educate yourself.
I’ve never seen any verification of this, but allegedly The Simpson’s Comic Book Guy’s “worst [episode] ever” catch-phrase is the show’s writers having a crack at some TV critic who titled his review of an episode that in the 90’s.
Wiki says it’s made in the UK.
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Aw, geez…thanks!
How long has it been since my kids were little? Hint: I managed to confuse Thomas the Tank Engine with Theodore Tugboat.
[quote=“laynesk, post:32, topic:37565”]Yeah, it’s definitely on the cusp of being downright insanely creepy. I mean look at that animated GIF… WTF?[/quote]Isn’t that from a famous Skyrim mod? Videos and pics abound.
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Railway robbery, surely?
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