TV Meme: Day 13
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show: Thomas the Tank Engine
Some people worshipped the Power Rangers. For others, it was the Ninja Turtles. I worshipped at the altar of...sentient, talking trains. I'm not talking about this recent crap---I mean the first 4 seasons that were based directly on Rev. W. A. Awdry's Railway Series---it takes place on the fictional Island of Sodor (supposedly near the Isle of Man) and the railway is run by Sir Topham Hatt, the Fat Contoller. They were narrated by Ringo Starr and then George Carlin (in the U. S., anyway), and I don't care what anyone says: those two were awesome narrators! Technically, the U. S. version framed the stories within a show called Shining Time Station, but the stories themselves were released on video, and that's what I remember most clearly (maybe because my brother Peter has been obsessed with this since age 2 and watched them all 5 million times).
I'm going to picspam these characters as I remember them (not including recent character derailment, no pun intended):
THOMAS (the Tank Engine)
His name is Thomas. Not Tom or Tommy, but Thomas. I once heard my piano teacher call Thomas "the Tommy train" and I cringed. I was about 8 or 9 years old. He is also "Thomas the Tank Engine," not "Thomas the Train." This is Serious Business.
Anyway, Thomas is technically our main protagonist, even though this is an ensemble show: he's our Peter Petrelli, our Shosanna, etc. He's the youngest and smallest of the trains (until Percy is introduced), and the other engines give him flak for it. But Thomas is plucky, spunky, and stubborn, and by God, when he wants to do something, he'll get it done! He got his own personal branch line and two coaches named Annie and Clarabel. Like all of the other engines, Thomas got into a buttload of accidents---the one that sticks out most in my mind is "Thomas Goes to Breakfast," wherein Thomas crashes into a railway worker's house in the middle of breakfast. The worker's wife scolded Thomas, saying, "You have ruined our breakfast!" and I'm like, "Breakfast? Lady, the whole front of your house just got ripped apart!"
PERCY (the Small Engine)
This is Percy, Thomas's best friend and Heterosexual Life Partner, in the spirit of Holmes & Watson, Bert & Ernie, Batman & Robin, and Sam & Dean. Percy is naive and ditzy but eager and really just wants to roll with the big engines. He also takes flak from Gordon and James for being small, but he'll show them. Once, Percy had an accident where he got covered in treacle, which led me to believe that treacle was a bad thing until it was mentioned as a dessert in one of the Harry Potter books. So thanks for that.
JAMES (the Red Engine)
James...always kind of seemed like an annoying bitch to me, but I think that I fixated on his flaws a bit too much. He's arrogant and vain, but not bad guy. That was the good thing about this show---the characters had genuine flaws and were not perfect. They were much more dimensional than many characters in a lot of children's entertainment. Anyway, to continue about James, his adventures generally consisted of thinking too highly of himself and then screwing up the job he was doing, which resulted in a big accident, like when he got covered in tar or when a bee stung him on the nose (his nose turned bright red, reminding all the little viewers of Rudolph).
EDWARD (has no real title)
Edward is the oldest engine, and therefore serves as the Obi-Wan, the cool mentor. He was actually the first engine Awdry wrote about, followed by Gordon and Henry, and then Thomas. One time, James was going down a hill and his brakes stopped working, so Edward went sent to catch up with him, and their respective firemen tied some string to their buffers, and then Edward helped James slow down, and it was really brave, cute, and bromantic.
GORDON (the Big Engine)
Gordon is the mandatory jerk. Again, he's not bad, either, but he did tend to tease and taunt Thomas and Percy. And there was the time he got James and Henry to stay in the shed with him and go on strike because they were all sick of fetching their own coaches---that was Thomas's job, in their view, but he was busy running his branch line. This is how I learned what "going on strike" meant. Oh, and once, Gordon refused to get washed (which Thomas teased him about), but then he got covered in mud and had to have a bath. Ha.
HENRY (the Green Engine)
Henry started out as something of a jerk, like Gordon, but he developed into a large Woobie because bad stuff kept happening to him (don't let that picture fool you):
Shit That Happened To Henry:
- He refused to come out of a tunnel while it was raining because he didn't want to ruin his nice green paint with red stripes. He stayed in there so long that they built a brick wall in front of him and behind him; this was a two-part story, and by the time he came out of the tunnel in the second part, his paint job was ruined. He got a new one, but still. It was pretty depressing to see Henry just sitting all alone in the tunnel at the end of the first part as the cheery theme tune started up.
- Henry didn't feel right at all. It turned out that that was because he had a smaller coal box than the other engines, so they shipped in this special coal, which made him feel better temporarily. But then he got to pull this special train called the Flying Kipper, but he crashed because of ice and snow (or something---I can't remember the details), and the special coal didn't help, so he had to get his coal box rebuilt. He ended up feeling better than ever, but that story also had a seriously depressing middle.
- He liked to ride through this forest and he got really attached to it. Then this big storm knocked over the majority of the trees, and Henry got terribly depressed. Then he saw that people were replanting trees, and it was all good. Henry is a tree-hugger, most likely because he is green. What's really weird about this is that I think he had been hauling logs to factories at that time.
And that's not even all of the crap that happened to him, just a couple of incidents that stand in my mind. I don't think I made those stories sound terribly depressing, but they were.
Basically: the sun rises in the east, the Chicago Cubs can't win a World Series, Quentin Tarantino loves feet, the Trix Rabbit will never get his Trix, and HENRY MUST SUFFER!!! This is simply the way of things.
Moving on...
TOBY (the Tram Engine)
Toby is another older engine, like Edward, but a bit more active. Tends to mentor Percy a bit, I think. Sir Topham Hatt met Toby while on holiday, and brought Toby and his coach, Henrietta, to live with the other engines on the Railway because his line was going to be shut down. Strangely, I cannot recall any accidents that he may have had. He probably had some. He was kind of like everyone's uncle.
DUCK (the Great Western Engine)
Technically, his real name is Montague, but no one ever called him that. Ever. He is simply Duck, and he is my favorite character. If Toby was everyone's uncle, then Duck was everyone's big brother. He was cool and you could always count on him. Also, I absolutely loved his musical leitmotif (every engine had one)---his was so lyrical and it rolled along with him. I can still sing his leitmotif. Yeah. There was the time he ended up adopting an actual duck... But mostly, I remember the time he crashed into a barbershop---the barber put shaving cream on his face, and it was hilarious.
In about Season 7, they took Duck away, but they recent brought him back. I'd stopped paying attention by that time, but when Peter told me recently, I freaked out for a moment. I know that sounds silly, but lots of people freak out when their childhoods get messed with. In fact, I think Duck is the reason I latch on to awesome supporting characters like Claude and Stiglitz.
DONALD AND DOUGLAS (the Scottish Twins)
"Och! Look, Douggie! Do ye ken what we're doin' in a picspam?"
"Dinnae ken, Donal'! Pr'haps this lassie wants to talk aboot us?"
Like Duck, they were awesome supporting characters, really funny and smart. They switched tenders a few times just for fun. Oh, and as one unfortunate breakvan learned, when you mess with Douglas, Donald will go all Violent Glaswegian on your ass. They're badass like that. That incident made the other engines worry that they'd get sent away, so they elected Percy to stand up to Sir Topham Hatt for the twins, but it turned out that they weren't in any trouble. And all was good. And Scottishly badass.
DIESEL
This is Diesel. I do not have many fond memories of him. He was the mandatory villain. I don't remember what he did so much as his general looming presence. Diesel loved to loom. Also, he picked on Duck a lot because everyone liked Duck and no one liked Diesel, mostly because he was a creepy psychopath. He also thought steam engines were pure crap, and that's not very endearing when the whole cast is filled with them.
TROUBLESOME TRUCKS
These are creatures of pure, unadulterated chaos. The Troublesome Trucks worked for Diesel a few times, but mostly, they just caused trouble on their own because they liked it. A lot. The breakvan that hated Douglas was one of these. What was really creepy about them was that whenever they were about to cause a crash, they would have this looked of utter ecstasy on their faces, even if they got destroyed afterwards. They were like...Suicide Bombers Without A Cause. Yikes.
So that's generally the main cast. There were tons of other engines, including a female named Mavis, as well as the Narrow Gauge Engines, which were on a slightly different section of the railway---they included engines named Rheneas ("Re-NAY-us"), Skarloey ("Skar-LOW-ee"), Duke (he was a legend), Peter Sam (nee Stuart), Sir Handel (nee Falcon), and an adorably friendly diesel named Rusty. I could seriously go on all day, but I have to stop.
Here's an amusing video that puts Thomas the Tank Engine clips to a remix medley of the Doctor Who theme that features soundbytes of Doctors One through Eight:
Click to viewThe first engine featured is Skarloey, one of the Narrow Gauge Engines, but I've covered all of the featured engines. I embedded this video once before, but I think this makes more sense with some context. I love Edward as Two and James as Six, but I think Thomas would work better as Five and Toby as Seven.
Day 01 - A show that should have never been canceled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this t.v season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite t.v show
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite t.v show
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you’ve watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best t.v show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First t.v show obsession
Day 29 - Current t.v show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death