Thomas & Friends

British children's television series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas & Friends
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Thomas & Friends[e] is a British animated television series which was first broadcast on CITV on 9 October 1984. It is based on The Railway Series books by the Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher. The main character is Thomas, a tank engine that is painted blue. The show takes place on the made-up island of Sodor. There are some route systems there. One of them is a standard-gauge heritage railway run by Sir Topham Hatt known as the North Western Railway. Thomas is the leader of the steam team.

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Characters

The show is mainly about the locomotives, other machines, humans and other animals who populate the fictional Island of Sodor in the United Kingdom. Since 2004, the show has had eight main characters are Thomas, Edward, Henry, Gordon, James, Percy, Toby, and Emily.

History

The first attempt to adapt Awdry's stories for television came in 1953, when the editor of the Railway Series books, Eric Marriott, was approached by the BBC, who wished to use live-action model trains to re-create two stories from Awdry's first book, The Three Railway Engines. 00 gauge Hornby Dublo models appeared on sets that reflected the style of the original illustrations. The first episode (based on "The Sad Story of Henry") was broadcast live on the evening of Sunday 14 June 1953 from Lime Grove Studios.[2] The live broadcast did not fare well: a failure to switch the points caused the model of Henry to derail and it had to be replaced on the rails by one of the operators. The models moved jerkily, and all effects and music had to be superimposed.[3]

News of the broadcast hit the front pages of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. Awdry branded the episode "unprofessional", and the point-switching debacle an "elementary mistake". As a result, the second episode scheduled for 28 June 1953 was put on hold, and then later cancelled.[2][4] The BBC offered Awdry and the Railway Series publishers greater creative control over the production, but the publishers declined, preferring to focus on publishing new books for the series.[3]

Nearly twenty years later, the BBC featured Awdry's stories in the television story-telling show Jackanory. Fourteen years before Thomas and Friends was aired, Ted Ray (sitting in a stationmaster's office) read five Railway Series books in episodes that aired between 20 September to 2 October 1970.

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Cast

Voices

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Narrators

United Kingdom

United States

Both

  • Pierce Brosnan (The Great Discovery, 2008)
  • Mark Moraghan (Series 17-21, 2013-2017)
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Notes

  1. These series also aired in a half-hour format.
  2. Until Series 20, these series also aired in a half-hour format. As of series 22, the episodes themselves only run for 7 minutes, with the remainder of the episodes being used for educational segments.
  3. The first half of series 3 was released straight-to-video before airing on TV. ITV also rebroadcast series 6–8 after the Nick Jr. airings.
  4. series 6–8 were rerun on CITV, while series 8–11 were rerun on Channel 5.
  5. Formerly known as Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends from seasons 1 to 6, Thomas & Friends: Making Tracks to Great Destinations from series 8 to series 20, Thomas & Friends: Set Friendship in Motion in series 21 and Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! from series 22 to series 24
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References

Other websites

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