For my son’s first birthday we bought him a train set. While we were shopping for accessories to go along with the wooden track pieces and generic cargo train that came in the box we noticed Thomas the Train and friends. How could you not notice them? The display spanned an entire wall in Toys R Us and had about forty little boys flocking to the display table in the middle of the aisle. It was like Thomas was the pied piper for toddler boys. I was amazed by his strange ability to control the minds of any and all testosterone producing creatures. Even my husband was tempted by its siren call. Ooh, Thomas!
As a girl, I was completely unfamiliar with the Thomas and Friends books, television show, or movies. I gathered it was about trains. I couldn’t see the harm in letting my son develop an interest in these adorable little engines with the smiling faces and brightly colored paint. We shelled out the $15 dollars the toy store had the nerve to charge for a three inch piece of painted wood and patted ourselves on the back for being such good parents.
Let the obsession begin.
From that day forward my son wanted nothing else. He ate, slept, breathed, and played exclusively with Thomas. By Christmas, a mere three months later, he had acquired quite a collection of “friends” to go along with Thomas. Each of these engines came with two numbers: the one painted on the side of the engine, and the one on its price tag that seemed to go up with each purchase we made. $24.95 for one train? Does it do laundry?!
Next my little trainspotter discovered the Thomas and Friends television show. The episodes lasted about an hour, which just about held his attention long enough for me to cook dinner in the evenings. It was clear from the moment he laid eyes on that little blue engine that this was not going to be a casual relationship: it was love at first sight, and it was about time I introduced myself to his paramour.
Over the past year I have watched every Thomas and Friends television episode, movie, holiday special, or YouTube video of weird people showing off their toy collections. These are countless hours of my life that I will never get back and just to save any other interested parties the trouble, I’ll give you a brief summary of what I’ve discovered.
Each episode follows a very specific formula. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.
First, the head of the railway, Sir Topham Hatt, visits his engines. He announces that he has a very important job for them: real world stuff like delivering cakes for a little girl’s tea party, building a new playground for the school, or delivering soft straw for the farmer’s pigs to lay on. Whatever it is, it’s always of the highest priority and needing to be done as quickly as possible. Seemingly, the head of the railway is rather scatter-brained and leaves all his crucial tasks to the very last minute.
All the engines enthusiastically volunteer their services, including Thomas.
For reasons unbeknownst to me after watching approximately 9,000 episodes of the show, Sir Topham Hatt always chooses Thomas to do his extremely important bidding.
He then gives Thomas very specific instructions about how he should complete the job: go the long way around so you can avoid the icy hills, make sure to drive slowly with your carriage full of soda so you don’t shake it up, when transporting a very large balloon don’t speed through any tunnels. Sounds like somebody has trust issues.
Thomas brags to the others about being “the most very useful engine” with apparently the most very useless grammar.
He is then coupled up to whatever load he is meant to be pulling and sets off. Approximately five minutes after pulling out of the station, Thomas forgets everything Sir Topham Hatt warned him about and proceeds to do exactly the opposite. In a hurry? I’ll just stop and drive through puddles for an hour or two. Drive slowly and carefully? I’ll instigate a race with another engine. Go straight to you destination without stopping? Oooh, shiny. Deliver an important package to The Duke? How about I release a swarm of bees instead?
Inevitably, thanks to Thomas’s insane shenanigans the task goes horribly wrong and the job remains unfinished.
Sir Topham Hatt is cross. I can’t help but wonder if he’s ever heard the phrase Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Thomas feels bad and promises to do the job correctly and in half the time.
Either Sir Topham Hatt has the worst time management skills known to man or his expectations have been tempered over the years, but there is somehow always just enough time for Thomas to redo whatever job he screwed up and be home in time for tea. If you ask me, someone could do with an efficiency audit.
In the end, Thomas always learns some sort of important lesson about listening to others, asking for help, the importance of remembering instructions.
He then forgets said lesson before the start of the next episode and the whole fiasco repeats itself like a broken record.
I now understand why my son loves Thomas more than life itself. He is Thomas: cheeky, scatter-brained, impatient, slower than dirt when you’re in a hurry, faster than lightning in the parking lot, petulant, and distractible. Thomas the train is basically a toddler with wheels. So if you were hoping your child might learn a few lessons about discipline and work ethic from this cheerful cartoon, think again.
Thomas could definitely benefit from a time-out or two himself.
I am cracking up over this. They really do need to reassess their management skills.
I am cracking up over this. They really do need to reassess their management skills.
Fizzling fireboxes! As a mom of 3 boys ages 5 and under I am right there in the middle of Thomas obsession. I sometimes joke that I live on the island of Sodor. Everything is definitely not “lickettydo” when you start using the Thomas phrases in everyday conversation.
Just be glad you escaped the curse of Teletubbies. And Boo-bah. I still have nightmares…
oh yeah or that evil purple dinosaur, barney!!!
Just be glad you escaped the curse of Teletubbies. And Boo-bah. I still have nightmares…
oh yeah or that evil purple dinosaur, barney!!!
Thomas needs more than a time-out. Sodor needs to secede from Television and books. If I watch one more Thomas or buy one more train my head is going to blow into another stratosphere.
Thomas needs more than a time-out. Sodor needs to secede from Television and books. If I watch one more Thomas or buy one more train my head is going to blow into another stratosphere.
lol…I, too, found Thomas annoying—but not as annoying as Caillou, who I eventually banned from the house. The whining, oh the whining! In the sea of shows that are made for kids, I thought we could probably do better.
GIRL! Caillou was the worst!
lol…I, too, found Thomas annoying—but not as annoying as Caillou, who I eventually banned from the house. The whining, oh the whining! In the sea of shows that are made for kids, I thought we could probably do better.
GIRL! Caillou was the worst!
Did you know that Sir Topham Hatt used to be called “The Fat Controller” but it was too un-PC for American audiences so they changed it? Pretty sure I read that somewhere, but it’s possible I dreamed it, so it might no be true at all. 😉
It’s totally true. He’s called that in the UK!
Did you know that Sir Topham Hatt used to be called “The Fat Controller” but it was too un-PC for American audiences so they changed it? Pretty sure I read that somewhere, but it’s possible I dreamed it, so it might no be true at all. 😉
It’s totally true. He’s called that in the UK!
Banned from my house: Nails-on-chalkboard Caillou. Oh definitely. Also, Dora the Explorer and her constant YELLING; Barney for being evil (my then-3 year old tried to tell me he was ‘only a little bit evil’; all Lego movies and shows, because I am baffled by the purpose of making a straight-to-video movie about a game about a Hollywood movie; Yo-Gabba-Gabba, on account of WTF IS THIS?!
This pretty much limited my son to The Muppet Show, reruns of 50 year old Loony Tunes (I figured there’s no danger of him dropping anvils on anybody), and classic Sesame Street, after I skipped the parental advisory warning slapped on it cause kids play outdoors alone and nobody gets the joke about Cookie Monster smoking the pipe on Monsterpiece theatre anymore.
Ha ha ha. I loved Sesame Street so much when I was a kid. It’s sad how things seem so much less innocent when looking back on them. If I met Mr Rogers now I wouldn’t let my kid anywhere near him. That having been said, I totally understand your banning all of the above! I’d like to add Peppa Pig to that list. DON’T WATCH IT. It’s extremely annoying as well as highly addictive to toddlers. Not cool at all. Thomas the Train, Go Diego Go, and Dinosaur Train are the only kids tv shows my son watches. The rest of the time he watches documentaries and random YouTube videos.
Try Magic School Bus? Some is out of date, but DS used to watch that one 100x an episode too, and if your little guy can stand documentaries… 🙂
Oh I forgot about magic school bus. We watch the planets one all the time. 🙂
Banned from my house: Nails-on-chalkboard Caillou. Oh definitely. Also, Dora the Explorer and her constant YELLING; Barney for being evil (my then-3 year old tried to tell me he was ‘only a little bit evil’; all Lego movies and shows, because I am baffled by the purpose of making a straight-to-video movie about a game about a Hollywood movie; Yo-Gabba-Gabba, on account of WTF IS THIS?!
This pretty much limited my son to The Muppet Show, reruns of 50 year old Loony Tunes (I figured there’s no danger of him dropping anvils on anybody), and classic Sesame Street, after I skipped the parental advisory warning slapped on it cause kids play outdoors alone and nobody gets the joke about Cookie Monster smoking the pipe on Monsterpiece theatre anymore.
I have to say Thomas is kind of creepy looking.
I have to say Thomas is kind of creepy looking.
let’s bring back fat albert and the gang
Yes! That was a good one, so is Little Bill by Bill Cosby.
I was just telling my son about Fat Albert the other day, his reading assignment was a biography of sorts of Bill Cosby. He said “Calling people fat isn’t nice…”. *sigh*
let’s bring back fat albert and the gang
Yes! That was a good one, so is Little Bill by Bill Cosby.
I was just telling my son about Fat Albert the other day, his reading assignment was a biography of sorts of Bill Cosby. He said “Calling people fat isn’t nice…”. *sigh*
Well, Thomas is on my bad list too since he was recently chucked at my living room window by my two year old. Which broke it. Which cost $700 to fix. So, yeah. I hate that little blue train now.
We dodged the Thomas bullet in our house, neither of my kids ever gave a crap about the toys or the televisions how and for that I am VERY thankful!!
We dodged the Thomas bullet in our house, neither of my kids ever gave a crap about the toys or the televisions how and for that I am VERY thankful!!
Have you ever seen the original stories on which Thomas was based? MUCH darker, but probably WAY more appealing to parents. I remember there was one in which Thomas did something wrong (as usual) and was walled up inside a tunnel to rot (maybe that’s not exactly the way the story phrased it, but that was definitely the intent). But worse than Thomas BY FAR is SpongeBob. He’s a little old for toddlers (I have older kids–elementary and middle school). But they are SO rude to each other. I banned it. Plus if you have satellite, you could watch SpongeBob quite literally ALL DAY LONG. I don’t know why Nickelodeon doesn’t just admit it and start calling themselves “The SpongeBob Channel.” I have also long maintained that “Go, Diego, Go” was short for “Go, Diego, Go Far Far Away And Take Your Annoying Cousin Dora With You.” If you want a tolerable one, try “Peep and the Big Wide World.” You can get it on Amazon Prime (and maybe Netflix? I don’t have Netflix anymore). The characters are actually likeable, the story lines are amusing even for adults, and they’re educational. Plus they don’t use that ploy of making all the characters speak with British accents on the premise that they’re immediately endearing if they do so (I’m looking at you, Peppa Pig).
Have you ever seen the original stories on which Thomas was based? MUCH darker, but probably WAY more appealing to parents. I remember there was one in which Thomas did something wrong (as usual) and was walled up inside a tunnel to rot (maybe that’s not exactly the way the story phrased it, but that was definitely the intent). But worse than Thomas BY FAR is SpongeBob. He’s a little old for toddlers (I have older kids–elementary and middle school). But they are SO rude to each other. I banned it. Plus if you have satellite, you could watch SpongeBob quite literally ALL DAY LONG. I don’t know why Nickelodeon doesn’t just admit it and start calling themselves “The SpongeBob Channel.” I have also long maintained that “Go, Diego, Go” was short for “Go, Diego, Go Far Far Away And Take Your Annoying Cousin Dora With You.” If you want a tolerable one, try “Peep and the Big Wide World.” You can get it on Amazon Prime (and maybe Netflix? I don’t have Netflix anymore). The characters are actually likeable, the story lines are amusing even for adults, and they’re educational. Plus they don’t use that ploy of making all the characters speak with British accents on the premise that they’re immediately endearing if they do so (I’m looking at you, Peppa Pig).
Thomas is sooooooooo boring!! The show takes forever! Are you sure the episodes are an hour long, because I’m pretty sure the last one I watched was more like a week!
Thomas is sooooooooo boring!! The show takes forever! Are you sure the episodes are an hour long, because I’m pretty sure the last one I watched was more like a week!
Love this blog post!