Well, exactly what it says on the top. (Yes, I know it's been, oh, ages since I last updated. I've read quite a few good books, and am currently about 100 pages into a good one about Napoleon.) Why is children's TV so odd?
As a child, I was a devoted viewer of Thomas the Tank Engine. To this day, Ringo Starr's voice lulls me back to 1989, and I'm honestly shocked when I see an old steam engine because it doesn't have a cheery grey face. Now, back when I was three, Thomas the Tank Engine didn't strike me as remotely odd in any way. It was fun (apart from the crashes, which scared the living daylights out of me), and to a three-year-old, that's all that matters. My favourite engine was Toby, and because back then it was rather difficult to get hold of a Toby engine, my dad made me one. He was electric and could therefore pull his own carriages and trucks. This is the main advantage of having an engineer for a father - he can do anything. (Mind you, apparently the Reverend Awdry made some of his own engines for his kids. So I could have got away with having an author-vicar for a dad too, I reckon.)
Recently I found the home-made Toby engine while clearing out some drawers, and as I'd long since got rid of my Thomas the Tank Engine videos, I decided to go on YouTube. Youtube has rapidly become a favourite website as I can dig up more-or-less any cartoon I used to watch as a child and pretend to be three for ten minutes, and in the realm of Thomas the Tank Engine it certainly didn't disappoint. Poor Henry, bricked up for not liking the rain. Foreveraneveranever. Thomas getting ill due to fish in the boiler. Gordon being a very proud, very fast engine, Edward being melancholy and old before perking up with a nice pot of paint, and James being the Red Engine who's Red and therefore Obviously a Very Good Engine by virtue of his colour. And Toby, of course, chugging reliably along, looking like a wooden house on rails. Then came Percy, a little engine with the mind of a small, easily distracted child (and a small, easily distracted child's mind is not what you want behind a few tons of metal and steam), and Great Western Montague (I mean Duck, of course, because who in their right mind looks at an engine and thinks "Montague! That's a good name!"), and sneaky, weaselly Diesel (unimaginative name? You bet!), the Scottish twins, and, and... It was like meeting a bunch of old friends. You haven't seen them in years, but it's like you've never been parted.
I pressed onwards. I'd never actually seen further than Season Two, because by the time Season Three aired I was five and had moved on The Animals of Farthing Wood or some other animated show that fit in with my school schedule. I discovered, to my horror, that Ringo Starr had been replaced with another Liverpudlian with a slightly less soothing voice. On the other hand, they had actual girl engines now! Oooh, Emily, you Donald-and-Douglas compatriot engine you! And more diesels, and some "verra wee engines" as Donald (or possibly Douglas) put it. Narrow gauge engines, who were dinky next to Gordon, the Ultimate Behemoth of Sodor. I also found a video that would have scarred me for life had I seen it in 1989; it featured a montage of Famous Thomas The Tank Engine Crashes set against a bunch of kids perkily singing a song called "Accidents Happen". In Japanese. Evidently Thomas has a worldwide fanbase - including my favourite country. (On the accidents front, does anyone else hold the opinion that the Reverend Awdry spent his formative years crashing toy engines and moved on to keeping a book full of cuttings from newspapers about interesting train accidents, before putting it on hold to go to university? There's got to be a book somewhere that explains it all.)
But there was a shock in store! I'm not a great purveyor of children's entertainment. Obviously I was a child once. I was quite happy to watch Pingu - premise: a bunch of anthro clay penguins live a happy life in the South Pole. Pretty absurd, but a) no humans in the picture - the penguins were "human" and b) for all their differences to humans, penguins breathe air, die, need to eat and are probably 90% genetically identical to humans anyway. I was also quite happy to watch, say, The Animals of Farthing Wood, where the animals weren't physically anthropomorphised, humans were in the picture, and nothing was too brain-breakingly absurd unless you can't handle animals having discussion meeting and are fazed by Carnivore Confusion.
But Thomas? The humans are tank engines. They're not born, they're made. They can't die, they get scrapped (or abandoned). They don't need to eat, they just need coal (or diesel) to keep running. But the humans are also humans. Take the Fat Controller. He doesn't apparently talk to the drivers of his trains that much; he takes up issues with the actual engines. Which have zombie-colour, expressive grey faces. And apparently move - or don't move - of their own volition, and have massive personal tiffs that can paralyse a branch line, and... well, it's just mightily odd how people behave in Sodor. (Sodor, for those not in the know, and for those who didn't click on any of the links, is the imaginary island where Thomas and co. live. It's about the size of South Yorkshire, so it does actually warrant its own train system.) Back to crashes. While watching A close shave, it really struck me what oddness my childhood was wreathed in. Watch the video in the link, and ponder the following:
1) Duck's been sent away... because another engine told lies about him and turned them against Duck. So anything with a face has a consciousness. OK, they're anthropomorphic, but they're engines for goodness' sake!
2) Given the number of crashes on Sodor, who but the stupidest of barbers (or possibly one scamming the insurance) would situate his shop riiiiight at the end of a railway track?
3) There's got to be Prozac in the water supply, and probably hallucinogens as well. Note that the barber's automatic response to seeing an engine halfway in his shop is to say "I don't like engines popping in" and then lather Duck's face, never mind that Duck, not being a biological being, is never going to grow facial hair. Actually, never mind that it's just going to be a waste of shaving foam and effort. The barber doesn't even seem to be that cross. Yeah, I'll go for "He's both stoned AND looking to scam his insurance company".
4) Even if he is genuinely surprised and angry, and the engine shaving stunt was the result of shock, how come he's OK with the whole situation when the Fat Controller tells him that Duck actually averted a worse accident and that Duck is a very brave engine? Why doesn't he shout "Whatever, you've just robbed me of my livelihood and now my children will starve"?
5) The Fat Controller lets Duck go back to Tidmouth. A real controller might have had mercy on a poor obsolescent steam engine, but he'd definitely have had the driver breath-tested and possibly fired. Evidently a job on Sodor is a job for life. (Take me there!) Exactly how much control do the drivers have, anyway? If any Sodor engine can skulk around, then what on earth are their drivers and firemen doing? I don't think the excuse "Sorry, can't work today, Henry's being prissy about his paint/Duck's gone on strike/James is malingering" would go down well in the real world. Sodor isn't the real world, but if the drivers can't make a perfectly good engine go, then why are they there?
As the battery on my laptop is rapidly running out, I'll simply draw the conclusion that childhood is mad and its entertainment is even more nonsensical. But Thomas still rocks my socks, turns out. And Electric Railway Dadmade Toby is smiling at me from his place on my shelves RIGHT NOW. Toodles!
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