Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (aka Thomas & Friends) is an animated children's television series which was created by Britt Allcroft in 1984.
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2 Narrators 3 Characters 4 Production 5 Broadcasts 6 Video Clips 7 Pictures 8 External links |
Based on Books
The series was based on The Railway Series, a series of books created by the Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry. The books, which told of the adventures of a group of living, talking trains, were based on stories which Awdry told his son Christopher to entertain him during Christopher's recovery from measles.
Narrators
Ringo Starr was the first narrator of the television series, then was replaced by Michael Angelis in the British version of the series (in the American version of this series, Starr was replaced by George Carlin and then was replaced by Alec Baldwin).
Many of the charcters are based on actual British trains and vehicles from the 1940s and 1950s.
Characters
Characters from the series include Henry, Duck, Trevor, Bertie (a bus), Donald & Douglas, Percy, James, Gordon, Toby, Daisy, Mavis, Harold (a helicopter), Diesel, Bill & Ben, Edward and the Fat Controller (who is called Sir Topham Hatt in North America).Production
Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends is in its seventh season. It is produced by Gullane Entertainment which was the Britt Allcroft Company. Since Gullane's no longer a company, Hit Entertainment now owns the Thomas licenses of broadcast and merchandising because of the trade between Gullane and Hit.Broadcasts
Thomas & Friends aired in the United Kingdom on ITV from 1984-93 and again from 2002-03, but the series still airs on the British Nickelodeon TV channel for preschoolers; in the United States of America it was aired as Shining Time Station on PBS and in Canada on YTV; from 1989-98; the American series airs on Treehouse TV and the British version of the first five seasons airs on BBC Kids in Canada.
