Thomas
Poop and Boogies | May 25My two year old son, Maxfield, is fascinated with Thomas the Tank Engine and His Friends. We have a small collection of the various trains, which includes Thomas, Henry, Emily and a few others. My brother was nice enough, depending on your point of view, to send me all of the Thomas videotapes his kids no longer were using.
On occasion my son requests to watch these videos. At first the stories and visuals were entertaining. Actually watching my son get excited over the shows was what was entertaining. I would get so wrapped up in watching Max that I did not really pay attention to the shows themselves. Since we limit Max’s TV time and Elmo and Dora and Jack’s Big Music Show get some decent play, it has been a while since we have watched Thomas. But it seems now Thomas and his friends are back into the rotation and I have viewed these tapes with a new perspective.
Thomas’ friends are dicks.
Every 5-10 minute segment, one of the trains has a scowl on their face and is complaining about their work. Or they are jealous of the other trains. Or they are boasting about how they are the best. Or worried that their paint is not shiny enough. Or they are making fun of or picking on another train. Or they have some type of issue that can only be settled by Sir Topham Hatt. They just have a negative vibe.
Now I know these stories probably teach some type of moral, but me, as an adult, I don’t see it. And it makes me wonder if my son can pick up on the moral. I doubt it. I know that in life, real people, family and friends can and will act like the characters from Thomas. Maybe the show is aimed at teaching kids that they just have to deal with the fact that people can be jerks.
Are you familiar with Thomas? Maybe I just don’t like Alec Baldwin, who narrates most of the episodes, and I am overreacting. What’s your take on Thomas?
I only watched it a couple of times becuase I know the 3 year old crowd loves it so much.
It creeps me out. I don’t like it.
Our commute makes it such that this is not on at our house, but strangely enough My kids know each of the names of the engines. It’s creepy.
Sir Topham Hatt? Is that the real name for the Fat Controller?
With only a little girl, our exposure to Thomas has been to say the least limited. That being said, from the little exposure I have had (and the books and show have similar… uh… themes), I tend to agree with your assesment of Thomas’ friends.
And whether or not you Alec Baldwin I doubt has much to do with it. (I like Alec Baldwin the actor of long ago that did much better things than Alec “The Jerk” Baldwin the person who is so desperately trying to save his career)
Unfortunately, I do not believe most kids who are of an age to watch Thomas will get the “moral of the story.” Fortunately, I also think that most of them are too young to understand what jerks these characters are being.
The first time I watched Thomas with my nephews, hearing George Carlin as the narrator THREW ME! Hard to take Thomas seriously when all I could think about was Carlin’s standup routine! YIKES!
The one thing I *like* about Thomas videos is the pace and the low level of visual imagery. I really like that the figures are imobile and that the backgrounds are modestly constructed anf with very little in the way of special effects. Many kid videos are way too stimulating, I think. The pace is too fast and the visual affects are too much for a child to handle.
That said, I find most of the content of Thomas videos to ludicrous. And classist and sexist, too.
I’ve no problem with Thomas; it’s a little dull, but I’m not their audience. It’s certainly better than Max & Ruby.
As for morals, adults tend to think too much. My son loves Thomas, and always talks about how so-and-so was being mean, or helpful, or nice. Not only the what, but also the why. Kids pick up on a lot more than we give them credit for.
I only know the book and therefore avoided the series like the plague. Thanks to the book (an omnibus edition, for heaven’s sake) I know that Thomas was invented by what looks like a very sexually repressed vicar with a Victorian mind set - a train spotter before his time. The moral? Easy. Adults and people in authority know best. Engines, carriages and trucks (read: children, women and communists) are immature and have to learn their lesson. The Fat Controller was replaced for pc reasons.
The other trains act like bitches, don’t they? Hate that. Why isn’t Maxfield (awesome name, by the way) watching Dora? Or Spongebob???
Ok, maybe not ready for Spongebob, but I always am because it’s freakin’ hilarious.
I love the Alec Baldwin as snooty train aspect of the series; it makes me chuckle. As for the snippyness of the characters, and the infighting / backbiting, I always chalked that up to a sort of English boarding-school sort of vibe I get from the program. I don’t know why exactly.
All I’m sayin, is there were two otherwise wonderfully behaved two-year-olds at my wedding, and the only thing they fought about was playing with their damn Thomas trains. It got kind of ugly. So I don’t know what the heck it is teaching them, but that whole grumpy train thing could be rubbing off.
The trains are essentially children, so of course they’re touchy, selfish and impatient, but also curious, clever and cheeky. Watching them, though, I can’t get over the vision of Sir T. H. as a capitalist pig/robber baron. Mommy, however, gets annoyed when I try to explain to the Nipper how he wrests his food from the bleeding lips of the poor.
The Nipper loves him some Thomas. At 3.5 he can recite entire stories from memory, makes us act them out, “sees” Murdoch and Gordon everywhere, and has to put one of the trains in the shed (under a table or one that I make from Duplos or Kapla planks) every night. (And I mean every night - if he forgets, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and drag one of us to the living room….)
And if the production values aren’t the greatest, well, better Thomas, 64 Zoo Lane and Oswald than Barney, Dragon Tails and Lazytown….
My 17 month old son hasn’t gotten in to Thomas yet, but my nephews have. Now that you mention it, these videos are quite negative!
If I were Sir Tophap Hatt (the Fat Controller), I would have fired all those insecure annoying trains years ago. ;)
The books are better than the series. And, actually, I kinda like the older episodes (hearing George Carlin narrate these stories cracks me up) better than the newer ones. Though the visuals are better in the later episodes.
Thomas (the show) is creepy. Plain and simple. We don’t accept the videos, and won’t turn on the show.
Besides, there are so many better shows out there. Our current favorite is Peep. It’s engaging for the kid, and even enjoyable for us adults.
Alec Baldwin narrates?! That’s mental! No wonder you all hate it so much. The original narrator in the rest of the world is Ringo Starr. Perfect.
Surfx.ro Blog Verification…
800030…
i have no opinion on the show. personally, i remember having to watch 5 minute thomas episodes between proper shows and it drove me batshit crazy because they were so boring. i thought ringo starr was narrating them then? but i could be wrong. and since my kid just developed a crack addict like addiction to bob the builder, im kind of trying to keep him away from the tv.
BUT!!! we have the wooden trainset! and this alone (despite the fact that is is horribly overpriced; i mean, yeah yeah great workmanship bla bla bla but it doesnt quite make me feel better about the fact that i’ve paid for a whole forest and recieved less than a tree) has redeemed thomas and his buddies. have you guys seen these things? its so nifty that i sometimes play with it after the kid has gone to bed. but dont tell anyone else that.
i forgot what my point was. but i think it was something along the lines that every cloud has a silver lining, and in my case my silver lining happens to be wooden and train shaped.
I’ll tell you what I told my vegetarian friend who sent me other Alec Baldwin videos (PETA propaganda): consider the source.
Not that these annoying videos have no value, they do, but still…
So, the only enjoyable thing about watching Thomas with my son (who’s 3) is that he can’t prounounce Percy’s name correctly and everytime he sees Percy, he yells, “Pussy.”
I haven’t read the books, but I really like the show, and my son loves it. It’s beautifully done, it features nature and scenery instead of laser beams and seizure inducing strobe lighting, and if there’s a religious subtext, I haven’t been able to find it.
The engines are snippy and even mean to each other, which can get old - if you’re not a kid. I think the trains still behave better than most adult humans. At the end of the day it’s about hard work and being nice to each other, and how would you have a plot and a moral without some conflict? Maybe Sir Topham hat’s autocratic, but he’s got a whole railroad to run. Give the guy a break.
I’ve seen bits here and there, the look of the show is fun. But I too just can’t take Alec Baldwin’s narration. Maybe a more intelligent or English voice would change my mind.
For now, I’ll just steer away from the program. If my kids doesn’t see it, that’s saves me from the torture.
I have spent many an afternoon catching a glimpse of Thomas and his friends. I have a 6.5 year old and an 18 month old who are BOTH train freaks.
I’ll take Thomas any day over Spongebob or Fairly Odd Parents or Rugrats or pretty much any of the shows that my older son talks of. Cartoons? Forget it - talk about violence! I can count on a good ending and an innoculous show each time we watch Thomas.
I have the same impression of Thomas the Train. And since when is it okay to refer to someone as fat, as in the fat controller, which, ironically, is what I called my 8th grade teacher. I guess there was Fat Albert, but that seems different, I guess, because that was MY generation. Topic? Yes, Thomas sucks.
My 4 year old son, Oliver, Is OBSESSED with Thomas. The English Version is far better than the American, but the engines are all around annoying. I am not sure that Oliver really ‘gets’ the moral of the story, but playing trains and watching Thomas are his favorite things!
If a boy doesn’t dig trains, there’s something wrong. That said, Alec Baldwin should be barred by some sort of law from influencing kids. Maybe adults, too.
I have a nephew who’s big on Thomas. And trains in general. Maybe more than a Y chromosome accounts for. He’s famous for opening sentences like “I like trains, you know?”
By and large Thomas is okay. The short length of the movie stories is great for the two-year old set.
In our house (where 5 kiddos are) Thomas is like crack to the kids that like it, and a bit of an eye-roller for those that don’t.
Our youngest boy leans towards the “crack” end of things, but his older brother hated it.
I prefer the movies to the original stories, which are a bit confusing and devoid of any cohesive plot (a big shocker when we got the original treasury from the library). That said, by the end of the day, hearing “He’s the One” sund in my head by wee little British-accented voices is a bit much.
I hate Thomas. With a passion. In non-too rare moments of weakness when I give in to my little tyke and put Thomas on, I end up spending the next two days being forced to respond to his delighted “Choo, choo!”s with, “Yay, train”. Fun for the first 761 times…
There are too many pablum stories, too many pffff books, too many marshmellow moral tales.
We need a rewrite.
Keep complainin’ it might inspire someone.
Cheers. First visit.
My son has some Thomas legos and they are cool. We do have one video. They actually seem a bit creepy for kids because they talk about ghosts here and there. I’ll need to pay more attention to the overall themes, morals and points they are trying to make. I will say that the music is what drives me crazy, especially when they show all the two-second shots of the trains. Arghh!!