The first series of Thomas & Friends started airing on 9th October 1984 in the UK. Ringo Starr narrated all twenty-six episodes in the UK, later re-narrating twenty-five in the US for Shining Time Station. George Carlin re-narrated the entire series for the US in 1991.





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Production

Every episode in Series 1 was based on a story by the Rev. W. Awdry, with the exception of an episode written by the staff, Thomas' Christmas Party, the book based on said episode being commissioned by the staff so as to have every episode in print form first. The stories were adapted for television by Britt Allcroft and David Mitton. The seven engines introduced in this series became the core of the cast in later series. The Pilot for the series was an adaptation of Down the Mine, which was remade entirely when the rest of the episodes were shot.

The Pilot

Screenshot Title Original UK release date Episode number # Down the Mine (Unaired Pilot) Unaired (Test Screened Mid-1983) #00 The original 1983 pilot episode of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. The pilot was based on the Railway Series story Down the Mine and differed from the final aired version. The pilot was never broadcast, instead it was re-filmed after the series was green-lit by ITV. Only one scene from the pilot can be seen from the final version of episode.

Episodes

(Note: * means that an episode was not narrated by Ringo Starr in the US and was only narrated by George Carlin in the US.)

(Note: ** means that an episode was narrated by George Carlin in the US but was never re-aired on Shining Time Station and was only released on VHS or DVD.)

(Note: *** means that an episode was reused for Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales) .

Characters

Characters Introduced

Trivia

When the series was first broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom, two episodes would be compiled into one ten minute block with a name board sequence featured in between. For subsequent broadcasts, the stories were shown individually.

This series took roughly seven months to film, starting from September 1983 and being finished in March 1984.

According to Ringo Starr, his narration for this series took eight days to record, including retakes for four episodes due to the tone of his voice.

The Norwegian, Finnish, Slovenian and early Swedish narrations credit Ringo Starr as the narrator, even though they were re-dubbed in their respective languages.

Most of the series' scripts were partially edited for the US versions.

In the Ukrainian version, Ringo Starr's voice can be heard in the background.

This was the only series for several things: The only series to have its UK recordings released in the US. The only series where lead was used to create the human characters. From the second to eleventh series, all human characters were made from resin, so they could move around more easily. The only series where the trucks have their faces embedded in their bodies. From the second to eleventh series, the trucks have moulded faces, although some first series style trucks appeared in some of these episodes. The only series to date dubbed in Slovak and Icelandic. The only series in the Finnish dub that Thomas was known in all the episodes as Thomas the Tank Engine. The only series filmed at Clapham Junction, and Clearwater Studios in Battersea, as the next being Shepperton Studios. The only series to be released on Betamax. Two tapes were released and consist of all the episodes. The first includes the first half and the second includes the second half. Kaledioscope re-released the VHS releases on 28th April 1986 and VCI also re-released them on 16th May 1988 with simular tactics from the latter two releases as the Nameboards were used in the opening titles, this also happened for the 1990 Bumper Special as did for the Betamax releases. From 22nd November 1993 the VHS releases were given new covers and renamed from their original versions as well as the next series.

The first seven episodes of this series were all later remade in 2015 for the 45-minute special The Adventure Begins.

When first broadcast on ITV, Dirty Objects was paired with Thomas' Christmas Party and Off the Rails with Down the Mine. On VHS however, Dirty Objects was paired with Off the Rails and Down the Mine with Thomas' Christmas Party.

On CITV, this series was broadcast again between 18th November - 24th December 1985 as separate episodes. Repeats of ten-minute blocks include the following: Wednesdays from 8th July - 16th September 1987, ending with Toby and the Stout Gentleman and Thomas in Trouble. Thomas' Christmas Party was shown individually on 30th December. Mondays and Thursdays from 5th - 22nd December 1988, then Mondays only from 12th January - 20th February 1989 with a repeat showing of Thomas' Train/Thomas and the Trucks on 27th February which was shortly followed by the second series from 6th March-22nd May 1989 before TUGS was shown on CiTV. Four pairings were repeated on Mondays from 30th July - 20th August 1990.

The UK version's iTunes release uses the restored version of the series.

The final sets made for the filming of this series were the ones involving Toby's Old Tramway. Which explains why the majority of series 1 promotional images take place here.

Some sound effects were specially recorded for the first series at the Talyllyn Railway.[1]

References



