Friday A/V Club: That Time Thomas the Tank Engine Was a Scab

The early episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine have got
to be the most right-wing project any Beatle was ever involved
with. Take the story arc where some of the engines go on strike.
The opening installment, narrated by Ringo Starr in his usual jolly
fashion, is embedded below; if you want to skip straight to the
strike part, go to 3:53:

Here’s part two, where Thomas and two of his pals save the day
for the employing class by stepping in as scabs:

By 4:20, the striking engines are “cold, lonely, and miserable.
They wished now they hadn’t been so silly.” They sheepishly come
back to work in the opening minute of the next episode, which you
can watch here.

This first aired in 1984, which, as those of you who remember
the Thatcher years will recall, was a time of fiercely
fought strikes in Great Britain. (The story was based on the
book
Troublesome Engines, published in 1950. Someone better
versed in British labor history than I will have to tell me whether
there’s a comparable social context then.) But there’s nothing in
the Thomas show about wages or layoffs or railway
closures; the story basically boils down to some engines getting
too big for their britches. (“No engine on my railway is too
important for small jobs,” Sir Topham Hatt says disapprovingly.) In
the end we are informed that the strikers have been “naughty,” but
the boss tells them they can come back “if you promise to work
hard,” which they eagerly do.

Conclusion #1: if you overlay the paternalistic tone of a show
for kids atop an industry where actual grown-ups work, the results
are pretty creepy. 

Conclusion #2: It’s still more watchable than the formulaic
Thomas tales that my two-year-old sees on Sprout
today.

Bonus video: Speaking of creepy early Thomas
episodes, this one has a dark ending reminscent of Poe: