As It Happens6:30The unaired Thomas & Friends pilot has been found and restored
For the first time ever, fans of the iconic children’s TV show Thomas & Friends can watch the show’s original pilot, filmed more than four decades ago.
The smiling blue tank engine and his locomotive pals made their first on-screen debut in a 1983 pilot episode called Down The Mine, narrated by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.
After the show was picked up for series, the episode was re-shot for the first season. But the film reels from the unaired pilot were stashed away and forgotten for 43 years, until a producer unearthed them and had them restored and digitized for the franchise’s 80th anniversary
“It’s a lovely story, and it looks beautiful,” Ian McCue, who headed up the restoration efforts, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “It’s been a really special moment.”
WATCH | The Thomas & Friends 1983 pilot episode:
Thomas & Friends is a British TV show based on The Railway Series books by Rev. Wilbert Awdry and his son Christopher, first published 80 years ago in 1945.
It aired on a variety of stations between 1984 and 2001 while its spinoff, Shining Time Station, aired on PBS from 1989 to 2017. The series rights currently belong to toy manufacturer and entertainment company Mattel.
Ian McCue, a series producer on Thomas & Friends from 2010 to 2020, says he and a consultant recently came across the long-lost pilot digging through the Mattel archives.
“I was really hoping that we would just open up the film can and there it would be, in all its glory, ready to go,” he said. “But, no. Sadly, it was in pretty poor condition.”
What they found were small pieces of film held together with an elastic band, and covered in residue.
While it may seem odd that such an iconic show was kept in a state of disrepair, McCue says that was par for the course for that era of television production.
Nobody was thinking about preservation back then, he said. Lots of shows were piloted and discarded, he said. Originals were often tossed aside or taped over. He says it’s amazing the pilot even exists at all.
He took the film bits to Silver Salt Restoration in Hammersmith, London, which was able to assemble them onto one reel. As they began watching the assembled footage, McCue says it became clear that it was, indeed, the pilot they’d been looking for.
“With the 80th anniversary that we’re celebrating this year, it just seemed the prime opportunity,” he said.
The Ringo of it all
Another amazing discovery, he says, was getting the digital file and hearing Starr’s unmistakable voice.
The Beatles musician famously narrated the show’s first couple seasons. But McCue says it’s not uncommon for a crew member to do the voice work for a pilot, before there’s any guarantee the show will be picked up for a full season.
There was, however, one missing piece of the puzzle they were unable to recover — the music.
“I thought, I can’t bear to sort of take it from an existing Thomas episode,” he said. “That feels like cheating.”
So he reached out to Mike O’Donnell, who co-composed the original Thomas & Friends theme music.
“Mike was happy to jump on board and gave us a lovely little score,” he said. “The final mix day was very special and a little bit emotional, given the effort and labour of love that had gone into making the pilot.”
Spanning generations
Kim Wilson, co-founder and co-director of the Children’s Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, lauded the team behind the restoration.
“It’s fantastic that they found this and they’re sharing it with people, because so many people have strong attachments with the show,” said Wilson, whose teenage son grew up watching Thomas & Friends.
Wilson suspects more old footage like this will make its way to the surface as the media industry focuses on keeping legacy brands alive.
“If somebody grew up with Thomas and then their own child watched Thomas, that’s a part of their experience that has a whole different level,” she said.
“I think part of why parents love their kids watching shows that they’ve watched is, you know, it kind of reinforces parental bonds and it provides this sense of continuity between generations.”
Franchises that succeed in this, she says, adapt with the times. They pick up the pace, write stories that resonate with modern audiences, drop dated language, and most importantly, bring in more diverse characters.
“I think Thomas has done a good job of producing content that stays true to the original, but still keeps up with, you know, the changes in technology in terms of what you can do to make it more interesting and exciting for kids who are watching today,” she said.
Plus, she says, there are some things that never change.
“Trains are what I would call an evergreen concept,” she said. “I’ve never met a child who wasn’t interested in trains.”
