October 9, 2012 at 10:18 pm , by Nick Shell
22 months.
“Whoo-whoo. Whoo-whoo. Crash!”
That’s Jack’s understanding of what trains are supposed to do, thanks to his current obsession, Thomas & Friends.
It’s the first TV show that he will watch for more than 3 minutes at a time.
I have to admit—it took some getting used to: It’s a weird format consisting of puppetry and storytelling, perfectly narrated by Alec Baldwin, of all people.
As an American, it become obvious to me from the beginning that Thomas & Friends is based off of a British book series.
The first thing that gave it away was how it seems that in every episode one of the trains gets “cross” with another, puffing away perturbed. (Though he eventually apologizes for his uncivilized behavior.)
I also laughed out loud one time when Alec Baldwin, who gives voice to all the different characters, including the rare female ones, told two of the other trains, “Stop gossiping!”
In modern American culture, for one man to tell two other men to stop gossiping would be like calling them girls, to put it mildly.
So this is basically my impression of my son’s new favorite TV show: Every episode consists of trains getting “cross” at each other about the loads they are hauling and then gossiping with each other, or one of the trains gets too prideful and crashes off a cliff. Then apologizes to Sir Topham Hatt about it.
And that explains why when Jack plays with his Sir Handel and Percy trains, he says, “Whoo-whoo. Whoo-whoo. Crash!”
I dig it, though. I do.
In fact, maybe I dig it a little too much:
These days I’m a tad bit distracted thinking about Jack’s die cast metal Thomas the Train collection; the ones designed for the Take-n-Play sets. For his 2nd birthday next month, we bought him a Rumbling Gold Mine set, which comes with the actual Thomas train.
So that means Jack will have Sir Handel, Percy, and Thomas. But now Jack’s favorite character seems to be the ever-so-moody Gordon.
Plus, there’s a character called Jack. How can I not get him Jack?
Not to mention, Jack is enthralled by fire trucks, and there is character called Flynn, who is a fire truck.
I care way too much about my son’s growing die cast metal Thomas & Friends collection.
This weekend I asked him, “Jack, do you want Harold the Helicopter?”
He instantly replied, “No.”
Bummer. For me.
With that being said, it should be no surprise that my wife and I have the same ring tone for when we call each other. You guessed it:
The theme song to Thomas & Friends.
Yes, we really are that cool.
(My wife even made a “practice birthday cake” in the form of a train this past weekend. When you look at it upside down, it sort of looks like a bear.)
Without a doubt, Jack’s birthday will be saturated in the Thomas & Friends theme.
Good thing he’s a boy. It seems like there’s no cool girl equivalent to Thomas the Train.
At least, there’s not one quite as obsessive.
