Island of Destruction

August 24, 2013 10:44 PM

Just a supercut of crashes from Thomas The Tank Engine set to Drowning Pool.
posted by hellojed (53 comments total)

best thing ever
posted by philip-random at 10:48 PM on August 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Amazing, amazing.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:52 PM on August 24, 2013

Far more satisfying than it should be.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:54 PM on August 24, 2013 [5 favorites]

top-rated comments

Chris Dorsey 2 years ago
what episode was 2:09

monsterjamfan100 2 years ago
that was haunted henry

a great thing about youtube is stumbling on communities of people who genuinely love watching the same obscure shit, like thomas the tank engine or local news intro sequences
posted by serif at 10:56 PM on August 24, 2013 [12 favorites]

I had no idea it was such a violent show!
posted by winna at 10:59 PM on August 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

I particularly like the part where the train crashes
posted by philip-random at 10:59 PM on August 24, 2013 [11 favorites]

The thing I love about Thomas is its opposite values to any other kids show - nobody is special and if they think they are they should STFU and knuckle down and work.
posted by Artw at 11:10 PM on August 24, 2013 [33 favorites]

I had no idea it was such a violent show!
Yeah, I never bothered to watch because I thought "this is gonna be so boring... what are they gonna do? have the trains wreck?" But it turns out Thomas got beaten up almost as much as Wile E. Coyote!
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:31 PM on August 24, 2013

Tonight, Sodor Island is going to EXPLODE!
posted by KingEdRa at 11:32 PM on August 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

Just watched this the other day: Henry wouldn't move... so they decided to bury him alive.
posted by littlesq at 11:35 PM on August 24, 2013 [13 favorites]

Like many autistic children, my son is obsessed with all things related to Thomas the Tank Engine. I would estimate that about 70% of his leisure time is spent creating his own "Accidents Happen" scenes of massive, tragic train derailments using his own train sets.
posted by The Gooch at 11:37 PM on August 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Who the hell builds the tracks for these trains? They're all over the place, including leading straight off a dock with nothing to stop the trains, or in a river leading up to the edge of a waterfall.

I didn't expect to like the music, but it's thematically appropriate, being a train wreck and all.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:41 PM on August 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

This video taught me that I have passed my Internet Tipping Point because instead of looking at this and going What the fuck why the hell I instead nodded and went Yep this is definitely a thing
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:52 PM on August 24, 2013 [4 favorites]

Our daughter is quite fond of Thomas but I don't really like it; it's to much of a boy zone. I mean,I know it's based off old, totally sexist books, but would it have killed them to have more than one female character, and she's the most token token that ever toked.
posted by smoke at 12:10 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

The island of Sodor, right next to the island of Gomorrar.
posted by BiggerJ at 12:16 AM on August 25, 2013 [7 favorites]

I have never seen this show before. It looks like it was a ton of fun to film!
posted by aubilenon at 12:22 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Needs narration by Werner Herzog about the futility of life.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:32 AM on August 25, 2013 [24 favorites]

Great compilation. I'm thinking there's a better soundtrack out there for it, though. I think it should be crunchy and violent metal, sure, but much more so than the pop-metal they used.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:40 AM on August 25, 2013

Who the hell builds the tracks for these trains? They're all over the place, including leading straight off a dock with nothing to stop the trains, or in a river leading up to the edge of a waterfall.

Seriously. What's the British equivalent of OSHA? They all should be sacked!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:50 AM on August 25, 2013

Just watched this the other day: Henry wouldn't move... so they decided to bury him alive.

I have a distinct recollection of somebody recutting that to about a minute long and making out Ringo Starr to be a very cruel man. Any leads on that?
posted by solarion at 1:01 AM on August 25, 2013

Clearly the makers of Thomas and Friends were really trying to make this.
posted by Major Clanger at 3:16 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Bloody tories and their rail privatisation... never gave a stuff for safety
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:16 AM on August 25, 2013 [6 favorites]

If Lac-Mégantic, Quebec were the setting for a kids' show...

I'll show myself out, thanks.
posted by spoobnooble II: electric bugaboo at 4:46 AM on August 25, 2013

Who the hell builds the tracks for these trains? They're all over the place, including leading straight off a dock with nothing to stop the trains, or in a river leading up to the edge of a waterfall.


That Isambard Kingdom Brunel was kind of a bastard, wasn't he?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:52 AM on August 25, 2013 [6 favorites]

I was guaranteed to like this based on the description alone, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually quite well done.

It's like some editor got laid off from WWE after 2002 and went to work in British children's TV.
posted by graphnerd at 5:34 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just watched this the other day: Henry wouldn't move... so they decided to bury him alive. yt
posted by littlesq at 11:35 PM on August 24 [5 favorites +] [!]

Oh man.

I am so never ever letting any kid ever watch this show.
posted by Sleeper at 7:25 AM on August 25, 2013

Just watched this the other day: Henry wouldn't move... so they decided to bury him alive.

He won't come out of the tunnel because it's a bit rainy. Seriously, who here with kids hadn't wanted to brick them up for pulling a similar stunt?
posted by Artw at 7:36 AM on August 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

This marks the first time ever that I've actually enjoyed Thomas the Tank Engine.
posted by mazola at 7:46 AM on August 25, 2013

Said it before but this bloody show is the bane of my existence. With Thomas sharing my first name, and then Sir Topham Hat also sharing my surname, I am constantly wading through this shit when searching my own name.

I guess I just need to become more famous than this guy and drown him out.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:53 AM on August 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

Fat Controller is his DJ name.
posted by Artw at 7:59 AM on August 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

The easiest job in the world is train driver on the island of Sodor. You don't have to do any real work; the trains do whatever the fuck they to want anyway. No matter how high a body count they rack up, their worst punishment is a scolding by a fat man decrying their cause of confusion and delay.
posted by dr_dank at 8:47 AM on August 25, 2013 [11 favorites]

I also like that causing confusion and delay OS the worst possible crime on Sodor - good message for kids.
posted by Artw at 9:23 AM on August 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

I actually thought about making this an FPP a few weeks back:
Why Your Children's Television Program Sucks: Thomas and Friends

edeezy: He said, "Oh, you should check out TheNewStoryteller, he make his own Thomas episodes and stories...2500 of them...some dressed as Gumby...he 's also does 'Let's Plays' of Thomas games."

I'm not laughing anymore. Just extremely uneasy.

As mentioned upthread, my son is completely obsessed with Thomas, which in addition to collecting trains and creating his own Thomas adventures, also includes sitting in front of the computer watching Thomas-related youtube videos. I will occasionally check the content of what he is watching to make sure it isn't actually an inappropriate for children parody video (which is actually how I originally came upon the video that is the subject of this post). I noticed he was watching a lot of "unboxing" and toy train review videos with a clearly adult voice in the background, so I thought I would watch a few just to make sure it wasn't something creepy. I was amazed to find what appears to be an otherwise functionally normal mid-late 30s man who unironically really likes playing with toy Thomas trains (I guess taking the 3+ age appropriateness rating to its logical extreme)
posted by The Gooch at 9:40 AM on August 25, 2013 [5 favorites]

Why Your Children's Television Program Sucks: Thomas and Friends

I would say that article is generally accurate but everything he decries as bad is actually awesome. Except shitty CGI, fuck the modern ones.
posted by Artw at 9:59 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Gooch, your story makes me think that there are all these "unintentional Mr. Rogers" out there. My daughter, who is older, eats up minecraft mod reviews like they are candy. She atches Captain Sparkle, who is awesome and doesn't cuss, and this group of what I assume are college kids who yell a lot.
posted by frecklefaerie at 10:06 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

As i said before, I thought the Thomas the Tank Engine show was about getting people use to bad infrastructure. I mean seriously, the crashes, the confusion and the delays! Also, let's not forget the various adventures involving racing with the bus, Bertie. The management style of Sir Topham, well it is not optimal. Goodness, they have misplaced engines, lost islands (Misty) and create dependencies (Jovy wood) that make no sense. I put this down to an extreme deference to authority figures like Sir Topham and the Duke and Duchess.
posted by jadepearl at 10:11 AM on August 25, 2013 [4 favorites]

My kids were very into Thomas when they were little and we had a cassette of Thomas songs. They were all about being really useful and were sung by a choir of British children to the kind of accompaniment you'd expect. I never paid much attention to it. It got stuck in a crevice in the van and lost until one summer when we were on vacation in Maine. I think it turned up during a search for Bactine or something. We put it in the stereo and listened to it while driving around Lamoine. The kids were all much older and they just thought the whole thing was hilarious. But once we started to listen to the the lyrics it became clear how propaganda-like the whole thing was. Just jaunty little songs preparing kids for a life as cogs in the great bureaucratic machine. Whenever I happen to hear the Thomas theme I think of those little British children piping their little hearts out in support of Sir Topham hat.
posted by Biblio at 10:40 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

The management style of Sir Topham, well it is not optimal. Goodness, they have misplaced engines, lost islands (Misty) and create dependencies (Jovy wood) that make no sense. I put this down to an extreme deference to authority figures like Sir Topham and the Duke and Duchess.

I used to use the Thomas display at my local Barnes & Noble to illustrate how Capital (Sir Topham Hat) marginalizes Labor (the various Conductor figures) through the use of Technology (Thomas & Friends). I even had a seminar on how Capital exploits Racial Tension (Steam vs. Diesel) for its own benefit.
posted by KingEdRa at 10:58 AM on August 25, 2013 [16 favorites]

once we started to listen to the the lyrics it became clear how propaganda-like the whole thing was. Just jaunty little songs preparing kids for a life as cogs in the great bureaucratic machine.

We are totally clear that Thomas the Tank Engine promotes a terribly imperialistic and class-bound society- no rising above your station, kids!

The funny thing is, this video doesn't even include all the crashes. They left out the time Thomas crashed into the stationmaster's house while he was eating breakfast, and one of them (Henry? Percy? crashed into the barber shop and "had a close shave."
posted by ambrosia at 11:15 AM on August 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

Indict the Fat Controller! Make him pay for his crimes!
posted by jclarkin at 11:16 AM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

ambrosia: They left out the time Thomas crashed into the stationmaster's house while he was eating breakfast, and one of them (Henry? Percy? crashed into the barber shop and "had a close shave."

I think that was Duck. Best part is the fact that the barber and customer didn't even bother to move from their spots as a locomotive came through the wall.
posted by dr_dank at 1:14 PM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

dr_dank:I think that was Duck. Best part is the fact that the barber and customer didn't even bother to move from their spots as a locomotive came through the wall.


I think after living on Sodor your whole life and learning that the whole place was at the mercy of these petty, accident-prone locomotives and their horrible "troublesome" cargo you would probably face your meeting with Duck with a sort of resigned sense of inevitability.
posted by Biblio at 2:18 PM on August 25, 2013 [7 favorites]

Unless a hat is ruined, then people freak the fuck out.
posted by Artw at 2:23 PM on August 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

Indict the Fat Controller! Make him pay for his crimes!


Denounce Sir Topham at every opportunity! Struggle against him!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:39 PM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is great.

Does anybody know of any good behind-the-scenes Thomas documentaries/clips? I'd love to spend some time with the people who put these amazing sets together and work on the pyrotechnics etc.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:05 PM on August 25, 2013

Some of the links here may still be good.
posted by Artw at 3:11 PM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is fantastic. My life as the mother of a two year old boy is wall to wall Thomas at the moment.
posted by Catch at 5:21 PM on August 25, 2013

Ringo Starr makes a heck of a narrator.
posted by buzzman at 5:52 PM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

I do love these little moments when the miniatures guys who do this tame little show get to cut loose.

Then there the fact that we are so accustomed to seeing miniature crashes in "realistic" film that the whole scene seems to be on a different plane of reality.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 6:51 PM on August 25, 2013

David Mitton used to work on Thunderbirds, so he probably liked doing those bits.
posted by Artw at 10:40 PM on August 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think after living on Sodor your whole life and learning that the whole place was at the mercy of these petty, accident-prone locomotives and their horrible "troublesome" cargo you would probably face your meeting with Duck with a sort of resigned sense of inevitability.

Citizens of Sodor rise up! You have nothing to lose but your trains!
posted by KingEdRa at 12:03 AM on August 26, 2013 [5 favorites]

Say what you like about the Fat Controller, but at least he made the trains run on time.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 3:30 AM on August 26, 2013 [4 favorites]

This is as good a place as any to mention my pet theory that Sir Topham Hatt uses Satanic magicks to channel the souls of aborted fetuses into train engines to reduce the cost of labor on Sodor.

Or perhaps it's not...
posted by gern at 3:38 PM on August 26, 2013 [3 favorites]