On Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver dove deep into the topics of freight trains and how the decades of deregulation have led to several high-profile derailments. While discussing the topic, Oliver couldn’t resist a cheeky dig at the beloved children’s cartoon Thomas the Tank Engine.
However, Oliver didn’t want to talk about the brighter, more cheery episodes of the past few years. No, he wanted to discuss the deranged British version narrated by Ringo Starr, “which is much darker.”
“Take this episode, in which Henry the green engine gets frightened of the rain, and won’t come out of a tunnel,” Oliver said while teeing a clip. “Everyone begs him, and then yells at him. Thomas even tries to physically push him out. And then, finally, the head of the railway steps in with a drastic solution.”
“We shall take away your rails,” Sir Topham Hat says to Henry, “And leave you here for always and always and always.” Then Ringo narrated, “They took up the old rails and built a wall in front of him so that Henry couldn’t get out of the tunnel anymore.”
Via Deadline:
Yeah, the British version of Thomas didn’t f*ck around. An episode whose premise is “stop complaining about work or we’ll throw you in your forever hole” has gotta be one of the most disturbing episodes of children’s TV ever, right up there with the episode of Blue’s Clues where Blue reveals herself to be the Zodiac Killer.
In a brilliant casting coup, Oliver dropped his own Thomas parody narrated by What We Do in the Shadows star Matt Berry that teaches children about the dangers of America’s wildly deregulated freight system.
You can watch Oliver give Thomas the Tank Engine his comeuppance at the top of the episode below, and then jump ahead to the 23:00 mark where Berry narrates a very special episode of Thomas:
(Via Deadline)