This week we look over Thomas's time on Nick Jr but ask the question, over some
recent brodcast issues with the UK Viacom channel, is he now worth watching here?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I rarely had the chance of seeing
Thomas on Children's ITV when I was little, it was mostly videos for me, and
the occasional news report or TV Advert, but the first time I tuned into Thomas
on TV wasn’t until 1999 when we had Sky Digital, and we had Nick Jr, the
UK Viacom channel that was the first UK Pre-school channel, Thomas had recently
been on Cartoon Network after his ten year time on ITV, which was strange seeing how it wasn't really a
cartoon, but I hardly saw most of the broadcasts there until YouTube came
along, from what I saw most of the original video versions (minus name boards)
were used, but some of the soundtracks from the second series featured an
“echo” soundtrack, as you would find on one or two Thomas videos.
(Series 1 + 4 orignal title into)
Series 1 – 5 were all digitally remasterd (not restored) for Nick Jr as they were from 1997, but
our heads were scratching into why Series 1and 4 was using the original intro for some of their broadcasts,
The times for Thomas on Nick Jr were first 7:30am and 4:00pm
– two good times to both wake up and tune in, and then race home from school to
watch him, even if they were repeats, four episodes would usually show for half an
hour, then Nick Jr changed a few times over, from 12:30pm at lunchtime to 2:30pm in the afternoon, good times for weekend showings.
Thomas was also shown at a rather late, but good 7:00pm time
for Nick Jr’s night-time slot “Noggin” – later renamed Nick Jr Classics, that held some of the best vintage programs, such as Ivor the Engine, Rainbow and Paddington, now no
longer broadcasting, Today Nick Jr now has two channels and both show Thomas, but even so, Thomas is on far too early for any younger audience
to get up unless they set Sky + to record, but even today with from 3:00pm
broadcasts, 6:00am/6:30am in the morning is just too early time for the show, but it’s not
only the times that are wrong for Nick Jr...
In 2004 HiT Entertainment released Series Eight out and
joined up with both PBS and Nick Jr to present some half hour TV episodes, usually
these would either have an interactive segment, song, or a recomposed music story from Series Seven in-between.
By the time Series 9 was broadcasted, HiT took the strange decision
to recompose Series Six, the first time Michael Brandon narrated these episodes
for Series Six instead of Alec Baldwin, but why did Michael Angelis have to
renarrate them to? Like Series Seven was in 2004 couldn’t they have just re-narrated
the soundtrack?
During that time Thomas’s 60th anniversary was
celebrated and according to TV Choice Magazine, a special celebration day was
thrown for Thomas, possibly with back to back episodes, but my family got rid
of kids channels so I didn’t see much of what Thomas doing was after that, i didn't even have the internet in our own home by then, it wasn’t
until 2011 last year when I got Sky + and gained back the Kids channels to catch up what Thomas was doing and showing and
found out a lot had been chopped from recent broadcast years.
Re-narrated stories stopped from Series Ten and there would
be either an extended song or one of two segments, Series Eleven introduced the “Fun
Times” segments and Series Twelve featured the “Thomas' Favourite Friends”
segments.
During his time on Nick Jr, Series Six was presented first before HiT (who had taken over from Gullane) put Thomas back on the tracks of CiTV after his ten year absence, with Series Six and Seven shown either from the 3:15pm/3:30pm time, but by the time Series Eight broadcasted not all 26 episodes were broadcasted, and eventually even with CiTV moving over to its own channel with its own lunchtime preschool slot, Thomas was dropped in 2006
After a while Thomas came to Channel 5’s
Milkshake, Series Nine came first, then Series Eight, (despite it wasn’t brand new when
Milkshake said it was) and by that time, Nick jr went very quiet, S4C in Wales
was also repeating episodes from Series Six and Seven and were unaware at that time
the series continued until they finally gave Welsh broadcastings of Series Thirteen and Fourteen in 2011.
In 2010, aswell as Milkshake, Nick Jr finally started showing the new CGI episodes from
Series Thirteen, they included two episodes and one song in-between (as well as the
Roll Call song) but that was it, on PBS they had longer programs that included
interactive puzzle segments as well as the Down at the Station segments, but
Nick Jr kept it slim, their broadcasts were at least 20 mins leading seven minutes
before the next program, Nick Jr could of included just one segment that would
of made it longer.
The aspect ratio was disappointing as well, in the times of
HD and Widescreen TV, Some of the broadcasts were in 14:9 instead of 16:9
Widescreen and the quality of the episodes didn’t look as good as the
Milkshake/PBS broadcasts, PBS Sprout (who also currently show the classic series) have yet to catch up for Widescreen as
well, hence a rather poor early showing of Day of the Diesels in 2011.
Series Fourteen was broadcasted on Milkshake in the fall of 2010,
but it didn’t reach Nick Jr until the summer of 2011 and it didn’t improve,
some of the new songs were not included as they were featured in the US
Broadcasts.
But during transmission on one of the episodes from that
season “Charlie and Eddie” Nick Jr viewers couldn’t help but notice something
was wrong just two mins into the episode, and you can see it here…
If Nick Jr and
HiT have not noticed this by now they should of fixed it, but also, the Series Nine programs are now also edited, cutting the segments and songs out and just leaving
the episodes, the re-recorded version of Something Fishy was completely out of
sync three mins from the start of it.
And just recently, most of the episodes from the Series Ten broadcast
slots have also been messed up with Segment cuts, leading either to
crossover or out of sync episode narrations.
My last point out concerns episodes missing, now removed
from the Classic Series broadcasts are most of the Christmas Episodes, but
strange enough, so is A Scarf for Percy, and Series 8/11, the Christmas Eps
were not shown around Christmas time the last few years, and knowing some
recent stories in the papers, it’s not surprising, Milkshake on the other hand leave some Christmas Episodes at times to broadcast in December itself.
With series Fifteen and Sixteen awaiting broadcast it certainly may not be
worth the wait for Nick Jr’s viewers, Milkshake already having done them
provide them in much better quality aswell as on Demand, Nick
Jr have a lot to clean up if viewers want to be tuning into Thomas more.
Across the pond, the children's television channel
JimJam does a fair better job presenting Thomas for their younger audiance seeing how its a channel owned and presented by HiT, at good current morning, afternoon and evening slots, two classic series episodes or one full new series episode is pretty much good to fill up one full hour of other programs broadcasting.
http://www.asia.jimjam.tv/timings/timings.html
But the unfortunate thing is that JimJam is not presented in the UK, and i think it would be good for HiT to put this channel here to drive up some competition with Nick Jr, with more chances of seeing classic Thomas at more better times.
In the end, i personally think despite it does take no use
of the classic series, Milkshake is doing the job fine, bringing Thomas at a
good time to wake up, with new episodes first, and at times with special appearances
by The Fat Controller, and provides better quality viewing than Nick Jr.
No matter how
hard they try, even with the Classic Series on their schedules and with new episodes coming in late, Nick Jr needs to
rethink in how they are presenting this particular children’s program.
Now we ask you, what current series is showing in your area weather it be PBS or ABC, and is classic material starting to lack where you are? - Post your comments below.
Credit to Dan5589, Chris and SteamTeam for pictures featured in this post.
