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Bulbagarden Conversational Chat Thread Vol.5

Princess Viola said:
79 years ago is a pretty damn long time.
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berylguzmania said:
i thought it used to be called thomas the train engine or something
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Time for me to be autistic and infodump about one of my special interests.

The show was originally called Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends from series 1 in 1984 through series 6 in 2002, starting with series 7 in 2003 and continuing on through the series conclusion after series 24 in 2021, the show title was simplified to just Thomas & Friends.

But the show itself is based on a series of books known as The Railway Series that was published from 1945 until 2011. The books were originally written by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry until 1972 and then his son, Christopher Awdry, from 1983 until 2011. Christopher Awdry is also the reason why this whole franchise even exists as it all originated from his father and mother entertaining him while he was sick with measles in 1942.

To try and not make this a huge infodump, the tl;dr is that young Christopher was really fond of a nursery rhyme about a group of steam locomotives, his father drew a picture based on the rhyme and gave the engines different facial expressions, Christopher asked what the name of a particularly sad-looking engine, his father said the engine was named 'Edward' (the first name to come to mind), and through a series of his son asking questions and him answering them, came up with the story of Edward's Day Out. Then, after wanting more stories, he came up with the stories called Edward and Gordon and The Sad Story of Henry. Eventually, the Rev. W. Awdry decided to write the stories down because his son kept wanting him to tell them the stories, even after he recovered from measles, and didn't want to be inconsistent with how the stories went.

The lore of this franchise is actually surprisingly deep. And I'm not exaggerating either, the Rev. W. Awdry and his brother George Awdry write a whole ass book about the Island of Sodor (the fictional island where the series takes place) that gives detail about its history, geography, industries, etc. in ways that they couldn't do within the confines of children's books. He wanted the world of these stories to feel credible and realistic (putting aside the 'talking locomotives and other vehicles thing'), which is honestly one of the appeals of the franchise to adults - Awdry (and his son) were rail enthusiasts and so many of the stories in these books (and the series of the TV show that adapted the books) are based on things that either did happen or could have happened on a railway somewhere.
 
It's nerdy as hell but one day I would love to be able to go to Wales and see the Awdry Extravaganza at the Talyllyn Railway.

It's only a couple days each year in like July, but still they bring out tons of interesting historical stuff relating to the franchise and Awdry himself. The one this past July had material from the first ever attempt at adapting The Railway Series to TV back in 1953, which was a miserable failure. Talking things like filming schedules, letters written in response to the broadcast, and even an account from someone who actually saw it during its sole broadcast.

And if you're wondering how much of a miserable failure it was: it was broadcast live and, at one point, the model depicting the character of Henry derailed and viewers at home saw the hand of a crewmember coming into frame to put the engine back on the rails.
 
Princess Viola said:
It's nerdy as hell but one day I would love to be able to go to Wales and see the Awdry Extravaganza at the Talyllyn Railway.

It's only a couple days each year in like July, but still they bring out tons of interesting historical stuff relating to the franchise and Awdry himself. The one this past July had material from the first ever attempt at adapting The Railway Series to TV back in 1953, which was a miserable failure. Talking things like filming schedules, letters written in response to the broadcast, and even an account from someone who actually saw it during its sole broadcast.

And if you're wondering how much of a miserable failure it was: it was broadcast live and, at one point, the model depicting the character of Henry derailed and viewers at home saw the hand of a crewmember coming into frame to put the engine back on the rails.
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Upload shenanigans to Youtube when you go. Those wooden Thomas the Train sets would always be so mesmerising at stores when I was young.
 
There's something weirdly amusing about blatantly staged videos of parents smashing their kid's electronics.

It always just goes like:
Parent: Why are you always on that damn phone all the time? I just got an email from school your grades are bad.

Kid: I don't care, leave me alone.

Parent: Your grades are bad, you need to care - get off that damn phone.

Kid: No, I don't wanna.

Parent: That's it, give me the phone.

(Parent grabs phone from kid and then grabs the freaking sledgehammer that they just happen to have lying around in the living room - very realistic and normal thing to have in the living room btw - and smashes the phone with the sledgehammer)

Kid: What the hell, that was my phone!

Parent: Well that's what you get for having bad grades.

They're just so ridiculous.
 
Princess Viola said:
There's something weirdly amusing about blatantly staged videos of parents smashing their kid's electronics.

It always just goes like:
Parent: Why are you always on that damn phone all the time? I just got an email from school your grades are bad.

Kid: I don't care, leave me alone.

Parent: Your grades are bad, you need to care - get off that damn phone.

Kid: No, I don't wanna.

Parent: That's it, give me the phone.

(Parent grabs phone from kid and then grabs the freaking sledgehammer that they just happen to have lying around in the living room - very realistic and normal thing to have in the living room btw - and smashes the phone with the sledgehammer)

Kid: What the hell, that was my phone!

Parent: Well that's what you get for having bad grades.

They're just so ridiculous.
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Art imitates life. That's the most American thing I've read in a long time. Then boomers wonder why their children hate them and try to adopt me as their unofficial child.

Sir, with all due respect if you had raised me I’d probably be an edgelord too.
 
Hmmmm..... Is it even safe? Like, smashing electronics.... It seems very unsafe to me, and I don't even know what's in batteries and like. Just the glass and metal pieces alone are probably dangerous...
 
if you smash it hard enough, the glass is definitely dangerous (which is to say nothing of the hazardous fluid found in batteries, but that requires one to smash even HARDER). but usually people just hit it with enough force to simply render it unusable without... how do i word this. desecrating its electronic corpse.
except for those videos that try making it as showy as possible for clicks, yeah. but those people tend not to have much regard for their own safety anyway.

my sister and i have both broken our phones before, but neither of those incidents had anything to do with dropping it or getting it smashed...
 
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