The Classic Adventures of Thomas & Friends-Series 1 (1984)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Main Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1984
Running Time	144:18 (Case: 133)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	David Mitton
Studio Distributor	Hit Entertainment Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Ringo Starr
Case	Handle
RPI	$19.95	Music	Mike O'Donnell Junior Campbell

    Title of Show : Thomas & Friends

    Title of Disc : The Classic Adventures of Thomas & Friends - Series One

    Year of Production : 1984

    Country of origin : UK

    What's included? : The complete first production season of 26 episodes which makes for an excellent value disc.

    Episode Length : About 5 and a half minutes.

    Details of episodes : This disc contains the entire first production series of Thomas & Friends, made in 1984 and narrated by Ringo Starr. Some of these have previously been released on other DVDs but many have not. These are the classic stories, mostly based directly on stories written by Rev W Awdry. The episodes included are:

1. Thomas & Gordon
2. Edward & Gordon
3. The Sad Story of Henry
4. Edward, Gordon & Henry
5. Thomas' Train
6. Thomas and the Trucks
7. Thomas and the Breakdown Train
8. James and the Coaches
9. Troublesome Trucks
10. James and the Express
11. Thomas and the Guard
12. Thomas Goes Fishing
13. Thomas, Terence and the Snow
14. Thomas and Bertie
15. Tenders and Turntables
16. Trouble in the Shed
17. Percy Runs Away
18. Coal
19. The Flying Kipper
20. Whistles and Sneezes
21. Toby and the Stout Gentleman
22. Thomas in Trouble
23. Dirty Objects
24. Off The Rails
25. Down the Mine
26. Thomas' Christmas Party

    Style of Production : Models

    Premise of show : One of the best children's shows ever, especially for boys. A group of engines both steam & diesel work on the railways of the Island of Sodor having mild adventures and trying to be really useful. The long term engines are the most famous including Thomas, Henry, Edward, Gordon, James & Percy. This original series includes the debut episodes of many characters such as James & Percy.

    Age Group : 2-10

    Related to any other children's shows? : Not really, although many other shows have adopted a similar concept such as Busy Buses.

    Adult's view : Great children's television. Likeable characters, good stories, messages which are not beaten over your head. These are the classic episodes before the series became more Americanised.

    Child's view : These episodes have all of the classic characters the kids love, without the potentially scary bits included in later episodes. Simply the best.

    Other Releases of this show available? : There are numerous releases of Thomas available including a 60th anniversary box set.

    Overall : Highly Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is as good as you could expect for 20+ year old children's television.

    The feature is presented in a 1.29:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was not overly sharp but no worse than you would expect. There was no evidence of low level noise. Grain was present throughout. Shadow detail was poor.

    The colour was OK but nothing special being a bit dull generally and including colour artefacts such as chroma noise and bleeding.

    Artefacts included some splodges here and there, mild aliasing on railway tracks and some walls and tape tracking errors.

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired which are easy to read but slightly summarised.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is fine.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The music by Mike O'Donnell & Junior Campbell is fun and catchy as usual with Thomas.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    None, but considering the number of episodes included this is not a big issue.

Menu

    The menu included a short intro, the theme tune and allowed for choosing episodes or subtitles.

    I cannot find any evidence of this disc being available in Region 1.

    The video quality is as good as you could expect.

    The audio quality is fine.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall