Country of origin United Kingdom Original network ITV | No. of episodes 26 | |
Original release 25 February (1992-02-25) –
14 July 1992 (1992-07-14) | ||
Thomas & Friends (previously known as Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) is a children's television series about the engines and other characters working on the railways of the Island of Sodor, and is based on The Railway Series books written by the Rev. W. Awdry.
Contents
This article lists and details episodes from the third series of the show, which was first broadcast for the U.S. in 1991 as part of Shining Time Station, and followed a year later for the U.K. This series was narrated by Michael Angelis for the U.K. audiences, while George Carlin narrated the episodes for the U.S. audiences.
Some episodes in this series have two titles: the original titles from the U.K. broadcasts are shown on top, while the American-adapted titles are shown underneath.
Filming
Series 3 was produced in 1991 and 1992 by The Britt Allcroft Company in association with Japanese television station Fuji Television. It was divided into two parts, one part having 16 episodes and the other having 10. Sixteen episodes aired in the United States in 1991 as part of Shining Time Station, and the last ten episodes aired on the same program in 1993. The entire series aired in 1992 in the United Kingdom. It was made at a cost of £1.3 million (approximately $9.3 million in U.S. dollars). Before production of series 3, Clearwater Features closed down, with The Britt Allcroft Company becoming the sole producer. Producer Robert D. Cardona left before series 3, and Britt Allcroft took his place as co-producer alongside David Mitton. According to Robert Gauld-Galliers, "Gordon Goes Foreign" was originally planned to be filmed into an episode, but it wasn't because of high budgets.
Stories
The series was a combination of episodes derived from The Railway Series, stories in the Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends magazine (written by the series' current head writer, Andrew Brenner), and a couple of original stories by Allcroft and Mitton. One of the primary reasons for diverging from the original books was that many of the stories not yet used featured large numbers of new characters, which would be expensive to produce. Another was that the producers wanted more stories about Thomas, the nominal main character. Awdry worried that the new stories would be unrealistic (see Henry the Green Engine for more details).