The Renaissance of the lost deleted scenes and bloopers of the Thomas & Friends model era

Once upon a time, in the early 1980’s, a woman named Britt Allcroft came along with an idea of creating an animated television series based on the Railway Series by Rev. W. Audry, which became the show “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends” (According to the “Behind The Steam: The Making of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends” trailer).

The original idea they had planned (Before Britt Allcroft came along) was to create a 2D version of Thomas with an episode called “Engine of Many Colours.” This was the idea from the “Starlight Express” creator named Andrew Lloyd Webber, who made an agreement with Rev. W. Audry in 1976. But was rejected due to the lack of hours of drawing and painting the engines (according to the beginning of “Thomas & Friends MV Crazy – from Starlight Express” video on YouTube), the same thing that happened to the 1953 pilot “A Sad Story for Henry.”

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Instead they decided to use models. So Thomas got his very own studio in Shepperton.

In 1983, they were about to begin shooting the pilot episode for the first season called “Down the Mine,” but cancelled due to technical difficulties, so later they decided to re-shoot that episode, but little of the pilot footage remained (according to the Thomas The Tank Engine Wiki).

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During the 10th season, Tom Hanks (from the Toy Story movies and The Polar Express) visited Shepperton Studios that time during his time off filming for “The Da Vinci Code” in 2006. He loved Thomas The Tank Engine, and spent most of his time looking at the models and sets (According to the Thomas The Tank Engine Wiki).

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In 2009, the model era of Thomas & Friends ended, because the people at Nitrogen Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia were so successful in adding CGI animation in the 12th season, they decided to take Thomas & Friends to the next generation to keep the show running. After Season 12, this was the end of the model era (according to the Thomas The Tank Engine Wiki).

But then, in 2021, one Thomas fan decided to create an unofficial documentary of the history of the model era. A Youtube creator using the name TomsProps created a trailer for that documentary called “Behind The Steam: The Making of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.”

Then in July 2022, another Thomas fan named ThomasTankMerch found all the rushes/assist tapes from Season 5 (1 from Season 6). These tapes were filled with all of the footage the crew filmed during the fifth season. Some scenes were used for episodes on TV, others were used for Music Videos & Sing Along Songs, but the rest of the other footage remained lost until this year. ThomasTankMerch published them on YouTube for the whole world to see. Sadly, there are no footage tapes from Seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, the rest of Season 6, or 7 found, not even from “Thomas and the Magic Railroad.”

This month, the Thomas & Friends Season 10 Bloopers were finally released to the public. In 2021, TomsProps borrowed some of them from Mattel to use for his unofficial documentary that will be published soon.

The reel has remained private for a long time, but this year, some scenes were screened at an event at the Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham, on November 12th 2022. People have stated that viewers of the reel were charged money, in order to see it.

On November 14th 2022, footage from the screening was leaked by YouTube and Twitter user Thomas Theorist.

When I first watched those tapes on YouTube, I was amazed. So I made tons of projects with this footage. However, it’s a shame that there are no new UNSEEN footage tapes from Seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, the rest of Season 6, or 7 found, not to mention the UNSEEN footage tapes from “Thomas and the Magic Railroad.” I wish that those tapes would also be shown to the world too, so that way I could see all of the scenes that I’ve never seen before. So I had to make some of my own on WeVideo.

Please scroll down to watch my work.