We allow our son limited TV viewing when we change his diaper, and because that happens at various times during the day, we have managed to become familiar with several shows. One of those is Thomas and Friends. Our little guy enjoys the theme song and, because he loves everything that goes, the trains fascinate him. The live action model animation of the older series is very cool, too. However, when our son started to wake up crying and answer our inquiries with “Hum” (his early pronunciation for Thomas), we decided to pay a bit more attention. I know some of you, like so many parents and children, will be huge fans of Thomas and Friends. I am writing this knowing you may not agree, but I have to say that I do not like this show. I have not watched very many episodes (and none in full), but it appears that the plot of each one revolves around someone getting “cross” and displaying an angry facial expression. When I watched it from my son’s perspective, those train faces did look pretty scary. The problems always get resolved, but for little ones who can’t follow the narration, they’re left with the visual images. Perhaps older kids can appreciate it more.
We’ve recently come across a series that is also about trains, but is much more kid-friendly, as far as I’m concerned. Chuggington is a cute computer-animated series about three “trainees” who learn a valuable life lesson in each 10-minute episode. There are no angry faces, so our little guy gets his train fix without the nightmares!