In episode 10 of the BBC Two sketch comedy series, titled "Prince Not So Charming", a Thomas & Friends parody called "Thomas the Tank" was used. Instead of using railway locomotives, army tanks were used for Thomas and James, who in this sketch is camouflage green and the Fat Controller is called 'The Fat General'. The narrator also gave off a brief joke about Ringo Starr, mentioning he was in a band once while drum sounds play, despite being animated like the rest of the show, the scenes are not animated especially in the mouths possibly based on how the original series did so.
In the episode, "Melty's Girl" taken from the KaBlam! episode "Great for Paper Training", when Meltman causes the Action Mobile to drive into a bookshelf and get crushed by a bowling ball, a Thomas & Friends Thomas pillow can be seen.
In the episode, "Toy Whorey", a red tank engine called 'Train' vaguely resembling Thomas is one of the many toys in Steve Smith's toy collection. In the fantasy, he has a blue face but later when Train attacks Stan Smith with fireworks, he is seen with a grey face like the actual Thomas.
In the episode "Echoes", when Raymond brags about his winnings to Steve from the various Bazooka Sharks games he's been betting on he declares himself "Rich as Sir Topham Hatt!"
In the episode, "Mr. X", a movie poster for a film called "Trains with Faces" can be seen when Anne and the Plantars are in the cinema, setting a callback to the series' status quo. (YouTube)
In the episode "Hunger Cramps on the Playing Field of Friendship", the Choo-Choo Chums are introduced as a close-knit team competing in The Game. The members are a parody of Thomas & Friends, with their leader, Choo-Choo Champ, resembling Thomas.
In the episode, "Photo Op", Tilly hijacks a train resembling Thomas in an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the family portrait studio and hide out in the mall food court.
In the episode, "Green Christmas", in one of the shop windows there is a toy train that resembles Thomas, albeit painted black with a gold smokebox, red wheels and a cowcatcher. (YouTube)[note 1]
In the episode, "Steve the Virgin", Coach Steve's sexual fantasy sequence has him imagining himself as Thomas trying to control himself on the rails. During that scene, a bunch of tiny men resembling Bob the Builder appear out of his mouth.
In the special Scramber to the Rescue, a toy train with an engine resembling The Railway SeriesThomas or Edward can be seen in the toy factory. It also uses the Thomas & Friends Thomas' whistle sound effect and the coaches are painted like the Green Express Coaches from Thomas & Friends. The face used was taken from an illustration by Clive Spong in The Railway Series.
In the episode, "From Bed to Worse", Rallo wants his mother Donna to read him a Thomas the Tank Engine book. However, due to her missing Cleveland, she does not read the book to him.
In the episode, "Brown History Month", a cutaway portrays a parody of Thomas known as Uncle Thomas the Tank Engine, which is also a reference to the phrase 'Uncle Tom', a black person subservient to white people derived from the main character in the book Uncle Tom's Cabin. The cutaway has Uncle Thomas, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, agreeing with Sir Topham Hatt, voiced by guest star Roger Rees, who calls him a "clean articulate train", only to insult him when he thinks he is not paying attention. When Topham asks him what he said, Uncle Thomas responds with "Choo Choo!" Uncle Thomas is coloured red with yellow stripes and the number 13 on his sides, a blue bufferbeam and a black dome and dark purplish-grey wheels as well as a yellow face, while Sir Topham Hatt has a blue waistcoat as part of his suit as opposed to the yellow and instead of being completely bald he has some hair on the sides of his head.
In the Australian television series, Comedy Inc., Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends was parodied as Ernest the Engine & Others featuring Ernest the Engine Car, Stevie the Steam Train and Gail the Guard's Compartment. The Fat Controller was also mentioned in some sketches, referred to as either 'The Big Controller' or 'The Overweight Controller'.
In the episode "The Lemon-AIDS Walk", Thomas is portrayed as a member of the Original Cast of Drawn Together, along with parodies of a monster from Where the Wild Things Are, Stimpy from Ren and Stimpy, the Hamburger Helper glove mascot, a robot from Transformers (possibly a parody of Optimus Prime) and a Political Cartoon pig as they play and win a game of Badminton against the current cast, due to Captain Hero being bad at athletics and win a pound of ground beef and a quarter cup of water (mostly for Hamburger Helper). Thomas' design is more boxy and more like an American steam engine design and runs on the ground instead of on rails for the parody.
In the episode, "The Birthday Bootlegger", During a conversation with his stuffed teddy bear, Rupert, Stewie mentions that he wants to introduce to him to a new friend named āThomas the Shank Engine", in detention.
In the episode, "Brief Encounter", a wooden toy resembling Thomas appears under Doug's bed. It seems to be specifically based on Thomas' Wooden Railway model, judging by its shape.
In the episode "C.H.E.R.U.B.", a red tender engine with blue wheels resembling James appears coming out of a tunnel running over and killing a person standing on the tracks. (YouTube)
In the episode, "The Troll Circle", an engine intentionally designed to resemble the Thomas & FriendsEdward can be spotted in a train yard when Hilda and Twig are chasing after a Walking Land Creature.[1]
In the episode, "Sleep Talking", the gang try to get Marii to fall asleep to experience the fortunate events that seems to happen when she does. One of her dreams features Japanese Thomas & Friends narrator Leo Morimoto as Thomas.
In the episode "The Student Council Has Not Achieved Nirvana", in a fantasy sequence while arguing over what stage in their relationship Tsubasa and Nagisa have reached, some of the Student Council members briefly appear as locomotives, with Ishigami being Thomas, There is a goof where Ishigami has a different arrangement of wheels despite Thomas having six. Interestingly, this scene is anime-original and is framed within the real world in the original manga chapter this segment of the episode is based on.
In the episode "We're Off! Land of Suspension Bridges", a portrait of a promotional render of Thomas from the thirteenth series can be seen hung on a wall during a scene at the Åigawa Railway. In another scene on the railway, their replica of Hiro (converted from JNR Class 9600 No. 49616) is visible on a siding.
The sketch starts off with the narrator introducing the Island of Sodor. Sir Topham Hatt (voiced by Keith Ferguson) gives Thomas (voiced by Kevin Shinick) a tune-up. However, before he can put Thomas' brakes back on, Thomas starts rolling and he cannot stop. Sir Topham Hatt then informs Frank Barnes (voiced by Chris Cox) from the Unstoppable film about Thomas. Barnes tells Harold the Helicopter (voiced by Kevin Shinick) to shoot at Thomas, to which Harold disagrees, as Thomas is his friend, with Barnes telling him that Thomas "is about to crash headfirst into a nearby town". Barnes asks Sir Topham Hatt what Thomas' cargo is, with Sir Topham Hatt revealing that he is carrying "pillows, soft cheeses, a nuclear bomb..." Barnes then sets out to stop Thomas. Thomas accidentally runs over Lightning McQueen (voiced by Keith Ferguson) and Mater (voiced by Kevin Shinick) from the film Cars and Barnes gets partnered up with Percy (voiced by Kevin Shinick), which he does not like but Sir Topham Hatt insists they work together. While Thomas needs help, Harold shoots at him to help Thomas stop and apologises by saying "I have propellers to feed". Barnes and Percy are nearby and they stop Thomas just in time. Thomas is relieved, saying that "If you hadn't stopped me, I would have crushed the little town of Strawberry Shortcake!" to which Barnes pushes Thomas and causes him to run over the town.
Thomas and Percy have yellow bufferbeams rather than red bufferbeams and have heads instead of faces attached to their smokeboxes. Additionally, Percy is also portrayed as rather unintelligent.
Thomas and Percy are edited from a downloadable model of Thomas, from TurboSquid based of Thomas' Hornby model.
The episode "Runaway Train" revolves around Peanut and Pickle helping McSweats act like his childhood idol, Li'l Chugger the Face Train, with a motorised train costume. Li'l Chugger himself is depicted as a physical model resembling the ones used throughout the series, complete with alternative faces. Li'l Chugger is a reference to Thomas in the model series of Thomas & Friends.
In the episode of the 2006 Toon Disney/Jetix series titled: The Choo Choo Trouble the train that is used in the episode has a face. though not akin to the Thomas series. Santa (who is a regular in the series), however is dressed like The Fat Controller as he tells the train not to go too fast to the Valley of the Seven Soos. But because of Pucca trying to help Garu get to the destination on time the train does go at a fast pace and near the end Santa scolds the engine for going too fast, the engine subsequently shoots steam all over him.
In the episode, "Hemlock, Gin and Juice", there is a Thomas & Friends sketch called "Blow Some Steam" (also known as "Thomas the Tank Engine gets hijacked").
In the sketch, a narrator (Seth Green) claims that Thomas the Tank Engine is huffing and puffing. Thomas (voiced by Daniel Radcliffe, who is best known for playing Harry Potter, the protagonist of the famous British literature franchise of the same name) realises that he is not going to the Whistling Woods as he originally thought. It is then shown that he is being hijacked by a criminal (voiced by Keith David) who demands $100,000,000 from the Mayor of Sodor or else he will drive Thomas and a bundle of dynamite into Knapford Station.
The mayor's assistant (voiced by Matthew Senreich) then informs the Mayor of Sodor about this and the mayor (voiced by Seth Green) tells him to get him Sir Topham Hatt. The mayor is then shown to have Rosie (voiced by Laura Ortiz) behind his desk, who he tells to come back later. Sir Topham Hatt (voiced by Quinton Flynn) is entrusted with Percy (voiced by Breckin Meyer) and James (voiced by Seth Green) to stop the criminal.
After eight hours, Percy catches up with Thomas, which leads to Sir Topham Hatt jumping over into Thomas' cab. Percy derails and explodes due to a penny on the track. In Thomas' cab, the criminal attempts to hit Sir Topham Hatt with his axe, which leads to him hurting Thomas' "internal organs". The criminal hits Sir Topham Hatt, which leads to leads to him accidentally switching a lever on Thomas, which makes him move faster. The criminal eventually brings in Harold the Helicopter (voiced by Seth Green) to help him, who says he is doing so because he is "tired of taking a backseat to a bunch of steam trains". This leads to Harold chasing Thomas into a tunnel, only for his rotors to hit the side of the tunnel, causing him to crash. Thomas then hits a sign and he says "What cruel god would give a train a face?" Thomas then jumps over a cliff and grips onto a piece of the bent rail from the other side with his mouth. The criminal asks Topham to save him from falling, promising to turn himself in. However, Topham tells him "end of the line" before kicking the criminal to his death.
The mayor then congratulates Sir Topham Hatt and thanks everyone that Knapford Station is safe. The mayor asks Topham how he disposed of the dynamite and he realises that he forgot to do so. Thomas, James, Annie and Clarabel are subsequently killed in the explosion, with the narrator stating that with no more public transportation, everyone on Sodor bought a Hummer. Rosie then pops out and says "I've got a lot of work to do. Toot toot!". (YouTube)
The original BachmannThomas & Friends models of Thomas, Percy, James, Harold, Annie and Clarabel are used in this sketch along with a Thomas & FriendsTrackMaster Rosie and two trucks.
In the episode, "We Don't See Much of That in 1940s America", the Thomas & Friends Thomas is featured in a parody of the 2016 film The Girl on the Train which was based on British author Paula Hawkins' popular 2015 debut novel of the same name. In the sketch, Scott Hipwell (voiced by Luke Evans) and his wife Megan (voiced by Milla Jovovich) are up on a balcony, when Scott claims something is "creepy". Megan assumes that he is referring to how his neighbour's ex-wife Rachel Watson spies on them everyday, which then cuts to showing her spying on them. However, Scott tells her that he is referring to "that freakin' thing!", which turns out to be Thomas (voiced by Seth Green) who says "Don't mind me" and then he makes faces at them and laughs.
The Thomas model used in this sketch is the original Lionel TrainsThomas & Friends G-Scale Thomas with repaints of Annie and Clarabel.
In a deleted scene from the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail", Lisa reads Maggie a "Thomas-like book" titled Monroe the Monorail.[2]
In the episode "Postcards from the Wedge", Bart refers to the abandoned Springfield Subway as being "like a Thomas the Tank Engine, we can go inside", with Milhouse adding that it has "no Sir Topham Hatt to tell us what we can and can't do".
In the episode "Hardly Kirk-ing", Milhouse spends the day impersonating his father, Kirk. At one point, a condo salesperson asks him "Just looking for a casual hook-up?", Milhouse responds to her with "Yeah, for my Thomas the Tank Engines".
In the episode, "Bull-E", a tank engine parodying the Thomas & Friends Thomas - complete with an unmoving mouth akin to the first eleven series and a Ringo Starr voice impression - appears in Otto's hallucinations before being run over and lifted into a crusher by a crane resembling Rocky. This engine appears in further episodes as a model train and as a costume at a party alongside Annie and Clarabel lookalikes.
In the episode, "Treehouse of Horror XXXI", during the "You Are a Rotten Kid" song in the segment "Toy Gory", one of the toys that Bart destroys is a train set similar to Thomas (with a letter T on its side), which he blows up with dynamite.
In the episode "Three Dreams Denied", three people dressed up as Thomas character lookalikes can be seen at one point. A man dressed as a train conductor can also be seen taking a photo of them on his mobile phone.
