| For other uses, see Thomas, Percy and the Coal (disambiguation). |
| For other uses, see Double Trouble (disambiguation). |
- "In future, we'll both be more careful of coal."
- ― Thomas
Thomas, Percy and the Coal, retitled Double Trouble on North American releases, is the first episode of the second series. It is based on the story of the same name from The Railway Series book More About Thomas the Tank Engine.
Plot
One beautiful morning on Sodor, Thomas is puffing happily along his branch line with Annie and Clarabel and arrives at Elsbridge Station. After Percy compliments Thomas on his paintwork, he brags to Percy and Toby that blue paint is the only proper colour for an engine. When they tell him they like their own colours, Thomas huffily retorts that blue is the only colour for a Really Useful Engine and puffs away.
Later, Thomas is resting by the coal hopper when Percy arrives to fill up some trucks with coal. Thomas warns Percy of the trucks' antics and a set of unsafe buffers at the end of the siding behind him. The trucks push Percy into the siding, causing a large pile of coal to fall on Thomas and cover his paintwork in coal dust. Percy is worried but cannot help laughing as Thomas becomes filthy. Thomas is very cross and blames Percy for the incident. After Thomas is pulled out of the coal pile, it takes so long to clean him that he is unable to take his next train, leaving Toby to take Annie and Clarabel instead. Both coaches feel sorry for Thomas.
That night in the sheds, Thomas is finally clean and is grumpy, accusing Percy of dirtying his paintwork on purpose. The feeling is mutual as Percy is cross with Thomas for believing so and insults him in turn, leaving them both bitter with each other for the rest of the night, while only Toby thinks the incident is a great joke.
"Now, Percy has learned his lesson too."
The next day, Thomas is feeling more cheerful while watching Percy bring some heavily-loaded trucks from the junction. Percy feels tired and thirsty, so he goes to a siding where the water tower is. However, the siding has unsafe buffers and Percy finds that he cannot stop, crashing through the buffers and landing wheel-deep in coal. Thomas has seen everything and leaves, while a humiliated Percy lays in the coal.
That night, after Percy has been rescued and cleaned up, he and Thomas apologise to each other for what happened and promise to be more careful with coal in the future.
Characters
- Thomas
- Percy
- Toby
- Annie
- Troublesome Trucks
- Clarabel (does not speak)
- Sir Topham Hatt (does not speak)
Locations
- The Branch Line Bridge
- The Branch Line Cutting
- Elsbridge
- Tidmouth
- The Watermill (deleted scene)
Trivia
- This episode marks the first occurrences of several things:
- The first episode adapted from a story written by Christopher Awdry.
- The first appearance of a truck to use a face made of a resin cast.
- The first episode filmed at Shepperton Studios.
- The first episode to feature longer and Red Express Coaches, Cattle Trucks, LBSCR 8 Ton Vans, LNER 12 Ton Vans and an SR 25 Ton Brake Van.
- The first appearances of Tidmouth Station and Yard, Tidmouth Yards Sheds, the Tidmouth Stationmaster's House, the Branch Line Bridge, the Branch Line Cutting, the Carriage Shed and Elsbridge Engine Sheds in the television series.
- The first episode where Thomas' front and rear brake pipes become smaller and where the colour of the supports under his whistle change from blue to gold.
- The first episode where Toby's bell has a new ring sound and pitch to it, which would carry on for the rest of the series and in the third series.
- The first appearances of Percy's cross, happy and upset faces.
- The first appearance of Thomas' laughing and horrified faces, along with a darker coloured happy face.
- The first appearance of Toby's laughing face.
- The first episode to kick off a repeat series of fifteen episodes from the second series in 1991.
- The first time Thomas and Percy get dirty.
- The first episode video edited by Kang Hyun-gi for JEI TV in South Korea.
- In the original story and the UK version, when the coal engulfs Thomas, he shouts, "Help, I'm choking!" However, in both US narrations, he shouts "Help!" twice. This alteration was most likely made out of concern that the concept of choking would distress younger viewers. Despite this, all dubs contain the line "'I'm not disgraceful!' choked Thomas."
- In the restored version:
- The shot of Percy laughing at Thomas' misfortune is a different take compared to the original version.
- Thomas' eyes move when the scene fades to him being cleaned.
- When the narrator says, "It took so long to clean Thomas, that he wasn't in time for his next train," a first series-style truck is seen.
- In later versions of this episode, Christopher Awdry is not listed in the credits.
- This episode was filmed after Thomas Comes to Breakfast, as the hole in the Stationmaster's house can be seen in the shot of "Percy was worried but he couldn't help laughing."
- In the Nick Jr. airing of the Shining Time Station episode Win, Lose or Draw, the scenes of Thomas being cleaned and Toby taking Annie and Clarabel were cut out to make time for advertisements.
- The beginning of the Latin American Spanish dub seen on TV airings and Netflix features a brief clip of Thomas passing the Watermill from the third series episode, Percy's Promise for unclear reasons. The Latin American Thomas Comes to Breakfast DVD, however, uses the standard opening to the episode.
- In a promotional image, Thomas has his original smiling face and he is also still at his same position with Percy covered in coal dust, which could explain why Percy is shown like that after Thomas said, "Now, Percy has learned his lesson too."
- If Tidmouth Town Hall is looked up on Google Earth, an image from this episode from where Thomas laughs at Percy for falling into the coal is shown.
- In both US narrations and the international ones (excluding the Ukrainian voice-over), Thomas' whistle is absent as is Percy's when he backs into Tidmouth Station, while Toby's bell ringing is absent from Ringo Starr's US dub and the Welsh and Japanese ones.
- This was the first episode that Matthew Kelly introduced for the second series in a double bill with Cows on 24 September 1986. From there, he would introduce the entire second series until Woolly Bear and Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree on 17 December 1986.
Goofs
- Throughout the episode of the restored version, the footage is framed higher than on the original print, making studio equipment visible in the top corner when Toby pulls Annie and Clarabel and at the top of the screen during a close-up of the buffers and the water tower.
- In the scene where Thomas meets Percy and Toby at Elsbridge, his dome and whistle appear to be severely bent.
- Thomas and Percy's eyes are misaligned in several scenes.
- In Ringo Starr's US narration featured on the Thomas Breaks the Rules VHS, the A Cow on the Line read-along audio cassette/CD and the Japanese dub, Percy's whistle as he arrives at the hopper and the coal chute sound effects are absent. However, these sound effects are present in the Shining Time Station episode Finders Keepers.
- Percy is smiling when he is pushed through the buffers by the trucks and the biffing sound also does not play at the exact time he hits them.
- In a close-up of Thomas covered in coal at the coal hopper, the hopper shakes and his face is very dirty while the side shots show him clean.
- In the panning shot of Thomas being cleaned, a shadow can be seen moving at the back of the shed behind Thomas, possibly that of a crew member and his face is also tilted.
- When Toby backs up to Annie and Clarabel, his face is slightly loose and blu-tack is also sticking out from the side of his face. In addition to that, Clarabel is also facing the opposite direction and her roof is not attached properly when Toby pulls them away.
- At Tidmouth:
- A red express coach is amongst the trucks to the left of the screen but, after that, there are only trucks in that siding.
- A wall is at the side of Tidmouth Station that is not seen in other episodes.
- Thomas is also on the middle track with no platform for passengers to get on.
- Blu-tack can be seen holding up the buffers before Percy crashes into it.
- Both sets of buffers Percy gets pushed through are referred to as the same, even though they are not.
- When Percy crashes through the buffers:
- He is not covered in coal dust but when Thomas puffs past, he is.
- His face does not appear to be on correctly, which reveals a piece of Blu-tack and steam is also venting out of his face.
- At the end of the episode, Percy's eyebrow is peeling away.
- When this episode was originally released on the Thomas Comes to Breakfast 1998 VHS in Canada, it had no narration and only included the music and sound effects. This was later corrected on the 2000 VHS tape release in Canada.
- The Starz release of Thomas Comes to Breakfast and Other Thomas Adventures mistitles this episode as Double Take.
In Other Languages
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Merchandise
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Home Video Releases
Episode
UK narration
US narration (George Carlin)References
| #01 Thomas, Percy and the Coal | #10 The Runaway | #19 Daisy |
| #02 Cows | #11 Percy Takes the Plunge | #20 Percy's Predicament |
| #03 Bertie's Chase | #12 Pop Goes the Diesel | #21 The Diseasel |
| #04 Saved from Scrap | #13 Dirty Work | #22 Wrong Road |
| #05 Old Iron | #14 A Close Shave | #23 Edward's Exploit |
| #06 Thomas and Trevor | #15 Better Late than Never | #24 Ghost Train |
| #07 Percy and the Signal | #16 Break Van | #25 Woolly Bear |
| #08 Duck Takes Charge | #17 The Deputation | #26 Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree |
| #09 Percy and Harold | #18 Thomas Comes to Breakfast | Cancelled: Hullo Twins |
| Cancelled: Gordon Goes Foreign | Cancelled: Drip Tank | |