According to British media reports, Britt Allcroft, the creator of the world-renowned animation series "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends", died at the end of 2024 at the age of 81. On January 3rd local time, Allcroft's daughter confirmed the news to the New York Times, revealing that her mother died peacefully at home in Los Angeles on December 25, 2024.
"Thomas & Friends" features the naughty and cute engine Thomas as its protagonist. Since it was first made into a TV animation in 1984, it has spawned more than twenty seasons of TV series and several animated films. It enjoys a supreme status in the hearts of young audiences around the world, and all kinds of licensed toys and co-branded products related to it have long been sold all over the world.
In 1984, Thomas and Friends was very popular among young audiences as soon as it was broadcast.
Tracing back to its origin, it was originally a collection of fairy tales published by the Englishman Wilbert Awdry in the 1940s. His original intention in creating these locomotive friends was actually to help his son, who was suffering from measles at the time, to relax. In May 1945, this picture book named "The Railway Series" was officially published and quickly won great popularity, which also made the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) start planning to bring it to the screen very early. However, for various reasons, this attempt did not really bear fruit until 1984, and the first hero behind it was Britt Allcroft.
Young Britt Allcroft (back left) with director David Mitton (back right) and original picture book author Wilbert Awdry
Born on December 14, 1943 in Worthing, a coastal city in southern England, Allcroft joined the BBC at the age of 19 and has accumulated rich experience in TV and radio dramas. In August 1979, when she was making a TV documentary about old British steam trains, she first came into contact with the picture book "Train Stories" for the purpose of collecting materials. "I was quickly attracted by the characters in the book, the relationships between them, and the nostalgia they evoked." In a later interview, she recalled, "I think there are many things in these stories that can resonate with children. Although it tells the story of a train, I see a strong emotional connotation in it, which is very similar to the life experience of children."
In 1980, she founded a television production company named after herself and bought the rights to remake "The Train Story" for 50,000 pounds. After that, she personally served as the screenwriter and producer, and teamed up with animation director David Mitton to shoot the first season of "Thomas and Friends", a total of 26 episodes. On October 9, 1984, the show was officially launched on ITV in the UK and immediately won the love of young audiences. The videotapes released soon after were also very popular. The success of the series is inseparable from Britt Allcroft's keen eye for talent. Moreover, in order to raise enough funds for filming, she also took out a second mortgage on her house, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a desperate move.
Ringo Starr was the first narrator of Thomas & Friends
In addition, Brett Allcroft specially selected Ringo Starr, a member of the Beatles, to narrate the play, which became a major selling point of Thomas & Friends. Later, Hollywood actors such as Alec Baldwin and Pierce Brosnan also joined the show and were responsible for the narration.
In the summer of 2000, the first movie in the series, "Thomas and the Magic Railroad", was released. Allcroft personally served as director, screenwriter and producer. However, the film failed to achieve ideal box office results worldwide and ended up losing money, which also led to Allcroft's resignation and leaving the production company he founded. According to media comments, it has been nearly 20 years since the birth of the "Thomas and Friends" animated TV series. The new generation of young audiences have fallen in love with spectacular movies that pay more attention to visual effects, and are no longer very interested in the relatively old-fashioned "Thomas and Friends".
In the years that followed, new episodes of Thomas & Friends continued to be released, but they no longer had any relationship with the original crew, including Britt Allcroft and David Mitton. In 2023, a documentary director obsessed with the series, Brannon Carty, shot a documentary called The Unlikely Fandom specifically for Thomas & Friends, which recorded the love of many "Thomas" fans around the world for this work and the creator Britt Allcroft, and also let more audiences know about the artistic life of the "Mother of Thomas the Tank Engine".