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Comment by twiss | Hacker News Reader

The next episode [1], aired two days later, contains the conclusion of the story, and he gets out of the tunnel. I do agree that 2 days is rather long to leave kids with the conclusion of that first episode though.

The final lines are: "Henry doesn't mind the rain now. He knows that the best way to keep his paint nice is not to run into tunnels, but to ask his driver to rub him down when the day's work is over."

It might be a bit authoritarian, but it can also just be interpreted as "don't run away from your problems, instead, ask for help and you will be helped", which is not such a bad lesson and much better than the usual version, which is just "don't run away from your problems".

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWtNGzGZTCo

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The book concludes the same way, with the train, rusty and dirty, finally being allowed out of the tunnel. The tenor is very much that punishment has rendered him meek and docile -- nothing to do with confronting your problems.

Similarly, there's a story where one of the trains gets off the tracks in order to smell flowers, or play, or something of that sort. The cure is to hide people in the field, who jump out and scare him back onto the track.

Overall, the message of the books is that if you work hard and never question authority, you can avoid punishment. The odd thing about them is that the authority figure (the Fat Controller) is presented as mildly risible.

My brother and I used to laugh / shudder at how much our nephews loved these books. I myself never read them until uncle-hood, when I was well past the age when the mere fact that they were written about trains had any appeal.

> Similarly, there's a story where one of the trains gets off the tracks in order to smell flowers, or play, or something of that sort. The cure is to hide people in the field, who jump out and scare him back onto the track.

There is, but it's nothing to do with The Railway Series (Thomas the Tank Engine doesn't appear in the first book) and is by a different author - you're thinking of Tootle.

Regardless of the story, I find it weird when kids shows split the story across episodes. As an adult I watch series in the right order. As a kid, I didn't know there was any timeline behind the shows. I watched every episode as a separate story, would miss a few, would watch the repeats of what I already saw on different channels, etc. Maybe that doesn't apply to everyone, but I wouldn't expect young kids to connect episodes unless explicitly prompted about it. Was my experience unusual?

It matches my vague recollections. But with today’s kids increasingly using streaming services, both YouTube and the paid kind (e.g. Sesame Street on HBO), it’s probably becoming more common for them to watch a series in order, just like it is for adults.

I watched highly episodic TV shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle, and remember being excited for the next episode. My fiancees nephews watch anime and are super into the story (sometimes annoyingly so :) ) I think it just depends on what you watched.

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