A Tribute to Michael Angelis
In a tribute to the longest serving storyteller of Thomas & Friends, I have three of my VHS tapes featuring dear Michael Angelis. Two of them are in the UK format while one contains the US narration. The first two are titled Escape and Thomas' Christmas Party. Both were narrated by Angelis for the UK and distributed by The Video Collection International (VCI) in the early 1990's. Escape features ten episodes from season 3 with the same storyteller whereas Thomas' Christmas Party includes a total of 18 episodes: two from season 1, nine from season 2, and seven from season 3. The first two seasons were also originally narrated by Ringo Starr.
While Angelis performed his role almost exclusively for the UK, he actually narrated very few episodes for the US as well. So the third tape, New Friends for Thomas, was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2004 and is the only US release starring Angelis. It includes six episodes: four from season 7 and two from season 6. When it comes to narration roles, the UK and the US formats are indeed different from each other, especially with the terminology of certain objects. The best example to consider is the superintendent of the Sodor Railway, Sir Topham Hatt. In the UK, he is regularly called "The Fat Controller" as a nickname. In contrast, he is referred to as his real name to politically avoid rudeness in the American culture. Despite those concerns, "The Fat Controller" can occasionally be heard from sing-along music videos as well as the Character Gallery, which is a special feature present in a lot of Thomas DVD releases, even in the US.
Overall, Michael Angelis did an excellent job storytelling for not only both my UK and US tapes but more importantly for his long 21 years of teaching children meaningful life lessons with Thomas and all his friends on the Island of Sodor.
