The Music of Thomas & Friends
Hello Thomas fans,
We’ve already discussed the narrations of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, especially from Ringo Starr and Michael Angelis. In continuing to commemorate the franchise’s 75th anniversary celebration, let’s talk about the music composed for this TV show. In fact, I am currently studying popular music in college, which inspires me to write this blog post. When Thomas & Friends was first created in the 1980’s, the original theme music was composed by Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell. Initially, they used a Roland Jupiter 6 synthesizer to score the music for the episodes of series 1 and 2, which were originally produced by Clearwater Features.
When Clearwater was defunct by the early 1990’s, the Britt Allcroft Company became the sole producer of the TV show, which then underwent many significant changes over the first two seasons. The same thing is true for the music, even though O'Donnell and Campbell continued their careers for almost two decades. When series 3 was debuting on television, a new EM-U Proteus 2 synthesizer was used to create a more modern 1990’s-style music score. The older 1980’s-era Jupiter music recycled from Clearwater was sometimes mixed with the newer Proteus music and can be heard in several series 3 episodes as well as a single episode from series 4. Additionally, season 3 was the first to introduce a sing-along music video by the same two composers. At first, only one song was introduced for this season (the only other song was for Japan), but season 4 would become the first to release more than one music video in the English language.
For the next three series, additional electronic instruments were used by Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell, including Proteus 2000 and Proteus 3 (to name a few). Series 7 is considered to be the last season for David Mitton as director, the 35mm camera filming, and especially the two original composers. Following the purchase of Thomas & Friends by HiT Entertainment, series 8 essentially had many enhancements over the first seven seasons. Stephen Asquith became director and Robert Hartshorne became a new musician to score the music for the episodes. Another composer was Ed Welch, who was responsible for writing new song videos as well as a new theme music that made up a more modern format for the TV show. While season 7 did have original music for the UK, all of its episodes were redubbed with the newer music by Hartshorne for the US. However, I have two US VHS releases that include some seventh season episodes containing the older music: New Friends for Thomas and Thomas and the Jet Engine. The latter is the only case where that soundtrack is mixed with the narration by Michael Brandon.
Within the classic model era, the new music by Robert Hartshorne became the standard soundtrack for series 8 through 11. Outside of the regular production seasons is a 13-episode spin-off series, Jack and the Sodor Construction Company, which was based on two pilot episodes (from series 6) directed by Stephen Asquith. It was under production with the older 35mm camera in 2003 but never released until three years later. As a result, Hartshorne composed the new music for this unique season. When it comes to full-length movies, two of the three used the same typical music from series 8-11. These include Calling All Engines! (2005) and The Great Discovery (2008). In Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), however, a composer unique to this film was Hummie Mann, who essentially recomposed some existing songs by O'Donnell and Campbell.
To best illustrate how the music has changed over the years for Thomas & Friends, here are some YouTube videos showing the Jupiter 6 sounds (series 1-2) and the Proteus 2 sounds (series 3-7) as well as the original theme music. More videos will be determined soon. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy those samples!
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends Full Original Theme
Making Thomas Music - The Jupiter 8 Instruments
Season 3 Incidental Music: Intros, Outros, Transitions & Cues