Thomas &amp; Friends
Thomas & Friends (originally known as Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends or simply Thomas the Tank Engine; also known as Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! in the twenty-second series) is a British children's television series. In the United Kingdom, it had its first broadcast on the ITV network in Great Britain in 1984. In the United States, it had its first broadcast on "Shining Time Station" in 1989. It is based on "The Railway Series" of books by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher Awdry.
Britt Allcroft
In 1980, she co-founded Britt Allcroft Railway Productions (internationally known as The Britt Allcroft Company) with her husband, television producer Angus Wright. It took Allcroft four years to raise the funding for, and create, a first series of twenty-six episodes in collaboration with director David Mitton. The first two episodes of "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends", shot on 35 mm film with narration by Ringo Starr in the U.K./U.S. and music by Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell, were aired together for the first time on British television on 9 October 1984.