Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas's on-screen appearances in the TV series were developed by Britt Allcroft. The first series of 26 stories premiered in October 1984 on the ITV Network in the UK, with former Beatles drummer/vocalist Ringo Starr as storyteller. The stories were featured as segments as part of Shining Time Station in the US beginning in 1989 with Starr as the show's Mr. Conductor character. From 1991 to 1993, George Carlin replaced Starr as both the storyteller and as Mr. Conductor for Shining Time Station. Carlin also told the Thomas stories for Shining Time Station in 1995.
Thomas &amp; Friends
In the United States, the series had first appeared only as sequences on "Shining Time Station" during the program's run from 1989 to 1995 on PBS. The sequences of the series later aired in 1996 on "Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales". The series aired as "Storytime with Thomas" on Fox Family (now Freeform) from 1999 to 2001. When "Thomas & Friends" premiered as a stand-alone program on PBS Kids, it was first distributed from 2004 to 2007 by Connecticut Public Television, and then by WNET from 2008 to 2017, and Sprout 2005 to 2015. The rights to broadcast the series through PBS expired in December 2017, thus ending a period of almost 30 years of programming related to "Thomas & Friends" on American public television. Now it airs on Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon.