Wooden toy train
"Thomas the Tank Engine" is a character created by the Rev. W. Awdry in "The Railway Series" of children's books, first published in the U.K. in 1945. In 1984 a television series called "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" was made, adding to the popularity of the characters. It was first broadcast in the United States in 1989. John W. Lee founded the company "Learning Curve Toys" in November 1992 with a wooden railway system called "Thomas & Friends" based on the Thomas the Tank Engine characters. This made the wooden toy trains even more popular than before. Learning Curve introduced some new designs for the track surface, such as the "Clickety Clack" rails patented 1995 and the newer tracks in 2002 with a relief to supply better traction grip for battery powered four wheel drive trains patented in 1998.
Towser
The series was later spawned into an animated television series narrated by Roy Kinnear and made by British animation studios King Rollo Films (best known for making well known animated works for children such as "King Rollo", "Mr Benn", "Spot" and "Horrid Henry") running for one season and 26 episodes. It was made in 1982 and aired on ITV as part of Children's ITV on 11 September 1984 and ending on 16 October on the same year (The episode Towser and the Flight also aired on 9 October 1984 on the same day when the first season of the original series of the British long running children's series "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends" debuted). The series was also repeated on ITV in 1988 for a short while and aired one last time in August of that year as part of the summer morning programming on Children's ITV. Towser later aired on Channel 4 in 1990 and was later shown as part of their block of classic children's television series "Take 5" in 1994 along with other children's programmes that had previously aired on other networks such as "Paddington", "Mio Mao", "The Magic Roundabout", "Willo the Wisp", "Tales of the Riverbank", "Mr Men", "Fred Basset", "Ivor the Engine" and "Roobarb". It has also been broadcast on cable television on The Children's Channel and was shown there numerous of times since 1985 and kept airing until 1996.