Chuggington
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Chuggington is a British children's television show that features three young, talking trains referred to as "trainees", and several supporting characters in the form of either people who work at the station or other anthropomorphic trains. Most episodes revolve around these three learning a new kind of job, including pulling passenger cars or delivering cargo... also, serving ice cream and learning to be superheroes.
Two of the founders of the company that produces this show were previously executives for the company that produces Thomas the Tank Engine. Not that there's any similarity between this show and that one.
The main characters are:
- Wilson, a red train who likes to have fun, often at the expense of listening to important directions. He has also been shown to be impatient and impulsive. Presumably used as a way of demonstrating to kids the benefit of taking your time with important jobs and listening carefully.
- Brewster, a blue train that is supposed to be the strongest of the three, but also has a tendency to be overly cautious. He's not used to demonstrate subtle moral lessons so much as the two others, but is the butt of their jokes more often.
- Koko, a feminine green train who is the fastest of the group, and is quite competitive as well. She tends to work faster than the others, then teases them about being slow. This often results in things not going well, or taking longer than normal. The resulting Aesop is similar to what is taught via Wilson.
Chuggington aired in Great Britain from 29 September 2008 to 29 May 2015, and was followed by Chuggington: Badge Quest in 2010–2012. It debuted on the Disney Channel in the United States in 2010.
- All CGI Cartoon
- Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Wilson.
- Crying Wolf: Zephie, a small anthropomorphic trolley, is outfitted with a siren to be used in case of emergency in one episode. She almost immediately starts coming up with excuses to use it.
- Ear Worm: The bloody intro.
- Leitmotif: Action Chugger has one that can be heard whenever he shows up on the scene.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Despite the fact that this show is relatively new, there's already a substantial cast of supporting characters. There are at least a dozen other trains besides the three trainees, about half a dozen recurring human characters, and a few other humans who were only featured in one episode.
- Merit Badges for Everything: Badge Quest!
- My Name Is Not Durwood: Being old and forgetful, Puffer Pete does this regularly with everyone's names.
- Sentient Vehicle
- Single Power Superhero: Action Chugger, a train that can fly, and... that's all.
- Steam Never Dies: Steam locomotives will go on and on and on. Forever. Though one of the newest episodes introduces one that runs on vegetable oil, and the characters comment on the eco-friendliness of this.
- Theme Tune Cameo: When Vee sounds an announcement, the three-note tune is the same sound as the "Chuggington" heard in the theme tune. Brewster can be heard briefly humming the theme tune during one of his Badge Quests.