Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends is a children's television series about the engines and other characters working on the railways of the Island of Sodor, and is based on The Railway Series books written by Wilbert Awdry.

This article lists and details episodes from the fourth series of the show, which was broadcast in 1996. It was produced by Britt Allcroft.

This series was narrated by Michael Angelis for the United Kingdom audiences, with George Carlin narrating the episodes for the United States audiences, on what was also his final series. This was the final series where Thomas appeared in the US as a segment on Shining Time Station; after that, it became a program on Mister Moose's Fun Time and Storytime With Thomas. This was also the final series to be produced before the death of Wilbert Awdry in 1997.

In the UK, episodes 1–3, 6, and 8-11 were first released on VHS with a different take of Michael Angelis' narrations than the later versions on TV and other VHS releases.Audio from Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends: Rock 'N' Roll and other Stories (1994).

Production

Filming Filming for Series 4 lasted from June to November 1994. On November 14, the first 8 episodes were released direct-to-video in the UK. On July 3, 1995, the rest of the series was released on 2 other UK VHS releases. Several episodes were also featured on the Shining Time Family Specials, released throughout 1995 in the US. After ending its broadcast run on ITV, the series would make its official UK television debut on March 8, 1996, on Cartoon Network.

The 4th series saw the introduction of the smaller narrow gauge engines. For ease of filming, series 5 would introduce larger-scale versions of the characters, and from series 6, these larger models were used almost exclusively.

Stories Half of the third series had consisted of stories written by the show's staff, but only one original story, "Rusty to the Rescue" (written by Allcroft and Mitton), was written for the fourth series. The episodes which used The Railway Series did take some liberties with the source material, in order to fill the runtime and make the stories more accessible. From series 5 onward, all stories would be staff-written, without using the Awdrys' books as a source.

Stepney (a character based on a real-life engine and used to highlight the Preservation Movement in the books) was given an entirely different background when he was introduced. This decision carried on into later series, in which he was seen on either a fictionalized Bluebell Railway or as a member of The Fat Controller's railway.

The show had come under fire for having too few female characters, and a conscious decision was made to rewrite Rusty, who was always a male character in the books, as gender-neutral. Thomas''' new owners initially defended the decision, citing Rusty's gender neutrality since Series 4 until series 7. Later episodes substituted male pronouns in reference to Rusty.

Talent Initially, each episode was broadcast in installments of the children's television program Shining Time Station. 2 stories from Series 4 were aired in each of the hour-long "Family Specials" in 1995. The rest were broadcast in a 6-episode offshoot called Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. In 1999, they aired in a new half-hour program called Storytime with Thomas, which also included Series 5 episodes narrated by Alec Baldwin and episodes of Britt Allcroft's Magic Adventures of Mumfie.

Episodes

Reception Kurt Dahlke a reviewer of DVD Talk, who reviewed the series 4 episodes "Bulldog" and "Peter Sam and the Refreshment Lady" for the DVD: Thomas & Friends: Hop on Board - Songs and Stories'', give them a mixed-to-negative review, saying that you might survive just by giving it a Rent It.

Home media United Kingdom As with Series 3, much of Series 4 debuted on VHS before the TV screenings. The Video Collection released "Rock 'n' Roll and Other Stories" in November 1994 which contained eight episodes. Another selection of nine episodes was released on "Thomas & Stepney and Other Stories" in May 1995, and two more episodes debuted on the compilation release "Thomas' Train and 17 Other Stories" in July 1995. The last remaining five episodes which had already aired on television at that point were released as "Story and Song Collection" in March 1996, with five songs produced for the series.

Video Collection International released a complete series VHS set in 2001, available as either a single-VHS or double-VHS release. It was soon released on DVD in 2004 as part of the "Classic Collection Boxset" before being released on its own in 2006.

Episodes from the series (such as "Peter Sam & the Refreshment Lady" and "Four Little Engines") have also made it to various compilation releases with other series. Such as "Playtime" in March 1997 and "Chases, Races and Runaways" in October 1997.

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