Large Fierce Mammal

Image source http://jalopnik.com/.

The Thomas The Tank Engine series has the creepiest, most awful method of vehicle anthropomorphization in the history of human culture. ~ Thomas The Tank Engine Is Destroying All Cartoon Vehicles And Creeping Me The Hell Out

I put being “creeped out” behind me a long, long time ago, but as a writer of the kinds of things I write about, particularly in this seasonal series of Dark Sentiments, I do know how to make it happen to people. Today, we’re going to look at two deliveries of this effect, both in the form of popular television productions, each unrelated to the other and in fact separated from one another by a significant interval of time.

Like many parents of young children, Mrs. LFM and I have found that our Number One Son, AKA SFM Viktor, is crazy about Thomas the Tank Engine. Intricately and even quite beautifully animated, the program features an array of anthropomorphic vehicles with the most disquieting array of faces and attitudes ever put to film absent the intention of giving the audience nightmares.

Watching Thomas and Friends with Viktor, I came over time to find the characters were tweaking a memory that I couldn’t quite grasp. And then one day, I found the thread when chasing Viktor around the living room with his large remote control Thomas toy in my hand. I would cackle menacingly as Thomas approached to gently attack assorted ticklish bits … or rather, he was about to, but as Thomas came close, Viktor’s eyes got wide and fearful as they fixed on his face, and he cried out, “Daddy! No!”

It seemed obvious to me that something about Thomas was the source of his sudden fear, and it was then that I turned the toy toward myself. BINGO! I was suddenly left simultaneously certain about my own reactions to the rictus of the toy in question, and wondering if that coupled with my own maniacal machinations in the moment had created a situation in which instead of seeing this …

Viktor saw something more like THIS!

Those of us adept at generating imagery within the mind, either of a reader or a viewer of visual media we create, know how to evoke emotion, and indeed how to imprint a lasting nightmarish memory based entirely on fiction. Way back in the dim mists of 1963, the producers of the television program The Outer Limits were Masters of this ever so Black Art, and today I’ll introduce you to the very memory that “The Thomas Affair”, as it has come to be called here, brought to my mind that day.

While it saw a brief revival in 1995, The Outer Limits as I know and love it aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965, during which time I went from six to eight years old,  and my Mother and I never missed an episode. My Father just couldn’t stand to watch with us (being prone to being creeped out even before there was a popular name for it), but being a self-employed radio and television repair technician at a time when the technology was still in its infancy, and his skills more than a little wizardly, he always enjoyed the intro, forever one of my favourites.

The specific episode we’ll be watching tonight is titled The Zanti Misfits, and first aired on 30 December 1963. To set the stage –

“The rulers of the planet Zanti have coerced the US Government into allowing them to establish a penal colony on earth (they cannot execute members of their own species for reasons never specified). Earth has nervously agreed, and a tract of California desert has been cordoned off to accommodate them. A military command unit led by General Maximilian R. Hart has been set up in a hotel in the ghost town of Morgue (talk about your foreshadowing) to oversee the Zanti penal ship’s arrival and to ensure that it is not disturbed (under threat of “total destruction”). Professor Steven Grave, a historian, has arrived to document this historic event.

“Things begin to go awry when an unidentified car runs down a security guard and drives into the restricted area. The clueless interlopers are Lisa Lawrence and her lover, Ben Garth, whose car breaks down very near the Zanti ship’s landing site. Garth spots the ship and, upon approaching it, is attacked and killed by the Zanti Regent of Prisoners, a six-inch hoagie-sized insect with a humanoid face. Lisa comes looking for Garth, finds his body and runs like hell, the Zanti Regent in hot pursuit.” ~ My Life in the Glow of the Outer Limits

More than a little cheesy, and containing a few faces you may recognize, The Zanti Misfits is a fun romp. Join me now in enjoying this classic bit of cringe stimulant with a healthy dose of the secret ingredient that the creators of Thomas have now inadvertently rediscovered for themselves and relaunched upon an unsuspecting world.