Shining Time Station: 'Tis a Gift
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Shining Time Station: 'Tis A Gift is the Christmas special of the television series Shining Time Station. (Photo of front video cover)
It takes place during the Christmas season at Shining Time Station. The scene opens with Mr. Conductor (Ringo Starr) with an axe over one shoulder, dragging a miniature evergreen along the top of a bench heading towards his home.
The station is filled with people trying to catch trains to take them to see their families. Even Schemer (Brian O'Connor) is in a good mood, because the Indian Valley committee is putting on a Christmas pageant and he is almost certain to get the part of Santa's helper. The kids, Matt (Jason Woliner) and Tanya (Nicole Leach), write letters to Santa Claus and Mr. Conductor sends them on their way. He then tells the kids the story of the time Thomas the Tank Engine had a Christmas Party:
- The story is called Thomas' Christmas Party.
- Mrs. Kyndley, and old friend of Thomas' who lived by the railway, had once stopped Thomas just in time before he got into a nasty accident and Thomas realized the other engines: Gordon, James, Henry, Edward and Percy have never thanked her properly so Thomas proposes they throw a Christmas party, but then Sir Topham Hatt had bad news: Mrs. Kyndley was snowed in and had to be rescued, so Thomas, Toby and Percy head out to do just that and are successful and when they return to the shed, they have their Christmas party!
An old man, Mr. Nicholas (Lloyd Bridges), enters the station carrying a Christmas tree with Harry's cousin Tucker Cooper (Ardon Bess), and immediately knows everything about Stacy Jones (Didi Conn) from when she was a little girl. Mr. Nicholas says he is there to catch the Northern Star, a train that doesn't run on that railway, but Mr. Nicholas is confident it will come.
Meanwhile, Stacy agrees to watch Claire's (Judy Marshak) daughter, Vickie (Rachel Miner), a bratty little girl, at the station. Matt and Tanya dislike her because of her attitude. She meets Mr. Nicholas who teaches her to be nice to people and it soon begins to work; Schemer's mom has made him a Santa's helper costume and he begins his campaign against Stacy by telling Midge Smoot (Bobo Lewis), J.B. King (Mart Hulswit) and the Mayor (Jerome Dempsey) untrue things about her. Mr. Conductor tells the kids another story from the Island of Sodor:
- The story is called Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree.
- It was almost Christmas on Sodor. Thomas went to get a Christmas tree but got stuck in a bank of snow. Donald and Douglas saved him and when they come to the big station, they have a Christmas party!
Mr. Nicholas (if you haven't figured it out by now, he is Santa Claus) is still waiting for the Northern Star and to everybody's surprise, it comes! Meanwhile, everybody was fighting over the part of Santa's helper but Vickie breaks them up by singing a beautiful song. So it turns out to be a merry Christmas after all. Starr's Conductor character leaves Shining Time as he goes with Santa to the North Pole.
The footage used for the opening and closing sequences was filmed at the Grand Canyon Railway in Williams, Arizona, and features their locomotive #18. Incidentally, the 18 makes a second appearance as its whistle, a Southern Pacific six-chime, is used for Mr. Nicholas's heard-but-not-seen "Northern Star." This locomotive now resides at the Mt. Hood Railroad in Oregon.
[edit] Cast
- Ringo Starr as Mr. Conductor
- Didi Conn as Stacy Jones
- Brian O'Connor as Horace Schemer
- Jason Woliner as Matt Jones
- Nicole Leach as Tanya Cupper
- Lloyd Bridges as Mr. Nicholas
- Ardon Bess as Tucker Cupper
- Jerome Dempsey as Mayor of East Shemp
- Mart Hulswit as J.B. King Esquire
- Judy Marshak as Claire
- Rachel Miner as Vickie
- Bobo Lewis as Midge Smoot
- Jonathan Freeman as Tito
- Olga Marin as Didi
- Alan Semok as Tex
- Craig Flegemacher Marin as Rex
- Peter Baird/Kenny Miele as Grace the Bass
[edit] Trivia
- On the TV version the Thomas stories were Terence the Tractor and Thomas' Christmas Party. But on the VHS version they were Thomas' Christmas Party and Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree.
- Also on the VHS version when the Thomas story Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree was shown it was actually the UK version but taking out the lines mentioning Sir Topham Hatt for reasons unexplained. Though, it could be inferred that this was because Sir Topham Hatt is better known in the UK as "The Fat Controller", and since this was the U.S. version of the episode, it would've been easier to edit out the lines that were removed, rather than redubbed the episode as the UK version.
- On TV, the Thomas story Terence the Tractor was taken from the episode Agree to Disagree.
- This film is dedicated to the people who helped build Shining Time.
- Missed by most in the opening is the little ditty Mr. Conductor is singing before being interrupted to say hello to the station's resident kids. It is the opening lines to Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song".
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