Mattel, Inc. announced this week it has broadened the global reach and viewership of the newly reimagined animated series Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go through multiple global licensing agreements.
Produced in vibrant, 2D animation in partnership with Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana, Mattel says Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go introduces an entirely new creative approach to Thomas & Friends content. Both purposeful and playful, the series features new art direction, more physical comedy and music, and a greater range of character expressiveness. With stories told from Thomas’ point of view, this fast and colorful show is crafted to appeal to contemporary audiences’ sensibilities while maintaining Thomas’ core brand ethos.
“In addition to Thomas being more playful and relatable than ever before, the stories in Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go resonate with kids everywhere today,” said Frederic Soulie, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mattel Television. “We are pleased to introduce our all-new vibrant Thomas & Friends content to a global audience with our distribution partners,”
Thomas & Friends is based on The Railway Series of children’s stories by the Reverend W. Awdry, and then became a long-running British TV series, originally airing in 1984 under the name Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends for the first seven seasons.
The popular train engine aired first in the US on PBS in the spin-off series Shining Time Station, and the Thomas & Friends series have been running continuously from 1984 to January 2021.
The rights to the series were acquired by Mattel in 2002 through subsidiary HIT Entertainment, and this year Mattel premiered the all-new series Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go on Sept. 13.
Mattel says it has now signed global distribution agreements for the new Thomas series around the world, including longstanding partners like Milkshake (UK), Televisa (Mexico), TV Cultura (Brazil), Nickelodeon (Greece), Puls (Poland), NHK (Japan), Tooniverse (S. Korea), BesTV and Tencent (China). New global distribution agreements include Nick Jr. (UK), WarnerMedia (EMEA), TF1(France), Noga (Israel), WarnerMedia (LATAM), and FPT TV (Vietnam).
The series is available now in the U.S. on Cartoon Network and in Canada on Treehouse, and will be available in the U.S. through Netflix on Oct. 29.