Western Animation / The Transporters

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The Transporters is a 2006 direct-to-DVD children's’ animated series which revolves around the lives of the eponymous Transporters, a group of model railway vehicles which come to life when humans aren’t around.

The series was the brainchild of Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, a tenured Cambridge University professor knighted by the Queen herself, cousin of Sacha Baron Cohen of Borat fame, and a researcher into autism.

The series was developed with the idea of helping autistic children learn to read emotions, while simultaneously attempting to appeal to them by focusing on, in Simon’s words, “systematized”, track-bound vehicles.

A DVD consisting of fifteen five-minute episodes (narrated by Stephen Fry) was released in the UK; roughly 40,000 copies were distributed, for free, to parents of autistic children between two and eight years old; in addition to the episodes, the DVD contained 30 “interactive quizzes” on different emotions, and came with a physical booklet.

Later, an American dub for the series was released, narrated by Kerry Shale; in addition, the show received a Spiritual Successor by the name of The Space Place in 2008.

Tropes in The Transporters include:

• Ageless Birthday Episode: While he is implied to be an older character, it is never stated how old Barney has become in “Barney’s Special Day”.
• Binocular Shot: In “Charlie Saves The Day”, we get one from William’s viewpoint as he observes that Sally has stopped moving on her cable.
• The Blank: In the bonus “learning segments” on the DVD, the live-action faces of the characters are removed, leaving blank, skin-toned faces with only noses in their wake.
• Birthday Episode: “Barney’s Special Day” focuses on Barney celebrating his birthday.
• Character Action Title: “Charlie Saves The Day”, in which Charlie saves Sally after she breaks down.
• Don't Look Down: William tells Charlie not to do this while he’s on the viaduct in “Charlie Saves The Day”; inevitably, he does anyway.
• Edutainment Show: The show was made to teach young autistic children how to recognize emotions.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Happens at the end of “Slow Down, Nigel!”, when Nigel apologizes for the damage he caused during the events of the episode:
  Jennie: I think that’s enough saying sorry for one day, Nigel.
  Nigel: Sorry about that.
  (The Transporters laugh)
• Face Your Fears: “Charlie Saves The Day” has Charlie having to overcome his fear of heights when he needs to bring a crane onto a viaduct to fix Sally’s cable clamp before a storm breaks out.
• Green-Eyed Monster: In “Why Can’t I Be Somebody Else?”, Oliver is jealous because each of the other Transporters get to do something cool that he can’t. This is eventually resolved when the substation on the hill fails, and Oliver is the only one who can reach it to fix it… except now Nigel is jealous of Oliver, because he can fix the substation.
• Instrumental Theme Tune: A rather chill and laid-back track plays over a scene of Jaimie leaving his room and the Transporters coming to life, and continues into the Introductory Opening Credits.
• Introductory Opening Credits: The intro sequence gives the audience clear shots of and names for, in order, Olliver, William, Jennie, Dan and Sally (together on one screen), Nigel and Barney (also together on one screen), and Charlie.
• Invisible Anatomy: While the show normally avoids this by having the characters extend mechanical arms whenever they need to hold things, in “Charlie Saves The Day” Charlie is able to operate a control panel on a crane-like device without the use of said arms.
• Just Train Wrong: Or Just Incline Wrong (or even Incorrect Inclination?) in this case; Oliver is consistently referred to as a “funicular”, when he’s actually an incline elevator; the difference is that funicular railways have two cars which use each other as counterweights, while inclines with “elevators” only have just the one.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In “Jennie’s Difficult Day”, after complaining about Barney being late picking up cargo and boasting that she herself is never late, Jennie is lead to believe that she’s horribly late by a church clock that, unbeknownst to her, is running ten minutes fast.
• Living Toys: The Transporters are all part of a kid’s model train layout, which comes to life when he’s not around.
• Medium Blending: The Transporters all consist of live-action faces edited onto the bodies of CGI vehicles.
• Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: This old plot gets trotted out in “Barney’s Special Day”, and makes up the entirety of that episode’s story.
• Rhyming Title: “Oliver the Kind Funicular”.
• Picture Day: In “Sally’s Sad Day”, Sally is going to have her picture taken at the observatory… so, inevitably, Barney accidentally splashes mud on her before the photo shoot.
• Questioning Title?: “Why Can’t I Be Somebody Else?”
• Rail Enthusiast: Jaimie is one, judging by the truly massive model train layout he has in his room.
• The Secret Life of Nonhumans: The show is about model rail vehicles going about their day, which only starts until the boy who owns the models has left for school.
• Same Language Dub: Like most shows aimed at small children made in the UK, this received an American English dub, which was narrated by Kerry Shale.
• Sentient Vehicle: All of the Transporters are these- there’s Jennie and Charlie the trams, Nigel the bus, Barney the tractor, Dan and Sally the cable cars, Oliver the incline elevator, and William the cable ferry.
• Slow and Steady Wins the Race: In “The Great Race”, the speedy Nigel is racing the slow, but dependable William to the harbor, and because of his seemingly unimpressive competition, Nigel thinks he can stop and chat with the other Transporters and still win the race. He does not.
• Team Title: Named after the eight Sentient Vehicles that make their home in Hillside Junction.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: As the show was made to help autistic children learn to read emotions, the narrator often describes how each character is feeling, using very basic terms.
• Title Drop: At the end of “Oliver the Kind Funicular”, Dan teases the normally-grumpy Oliver about being kind enough to take Sally’s passengers by saying he’ll have to call him, well, “Oliver the Kind Funicular”.
• Token Minority: Jennie and Charlie are both portrayed by black actors and are the only two such characters out of the cast, the rest of whom are all portrayed by white actors.
• Two Girls to a Team: Six out of the eight Transporters are male, with the only two female ones being Jennie and Sally.
• Visible Odor: The odiferous wagon of fish from “Jennie’s Smelly Adventure” can be seen exuding green vapor.
• Yellow/Purple Contrast: Dan and Sally the cable car siblings are colored purple and yellow respectively.