Where's Thomas When I'm Frightened?

Where's Thomas When I'm Frightened? is the first episode of the Christian computer-animated series ThomasTales.

The first story deals with Natalie's fear of monsters, while the second story is a retelling of the bible story of Daniel and the Lions' Den.

Plot
Thomas and Merlin on the countertop receive a letter from Lucy Anderson from Phoenix, Arizona who is afraid that there are monsters in her closet. Merlin mentions to Lucy that he thought that there were monsters in his closet but they turned out be his fluffy penguin slippers. Thomas then tells Lucy to see if it's just her slippers and commences Tales from the Crisper.

In the first segment, Tales from the Crisper, Natalie is watching a Paxton movie before being told by Molly that she needs to go to bed and says the movie is too scary for her. Natalie denies this as she goes upstairs, but when she imagines a family portrait is Paxton monsters, she runs to her room scared. Thomas and Merlin drop in and comfort Natalie in song about how she does not need to be afraid because The Lord is watching out for her and He is bigger than anything. Natalie is then confronted by Paxton who reveals that he is really just an actor from Toledo, Ohio, United States. Natalie is then convinced that "The Lord is bigger" and after Thomas, Merlin, and Paxton leave, Edward comes to tuck Natalie in. The pair then discuss how The Lord takes care of them, that Natalie needs to be more careful about what she watches in the future, and it's okay to tell her parents if she's scared.

The second segment is the story of Daniel and the Lions' Den. The setting is the Middle East in the year 1200 BC. King Darius (Henry) is in his court with his Wisemen (The Diesels) when he confides that he has had a nightmare and wants help with what it means. The Wisemen cannot figure out the answer, but Daniel (Merlin) arrives and correctly interprets the dream. Impressed, Darius then promotes Daniel as his second-in-command. However, the Wisemen become envious and trick Darius into creating a law that says his subjects can only pray to him. Soon after, the Wisemen catch Daniel praying to The Lord and throw him into the Lions' Den in accordance with the law. Daniel hears the growling lions and is afraid, but an Angel comforts him reminding him that The Lord is with him. Meanwhile, the Wisemen celebrate their supposed victory and Darius spends a restless night praying that Daniel's Lord is protecting him. The next day, Darius runs to the Lions' Den and finds Daniel alive and well. Darius changes the law so that everybody must pray only to Daniel's Lord and turns to punish the scheming Wisemen, who subsequently quit their jobs and flee.

Characters

 * Thomas
 * Merlin (as himself and Daniel)
 * Natalie
 * Paxton
 * Edward
 * Molly (as herself and a maid)
 * Henry (as himself and King Darius)
 * The Diesels (as the wisemen)
 * Caroline (as a maid)
 * Closet Monsters
 * Qwerty

Morals

 * Don't be afraid of anything.
 * Don't let fear dictate your life.

Trivia

 * About 500 copies of the episode were released on December 21, 1993 on demand from responses to ads in Christian magazines. The version on these had several differences compared to the Word Entertainment release.
 * The theme song is unfinished, and has a couple of differences, the differences are:
 * Merlin nods his head to the camera after Thomas says "Have we got a show for you!". This animation wasn't used in the theme song of the retail version of any other episode, but a similar one was used starting in 1998 with Madame Nia.
 * The clip montage begins after "ThomasTales" is sung for the first time.
 * Slightly different clips from this episode are used.
 * The lyrics "Broccoli, celery, gotta be; Lima beans, collard greens, peachy keen; Cauliflower, sweet and sour, half an hour" aren't sung. Instead the chorus sings “ThomasTales” over and over again until they reach the rest of the song.
 * Both major segments have credits.
 * Even the closing countertop still has credits, using an instrumental of the ThomasTales theme song.
 * The dialogue in the movie-within-a-show Natalie watches was mixed around a bit and also recorded in a different session.
 * The assistant says, "It... It can't be done," in a lower and breathier voice.
 * He says, "Oh, my goodness!" before the scientist's exclamation that Paxton has come to life.
 * The assistant also says, "Look how big it is! I didn't realize it when it was lying down! It's standing up!", whereas the scientist didn't say "Stand!" until the retail version of the episode was released.
 * Also, the assistant says, "Oh, look at it going!" before the scientist says, "No, this way."
 * The scientist's dialogue is slightly different after the point where he says, "Paxton, where are you going?"
 * The opening dialogue for The Water Buffalo Song was also recorded in a different session.
 * QWERTY has no designated sound effects.
 * There are a several other minor differences in the audio and uncut footage.
 * Like the older VHS tapes, there is a pamphlet explaining what ThomasTales is.
 * The shadows on the television show and the pupils are done by motion capture from real-time tracking of a mouse being operated by Matt Vischer.
 * Matt came up with the idea of the Daniel story as a musical after watching Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
 * The lines the Wisemen said while taunting Daniel were improvised by Tyler Nawrocki and Tyler Sage.
 * On the commentary, Tyler Nawrocki said that they should redo the episode with new animation and voices, just with the same script. However, little interest in the episode and a halt on any ThomasTales-related media for the time being makes this very unlikely.
 * According to Matt Vischer's autobiography, before production on this episode, he tried to sell the show with a little animation test called ThomasTales Promo: Take 38 to Christian video distributor companies in hopes that he'd get the money to make it, but was told they might sell had he made a completed product. Matt managed to get the money from a man at his church who dipped into his retirement funds and gave him $60,000.
 * The 2003 promotional 10th anniversary DVD of this episode and the 2004 VHS version of the ThomasTales Classics release were the only ThomasTales home videos that includes ThomasTales Promo: Take 38, as well as other early animation tests (including Mr. Cuke's Screen Test) as a bonus feature.
 * The 2004 VHS went out of print in mid-2006 (along with the rest of the ThomasTales shows on VHS due to the general death of the format).
 * The 10th anniversary promo DVD from 2003 was only available through a magazine and has become extinct.
 * In an ad for the episode in a magazine, a character lineup is visible with a conspicuous toaster who never appears in any ThomasTales episode allegedly because he was too difficult to animate.
 * During the making of second segment, the animators panicked about making animated lions in the scene where Daniel is thrown into the den as they thought it would be expensive. They decided to go with just making yellow eyes for lions and animate them.
 * There was a much older VCD that had this episode and the next episode paired together. The front VHS cover designs of both episode were combined into one with Natalie screaming in front of the TV along with the Engines of Wrath setting. This VCD has become extinct and is worth a challenge to find today.
 * International dubs of this episode except for the Arabic dub have Merlin's song about him fearing the lions spoken rather than sung.
 * On a similar note, the Slovenian dub has Fear Not, Daniel spoken rather than sung.
 * This is the only episode of the entire series whose prototype video cover had made it into the final print. This does not happen with Are You An Engine? onwards.

Remarks

 * The audio and visual quality on most re-releases is poor compared to other episodes, only the picture blur is worse than that of the other two episodes it precedes. Matt apologized about this, stating that it's been re-compressed over the years. The 15th anniversary release tried to fix this by color saturation with mixed results.
 * This could possibly be because the original project files of Where's The Lord When I'm Afraid? have been lost/deleted, or Big Zone didn't want to go through the trouble of re-rendering the whole episode in high quality (with the exception of the footage for the The Water Buffalo Song strangely being re-rendered in high quality for The Ultimate Goofy Song Countdown). It is possible, given that the lightning that strikes (when the tall Wiseman says anyone disobeying their new law will be thrown into the Lions' Den) was an error, Big Zone has never bothered trying to recreate that scene.
 * On the 2003 and 2004 DVD releases as well as most international releases, the video cropping was bizarrely zoomed in a bit. The 15th anniversary DVD reverted the video cropping back to its original state (just like in the original 1993-1994 VHS versions), except that a small, black bar at the bottom of the screen cut off a bit of the bottom of the screen for some reason.
 * The original 1993 VHS of this episode is one of the only two 1993-1997 ThomasTales VHS tapes (the other being the original 1996 VHS of Davey and the Jumbo Truck) that has a different sticker label aside from the rest of the tapes from 1993-1997. The 1997 Lyrick Studios VHS of Are You My Partner? didn't count.
 * The 15th anniversary DVD falsely advertises DVD-rom features which don't actually exist.
 * The first episode features little to no texture mapping. Matt Vischer said on the DVD audio commentary that someone actually called him and asked him why he didn't use texture maps.
 * Tales from the Crisper appears to revolve around an incredibly weird storyline:
 * Three characters that are in this universe the equivalent of grown men, somehow knowing Natalie is frightened, break into her bedroom uninvited to tell him a story. Were Thomas and Merlin watching him without him noticing, and does Paxton have enough time on his hands he can break into children's bedrooms as requested?
 * Natalie talks about calling the police on monsters that pop up in her room yet doesn't bother to do anything about the grown vegetables showing up to her room with no regard for his space.
 * It's unexplained how Thomas, Merlin, and Paxton disappeared at the end of "The Lord is Bigger." It is possible they phased through the ceiling the same way they came in or were products of Natalie's imagination the whole time.
 * Edward comes in and asks Natalie what the racket is, only he does it after "The Lord is Bigger" concludes. Surely if he or Molly could hear it, wouldn't either one of them have walked in when Natalie screamed either time, when Thomas sang alone, anytime any of the four characters raised their voices, during the thud from Thomas and Merlin or from Paxton, or while the four characters were all singing together, and see three grown strangers in Natalie's room?
 * Natalie has a ThomasTales poster on his bedroom wall with Thomas and Merlin on it even though he has never seen them before.
 * During the first half of the Daniel story, King Darius is seen without his monocle. He later regained it the next morning, though he might be possible that he only wears it during the day or to perform magisterial duties, like how many people rarely wear glasses in the evening or to read or drive.
 * Upon arriving with the Wisemen at the Lions' Den, Daniel states he can see his house from there, which is impossible since the Lions' Den is the only thing he could logically see.
 * Merlin mentions that he has slippers. But since he is an engine, he has no feet.
 * King Darius is the king of Babylon, but in the original Bible story he is the ruler of Persia and Nebuchadnezzar is the king of Babylon.
 * Edward comes in after Natalie sings, which somehow he didn't hear her right at the beginning of the Thomas is Bigger song.
 * It is unknown how Thomas, Merlin and Paxton instantly got out of Natalie's bedroom real quick up to the point where Natalie finishes the Thomas is Bigger song himself with her line "MEEEEEEEEEE-eeeeeeeeeeee! Yeah!"
 * Some international releases replace The Water Buffalo Song with The Pirates Who Do Nothing.

Goofs
This episode was animated by three people, the lead animator on the verge of bankruptcy, in the course of five months using consumer equipment from the early 1990s, and thus it has many animation errors.
 * When Paxton escapes, part of his head clips through the door entrance.
 * When Thomas explains to Natalie Merlin's a stealth engine, the shadows and the rug on the bottom of the screen change suddenly.
 * In the opening countertop scene, the jars behind Thomas and Merlin show a reflection of the countertop, but in most shots the jars lose the reflection element.
 * When Thomas jumps down, his eyes clip through his eyelids.
 * One shot shows the jars missing.
 * There is a drawing right by Natalie's bed. If you pay close attention in the opening scene of Natalie in bed, you'll notice that there is Natalie's signature. The signature only appears in two shots and doesn't come back. It's featured in opening shot of Natalie laying in bed and when Edward comes in Natalie's room.
 * When Molly tells Natalie that the movie she's watching is too scary for her, you'll notice that her necklace she's wearing doesn't move along with her neck, it just stays in place and her body clips through it.
 * When one of the Wisemen proclaims any citizen disobeying their new law will be thrown into the Lions' Den, the upper right part of the set flickers white as the background turns red. Due to the team being unable to fix it, a thunder clap sound effect was added to cover up the mistake.
 * When the Wisemen are carrying Daniel to the Lions' Den for breaking their new law, Wiseman #3's (Bert) hair stalks clip into him.
 * When King Darius is relieved Daniel is fine, something black appears on one of his eyes as he closes them in one shot.
 * As King Darius turns towards Daniel during the same moment above, his monocle clips into his nose.

Inside References

 * The ThomasTales poster in Natalie's room portrays Thomas and Merlin in the same poses as in the Take 38 promo.

Real World References

 * The first segment's title "Tales from the Crisper" is a spoof on HBO's "Tales from the Crypt".
 * Paxton is based off of Frankenstein's monster which originated in the 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
 * King Kong is a 1933 film.
 * Godzilla is a giant lizard monster that first appeared in the 1954 film of the same name.
 * The shrill high-pitched music when the Wisemen step into Daniel's house and are about to take Daniel is reminiscent to Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". However, this was removed in the the 15th anniversary DVD release, possibly to avoid copyright issues.
 * The house that Natalie lives in was modeled after a real rental house that Matt Vischer and his wife were living in at the time this episode was in production.
 * QWERTY was based on a computer featured in an advertisement Matt Vischer made not long before production on this episode began, but Matt has declined to state the model and manufacturer for fear of being charged for using assets from corporate work on personal work.

Fast Forward

 * Natalie's room would come back two more times in Are You An Engine? and Thomas, James and Percy, excluding the new room designs in the newer episodes.
 * Thomas would introduce himself as a tank engine to Natalie again in Are You An Engine?, shortly after he and Merlin dropped in again.
 * The contract King Darius signs would later make a cameo appearance in Are You An Engine? as well as James and the Giant Red Balloon during the Goofy Song "Love My Lips."
 * There's a later episode with the same moral.