Thomas the Tank Engine introduces first autistic character

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Thomas & Friends welcomes first autistic character to cast - meet Bruno the Brake Car! Picture: Mattel

Bruno the Brake Car will be voiced by nine-year-old actor Elliott Garcia, who also has autism.

Thomas the Tank Engine is getting a brand new friend as the popular kids TV show introduces its first ever character with autism.

Bruno the Brake Car, who is set to chug onto our screens later this month, will be voiced by nine-year-old autistic actor Elliott Garcia from Reading.

The "detail-oriented" bright red engine travels in reverse at the end of the train, which is said to give him a "unique perspective on the world", explains US company Mattel, who acquired Thomas the Tank Engine in 2011.

The "joyful, pun-making brake car" is able to express his feelings when he's overwhelmed, stressed or excited by "flapping his ladders" and has a lantern to signal his emotional state.

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Bruno the Brake Car will join the gang later this month. Picture: Mattel

He enjoys "schedules, routine, and knows where all the tracks lead on Sodor," adds the toy giant.

Bruno, who also wears ear defenders when there is a loud noise, will play a "vital role" in the children's programme and bring more diversity to the tracks.

Speaking of his brand new role, Elliot described Bruno as "funny and smart" but explained "he can get really overwhelmed, he can get worried, and he uses comedy to get past situations".

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The bright red engine is the first Thomas and Friends character to have autism. Picture: Mattel

Through Bruno's on-screen presence Mattel hope to introduce the Thomas & Friends audience to "a positive, neurodivergent role model."

The American organisation said it worked closely with writers, spokespeople and experts, including the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, to create an accurate representation of autism.

Zoe Gross, director of advocacy for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said the show receiving "autistic input" was crucial in developing the brand new character.

"Autistic people have been involved in all aspects of creating Bruno, from us as consultants to writers on the show and Bruno's voice actor — this makes Bruno ring true as an autistic character," she explained. "I hope that Bruno will provide viewers with meaningful examples of inclusion in everyday life."

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Elliot Garcia, 9, who will voice the new train, described Bruno as "funny and smart" but explained "he can get really overwhelmed". Picture: Mattel

The senior vice president and executive producer for global content development and production at Mattel, Christopher Keenan, believes autism is "underrepresented" in popular children's TV and instead "deserves to be celebrated".

"So much care and thought went into the development of his character, and we can't wait for audiences to meet and love Bruno as much as we do," added Keenan.

Bruno the Brake car has been added as a new series regular and will make his debut in the season 26 premiere of 'Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go'.

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[EDITED to fix broken links] Original, Archive
 
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Hard to see any real issue with this, a whole lot of the kids watching are somewhere on the spectrum these days. Might as well give them a character they relate to.

Remember trains, not trans. Get them hooked on trains early to prevent worse outcomes.
 
Autists don't want to see fictional autists on television, they want talking inanimated objects. Gays don't want fictional gays on television, they want fraught heterosexual romances. Socially retarded weirdos don't want fictional socially retarded weirdos on television, they want teams of superheroes who solve things with the power of friendship.
By seeing "themselves" depicted on screen, they get an unwelcome insight into how others see them and how badly they come across to others.
 
Thomas should have finished around S5, back when they finally finished adapting all of the original Awdry books (and crucially when I was still young enough to actually enjoy them). It could have gone down in history as a classic that was largely a labour of love using a unique filming style of scale models, and I would happily have rewatched them with my children.

But they never stopped making it. They went to CGI faces in the mid-2000s which was already bad enough (and changing the based original theme tune and TTTE to Thomas & Friends and some gay 2/4/6/8 bullshit I faintly recall from the back of my head) and made me realise I was too old for this shit, and when they went to full CGI it was fucking awful. Now they've gone the full MLP route and it all badly needs a bullet in its head. Like the new Bob The Builder and all the other reboots of pre-schooler series that were around when I was a lad.
 
FamicomGorby said:
Motherfucker it's a bunch of trains.

Also I guess this means the Sodor railway is so incompetent that they put a defective equipment on the network.
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The Isle of Sodor probably got hit with some sort of lawsuit, so any train that happens to pull Bruno has to listen to continuous autistic screeching and if they say one thing about it, it's off to the scrapyard with them.
 
Oilspill Battery said:
wtf happened to the artstyle, wasn't this stop motion animated
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Like all media the yanks get hold of, they fucking ruined if (exception being the office).

"Hard to see any real issue with this, a whole lot of the kids watching are somewhere on the spectrum these days. Might as well give them a character they relate to"

Why? Why do we need to have people exactly like us in order to "relate" to them?

Rank fucking narcissism. The world is not your support group. Learn to empathise with, be entertained by and to listen to all. Fuck if they're the same skin colour, background, sex, diagnosis as you.

This shit is a fucking cancer of a mindset.
 
This reminds me of when another dying children’s show added an ASD character to “destigmatize ASD” to children by making her very high-functioning and a poor representation of most ASD cases. I feel like this won’t catch on with anyone except disability rights activists and reporters for Pharma-funded outlets.
 
Well, this is ironic. The original stop-motion series was actually very beneficial for autistic children because the faces on the trains had very clear understandable expressions, they were narrated by a soothing voice and the little details in the sets kept the kids engaged.

Then they switched to the CGI and that was far more manic, plus the scripting talked down to the audience a lot more than the old show did. No long words, repeating phrases over and over and the artstyle was garish at best. I had to watch that stupid Blue Mountain DVD on repeat with a toddler, they basically copied the plot of Castaway but with trains and had trains crossing rope bridges across a river, it was painful.

And now this version looks even more manic. It'll appeal to kids with ADHD more than autism, but I have no kids around the Thomas age so I'm dodging this bullet finally.
 
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