Woolly Bear (episode)

Woolly Bear is the twenty-fifth episode of the second season and the fifty-first episode of the series. In the US, this episode aired on the Shining Time Station episodes Things that Go Ga-Hooga in the Night and Crackpot. In this episode, treacle, wind and hay don't mix, as Percy soon finds out.

Plot
In summer, long hay grows beside the line and gangers cut it and rake it into heaps to dry in the sun. Percy would then collect the hay in empty trucks and takes them to the station. There Toby would collect the trucks and take them into the hills for farmers to feed their animals.

One day, Percy arrives at the station and starts to tease Thomas for thinking he was a ghost. Thomas retorts that Percy is a "green caterpillar with red stripes", which makes Percy angry. Thomas then reminds Percy that he's been late at the station every afternoon that week. Percy tells Thomas that it's the hay that's making him late, but Thomas isn't interested in Percy's excuses and leaves.

Percy grumbles to himself all that afternoon that he was only ever late by a few minutes, but nevertheless he and his driver decide to head to the station early and go to the harbour to drop off some trucks. However, a crate of treacle hanging over Percy drops and splatters all over him. The workmen at the harbour try to clean him up, but Percy has to leave and was still very sticky when he does.

Soon Percy comes to the hill where the hay was laying and by now it was very windy. The hay was blown over the track and Percy. Because Percy's wheels slip on the slippery hay he must wait for the line to be cleared. While he does so, the wind blows some of the hay onto Percy, where it sticks due to the treacle.

At the station, Thomas waits angrily for a late Percy. Suddenly, all the passengers start laughing when Percy arrives as he was now completely covered with hay, making him quite a sight. Thomas laughs that the caterpillar has crawled out of the hay. Percy does not know what Thomas is talking about, but Thomas tells him that seeing Percy like this is worth being late.

Percy runs back to the shed where his driver shows him what he looks like in a mirror. Now Percy knows what everyone was laughing at, stating that he looks like a woolly bear and asks to be cleaned before Toby arrives, not knowing that Thomas has already told Toby everything.

In the end, it doesn't matter, as by the time Toby and Thomas arrive, Percy was still a long way from being cleaned causing the two to make jokes about woolly bear caterpillars. Percy doesn't find these jokes very funny at all.

Characters

 * Thomas
 * Percy
 * Toby (does not speak)
 * Annie and Clarabel (cameo)
 * Jem Cole (cameo)
 * Sir Topham Hatt (mentioned)

Locations

 * Tidmouth
 * Brendam
 * Elsbridge
 * Rolf's Castle
 * Ffarquhar Sheds

Errors

 * Toby gains an extra truck and a different brakevan while puffing through the valley.
 * Percy's brakevan disappears as he enters the harbour.
 * Look at Percy when the treacle lands on him to see the reflection of the studio.
 * The narrator says that "Percy was cross" when he had his sad face.
 * In the close-up of Percy's wheels struggling in the hay, a gear is seen behind one of them.
 * When Percy arrives at Ffarquhar, hay bales appear in his trucks.
 * When Percy looks in the mirror, studio equipment is visible in the top-left corner.
 * The sound of the treacle landing on Percy was delayed in the restored version.
 * The narrator said that Thomas was laughing when he saw Percy, but Thomas looks grumpy.
 * In the restored version, when Thomas and Toby back into the shed, Toby stops slightly outside of the shed. But in the next shot, he is further in.
 * In a rare still from the episode, Percy's eyes are wonky as he pulls his train.
 * Throughout the episode, Percy's left (viewer's right) cylinder was dangling and wobbling.
 * The treacle landed in the middle of Percy's Boiler. It's unknown how it can be all over his face.
 * The crate was already held poorly by the chains, so it could've slipped out of them, even if it didn't break off entirely.

US Home Video Releases

 * Percy's Ghostly Trick and Other Thomas Stories