Thomas and Friends is anti-diesel fuel?

I haven’t watched much of Thomas and Friends at all, but G-Monkey is getting into it, and loves the small set that she has.  We were watching an hour long episode this weekend, or feature length film more accurately, and one thing that I took away was a somewhat anti diesel message.  They presented the diesels as scarier, dirtier,  and more unfriendly than the steam engines.  They puff massive amounts of “black sooty smoke”, which I found hilarious, since the “steamies” must burn massive amounts of coal to get the steam on which they run.  There was actually a comparison between the diesels and the steam engines, comparing their output, “just steam” to “black sooty smoke”.  I think that the “steamies” were actually frowning in response to the diesel smoke. Oh brother …

As an adult, this omission of the coal smoke mention was hard to miss.  The cartoon did mention that the “steamies” burn coal, but not that they produce any thing from the burning of that coal.  I guess it’s the new clean-coal tech that powers Thomas and his fellow “steamies”.

Yes, I guess I’m already that parent that’s going to correct the messages delivered through the cartoons.  I also see a severe drop off in the amount of Thomas they’ll be watching.