It's clear Underground Ernie really wanted to be a love letter to the London Underground, but a lot of its kinks caused it to fall into obscurity.

This is a real Ernie Moment.

I feel like Underground Ernie’s art style feels like a weird hybrid between early Dreamworks/Pixar animation, with the realistic looking humans look eerily similar to the ones in Shrek (but more soulless) to the train’s character designs that all feel like mashups of Cars, Finding Nemo, & A Bug’s Life. But then again, CGI was a new form of animation at the time and many companies haven’t exactly mastered it.

God, it’s a good thing they’re kept underground..

It would be kind of cool and funny if Victoria was portrayed as a metropolitan 4-4-0 to show how old she's really meant to be

i'm just gonna hear ERNIEEEEEEEEE every time i wake up in the middle of the night, aren't I?

13:07 ah yes my favorite show. Sir Topham Hatt's trains.

I think Moscow is the coolest looking character in the show. I like how his mustache is like a furnace that helps keep him warm in the winter, it really helps him standout I feel.

Now I know why Thomas waited until 2008 to try Cgi

I remember when the theme song came on my brother and I would sing “Underground Ernie, We hope he never gets there!” and it was peak comedy to us. Looking forward to this retrospective

31:32 Maybe Ernie's sentient balls are the ones that sing that random 🎶🎶ERNIE🎶🎶🎶 cue! I guess we solved an unanswerable Underground Ernie question XD

16:19 my headcannon is he can upload his consciousness into a computer and use it the way we would use it

Dublin is planning on building a metro system too in a few years. I was also on the London Underground earlier this year when I visited London.

This was a welcome surprise! I “run” the Underground Ernie wiki featured in this video (run being a big statement, it’s not been updated for ages) - great to see the show being talked about. Thanks for making this one!

9:44 EERNIEEE 19:00 THOMASSS

The concept of Underground Ernie and even the well written banter between the characters feels natural enough that it could honestly work in the same world as Thomas in my opinion... provided the world and how the railways work is tweaked to make a bit more realistic sense and the train characters are given some serious TTTE style redesigns.

It’s a shame that Underground Ernie is such an easy target because the theme song goes incredibly hard

I’ve learned a lot about Underground Ernie thanks to this video, and it sounds like a cool show! So cool that I will add errrrrniieeeeeee to my alarm clock

From one person who has reviewed this specific show, to another. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen loads of badly animated productions in my life, but never found this show creepy from its animation or designs. I thought the Dancing CGI Bear on a carousel from Teletubbies looked creepier. If there was a second season, not only would the animation have improved, but imagine them adding in new international stereotype trains to market into merchandise. Berlin from Germany, Beijing from China, Vancouver from Canada, Pisa from Italy, Dublin from Ireland, Cairo from Egypt- okay, I’ll shut up now.

Guys, I have a theory, Underground Ernie was edited in Imovie which can explain the transitions and random fades

I read in an issue of Steam Railway magazine in 2006 that Underground Ernie was intended to put Thomas & Friends into the sidings. But in reality, it was Underground Ernie that ended up in the sidings instead of Thomas & Friends.

17:26 HE SAID IT! HE SAID IT!

I think that Underground Ernie deserves a reboot. Don't you.

Rather than being JUST based on Sherlock Holmes, Bakerloo was a mix between Sherlock Holmes and the Duke of Wellington. Bakerloo was originally an abbreviation for The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, so there's Sherlock Holmes from Baker Street, and Duke of Wellington from Waterloo

Sure the animation definitely wasn’t the best, but I think the characters and stories are enough to carry the show, proving bad animation can be saved by other better features

22:22 Japan loves Thomas The Tank Engine because he resembles the yokai; oboroguruma

Now imagine if there was a cartoon like this, but with NYC’s subway system Honestly it’d be extremely cursed since there aren’t many options when it comes to face positioning. It could go for either the Underground Ernie style, or maybe a Chuggington style where the faces are embedded into their bodies. But either way the show would be VERY cursed lol

They even had mall rides produced based on characters from that show that I remember seeing in Australian shopping malls as a kid in the 2000s. I think that show was even aired by the ABC in Australia back then during their kids block.

plot twist: Dr Hart's patients are Adam, Beta & Luke

If Underground Ernie had a series 2, there would be a GWR pannier tank engine painted in London Underground colours to represent the underground trains of the past.

If a CGI reboot of this show ever came (which is unlikely), i hope the trains don't look creepy and freakish and nightmare inducing Side note: cgi characters around this time were very creepy, freakish and nightmare inducing, such as spooky spoon

28:07 sounds a bit like the Kermit frog ERNIEEEEEEEE (Thank you for 6 likes Thursday 9th May)

UNDERGROUND ERNIE!! I remember its vaguely mainly about some episode about a tunnel. But still iconic

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can Jubilee work a computer despite being a train? Because Jubilee is the computer.

The only things about underground Ernie I remembered from my childhood were: Victoria shouting help when she skids on the snow Hammersmith and city breaking apart along with the grunting noise Hammersmith made The dinosaur hologram which terrified me as a kid

This was my favourite show alongdide Thomss when i was younger, thanks for the nostalgia!

3:07 I feel nervous Ernie 😂 (Thank you for 3 likes Monday 6th May)

29:33 best WOW sound ever.

It took 18 months to animate the show im pretty sure that if it looked decent, the computers rendering it would catch fire and blow up

Oh the Paddy waggon set up absolutely sent me 🤣🤣

Someone should make a fanmade series of Ernie

I remember watching this. I love it!

Was going to review this show but now I don’t have to. This looks very promising Adam! Just like Chuggington, despite worse animation than that show, Underground Ernie is pretty charming and chill, plus being a good take on the talking train formula! Anyways, back to the Cars ranking gulag I go!

you know the feeling of "wait, I know that song" and then you struggle for 15 minutes trying to remember it No Rain, by Blind Melon got me at 9:46 - 12:48 Anyway, really good and insightful video to this show Adam! Really enjoyed this one besides me getting hung up on a song lmao

I realise why I've always been ok with Underground Ernie's animation, I grew up with early Barbie movies so I'm well accustomed to badly rendered CGI.

Love the intro " burn it, burn it with fire" 😂😂😂😂 Fantastic

Fun fact about Circle: Bachmann made a train set that has a model of her. It's.. certainly an uncanny valley sort of thing with how weird it looks. *It's eyes move, which make it worse.*

Underground Ernie looks like Thomas and JJ had cursed babies. Well that's traumatizing 💔.

Oh my gosh I absolutely loved this show and its concept, even though in practice it was... this. I even had toys of the characters. So fun to see you covering it!

Here's a nightmare: Underground ernie all engines go

9:01 Guys, Stingo is the bee who stung James. (Misinformation)

Gary Linekear in 2000 voiced a CGI London Underground Character 😂.

If this show was released now, Twitter would have a field day with it

Nice callback to Sam'sTrains review of Circle (The Disease Caterpillar)

I literally only know of this show because of Sam's Trains

With indie animation taking off on KZfaq, I'm surprised no one has tried to reboot this show.

I remember seeing a pic of ernie and thought it was disturbing this was like a year ago

14:03 Victoria’s personality and appearance is that of Daisy’s, oh my she even has lipstick!

“Am I having a stroke right now?!!?”

17:26 If Thomas still calls Percy a green caterpillar, then he hasn’t seen Circle, because she’s the true green caterpillar on wheels

Some of these characters look like they're from bug's life or hermie the caterpillar or cars. Hope this show gets a reanimated collab.

“o h n o” - Sir Topham Hatt 2013

You mentioning how the title of Underground Ernie has a human character's name reminds me of the title of Bob the Builder, infact I can also see a bit of similarities between Ernie and Bob. Also Moscow's mustache looks like a grill mouth from a Bob the Builder vehicle character honestly.

I really wanted Ernie to introduce District, Metropolitan, Northern, Piccadilly and Central in S2

They should make a reboot where Ernie is dead so they can call it 6 feet Underground Ernie

Stingo. That takes me back to when I was a kid watching Fifi and the Flowertots with my sister. Always used to come on after Thomas and Fireman Sam (S5, for anyone who's curious). I'd love to see someone make a retrospective on that series someday. I always used to hate Primrose for how snooty she tended to be. Violet was pretty chill though she could lose her head sometimes. I always used to feel bad for Slugsy since he tended to get roped into Stingo's operations all the time. Bumble was a close friend of hers, and he was pretty chill. That's about everyone I can remember right now. I think there was a spider too? I could be wrong. Great review regardless! :)

I had all of the Underground Ernie stuff. Now all I have is two trains: Brooklyn, Hammersmith and City - so technically three.

I remember watching this at a friends house and I still got the bachmann models of these. As a kid I loved it Idkw but I just did lol.

29:09 well in Turning Red, 4Town has 5 members despite having 4 in the name

I got pissed at the fact that there wasn't a character based on the Fowler's ghost locomotive

This looks like a KZfaq bootleg that would have something like a buncha Stalins reenacting 5 monkeys jumping on the bed.

I was going to search up something Mario-related that began with “Underground” and when I typed it in, the first thing I see is “Underground Ernie” and I was confused why it was searched so much. And now I find out why.

Well the designs are off-putting at least...

It looks like chuggington and jay jay the jet plane had a underground subway child

You know, I can only imagine what Gordon's encounter with one of the underground trains would be like, as from what I remember from my visit to London, there have been some points where the mainline and underground routes kind run parallel to eachother. Can certainly imagine some of them being as rough and harsh, as sort of the conditions of the railway system can get.

Since watching the video last night, I've been quietly singing to myself "MIND THE GAP AND DON'T BE NERVOUS!!!"

5:12 and people still say Sharon Miller is the only bad writer in Thomas

I think something that would be fixed about the faces on the trains is if they made the faces more vehicle-ie like the cars characters

Great video Adam 👍 Also, as an American I want to say that Brooklyn is not a stereotype; That's exactly what all of us are like. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

I’m so glad someone has taken the time to discuss Underground Ernie. Even though I’m an American I had a huge fascination with the show as a kid (I surfed around their website and played the games) even as I couldn’t watch the episodes. I even collected the motorized merch, and got almost every character of the main fleet. It’s uncanny, it’s hilarious for all the wrong reasons, but I still love it. You definitely gave the show a fair shake. Makes me wanna get out my Underground Ernie toys. Awesome job on this comprehensive review, you just reignited my Underground Ernie kick. 😂 P.S. Bakerloo was also always my favorite. Once I watched his episodes, that became even more certain lol.

Also, if a tumbleweed is sentient in TATMR a football can be sentient in UE

Someone FINALLY did it

Now I really want a show about the London overground

Most of the show probably wouldn't bother me as a kid but Moscow would probably give me nightmares

Well this video was a blast to watch Poor Luke and PDP who watch with You one of the episodes,I can not way for their reaction on the episode 36:59 that scared the hell out of me

i didnt know that it was an actual show i got toys of these as a kid and I thought it was just random toys

Before I saw that giant American flag on the side of Brooklyn I literally thought he was just Elton John’s trainsona

I never watched "Subterranean Ernest" as a 'Murican kid, but I only discovered that show from my first trip to the Bachmann UK website in 2006/2007.

The animation and only the animation reminds of Hoodwinked, witch is a Underetted film by the way.

the farting balloon is the best part of the show

Also Underground Ernie uses the brake squeal sound effect from The Railway Series Ted Robins narrations

the samstrains references with the “Circle” character… a man of culture 😎

3:33 “rat infested” (proceeds to show a picture of the C train on the New York City Subway not even related to the London Underground)

Question: where are the other line trains? Because they were too creepy to appear in the show, they were off camera at all times

I barely knew anything about this show growing up. I think I saw a toy of it at a car boot sale once, but I didn’t know the rest. To be honest, I feel like had I seen Underground Ernie, I would’ve been terrified. As good as the concept and writing is, the animation really didn’t do it any favours.

If Underground Ernie did get renewed for a second season, Joella could’ve quit their contract with 3D Films and probably get a new contract from a different animation studio like say Nitrogen or SD Entertainment in which either of those two could do the animation way better than 3D Films

I still wonder why they didn’t model the trains off of real tube trains, but then again I do like that all the trains are standard gauge

My childhood 😭

I remember this show when I was an infant…And I do not remember it looking so eerie! But, I do remember liking it at the time. I was raised in London so the Underground was a common sight so it was cool seeing that iconography I saw in real life in a train show. I even had a few of the toys (tho I almost never played with them as I had the superior Playrail/Tomy Thomas toys to play with. I even had toys of the main 3 human characters, & I remember them falling apart 😅). But yeah, nice seeing this little blip in my childhood again. As for any other non-Thomas train shows that the fandom will know like Chuggington or Underground Ernie, I can only think of 1 more that fits that bill. And, it’s probably the best out of any of the other ‘British Kid Train’ Shows. I think it’s time we visit the top left-hand corner of Wales and visit *Ivor The Engine…*