Show and Yell

Show and Yell is the 5th episode of "Shining Time Station."

Summary
Everyone is exchanging greetings at Shining Time Station as the episode opens. Stacy greets a gentleman passenger carrying two large suitcases, Tanya greets Stacy and Matt, and the two children greet Mr. Conductor, Harry and Schemer. Everyone returns the children’s greetings except Schemer, who only wants to greet the money in his Arcade machines.

Suddenly, the children hear someone else greeting them. The voice appears to come from the waiting area, where the passenger is calmly reading a book. The children look curiously at the man, because his lips aren’t moving as the voice continues speaking, asking if Matt and Tanya are going to return his greeting. The man glances at the children, smiles, and takes a ventriloquist dummy out of one of his suitcases. The dummy asks Tanya if she’s Matt. Tanya identifies herself and the dummy asks where Matt is. A second voice is heard coming from the man’s other suitcase, which turns out to be a second ventriloquist dummy. This second dummy thinks Matt is Tanya.

By this point Stacy, Harry and Schemer have come over to watch as the two dummies and the man banter with Matt and Tanya. One dummy introduces himself as Lazlo, and the other Eugene, but they don’t know the man’s name. The man finally introduces himself as Al, and the three of them humorously discuss whether or not they should use the word ‘dummy’ when talking about each other. Everyone is very impressed with the impromptu performance; with Schemer quipping that Al should be selling tickets instead of performing for free. Stacy then takes a phone call from the train dispatcher, and informs the ventriloquist that his train will be late. This doesn’t bother him at all, and he asks Matt and Tanya if they will watch his luggage while he runs an errand. The children agree, and Tanya asks if they can play with the ventriloquist dummies in the meantime. The man says they can, and leaves.

Matt asks Tanya if she thinks they can really make the puppets work, and Mr. Conductor appears to answer him. First, they’ll take dummy lessons, and then ‘smarty’ lessons! Mr. Conductor starts by asking Tanya to try saying “a bag of boots, a bag of boots” without moving her lips. Tanya immediately says she can’t, and Mr. Conductor says she’s not trying. Tanya attempts to say the tongue twister, which comes out as “an ag of oots.” Mr. Conductor says it’s a good start and suggests the two of them should chat with James the Red Engine. Matt asks if James knows how to work puppets. Mr. Conductor thinks for a moment, then says James can’t work puppets but is an authority on trying. To illustrate, he tells the children about how James didn’t give up when pulling a recalcitrant freight train.

After the story, Mr. Conductor tells the children that sometimes they’ll surprise themselves with what they can do. After he disappears, Matt and Tanya begin working the puppets and after only a minute or two, decide to put on a show of their own. They go off and drag Stacy and Harry away from their work to watch them, with Schemer joining to see another free show. With the puppets set up on the ticket counter, Matt tries to replicate the ventriloquist’s skit about their names, while Tanya makes her dummy do a completely different skit about vegetables. The performance quickly breaks down as the children begin accusing each other of getting it wrong. Stacy tries to calm the situation by saying that neither of them is wrong, they just had different ideas about what right was. She suggests they practice and they’ll be better next time. Tanya pouts that there won’t be a next time, and Stacy replies with some words from her grandmother, “every time has a next time, sometime!”

Matt and Tanya aren’t convinced, and their mood isn’t helped by Schemer joking that his favorite parts of their show was when it was over and that it was free. The children begin arguing again about who was wrong, and Schemer settles the argument by saying they were both wrong! He then invites them to cheer up by spending money in the Arcade. Matt puts a nickel in the jukebox, and selects the song “Freight Train.” None of the band knows that song, but they decide to play it anyway. Their dissonant performance shocks Matt and sparks an argument among the band members about who’s to blame. They stop arguing long enough to decide that it’s Tito’s fault, because he’s not there!

Later, Tanya is moping by the Information Desk when Mr. Conductor appears and points at her accusingly, saying she must be the culprit. Tanya is confused, but Mr. Conductor says he can tell by her face that she’s the one who ate all the lemons! Tanya denies eating any lemons, which leads Mr. Conductor to suggest they look for them in the Anything Tunnel. Inside the tunnel is a music video about being able to “bounce back” after a failure.

Meanwhile, Matt finds himself in the workshop, where Harry asks if they’ll be seeing another puppet show soon. Matt strongly rejects the idea, which prompts Harry to ask if he’s giving up. Matt says that everything went wrong and he and Tanya couldn’t make it work. Harry answers that Isaac had the same problem. Matt asks who Isaac is, and Harry tells him about Isaac Dripps, who at only 21 years of age was given the job of assembling the first railroad locomotive in North America, the “John Bull.” The engine worked but it kept derailing, among other problems. However, Isaac solved the problems and kept making improvements to the engine to make it better and better. Harry concludes his story with the fact that the engine is now in the Smithsonian Institute and is the oldest steam locomotive in America. Matt asks what happened to Isaac, and Harry says that he became a famous railroad mechanic. Isaac never gave up, Harry tells Matt, and neither should he. Matt doesn’t want to give up, but mentions that the ventriloquist will be back soon for his puppets. At that, Harry goes over to the workbench and starts tinkering with bits of discarded metal.

Outside the workshop, Stacy finds Tanya sitting by herself. Stacy says that she remembers putting on puppet shows herself as a girl, and all she needed was a sock and a big imagination. Tanya begins to cheer up as Stacy shows her how to make a puppet with a sock and some buttons, while Harry helps Matt make his own puppet out of nuts, bolts and some metal strips. Soon, they children meet back up and show each other their new playthings. Mr. Conductor appears and frantically tries to warn them about the horrible beasts that have eaten their hands, but Matt and Tanya quickly explain that it’s just their puppets. Mr. Conductor asks if that means another puppet show, but the children are reluctant as they don’t want to be made fun of. Mr. Conductor says that if they aren’t even going to try, he’ll talk to the puppets instead. He tells the puppets to think of what happened to James when the other engines made fun of him. Matt asks what did happen and Mr. Conductor tells the story of how James got to prove himself by pulling the Express.

After the story, Mr. Conductor addresses the puppets again, telling them they’ll never know if they can do their best until they try again. He asks again for a show in exchange for the story, but says they should be sure they’re ready first. Over in the Jukebox Didi comments that she likes the children’s puppets while Rex suggests they provide some background music. Mr. Conductor disappears and reappears in front of his signal house with some popcorn and a pair of opera glasses, asking the puppets if the children are ready yet. Matt and Tanya duck behind the ticket counter and start performing. Mr. Conductor gives them a thumbs-up as they perform much better than the first time.

Just then, the ventriloquist returns and asks the puppets if they’ve seen Matt or Tanya. The children keep right on performing and impress the ventriloquist as well as Stacy, Harry and Schemer. Back in the Jukebox, Tex declares he’s just remembered the words to “Freight Train” and the band begins to play as the ventriloquist claims his puppets and goes out to catch his train. When the song is over, Schemer rushes up with a sign he just made which reads “Puppet Show, only 5 cents.” The episode comes to an end as Schemer flips the sign over to display another message, “A great deal!”

Train Stories

 * Troublesome Trucks
 * James & the Express