YMMV / Thomas And Friends S1 E3 "The Sad Story of Henry"

• Common Knowledge: Everyone seems to think that Henry really was sealed in the tunnel forever. Although it was implied to be several weeks (if not months) later due to him being filthy and covered in cobwebs by the time it happened, he was let out in the next episode. But, then again, it didn't help much that the Fat Controller declared his intention to leave Henry walled in "for always and always and always".
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Many fans will get severely annoyed if you act like Henry was never let out of the tunnel. He was actually let out the very next episode.
• Funny Moments: The Fat Controller's rather flimsy doctor-based excuses for not helping the passengers to pull and push Henry out of the tunnel.
  Fat Controller: My doctor has forbidden me to pull!
  
  Fat Controller: (only a few minutes later) My doctor has forbidden me to push!
• It Was His Sled: Henry refuses to come out of the tunnel, so he’s stranded there, but not forever like what Common Knowledge suggests.
• Jerkass Woobie: Henry at the end of the episode. Even as early as then, it's implied that he's well aware of what his vanity has cost him — but by then, it's much too late for him to do anything about it — and he's left wondering if the Fat Controller will ever forgive him and let him out of the tunnel again.
• Karmic Overkill: Although Henry was being selfish in not wanting to come out of the tunnel (leaving a train full of passengers unaccounted for and severely delayed as a result) simply for the sake of avoiding a rain shower, being bricked up inside the tunnel with his rails in and out taken up is generally considered to be much too harsh a punishment. He does at least get let out again the next episode, but it's implied that it's been quite a while since.
• Memetic Mutation: The scene where Henry getting walled up tends to invite quotes from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado". Most notably the Fat Controller declaring "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge!" and Henry shouting "For the love of God, Montresor!" as he's being bricked up in the tunnel.
• Nightmare Fuel: The thought of Henry remaining left to rot in the tunnel and having no steam to answer or even do much of anything can be quite horrifying when one thinks about it. All he can do is peer sadly out of the gap in the wall at all the other engines passing him by; and in Gordon's case, outright mocking his fate.
• Tear Jerker: This isn't called "The Sad Story of Henry" for nothing. Henry is bricked up in the tunnel and is very miserable about it. While the narrator says it was well-deserved, many viewers can't help but feel sorry for him as he has to stay there forever sad. It doesn't help that the UK version has the Fat Controller stating his intention to brick Henry up in the tunnel "for always and always and always".
  • Lampshaded in the Shining Time Station episode "Does It Bite?", where Mr. Conductor (Ringo Starr) doesn’t blow his whistle to begin the story like he usually does but instead warns the kids that "it's a very sad story" before collapsing in tears.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The narrator says that Henry deserved his punishment and asks if the audience agrees, yet a lot of viewers felt sympathy for Henry and saw his punishment as too harsh.
• Values Dissonance: At least in the UK version, Henry is entombed alive, seemingly forever, for the crime of refusing to work; very few modern viewers are likely to see this as proportionate. Not for nothing did the US version Bowdlerise the text so that Henry is simply cooped up in the tunnel "until [he’s] ready to come out" and is only bricked up "so that other engines wouldn't bump into him."

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