I just caught bits and pieces of a Saturday morning TV cartoon show on ABC with an entire plot based around model railroading.
The Disney show was called "Fillmore!" The apparent premise of the show is that Fillmore is a middle school safety patrol officer, who solves a school crime every episode. It's kind of a spoof of "Law and Order" in cartoon form. I had never heard of the show before, but I have to admit that it had some pretty clever writing.
I was moving around the house, doing a few morning chores so I only caught bits and pieces of the show, but it had a funny plot line. Based on the details and the clever dialog of the show, it was obviously written by or with the help of model railroaders. The show even ends with a reference to posting to model railroad newsgroups.
The episode's premise was based on the middle school hosting a model railroad convention, and a derailment on one layout leads to a series of misfortunate accidents which cascade to all of the layouts -- destroying them all.
At first it looks like an accident, but Fillmore -- being the conscientious safety officer that he is -- is suspicious of the accident and launches an investigation. Although the blame is originally centered around rival members of the rival R/C club, the investigation eventually leads to a jealous model railroader.
Comments from some of the suspects that Fillmore interviewed during the investigation:
"Rob has a good heart, but he's not known for his track- laying skills. . how about the time he used chewing gum to secure his track to the layout?"
"The 'trainers' are stuck in the past... all that Normal Rockwell, layout-under the tree nostalgia." - a comment by an R/Cer.
"Can you do that?" "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."
In the aftermath of what was described as "the largest model railroad accident in history" by the school principal, an R/C helicopter flies over the mangled trains and bodies strewn everywhere and the kid flying the helicopter says "OH, THE MINIATURE HUMANITY!" in a reference to the Hindenburg disaster.
I missed seeing the outcome of the investigation (and my six-year- old who had been watching the show and has been a bit sick dozed off, so I couldn't ask her...) but at the end, Fillmore's assistant reports that she just posted the guilty party's action " ... to all the model train newsgroups... his modeling career is over!"