The Mayor Runs for Re-Election is the twenty-third episode of the third season.
Plot
Schemer helps Mayor Flopflinger improve his image for the election against Richard Richhouse.
Characters
- Mr. Conductor
- Stacy
- Becky
- Kara
- Schemer
- Mayor Flopdinger
- Midge Smoot
- Mr. Typo
- Richard Richhouse
- James (mentioned)
Thomas Stories
Jukebox Band Segment Song
- Hurray For The Railway
Trivia
- Richard Richhouse resembles the 37th president of the United States Richard Nixon.
- Neither Billy nor Dan do not appear in this episode.
- "Meet the Kids" may be a play on the NBC political commentary/interview program "Meet the Press"
- Richhouse as played by actor Richard Dixon (James Laroe), a Nixon like-alike. The episode originally aired without incident in January 1993 with at least two additional repeats afterwards that did not draw undue attention. By unfortunate coincidence, the episode was rebroadcasted on April 27, 1994, the day of former President Nixon's funeral. According to a Washington Post article filed the following day, an apology was given by PBS after receiving a number of phoned-in complaints.
- In the same April 28, 1994 Washington Post article, Co-Creator and Co-Producer Rick Siggelkow provided some additional insight and clarification about the episode. "The intent was not to make fun of him [Mr. Nixon] on the show" and at the episode's conclusion "Richhouse gives us a very strong, positive speech about why it's important to be in public life, to vote and to vote for someone who cares about people. There was no political reason for choosing Nixon. We considered [former New York mayor] Ed Koch because he was tenacious. I saw Nixon as almost a folklore figure - there was something that just made him seem like the logical one to be in the episode. He's not the villain of the peace by any means."
Goofs
- When Mr. Conductor is introducing James Learns a Lesson, he states that James was going too fast with the freight cars, but James was pulling a passenger train, not a freight train.
Gallery
Title card
