TUGS in Vanmania

TUGS was first broadcast in Vanmania on VTV 1 on 4 September 1989, the show was a massive success with Vanmanian audiences, sometimes doing better in ratings than it's sister show Thomas & Friends, the show aired reruns concurrently on VTV 1, VTV 4 and Fox Kids until late 2000, the show is now airing reruns on Boing.

History
In May 1989, Vanmania Television aqquired the rights from TVS and Clearwater Features to air TUGS in Vanmania and dub the series into the dutch language.

Executives at Vanmania Television were unsure if the series would do well in Vanmania, TUGS was considered a very risky show to air, but reportedly, one of the broadcasters at Vanmania Television told the executives of a programming lineup they could air for one day only to promote TUGS, the programming lineup would include repeats of the first two seasons of Thomas & Friends, it's sister show

On September 4, 1989, VTV 1's usual children's lineup was replaced with repeats of all 52 episodes of Thomas & Friends that were out at the time, and after the episode "Thomas & the Missing Christmas Tree" aired, the announcer of VTV 1's children's lineup at the time, Harrice van Yoop, announced that the sister series to Thomas & Friends, TUGS would air after he finished talking, and only 10 seconds later, the TUGS episode "Sunshine" premiered in Vanmania, the premiere of TUGS was a hit and the show became the most popular show for kids aged 2-11 in Vanmania, when the series' ended, Vanmania Television's CEO at-the-time Gerard Jacob visited Clearwater Features to ask if a second season was in production, though the company's CEO, Robert D. Cardona told Jacob that no new episodes would be produced, as the station that funded TUGS, TVS lost it's television license to Meridian Television, Jacob offered to continue the series under Vanmania Television but Cardona didn't trust VTV with the task of continuing the series, Cardona did promise he would give the television rights of the entire series to VTV after 1989, after that, Cardona told Jacob to leave because he needed to work on something.

Vanmania Television ultimately decided to not continue the series, but they did air reruns of the series until 1991, it didn't take long for reruns to return though, as when VTV 4 launched, TUGS started airing reruns on that channel, and continued to air reruns until 1994, TUGS would remain off the air for about 3 years until Saban International was given the rights to air TUGS on Fox Kids until at least before 2001, TUGS aired on Fox Kids from the channel's launch in 1997 up until late 2000.

TUGS was not aired again in Vanmania until 2019, when Boing started airing the series to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the series' Vanmanian premiere, this was the first time that TUGS was aired in it's original picture quality, uncompressed and digitalized Boing has kept airing reruns of the series ever since.

Broadcast history

 * VTV 1 (4 September 1989 - June 30, 1991)
 * VTV 4 (31 August 1992 - 30 June 1994)
 * Fox Kids (31 August 1997 - 10 November 2000)
 * Boing (4 September 2019 - present)

Episodes
NOTE: the episodes were aired in chronological order.


 * 1) Sunshine (4 September 1989)
 * 2) Pirate (11 September 1989)
 * 3) Trapped (18 September 1989)
 * 4) Jinxed (25 September 1989)
 * 5) Quarantine (2 October 1989)
 * 6) High Winds (9 October 1989)
 * 7) Ghosts (16 October 1989)
 * 8) Up River (23 October 1989)
 * 9) Warrior (30 October 1989)
 * 10) High Tide (6 November 1989)
 * 11) Munitions (13 November 1989)
 * 12) Regatta (20 November 1989)
 * 13) Bigg Feeze (27 November 1989)