ThomasNATION Classic Reviews - Henry's Magic Box

December 10, 2022

 

I debated for a while about what character the Miller era butchered the most, and a ton of characters came to mind. Folks like Edward, Emily, Toby, and even Thomas himself came to mind. But there was one character that the era butchered the absolute most to the point where the damage, for a while, was considered irreversible: Henry. I’ll go deeper into this later, but I’ll just let you know now this isn’t just a review of Henry’s Magic Box. This will also serve as a retrospective of how this era treated the jolly green giant. So, with that said, how is Henry’s Magic Box anyway? Let’s begin.
The plot here follows a lot of the cookie-cutter Miller era tropes: Henry has a special special that requires him taking a box to a farm and to gather everyone up for a surprise at teatime. But he veers off from his job a consecutive three times in order to perform his own goal. Sir Topham Hatt scolds him, he feels bad, he makes things right, yada yada yada.
While this episode uses a lot of the same plot beats as any other Miller era episode, as I just stated, but this does make for an interesting topic of discussion: how they handled Henry. In the original series, Henry was always headstrong, confident, but with a slight arrogance to him. He wasn't perfect, hell, no one was at the time, but he was relatable. Be honest, who didn't know a dude like Henry? Hell, I still know a couple people like him. But then came the Miller era and that likable relatability was all gone in favor of nothing but sheer cowardice. At that time, he became a constant worrier to the point that he became less realistic and more annoying. In fact, the damage to this character became so bad that it wasn't fixed until over halfway through the Brenner era, leading to him being the worst part of the two best specials.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "But JF, there's a hundred episodes in this era where Henry's panicky nature was really bad, like Henry's Happy Coal or Ho Ho Snowman, why are you bringing this up now?". Well, I'm glad you asked.
This, in my opinion, is where Henry's worrisome attitude is at its worst. Not just because of the attitude, but this episode mixes up Henry's personality of "worrisome coward" by throwing "a little dumb" in there too. Not only does he constantly disregard his work in order to check on a little crate, but when the trees start showing up, he never takes into consideration that the trees were inside the box. Did he just think he was delivering a box with nothing in it? He even drops everything to search the island for the box, which is just absolutely ridiculous.
All in all, Henry's Magic Box is a perfect display of Henry at his worst. Not only is it just a bad episode with no memorable or fun qualities, but it amps up the worrier Henry to the point where all likability that could come from him is just flat out gone. If you want my recommendation, just give it a pass. It's a viewing experience that you'd practically get nothing from, so as such, it was very close to a 0.5, but after careful consideration, this gets a 1/5. Hallelujah, holy [REDACTED]! Where's the Tylenol?

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