Follow me Thomas was my first real introduction to the power of television advertising. Little Man first saw the advert before Thomas & Friends on Nickelodeon and was instantly mesmerised. Cries of 'Can I get one Mum?' followed every time it was on. His Nanny was looking for something for his birthday, and although I thought this looked ridiculously overpriced she was determined to buy it for him!

Follow Me Thomas is basically a remote controlled Thomas that follows a light rather than you directing it with controls. The remote control is shaped like a light and it has a trigger like a gun to make it light. Thomas moves forward and backwards depending on whether you shine the light in front or behind him. Thomas talks as he moves and when he stops, saying things like 'I will follow the light' and 'light the way', as well as his trademark 'Peep Peep'.

I was really surprised at how quickly Thomas moved, and as he is quite large I have had a few bruises to my ankles courtesy of Little Man's bad driving! By waving the light of the floor quickly you can make Thomas move wildly spinning from one direction to the other which always causes hysterics in our house! There are also buttons on the controller with pre-programmed moves of circles, zigzags and figure of eight. If you don't wish to use the controller you can flick a switch on the base of Thomas and you can make him move by pressing the dome on his roof. There is also an ever so handy off switch!


Although Thomas is plastic and we have had lots of instances of him being driven ito walls at speed, he still looks like he did when purchased so he is pretty robust. Even his feels don't look that worn which is surprising considering his many trips around the garden...

As predicted, Follow Me Thomas is a hit in our house. It is not a toy that we get out every day, as it needs quite a lot of space to see it at its full potential which involves moving all the living room toys out of the way first, but once we have him out it keeps him amused for ages. Thomas seems to work best on wooden floors, but doesn't struggle on carpet and we've even had him out in the garden without too much trouble. My only real complaint about Thomas is the motor is quite noisy when he is zipping around.

Follow me Thomas takes seven batteries which are provided with the toy - 4 in Thomas and 3 in the controller. The battery compartment is secured with screws which is great if you have a budding engineer like me! We have changed the batteries in Thomas once, but the controller is still going strong.

We bought follow me Thomas for £45 when he first came out but you can now purchase him for £31.15 delivered from Amazon. I still think this is a lot of money for what you get, but I guess it is because of the Thomas franchise and pester power means parents will pay it. Although the toy was better than I thought I would probably only recommend it at full price to a Thomas fanatic, as I can see it having a limited play time before it starts to lose its appeal. Although Little Man really likes his Follow me Thomas, he would much rather play with his static trains and tracks.