Christmas

Christmas is a special TUGS episode.
Written by TUGSfan66
==Story==
It is December the 12th 1938, about 13 year's after the original series is set. Everyone in Bigg City Port are getting ready for Christmas, Ocean Liner's , Plane's and Train's came in with people come to see their relative's who lived in Bigg City, the shop's in the city are open at all hours, and City hall has a clock put up that will ring when it's Christmas.
At the Star Dock, the tugs were talking about things they would like to get for Christmas, "Ok, thats enough of chit-chat time. I have some news" said Captain Star "My son Rick Star, is tired of life in New York so he's coming to live here at Bigg City", "It will be nice to see Rick again" said Warrior ,"Yes" replied Big Mac, "We haven't seen him since he went of with 3 of his friends to live in New York 15 years ago", "Im just as pleased as you are that he's coming back to Bigg City" said Captain Star "Now for the really big news, after months of construction, our first ever ocean liner has finally been completed, and is arriving tomorrow", "Now that's what I call a dream come true" said Emily, "Same thing here" said Ten Cents, "Those Z-Stacks are going to be so jealous" grinned Frank.
And the Z-stacks were jealous, "Once again my old high school rival has triumphed" said Captain Zero, "That makes us angry too sir" said Zorran, "What do you want us to do Captain?" said Zebedee, "Steal their ship?" said Zip, "Make it run aground" said Zug, "Or even better, Sink it!" said Zak, "No none of that stuff" said Captain Zero, "As far as I know old Ronald Star, he was the most strongest in high school, you know my mustashe, it used to be a combo with a beard." "What happend to the beard?" asked Zip, "Star ripped it clean off!" "Did it hurt?" asked Zak, "Does this scar on my face ring a bell to you idiots! Now I want you to go and find an ocean liner or any other kind of ship for sale, now fire up your boilers and find me a ship!".
While that was going on, the Star Tugs had been sent out to do diferent jobs, Ten Cents went to get a Christmas tree for the Star Dock, Big Mac was sent to collect some presents from Bigg City Mail Co and The Bigg City Toychest, OJ was sent to take Boomer to Lucky's Yard for repairs, Top Hat was taking Frank and Eddie around with some railway wagon's on board,full of things for the Holidays. Warrior was taking Lord Stinker to the Recycling Plant to get supplies for homeade gifts, Hercules went to tow in the aircraft carrier USS Tornado,Frank and Bert went to get some new decorations,Matthew,Grace and Roger went to collect some fuel from the Propane Plant,and Sunshine and Emily were taking an old Mississippi Paddle Steamer to be repaired.
Tornado was waiting out in the bay to be towed in to port by Hercules, Tornado had two planes called Mike and Chris and a helicopter called Hover on his flight deck, "Im so Booooooored!" grumbled Chris, "Why cant we just take-off?", "Beacuse your so stupid and get bored so easily!" said Mike, "No Im Not!" "Yes You Are!" "No Im Not!!" "Yes You Are!!" "No Im Not!!!" "Yes You Are!!!" "NO IM NOT!!!!" "YES YOU ARE!!!!", "SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" cried out Hover, "He's right" said Tornado, "You could irritait someone to death one of these days!", eventually Hercules came, by this time everyone had calmed down, as Hercules towed Tornado in to port, a noise equal to four plane engine's could be herd from the sky, "It can't be any of my planes, they are still on board" said Tornado, they soon found out were the noise came from, a Zeppelin airship flow right over Tornado and Hercules, the plane had it's landing gear wasn't retracted witch meant it was coming in to land, "By the looks of the direction its coming from, it came from New York" said Hercules.
And the airship did come from New York, Rick Star along with 3 of his friends and his pet Huskie Frost, were on board the plane, Captain Star was waiting in his 1937 Pickup outside the airport, "Hi Dad!" said Rick when he first saw Captain Star, "Im so pleased to see you to son" said Captain Star, "I see Frost is no longer the puppy in that photo you sent me 5 years ago, And I presume those are the friends that you said were comeing to Bigg City with you?", "Yes, Dad this is Don Lowmax, he was a Taxi Driver in New York he's thinking about geting a job as a Taxi driver in Bigg City, and the other two guys are Rex & Mitch Roberts, they used to work in a car garage, and I worked as a editor for the New York Newspaper", "An editor in a newspaper, that was my first job to, now come along everyone. lets get back to the Star Dock". so Captain Star, Rick, Don, Rex and Mitch not forgeting Frost, got into Captain Stars truck and headed to the Star Villa, Captain Star's luxury home near the beach.
Star Villa is a nice place to stay in the summer. It has 36 large apartments, a parking garage, a runway and hanger for light aircraft, a swiming pool and a jetty for boats to dock. Captain Star drove his car in to the drive way of the villa and parked it outside the front door, while that was going on Hercules was towing Tornado in to be docked, the Naval dock was on the other side of the harbour, so Hercules had to be careful not to damage other vessels while he was towing Tornado. Meanwhile Zip and Zug were following Captain Zero's order's, find a passenger ship that was for sale, "So far we havn't seen a single ship for sale" said Zug, "But we did see a sail for sale" said Zip, as they moved along they spotted Burke and Blair towing an old passenger ship across the harbour on it's last voyage, "Hey!, you two what are you doing with that old boat" said Zug, "We are taking this old heap of scrap to the braker's yard to be cut-up and melted down in to spare parts for you" said Burke, "If you need any that is" said Blair, "Why cut it up, when we could by it" said Zug, "After all Captain Zero needs a ship like this one" replied Zip, "Mr. Burke, I think Zip and Zug want to make a deal with us" said Blair, "I think so to Mr. Blair" said Burke, while Zip and Zug were makeing their deal with Burke and Blair, Hercules was nearing wear they were, towing Tornado behind him. As Hercules steamed along, two speed boats were racing against each other. It was all going well for Hercules, but then disaster struck. One of the speed boats lost control , and was heading strait for Hercules and Tornado! As the speed boat drew nearer, Hercules went strait in to reverse to aviod colission corse with the the speed boat, "You could killed your self at that speed!" said Hercules to the speed boat, Hercules was just about to continue to the Naval dock, when the other speed boat showed up, trying to assist his friend, Hercules quickly went in reverse, and accidentaly bashed and scraped Tornado. The impact caused Tornado's engine to start working, and one of Tornado's crewmen accidently pulled his reverse lever, causing him to go in reverse! Zip and Zug were still making ther deal with Burke and Blair when the Coast Guard motored pass. As he moved pass the four tugs, he saw that Tornado was in reverse, and might sink the tugs by accident. "Look Out!" cried the Coast Gaurd, Burke, Blair, Zip and Zug all turned around and saw Tornado's stern coming toward's them. They all moved out of the way, but the rope's tied to the passenger ship had snapped, and now it was in Tornado's way, Tornado's stern hit the ship and one of his propeller's ripped the ship's hull open like a can-opener. Tornado's skipper moved Tornado's lever in to forward, and he moved out of the way. But the passenger ship had tipped over on it's side and sank. "We were going to buy that!" said Zip. "And we would have got $200 for cutting it up and melting it down and then sell it!" said Burke who was rather angry, "Forget about asking us for a ship next time when we get one, because the answer will be no!" said Blair, and the scrap dealers sailed off.
The next day Hercules towed in the brand new ocean liner to the drydock, it was a bit cold in the air and there was a slight gust of wind, so Ten Cents, Sunshine and Emily came to assist Hercules in case the wind became any stronger, "Captain Star said it might snow at night, and I think he was right" said Emily, the tugs towed the mighty ocean liner in to drydock and they pushed it in so it could have it's final coat of paint, the Star Tugs made their way back to the star dock, as they sailed along, the Z-Stacks steamed pass them, "Hey Stars!" said Zorran "We want a word with you!" "What do you want Zorran?" said Hercules, "You should probably know what we want, we want a complaint" "What for?" "You know, you used that aircraft carrier to sink our passenger ship, before we even bought it!" "If you want to complain go to the speedboat dock and talk to the two speedboats that caused me to reverse in to Tornado", "Im afraid he's right Zorran" said Zug, "We saw it with are own eyes!" said Zip, "Oh!, So errrr.... in that case I'm sorry about that" said Zorran. "And those speedboats are sunk when I get them!",muttered Zorran under his breath. And with that Zorran sped off to the speedboat dock.
It was twilight when all of the Star Tug's were back at the Star dock, and Captain Star locked the door to his office, got in to his car, and drove back to the Star Villa. After Captain Star left, the tug's started to talk about the thing's that they did in the past two day's. "You should have seen the paddle steamer" said Emily, "It was the most beautiful ship ever". "Captain Star said he wanted to use it for his Christmas party" said Sunshine, "After all, it was just sitting at the old ferry dock waiting to be cut-up". "Yes, I'm pleased it's been saved to" said OJ. "By the way, I went to see Boomer at Lucky's Yard, He's being converted back in to a tug for the Christmas party". "Why?" asked Sunshine. "Beacuse the paddle steamer's engine is in a bad condition, so Captain Star needed a tug to tow it around Bigg City Port, and he decided that Boomer could do it", the tugs then turned over to Ten Cents, who was looking towards the drydock, that was lit-up so the worker's could paint the ocean liner that will soon be under operation of the star fleet. "I can't wait for it to go in to operation" said Ten Cents, "Same thing here" said Sunshine, "As soon as the men have finished fiting-out the ship, it will be leaving for New York and will then come back and it will be the first ocean liner to be owned by a tug fleet!". "That's if anyone wants to go to New York by ship" said Warrior, "What do you mean?" said Emily, "Well the company Globe Air own's a billion Zeppelins, and some people would probably want to get a bird's eye view of New York". "Warrior I doubt it if anyone will go by Zeppelin these day's" said OJ. "After all, since the Hindenburg crashed and burned, everyone chose to take ship to travel across the atlantic". "Yes, and the owner of Globe Air is desparete for money" said Hercules. "So he's decided to operate the Zeppelins 365 day's a year". "365 day's a year!" said Ten Cents. "But thats ridiculus, in this wind it'll get blown right into a building and explode!". "And I thought Bluenose was an idiot" said Sunshine. "Well let's just hope they don't think about going out in a gale" said OJ. The tugs hoped that they didn't.
The next morning, the tugs woke up to see that it had snowed while they were asleep, and everything was covered in snow. The top of the water was now ice that usually caused a hazzard for the shipping. Luckily there was no ice near the tug dock's, so the tug's could still leave the dock to do at least some of their usual job's. The ice meant it was hard for the tug's to get around the dock's. As Ten Cents and Sunshine sailed though the iced-up harbour, they heard a noise of cracking ice. "Where's that noise coming from?" said Sunshine. They soon found out, a large ship sailed past the tug's breaking the ice with his bow, "Ahoy there!" cried out Ten Cents "Thanks for clearing the ice for us", "Your welcome" said the ship, "You must be clever to brake the ice like that!" said Sunshine, "Im not really clever, it's just the way I was designed" replied the ship. "What way were you designed?" asked Sunshine. "With a strong steel bow that I use to cut the ice, by the way my name is Eagle". "It's nice to meet you Eagle" said Ten Cents. "It's nice to meet you to, do you know were the museum dock is, I'm trying to find it". "Yes, I'll show you were it is". "Just a minute, I have to wait for Shelburne to surface". "Who's Shelburne?" asked the tug's. Just then bubble's appeared on the surface, and a small submarine surfaced along side the tug's, "This is Shelburne" said Eagle. "A submarine! said Sunshine. "Hey Eagle, get me back on the deck, this water's freezing!" said Shelburne shivering. Eagle then used a crane on his aft deck to lift Shelburne out of the water and on to his deck. There were outher crane's on Eagle's aft deck, one had a diving cage attached to it's hook, one that had a search light on it and one that had a scoop on it, "by the look's of all that fancey equipment on you deck, I'll say your a salvage ship" said Sunshine. "Thats right!" said Eagle, "Me and Shelburne go all over the ocean finding treasure on sunken ship's, and sometime's we help on salvage operation's, we have some gold bar's in a crate in the cargo hold that we salvaged from the wreck of the USS Stingray, that was torpedoed and sunk in 1917", "Sound's interesting" said Ten Cents, "They will look great in the Bigg City Maritime Museum". so the tugs and Eagle made their way to the museum dock.
After the tug's docked Eagle, they sailed across the harbour to go and fetch Lillie Lightship, and take her to Lucky's Yard for an overhaul. As Ten Cents and Sunshine made their way across the harbour, they saw the Globe Air Zeppelin fly past on it's way back to the airport. Ten Cents and Sunshine decided to follow it to the airport, the airport dock was next door to the Naval dock, a large fence seperated the two airfields from each other, the Globe Air Zeppelin called the New York landed at the Zeppelin dock near the Globe Air HQ and two other Zeppelin dock's, Ten Cents and Sunshine sailed down the canel that went through the airport, as they sailed down the canal Sunshine noteiced something. "Isn't that Carl over there?" said Sunshine. "It is Captain Star's car" said Ten Cents. "But why is Captain Star here, he hate's plane's, well most of them anyway". The tug's soon found out. They saw Rick, Don and Captain Star out side a hanger near the canel and they were standing next to something covered up with a tarpulin. "Ok Rick, why did you drag me here to this place?" said Captain Star. "To show you something dad" said Rick. "You know when I first came back to Bigg City 3 day's ago, I said I was a Newspaper Editor, but I wasn't just a editor, I was also a photograther, and I took some photo's of the Graf Zeppelin while it was flying about a hundred feet high. here's the photo's I took of the 'Graf'", Captain Star took a look at the photograph's, while Ten Cents and Sunshine watched them, "These photo's are amazing!" said Captain Star. "Just how did you take them?". "Now that question is the reason why I dragged you over here" said Rick. Rick and Don walked over to the thing that was under the tarpulin, and they started to pull it off, revialing what was underneath it. Once the tarpulin was pulled off, what was under it was a black and yellow race plane, "Gee Bee Model Z" said Rick. "Top speed 270 MPH, Range is 900 SM, has over 2400 RMP, use's a P & W Wasp Jr Supercharged engine that produce's 535 HP, and I even like the color!". "We fitted a detachible camra that can take photo's when the plane is doing 80 MPH" said Don, "Good way to take photo's" said Captain Star. "Hey Rick, great plane you've got there!" cried Sunshine. "Thanks Sunshine, I might as well take it out for a test flight" replied Rick. Rick jumped in to the plane and started up the engine and took off.
==Trivia==
* This is the first episode that combines live-action and model's.
* This is the first episode to use model kit's.
* This is the first time that Bigg City itself is seen.
* Captain Star's full name is revealed to be Ronald Edward Star.
* Most of the live-action car's were prevoiusley used in Agatha Christie's Poirot, Jeeves and Wooster, Foyle's War, The Rocketeer and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
* The ill-fated Great Lakes passenger ship that the Z-Stack's tryed to buy was re-used as a background ship.
* Model's from Thomas the Tank Engine appear in the background:
** Duck is seen on Frank, but only his bunker can be seen.
** The season 7 model's of Skarleoy, Rheneas and three narrow gauge coaches, can be seen on the live-action set as toy's in the toy shop!
** Hank is seen going over the railway bridge, however his face has been replaced with a black disk(thats been made to look like a smokeebox door) to cover-up the eye mecanisium.
*Aircraft seen at the Airport Dock:
** Ford Trimotor
** Lockheed Constellation
** Supermarine Spitfire
** Hawker Hurricane
** Douglas DC-3
** B-29 Superfortress
** LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin
==Errors==
* Anachronism: An Opel Blitz can be seen on the live action set, but the Blitz didn't go in to production until 1943.
* Continuity: Tornado somehow moves a tiny bit ferther from the passenger ship after his propeller cuts a hole in it.
* Crew or equipment visible: A crew member's hand can be breifley seen pushing Tornado in to the passenger ship.
*
Category:Story