The little loco that did, Thomas the Tank Engine and his hook-nosed friend have a lot to answer for. Now, in addition to the little chuff chuff, another familiar form of public transport has donned a smiley face and taken to the small screen in search of adventures. No not taxis – the kiddies of the world aren’t quite ready for that fetid can of worms. No, it’s buses - Busy Buses to be more exact.

Operating in an around the town of Chummley, the carefree inhabitants of the local bus garage lead very busy lives. Facing the rigours of a hard working life with a smile, these diesel-fuelled beasts of burden find their days filled with all manner of interesting happenings; be they parking tickets, running out of petrol, getting dirty, holes in the road, slippery slopes, icy roads, getting stuck under low-bridges, you name it. Cared for by their, erm, not-so-fat controller (as you will see later) Mr Spectre, Sammy the impetuous school bus, Harry the forgetful holiday bus, Gordon the airport bus, Colin the drawling country bus (eww arr!), Arnold the retired double-decker, Penny the mother hen and Stephanie the stuck-up bitch love nothing more than a scrub in the bus-wash, a hard-days motoring and a sing-along before bed.

In contrast to Thomas’ real life as a model train (of sorts), the Busy Buses are inhabitants of an entirely computer generated world; a 3D rendered domain in which eyes bulge out of bonnets and buses are king. For you see, all the other natives of the Chummley area are decidedly two-dimensional; every human being, tree, shrub and animal rendered as stiff cardboard-cutouts. This simple yet effective technique allows the viewer’s attention to focus exclusively on the buses themselves - although the irony concerning the ‘fat controller’ analogy certainly wasn’t lost on me.

With a whopping 26 episodes, the entire collection of five-minute installments created for the series’ first season, Busy Buses is sure to satisfy your tots. My two year old loves the show, and because her attention wanes after about 20 (four episodes), that leaves plenty of re-watch potential. Certainly I found Busy Buses much more suitable for her than Thomas, which I believe to be a little too nasty at times. One annoying thing I can say about the disc, however, is that although you can play all episodes in series, the opening credits and theme song are played before every single installment. After a few days of hearing this little ditty every four and a half minutes, you’ll start to go spare (teehee).

Presented on a single-sided, single-layer disc from Roadshow, Busy Buses is another serviceable offering in the ABC Kids range of releases. The anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer is very nice indeed; presumably drawn directly from the digital source material. The image is nice and sharp, with a good level of detail and sports a palette of solid, vivid colours. While there’s just a hint of aliasing – nothing to be the least bit concerned about – evidence of the compression process is nowhere to be seen.

In terms of audio, this Dolby Digital stereo offering is about par for the course; my trusty Prologic decoder adding little in the way of surround activity to what is basically a front-channel affair. A few rudimentary stereo effects can be heard from time to time, but basically the audio is dominated by the omnipresent narrator, whose voice emanates clearly and distinctly from the centre channel.

There’s no extras for your kiddies to explore, but then with 26 episodes, who’s complaining?