[Rotdhizon]

It's nothing more than an on going meme. However the Thomas the Tank Engine meme has survived and been thriving for many years now, much longer than most others of the same type do. Look back at the days of left for dead, people modded all types of characters like the telletubbies and even Hank from King of the Hill into the game. Thomas has a lot of lore and history surrounding it. Notably the "It was time for him to leave, for Thomas had now seen everything" meme. There really isn't a one sentence explanation for it, it's just a part of the meme culture surrounding these types of shows that is very tedious to explain. It's something you grow into, it would be very difficult to understand this if you had no idea or understanding of why these cultures exist.

[kibibu]

Barney being modded into Doom was the earliest joke mod I remember.

[jhbadger]

The original 8-bit Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple ][ (1981) was modded to become "Castle Smurfenstein" (1983) in which the Germans became Smurfs.

https://www.evl.uic.edu/aej/smurf.html

[protomyth]

That was an extremely satisfying mod for someone who got dragged into subbing at a early childhood center when they ran out of staff. That damn purple thing singing is still burned into my memory.

[xyzzy_plugh]

Great, I had since forgotten but now it's burned into my mind as if I just watched it. Is this PTSD?

[ErotemeObelus]

I am amazed by how universal hatred of the purple dinosaur is. It transcends race, religion, sex and nationality.

[Freak_NL]

In Quake I there was even a fan-made Beavis and Butt-Head model you could use as player model in multiplayer (everyone on the LAN just copied a huge folder of models and skins to their Quake install dirs).

Of course, the model was of both Beavis and Butt-Head, who as a side-by-side pair didn't even come close to approximating the player's hitbox.

> […] characters like the telletubbies (sic) […]

Ideally with the annoying sounds made when hit. Homer Simpson was a popular choice too, especially with the ‘doh!’ he made when shot at.

[Alex3917]

The character was also voiced by George Carlin, so that may also be part of it.

[soylentcola]

I believe he played the narrator/conductor guy on the TV show after Ringo Starr (although I don't know what, if any, differences there were between the UK and US versions).

Always thought that was amusing when my little half-brother was watching it during my breaks from college. If only you knew who that guy was, little bro...