POTD 10/5/17 Honeycomb

[Leave a Whisper]

I have this gorgeous girl from my childhood  - 
Glittery bees - genius!
Lilac eyes - so sweet!

I also have a mini-army as it was one of the first ponies (along with Gypsy) that I looked for on Ebay a few years back when I had a spurt of nostalgia... then more recently when when I joined the Arena.

I always picture her on a hot, sunny day, in my Gran's garden. I was combing Honeycomb's mane as I sat at the garden table; along would come a tray of cheese rolls and sweet, milky coffee (Gran let me drink it at a young age!) and a jam donut. Great memories! 

I have a soft spot for white-bodied ponies, I suppose that design-wise I personally find them... I don't know, complete? I mean that a neutral white body off-sets what ever the colour of the hair is so that the pony design *works* without clashing/contrasting too much. Yes, even with that crazy neon hair!

If I *had* to make-over a Honeycomb, it would be tempting to re-hair a baity one with the golden yellow colour of the baby version... and maybe add a few tan freckles to her blushing cheeks? Just a pipe-dream... I certainly do not have the time to do it in the near future!  or swap heads with a Majesty for a G1 Alicorn!

That's such a sweet memory.

[nessa16]

Spoiler

I have this gorgeous girl from my childhood  - 
Glittery bees - genius!
Lilac eyes - so sweet!

Great childhood story Those make childhood ponies special, moments like that. Simple and yet you never forget them

I have often thought about the need for a unicorn Honeycomb like the factfile suggests.

@LM, the comic is a bit of a side point in my main point really, but while I do think the comic artists worked from images and information from Hasbro, whatever they had was not just a generic US file. Hasbro wasn't that coordinated back then as it is now, with stuff like that. The comic came about the same year Hasbro UK established itself (their word,' inception') and by that point some UK only ponies were already out (Baby Applejack, Surfdancer, Seaspray) and they were included in the comic. A generic US bulletin would omit them. Also, the ponies we didn't get were released in Europe for the most part, and many were released on UK art style English cards marked Hasbro UK. This for me is the strongest evidence they were in the mixup to be released here, but ultimately ended up being exported. The fact this happened - and the fact that even by 1984 Hasbro UK had its own packaging style suggests they were controlling the information themselves, not just sending out generic material. I think it went on the same way, because we never see Truly or Cupcake, and the comic gets the names right for Sweetie and Wavebreaker as well. True, we see Ribbon and Lofty but Ribbon's inclusion on club material and Megan and Sundance's backcard suggests she was under consideration for release and Lofty may have been as well (like Paradise, pulled at the last minute). Probably there were sets they were undecided on, for example the BBE, or there were sets they left in because they were marketing some of these comics to the continent too, where these ponies were on shelves. And of course the comic was just one piece of merchandise. UK merchandise generally included UK and non-UK ponies together in stories and on other media. 

Basically I think they had a bit of everything and threw it all towards the comic people while some decisions were still pending - but I genuinely think with the packaging and everything that we were getting those sets. We just didn't. Maybe as a country with the recession it made more sense to package them for abroad. Who knows? But I think for the most part what they sent the comic had nothing to do with a generic bulletin from the US.

I don't think either the 1986 set were the first set seen in real life particularly. I think that more likely Hasbro were excited about this release as being a moneyspinner and thus worked with the comic to promote them in an offer and make them prominent so that kids would want them. I imagine they spent a year or so wondering how to fill this marketing gap whereby they'd got a comic that was selling well but marketing a lot of ponies they weren't putting on shelves, and to me this seems to be a way of combatting that.

Irregardless, it is still all speculation.  Yes, Hasbro UK sounds like it was rather mixed up in the beginning, but there is no telling about the designers for these ponies.  For all known, the designer of Honeycomb could have been the same designer of Surprise, or it could been someone that had visited the US (or moved to the UK), and picked her as a favorite leading to the design of Honeycomb.  Surprise did show up first, and if put side by side, you could easily not know which was which if their symbols were removed.  Maybe these designers were completely two different people who never met in their lives, but BIW has the right to her opinion.  If she thinks that Honeycomb looks like a carbon copy of Surprise, whether intentional or not, that's fine because no one knows for sure.  If people think that Honeycomb would have been better off with a more honey color, that's fine too.  I personally agree because it would have gone better with her bee symbols.  When making Baby Honeycomb, the designers could have reviewed Honeycomb, and said, "you know something is off here".  We just don't know, and everyone is entitled to own opinions.

[Safflower]

I agree with Taffeta. While Honeycomb is like Surprise, she is her own pony. Even though they look similar,  I think people are missing the fact that they are two completely different characters. Surprise is very energetic and, well, surprises ponies. Honeycomb does not. A pony isn't just how she looks. We don't know how she was designed or why, and everyone can have their opinion, but they don't have the same personality therefore she isn't a copy. Take twins, for example. The could look exactly alike except for some minor differences but can have very different personalities. Even if they were the same, you wouldn't consider one a carbon copy of the other. They would each be their own person. Honeycomb is her own pony.

[Taffeta]

So I am finding it ironic that, if everyone is entitled to their opinion, my having one got twisted into something else. I never said anyone's opinion was invalid, I was just saying why I disagreed and gave the reasons behind why I thought she should be celebrated as herself, not as a clone.

In any case, most of our G1 knowledge is based on speculation somewhere along the line, and with the UK line and history it's especially true. But there's a difference between randomly guessing and looking at what evidence we do have and making a hypothesis based on that.

I think that if the design team were the same then we'd just have had the same ponies, as that makes the most sense from a business point of view. If the set was too big, it would have made sense to release a limited number of them and leave it at that. Also, if you put them next to each other, and could only see the heads, it would be immediately obvious who was who. Honeycomb has straight hair, Surprise has curls. The fibres are different for curly ponies even if the curl has dropped out. Surprise's hair is longer and Honeycomb's is shaped, rather like Posey's or Tootsie's hair. This indicates different manufacturing processes and that implies a conscious effort to produce her, as I think I am right that SS Surprise also has curly hair (and she is in production at the same time as Honeycomb).

Spoiler

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Mine is a good comparison because my loose Surprise has lost her curl.

If you look at UK stuff a lot, you start to see the apparently meaningless detail changes hasbro UK made to things they didn't need to change, like the Sparkle Pony cards, where the design is the same, all names are the same, and all ponies are the same as the US release. BUT the name bubble is yellow, and the US one is pink. There is no reason to do that, except that Hasbro UK decided to do it. Just as there's no reason to put bows and braids in the hair of the 1984 set image, even though it's drawn from the US design, it's not copied but redrawn to include those features. Those things are extra cost and don't make sense, unless you think that the UK had to do its own stuff a lot because it either couldn't get stuff from the US, or that was the nature of the agreement between Hasbro RI and other Hasbro branches across the world. All of that suggests the 1986 set is a deliberate UK thing rather than a coincidental abberation.

As for someone being inspired by Surprise, the problem is a bit more complex than that.

The comic that advertises the ponies as a competition is #19 which is pretty early on. This is the cover, they're quite prominent as you can see.

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Please note which pony is asleep over the title. She was there for several issues.

The one below really sums up why it makes no sense for Surprise and Honeycomb to be seen as copies of each other (at least in the UK). This also sums up the relationship in the comic between US and Uk released ponies, ponies we did have alongside ones we didn't. As a kid there was no distinction made to us - and the fact file also made no distinction (which was produced by Hasbro as well). They're both under the same heading of 'My Little Pony'. But, as Safflower said, they have their own characters. Which is really the defining factor making them different ponies here.

Spoiler

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I hope that helps make clearer the very muddy picture of why I can't see Surprise and Honeycomb as anything other than separate ponies. Perhaps that's most strong here because she existed here, and didn't exist anywhere else. To people for whom she's a storyless pony I can understand why a comparison would be made, but if you grow up with her as a distinct character from another pony that just happens to bear a resemblance...I guess it's different. Honeycomb is Honeycomb. Surprise is Surprise. That's just how it is for me. And the weird one that doesn't fit in is actually the Baby, because for me she's a storyless pony and not part of my childhood.

Finally, for me the strongest proof they're not copy clone ponies is that if they were, nobody in the US would bother wanting Honeycomb, and nobody here would care about getting Surprise.

I personally dislike Baby Honeycomb's blond hair. I apologise in advance but she makes me think of eggs rather than honey :/ I really wouldn't like Honeycomb to have it. I think Baby H is the abberation but it's a logical one being that there was no Honeycomb where she was sold.

[normaleeinsane]

I'm lucky to have mum and baby Honeycomb. I love their bee symbols and that they have different shades of yellow in their hair so they don't look identical. 

[invaderhorizongreen]

I have both of these lovely ones, in pony from sadly I do not have the plush yet, they are still on my want list.

[Broken Irishwoman]

Wow, I didn't mean to spark a debate like this.

I appreciate your explanation Taffeta, and it's very interesting to learn more about the background of certain ponies. But these facts are just not things that I take into consideration when I decide if I like a pony or not. Of course she is a unique pony with a unique personality, and I would love to have her, too. But she will never be at the top of my wishlist because my "hunger" (for lack of a better word) for a white pony with chartreuse yellow hair in this beautiful pose has already been answered by having Surprise. Now if she had golden hair like her baby, she would express an entirely different mood, and I'd be after her in a heartbeat.

[Taffeta]

Wow, I didn't mean to spark a debate like this.

I appreciate your explanation Taffeta, and it's very interesting to learn more about the background of certain ponies. But these facts are just not things that I take into consideration when I decide if I like a pony or not. Of course she is a unique pony with a unique personality, and I would love to have her, too. But she will never be at the top of my wishlist because my "hunger" (for lack of a better word) for a white pony with chartreuse yellow hair in this beautiful pose has already been answered by having Surprise. Now if she had golden hair like her baby, she would express an entirely different mood, and I'd be after her in a heartbeat.

You don't have to justify your opinion I was just explaining mine You can hate them all if you like

I just felt that calling her a copy of Surprise was badly worded, since what you actually mean is that she looks too much like Surprise for your taste. Calling her a copy sort of implies she has no independent identity, which is why I pointed out all the reasons why that's not the case.

[Leave a Whisper]

Wow, I didn't mean to spark a debate like this.

I appreciate your explanation Taffeta, and it's very interesting to learn more about the background of certain ponies. But these facts are just not things that I take into consideration when I decide if I like a pony or not. Of course she is a unique pony with a unique personality, and I would love to have her, too. But she will never be at the top of my wishlist because my "hunger" (for lack of a better word) for a white pony with chartreuse yellow hair in this beautiful pose has already been answered by having Surprise. Now if she had golden hair like her baby, she would express an entirely different mood, and I'd be after her in a heartbeat.

You don't have to justify your opinion I was just explaining mine You can hate them all if you like

I just felt that calling her a copy of Surprise was badly worded, since what you actually mean is that she looks too much like Surprise, rather than implying her existence to be irrelevant because she's just a 'copy'.

  Agreed! That's like saying someone is a copy of their older sister because they're both brown haired and brown eyed and are of a similar height.

[Broken Irishwoman]

Then I guess we're okay, both points have been explained. It took a while, but hey.

[SkyCakes]

I have the mommy and baby. I love them both. I like the little bees so cute. Shes like surprise's bff or something to me.

[Artemesia's Garden]

I love that she has outrageous hair and is otherwise quite demure! She's a childhood favourite of mine, my Cousin had her.

I love her baby too.

[starstrider]

Don't have, but do want.  I really love Honeycomb mother and baby, she's got a really classic G1 beauty in her pose and colouring.  Will get them both one day, hopefully soon!  I love the Euro exclusives.