Poor G2 Ponies

[Foxtale]

I was looking online for vintage Toys R Us ads and came across this REAL TRU ad that was supposedly published in France in 1999?

 

https://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/toysrus-pony-1690455/

Poor Sundance  G2 ponies are so cute. (This thread is not created to start hate)

Does anyone remember seeing this ad? I'm confused why it is in English although it was supposedly a french ad?

[mopthebunny]

Wow... who knew people took MLP so seriously back then?

[LadyMoondancer]

LOL, interesting!  Reminds me of a book I read that discussed how upper class / upper middle class parents are often turned off by mass produced children's toys, which they view as crass, kitchy, overly commercialized, and sort of . . . I dunno, not 'useless' exactly, but sort of inferior compared to, for example, a Melissa & Doug brand toy.

To be honest, I hear the same attitude today.  "Toys today all suck!  Back when I was a kid--"  Et cetera.

In a way, the ad makes a good point.  A parent may look down on Shopkins, modern Littlest Pet Shop, G4 My Little Pony, or those L.O.L. bath bomb doll things . . . but at the end of the day what matters is how the kids feel about them, not how their parents feel about them.  "They're going to love it."

[Galactica]

Lol- actually, I guess ponies DO kinda look like a combo of fashion dolls and ponies- kinda...

Still, a pretty strange add for TRU

[LadyMoondancer]

To me the strangest thing is the font.  Did Jack Skellington write this ad? 

[Taffeta]

Just the fact this is in English makes me suspicious.

Not a chance France had an advert in English.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

This ad honestly confuses me. I'm not sure how this would drive parents to buy ponies for kids...it also looks like Sundance is meant to be perceived as demonic? Maybe that's just the scan, but she's so shadowy and ominous. And that shade of red is much less pink than the actual toy.

[Esbayne]

Lmao, WHAT? xD If this is real, this wins the Weirdest MLP Ad award, for sooo many reasons.

LOL, interesting!  Reminds me of a book I read that discussed how upper class / upper middle class parents are often turned off by mass produced children's toys, which they view as crass, kitschy, overly commercialized, and sort of . . . I dunno, not 'useless' exactly, but sort of inferior compared to, for example, a Melissa & Doug brand toy.

I had to look up Melissa & Doug, but wow their toys are kind of... Blah? O.o That upper class mindset is so bizarre!
I can understand that sometimes mass-market toys are a bit cheap (to be honest, they -have- been getting a bit cheaper in more recent years) but at least they're not all barely painted hunks of wood... >.>

To me the strangest thing is the font.  Did Jack Skellington write this ad? 

[Glitter Yolk]

The lighting could have been so much better, did they purposefully make it look like that to be scary? Honestly this feels like it's one of those 'graphic art is my passion' kind of things, makes me question the legitimacy of it!

Poor G2 did not deserve such an unflattering ad! Ponies actually do have hair, so why did they make it seem like it was akin to a Frankenstein's monster for having such?

[Taffeta]

I read it not as an ad for MLP G2, but as an ad for TRU itself. There's no brand logo for any product on there, just the store. It's like it's saying "you'll hate this store but your kids will love it" and using a weird metaphor to demonstrate that fact.

In any case, until someone proves it's for real, I'm a sceptic. I mean, France is quite fixed on its views of English in general. They're not fans of stuff in English. Unless it was designed to annoy the French people as well...

[LadyMoondancer]

Yeah, it's not specifically an ad 'for' MLP.  (Note that the brand name is not even mentioned.)  It's an ad for Toys R Us.  It might even have been part of a series.  (I could easily imagine a "boys toys" counterpart with, for example, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Just replace the horse and Barbie in the corner with a real turtle + a human ninja.)

The point of the ad is:  "Hey parents, this store is full of things you don't get.  Stuff you don't care about.  Stuff that you think is downright weird, maybe even dumb.  But, parents, your kids are going LOVE this stuff.  And isn't that what really matters when it comes to toys?"

The company and people involved (art director etc) are real (so says Google);  I think the ad is real.

I also think the copy displayed is a scan, and that the original probably wasn't as dark.

[Goanna]

Wow, what a strange and unappealing ad!  Can't imagine seeing that would encourage people to go shop there, lol!

[Shaiyeh]

Awww poor Sundance I like the hairdo she's got going on tho! interesting ad, haha, thanks for sharing!

[Moonbreeze]

How weird. It's a bit strange that it is in English tho. Like Taffeta said; no way that it wasn't in French. But maybe they were in a weird mood 

This negativity toward G2 reminds me a bit of a fan made website that was solely created to bash on G2. So mature so salty

[Taffeta]

How weird. It's a bit strange that it is in English tho. Like Taffeta said; no way that it wasn't in French. But maybe they were in a weird mood 

This negativity toward G2 reminds me a bit of a fan made website that was solely created to bash on G2. So mature so salty

I can remember a lot of those in the past, which is also probably part of my scepticism.
I would say if it is real it wasn't for France. Because anyone who's ever been to France knows that advertising in English doesn't happen. Even MLP the Movie posters over there last October were Mon Petit Poney, le film (of course) even though the pony packages say My Little Pony on them as standard now.

Back in the days of G2, French pony packaging was Mon Petit Poney as well.

The publishing company may be real, I don't doubt it. But it's easy to mock up something and claim that's where it's from, or to mistake something from one country into the other. If it was real, I'd suggest it was made for a different country and not France.