Ponies in Eastern Europe? (With digressions on other parts of Europe & Asia!)

[banditpony]

  Also poverty wouldn't be that big of a limit for pony distribution, cheap licenced ponies after all made their way to even Colombia, and some better ones to Mexico. Venezuela apparently was more stable then so not counting it.

Do we know anything about the price points for Columbian or Venezuelan ponies or how affordable they were to the general population?

Nope. Though I assume mexicans were pretty affordable, since they don't seem to be that rare at all. I know a site that has a scan of a colombian toy catalogue with ponies in it, but the picture is too blurry to read.

Please don't assume things then if you have nothing to base it off of. :/

[CinnamonOnions]

  Also poverty wouldn't be that big of a limit for pony distribution, cheap licenced ponies after all made their way to even Colombia, and some better ones to Mexico. Venezuela apparently was more stable then so not counting it.

Do we know anything about the price points for Columbian or Venezuelan ponies or how affordable they were to the general population?

Nope. Though I assume mexicans were pretty affordable, since they don't seem to be that rare at all. I know a site that has a scan of a colombian toy catalogue with ponies in it, but the picture is too blurry to read.

Please don't assume things then if you have nothing to base it off of. :/

With these things we often can only assume. Mexico as far as I know wasn't even back then all that welle conomicaly, so toys that there seems to be a fair amount of still around by sense probably can not have been too expensive. I know it's only a quess. I'm sorry.

[Rhaegar]

I can't help much with the other countries, but in the early 90s I had relatives in Hungary send me ponies in the mail. I received a Baby Alphabet on an English language card with the normal comb, nothing unusual to note. The year after I received a Vanilla Treat (with proper accessories and the normal pamphlet) in an English language Hairdo Ponies box. The MIB Beautiful Bows on the Wiki is exact same box, I would assume it was a reject/error? Besides mountains of fakies and G2s when they came out, the only other pony of note they ever sent me (out of package) was a Baby Honeycomb.

[Taffeta]

I can't help much with the other countries, but in the early 90s I had relatives in Hungary send me ponies in the mail. The year after I received a Vanilla Treat (with proper accessories and the normal pamphlet) in an English language Hairdo Ponies box.

...You have my attention. How the heck did that happen? Very weird but very cool.

As for assumptions - I think there's assuming blind and then there's building a hypothesis based on likely information. Which with some of these may be as much as we can do (but right now Shaz is only theorising, it's not a concrete website yet). So I guess it depends how much is all right to assume or conjecture and how much has to be hard fact.

<--Mediaevalist.

[banditpony]

  Also poverty wouldn't be that big of a limit for pony distribution, cheap licenced ponies after all made their way to even Colombia, and some better ones to Mexico. Venezuela apparently was more stable then so not counting it.

Do we know anything about the price points for Columbian or Venezuelan ponies or how affordable they were to the general population?

Nope. Though I assume mexicans were pretty affordable, since they don't seem to be that rare at all. I know a site that has a scan of a colombian toy catalogue with ponies in it, but the picture is too blurry to read.

Please don't assume things then if you have nothing to base it off of. :/

With these things we often can only assume. Mexico as far as I know wasn't even back then all that welle conomicaly, so toys that there seems to be a fair amount of still around by sense probably can not have been too expensive. I know it's only a quess. I'm sorry.

No. Assuming gets us the wrong idea. We live in a aworld where we are all connected by the internet, and there's people who can chime in their experience.

[Rhaegar]

I can't help much with the other countries, but in the early 90s I had relatives in Hungary send me ponies in the mail. The year after I received a Vanilla Treat (with proper accessories and the normal pamphlet) in an English language Hairdo Ponies box.

...You have my attention. How the heck did that happen? Very weird but very cool.

No clue. She had her apron and comb as normal, so maybe they just had a few extra boxes and extra ponies and hacked them together? Those were the only two they ever sent me new in package and besides being purchased in Budapest I don't have any other information.

[Taffeta]

It reminds me of the wacky princesses and their cobbled together stuff and boxes. Maybe it was a case of that...leftover pony + leftover box...still really interesting.

[Shaz]

Rhaegar, thanks so much for chipping in with some Hungarian information! So they had G2 there as well? *updating my notes* It certainly seems as if they had some interesting ponies. Baby Honeycomb! Vanilla Treat in a Hairdo Ponies box! Given the sparsity of ponies on second-hand Hungarian websites, I'm toying with the theory that ponies were present in Hungary but perhaps not widely distributed; maybe they were only in shops in Budapest and other large towns/cities.

I have to admit that I have a stack of theories and hypotheses and I really wouldn't want anyone to take what I have to say as the gospel truth! I've only just begun my researches. I fully expect to get corrected on things! I try to build conjectures based on what is known; if my speculations cause someone to say, "That's not true, this is what actually happened" that's all to the good! Obviously if I get to the making-a-website stage I would have a much tougher criteria for what could be included.

[BrightLight]

I'm from Budapest and the majority of ponies that most European countries had were available here. I'm also pretty sure that the alternate birthflower ponies were available here as well, because I used to find them regularly at the flea market.

[katrine2309]

I'm from Budapest and the majority of ponies that most European countries had were available here. I'm also pretty sure that the alternate birthflower ponies were available here as well, because I used to find them regularly at the flea market.

Oooh! Really? That is super excisting! I never heard that the alt.birthflowers were sold anywhere else than Denmark and Australia! Hmm, which countries do you think about when you say majority of Europe though? From my knowledge the European releases were a little all over the place and there are quite a lot of ponies that are exclusive to just a few countries. Someone mentioned baby Honeycomb? Do you remember if that baby set were sold in Hungary?

[Shaz]

Katrine, you've asked all the questions about Hungary that I want to know the answers to as well

My Little Wiki says on their G1 distribution page that European ponies are known to have been sold in Poland :O
So there goes my theory of no ponies in Poland, although I would of course like more detailed information/proof.

In other European pony news (straying far far away from Eastern Europe!), I have bought myself a set of G1 Portuguese stickers on eBay. For research of course They're from 1987/8, and have pictures of various ponies with their names in Portuguese. There's a summary of Escape for Catrina on the back of them. Very intriguing.

[bladed]

The history of pony distribution is certainly fascinating....and often frustrating!
I've been Googling in multiple languages and looking through eBay-type sites in search of more information. I can't believe how much G4 I've seen, it's everywhere!

Anyway, here's my summaries so far. Of course some of it is just conjecture, so feel free to correct me if necessary.

Spoiler

These European countries had G1 ponies: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK.

These countries had the MLP n Friends cartoon, and may also have had other media such as the film, comics, books, but do not seem to have had any toys: Poland, Russia, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Lithuania, possibly Bulgaria.
The movie exists in Bulgarian, but I haven't been able to find out when it was released there.
It is possible that the Russian dub was also shown in Belarus and Ukraine.

I found a list online (only on a Wikipedia type site, "fullwiki" I think, so not sure how much faith can be put into it) claiming that MLP n Friends was translated into the following languages: Chinese, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese(?!), Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish. I have definitely seen bits of it in Czech, Greek, Hungarian and Russian.

These countries probably had no G1 ponies: Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia.

These countries I don't know about yet, but I have my doubts about them having G1 ponies: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine.

My main interest is in G1, but I've been seeing other gens around too, and have reached the following conclusions, which, again, I'm up for being corrected on if necessary:

Spoiler

European countries that had G2 ponies: Austria(?), Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK.

European countries that had G3 ponies: Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK.
Belarus MAY have had G3: I've seen a lot of G3 style fakies and some merch which looks genuine. Ukraine seems to have had a similar situation, this may be the gen that Taffeta remembers a Russian collector saying they had to import from Ukraine, but that's really just guesswork.

that japanese part intrigued me... but i can't find anything on it! only fan subtitled ones (english audio track, i ). do you have a link to this page? looking into fullwiki, it claims to be a wikipedia alternative for research with sources (or similar, i haven't actually looked at it in a couple of days) the other language claims are interesting too, but that part in particular jumped out at me (for probably obvious reasons)

sorry for running away from the main topic here a bit - i actually don't know a lot about european releases in general for most gens, so this thread is extra fascinating, hah... though when the japanese g4 came out, i was following that and related events.

[Taffeta]

I've also never heard of G1 animation being actually aired in Japan in Japanese. G4 was, but not G1.

(Japan in spoilers as it is somewhat OT)

Spoiler

When we were kids, and my mother was teaching Japanese businessmen and sometimes their wives, my sister and I often played with the kids. At least one of them was mad keen on ponies. She was the same age as my sister, so she'd be 31 now. The general consensus from the mothers of these kids was that there was no MLP in Japan. They didn't know about Takara either, but then given the age of this kid, she would've been too young anyway. But while there is a glut of G1 and G3 ponies up for sale on second hand sites like the Yahoo auctions, that has to be taken with a pinch of salt. A lot of Japanese families spend extended periods in other countries due to the business of mostly father (occasionally mother). One of my mother's former students lived here for four years, then in Texas, and is now back in Japan. The family I mention above were here for a spell of about 5 years, then went to China, and are now back in Japan (I spent some time with them when I was over there last year, and they've relocated around Japan as well since then).

So it's really quite normal for Japanese kids to pick up foreign toys and take them back. Maybe also foreign VHS, and an interest in G1. But I am not aware of there being any natively Japanese attempt to produce or transmit this stuff. I can understand why there'd be a G1 fandom in Japan, but I don't think it came from Japan. If that makes any sense at all!

And this really isn't Europe, but when I first had the Takara leaflet scans sent to me in around 1998 or 1999, I did try to find out if there was anything else. And since I learned Japanese, I have kept my eyes open - but I haven't seen anything like the Chinese books LM posted above.

It's not impossible and I would love to be proven wrong. But I feel like G1 interest in Japan came from outside in because of the way Japanese business works. Before the bubble burst, Japan was very economically viable and so a lot of Japanese companies and individuals ended up abroad. I feel like it's more likely a symptom of diaspora than anything else.

When I was in Japan there wasn't even anything G4 except the odd plush and some Pez toys. I saw Monster High in the second hand stores, but I didn't see MLP. I know MLP has been found there, but mostly in Tokyo, I think - I was in Kansai and mostly Kyoto, and I didn't see anything.

*pretends Japan is now in Europe*

Regarding the Hungary information - I think the key thing is when did it start over there. We've got a range of dates for other European countries from 1983ish to around 1985. It would be neat to know if Hungary fit into that category.

Finding the BF ponies there is also interesting...in a completely random way. But then Vanilla Treat in a hairdo box is quite random, so.

For the record, we really still don't know even that much about Ireland. Bits and pieces every so often, but not anything properly coherent. Aware that isn't Eastern Europe, but just putting it out there to underscore that we have big European gaps.

And people wonder why I get so annoyed that people have spent 20 years focused only on the US system. Sigh.

[Shaz]

We have wandered beyond Eastern Europe a bit now, but I really don't mind .

http://www.thefullwiki.org/My_Little_Pony_%28TV_series%29#Overseas_Editions - Fullwiki's list of MLP n Friends in translation. According to them, the Japanese version was called Kun Dono Sotyou. I did do a bit of a double-take when I saw Japan mentioned! It seems so unlikely that I haven't liked to put too much faith in that list.

Meanwhile, the Polish translation sounds, um, strange: "A single voice artist translated all dialogue, over the still-audible American actors."

Ireland does seem a bit of an unknown. I mean, they had ponies, and that's about all I know so far! I realised earlier that I know more about ponies in Greece than in the country that's right next door to mine .

[bladed]

I've also never heard of G1 animation being actually aired in Japan in Japanese. G4 was, but not G1.

(Japan in spoilers as it is somewhat OT)

Spoiler

When we were kids, and my mother was teaching Japanese businessmen and sometimes their wives, my sister and I often played with the kids. At least one of them was mad keen on ponies. She was the same age as my sister, so she'd be 31 now. The general consensus from the mothers of these kids was that there was no MLP in Japan. They didn't know about Takara either, but then given the age of this kid, she would've been too young anyway. But while there is a glut of G1 and G3 ponies up for sale on second hand sites like the Yahoo auctions, that has to be taken with a pinch of salt. A lot of Japanese families spend extended periods in other countries due to the business of mostly father (occasionally mother). One of my mother's former students lived here for four years, then in Texas, and is now back in Japan. The family I mention above were here for a spell of about 5 years, then went to China, and are now back in Japan (I spent some time with them when I was over there last year, and they've relocated around Japan as well since then).

So it's really quite normal for Japanese kids to pick up foreign toys and take them back. Maybe also foreign VHS, and an interest in G1. But I am not aware of there being any natively Japanese attempt to produce or transmit this stuff. I can understand why there'd be a G1 fandom in Japan, but I don't think it came from Japan. If that makes any sense at all!

And this really isn't Europe, but when I first had the Takara leaflet scans sent to me in around 1998 or 1999, I did try to find out if there was anything else. And since I learned Japanese, I have kept my eyes open - but I haven't seen anything like the Chinese books LM posted above.

It's not impossible and I would love to be proven wrong. But I feel like G1 interest in Japan came from outside in because of the way Japanese business works. Before the bubble burst, Japan was very economically viable and so a lot of Japanese companies and individuals ended up abroad. I feel like it's more likely a symptom of diaspora than anything else.

When I was in Japan there wasn't even anything G4 except the odd plush and some Pez toys. I saw Monster High in the second hand stores, but I didn't see MLP. I know MLP has been found there, but mostly in Tokyo, I think - I was in Kansai and mostly Kyoto, and I didn't see anything.

*pretends Japan is now in Europe*

Regarding the Hungary information - I think the key thing is when did it start over there. We've got a range of dates for other European countries from 1983ish to around 1985. It would be neat to know if Hungary fit into that category.

Finding the BF ponies there is also interesting...in a completely random way. But then Vanilla Treat in a hairdo box is quite random, so.

For the record, we really still don't know even that much about Ireland. Bits and pieces every so often, but not anything properly coherent. Aware that isn't Eastern Europe, but just putting it out there to underscore that we have big European gaps.

And people wonder why I get so annoyed that people have spent 20 years focused only on the US system. Sigh.

i see! i think i've only seen some retro merch from japan, though i don't know if it was imported (i didn't recognise it) but since they have the mlp cafe and pop up shops often it's possible... but that's even further off topic, since it's more related to g4 at that point.

We have wandered beyond Eastern Europe a bit now, but I really don't mind .

http://www.thefullwiki.org/My_Little_Pony_%28TV_series%29#Overseas_Editions - Fullwiki's list of MLP n Friends in translation. According to them, the Japanese version was called Kun Dono Sotyou. I did do a bit of a double-take when I saw Japan mentioned! It seems so unlikely that I haven't liked to put too much faith in that list.

Meanwhile, the Polish translation sounds, um, strange: "A single voice artist translated all dialogue, over the still-audible American actors."

Ireland does seem a bit of an unknown. I mean, they had ponies, and that's about all I know so far! I realised earlier that I know more about ponies in Greece than in the country that's right next door to mine .

a quick search shows up with nothing, so it may be worth digging deeper.. i don't think it could be much, but hey, i might find something interesting along the way! i wonder where they pulled that name from... it doesn't have much of anything to do with mlp