Ranking the G1 playsets

[FernMariposa919]

So, I thought it would be fun to rank the G1 playsets - at least the ones I am familiar with, so that means the ones I owned or played with because a friend had it. I will admit, while I still have *most* of my childhood ponies, I do not have any of my playsets I once owned as a child *boo*! So what I’m saying is that this is mostly through memory and nostalgia  (and help from the Internet, of course, to remind me how awesome these play sets were!)

11. Scrub-A-Dub-Tub - I don’t know if this *technically* counts as a playset, but I’m counting it because it was counted as a G1 playset on Wikipedia, so we’re going to rank it! Someone please tell me what possessed me to buy this? Yes, I bought this with my own money, my hard-earned allowance! It’s not like I got this as a gift. I guess I thought it was super cute and had to have it. I honestly don’t remember if I even filled it with water for a pony to take a bath. I remember putting the yellow shower cap on ponies and I remember putting ponies in the tub (sans water) and pulling the shower curtain around the tub, but I think this “playset” was pretty much forgotten and ignored.

10. Pretty Parlor - I am pretty sure my friend owned this; I sort of have vague memories of playing with this. I did not own it, so that’s why it’s towards the bottom as I really don’t have any memories of this playset.

9. Baby Bonnet School of Dance - So my friend (the same one who I think had the Pretty Parlor) definitely had this because I do remember playing with it. Again, I never had this, so that’s why it’s towards the bottom. I admit I am biased towards the ones I owned! This was cute, though. We had fun choosing three baby ponies and having them “perform” for the other ponies (while I don’t remember which baby ponies my friend had (well, obviously she must have had Baby Half-Note!) I do remember the adults in the audience included Wind Whistler, SS Gusty, SS Cherries Jubilee, Heart Throb, and Ribbon among a few others. I don’t remember the little bees and swans that came with it, but that’s probably not surprising since, again, I did not own this playset.

8. Poof ’n Puff Perfume Palace - Boy, someone at Hasbro sure liked alliteration! I don’t blame them; I’m a big fan of alliteration too. This play set loses points because it did not come with its own pony. It also loses points because it wasn’t really big enough to fit ponies in. Naturally, when I played with this, Dainty Dahlia, the Perfume Puff pony I had was the “owner” of this place. I remember liking the atomizer and squeezing it often to smell that floral-scented perfume. It lasted quite awhile from what I can remember. I looked through all the accessories and I’m pretty sure I still have the aqua hat and purple boa. To be honest, I’m not really sure what the point of this playset was since there was the Perm Shoppe and they were pretty much the same thing. Well, the point is to make money, I get that, but it just seemed a bit redundant.

7. Waterfall - I have fond memories of playing with this. However, it’s at the lower end of this ranking because it didn’t work quite as well after playing with it a few times. In fact, this may have unfortunately been tossed after it didn’t work anymore. It’s possible I still had it as part of my pony village, but I just don’t remember playing with it that much. When it did work, I had a blast giving Sprinkles (or whatever pony I chose) a shower. My mom always made me play with it either by the kitchen sink or in the bathroom! She would help me set it up, filling it with water and adding the solution that would make it bubble. I just remember being so delighted when I pushed those white buttons and making it rain from the cloud. I also remember putting in those purple curlers in my ponys’ hair (and I had some extra because I had the Pony Wear pajamas that came with curlers as well). I do remember one unfortunate moment where I decided Surprise (So Soft Surprise, that is!) needed a bath…and well, yeah, she was never the same after that! Sprinkles is my least favorite playset pony. I just don’t care for her beige color. Her name is cute, though.

6. Perm Shoppe - One of the things I remember about this playset was that damn heart-shaped mirror would never stay on top of the building and would always fall off! In my pony village, this was always next to the Perfume Palace and basically functioned together. Curly Locks, my only brush and grow pony, was a frequent customer! It makes me cringe now thinking of all the ponies I “beautified” by putting on the lipstick, eye shadow, and nail polish that came with the Perm Shoppe. This was the last playset I ever got, so therefore I spent much more time playing with the others, except maybe the waterfall. The working shower head was quite clever, but you know what? I don’t even remember using it but I must have! I do remember using the crap out of that pony hair spray, though!

5. Satin Slipper Sweet Shoppe - Once again, fun with alliteration! So while the Perm Shoppe had more doo-dads and was more interactive, I have fond memories of getting this for my for 7th birthday from my friend, Meredith. It’s one of the few ponyplay sets I actually remember receiving. I knew I was getting it because Meredith decided to show me it in her closet before it was even wrapped, and boy, was I excited! Next to Majesty, Scoops is my favorite playset pony. She is just so cute with her ice cream sundae symbols and her striped apron and hat. Obviously she needed help with her bustling business, so Fizzy, Peppermint Crunch, and Sherbet all had shifts since they were the most fit to work there . Megan and Molly visited there the most since they were the only ones who could actually sit at the table and chairs.

4. Show Stable - This holds a dear place in my heart because it was my first pony playset. I got it along with my first four My Little Ponies - Applejack, Bow Tie, Cotton Candy, and, of course Lemon Drop, who all lived in the stable, naturally! This was the most realistic of the  pony playsets, as most horses I know of don’t usually live in mansions or castles! I remember there were grooves in the stable where you could place the green gates (which there were six of), but I never knew why you would want to place the gates in the stable, so I had them form a perimeter outside my stable. The troughs were cute and I usually had my ponies “eating” from them. I remember the yellow trophy cups and the first, second, and third place plastic ribbons, but I’m pretty sure one or more of mine broke. I also remember the pink saddle and bridle, and the bridle definitely broke! It wasn’t until very recently that I discovered there was a little hole in the saddle where you could place one of the flags! I guess that explains why there were four flags! I also didn’t know you could attach the plastic ribbons to the bridle! I feel like my parents were keeping things from me! I couldn’t read the instructions when I got this!!  You know what I don’t remember having in this set? The dog, Brandy! I remember Duck Soup with the Waterfall and I remember Spike with the Dream Castle, but I do not ever remember playing with Brandy, so I must have lost him pretty fast! Also, looking at the Show Stable accessories on its Wikipedia page, I don’t remember the white jump with the yellow rail, so I must have lost that pretty quickly too! Back then, I never thought it was weird there was a bed where your pony could sleep, but now it just seems weird that a pony would sleep on a human bed when horses sleep standing up! It may not be the most exciting pony playset, but there is a charm to it.

3. Paradise Estate - So you might think the big pony mansion being only #3 is pretty low and while I do love this playset, it is only four rooms…what kind of mansion only has four rooms? I think it’s the pool and patio area that really make it. Those were the areas I played with the most. I remember my parents buying this for me, probably when I was in second grade because I had either gotten a good report card or I did my chores for a month; I can’t exactly remember, but it was a reward for something. This came out in 1986, but I didn’t get it until at least a couple years later, so it had to be on sale. I’m guessing this retailed for around $100? I’m not really sure; but this had to be on sale because there’s no way my parents would have gotten this for me otherwise! It’s pretty funny because whenever the subject of MLP comes up, my mom will bring up how she remembers putting this together and putting all the little decals on everything! I remember my Paradise Estate only had three fans, so I think the nursery was the one room that didn’t get a fan…poor baby ponies! Luckily they had a pool to keep cool. Speaking of the pool, that’s was where I kept my two sea ponies (Ripples and Celebrate). They just sort of laid there. I would sometimes fill the pool with water and have pool parties…no so soft ponies were invited, though! I learned my lesson with So Soft Surprise and the waterfall! I owned Paradise, so naturally she was the landlord. While I would place ponies in the Paradise Estate rooms or outside on the patio, it was really Molly and Megan who could use the furniture because it was kinda awkward when you tried to put a pony on the couch or that narrow bed.

2. Dream Castle - Ah, yes, I actually preferred the Dream Castle to Paradise Estate. It just made more sense that the ponies lived in a castle than a mansion (actually, it probably makes the most sense for ponies to live in a stable!) Sure, there was more room for your ponies in the estate, but the castle had cooler stuff: the golden hoops your ponies could jump through, the golden horseshoes you could put on Majesty (mine never stayed on though!), the blue throne (pretty sure mine broke in half!), the little basket you could put Spike in and pull up and down (yeah, this definitely broke after using it one too many times), the felt banners to decorate the castle with, and last, but not least, it had a drawbridge! Probably my favorite detail of the castle; I also loved the detail of the bricks on the outside.

1. Lullabye Nursery - I had to put this as #1 because I remember playing with it the most! I had about sixteen baby ponies and I remember rearranging them in this play set (of course, three or four of them would be in the nursery room of the Paradise Estate which was nowhere near as exciting (or cute!) as this place! I could place Baby Tiddlywinks in the swing; Baby Tic Tac Toe and Baby Sundance by the bottles and food dish; Baby North Star in the bath; Baby Ribbon in the crib (obviously, since she had beddy-bye eyes); Baby Moondancer on the rocker; Baby Glory looking in the mirror; Baby Yo-Yo playing with the blocks, Baby Snookums getting ready to be changed (of course), etc. My nursery came with beddy-bye eyes Baby Tiddlywinks. I remember being super confused about her name and my mom had to explain to me that tiddlywinks was a game.  There were so many fun and cute accessories that came with this, my favorite being the swing that you could hang up on the lower level next to the feeding area with the bottles or outside on the back where a pink canopy was attached (I usually hung it up in the nursery). It was super cute on the inside and on the outside when you closed it. The safety pin handle at the top with the gingham ribbon was a cute touch.

So that’s my ranking of all the G1 play sets I was familiar with. What would your rankings be?

[LadyAmalthea]

Ooh...fun post. It's going to be hard for me to do this backwards, but I'll try.

#11: Scrub-A-Dub Tub. I didn't even know this existed until I was an adult collector, so I guess having had no experience with it, I'll have to rank it dead last. Maybe it wasn't available in my area, or came out after I outgrew collecting ponies (as a child, anyway!) Even as an adult, I figure the nursery came with a tub, so....

#10: Waterfall: didn't own it...came out before my time, I think.

#9: Poof-n-Puff: It was too small for ponies to fit, like you said...also an extension of the Perm Shoppe.

#8: Show Stable: didn't own. The bed may have been for Megan; I have seen this playset labeled as 'Megan's Place' before, and it's shown in the movie where Megan keeps her horse. Not that that means much; Paradise Estate came with a bed as well, presumably for the ponies!

#7: Pretty Parlor. We ordered it as a mail-order set, so it was kind of exciting to get it in the mail, but once we had it, it was kind of boring.

#6: Dream Castle. Never had this one, but my best friend did, and it was fun playing with hers, but have better memories playing with the ones we actually owned!

#5: Baby Bonnet. My sister had this one. Babies Half-Note, Lickety Split and Lofty got to be the prima ballerinas because they were her ponies, and because they were the ones pictured on the front when you closed the bonnet up. She would never let Tiddlywinks be included, because she belonged to me, even though she was Lickety Split's sister in our pony world.

#4: Satin Slipper. I remember getting this for Christmas when I was 8. Loved Scoops and this playset!

#3: Paradise Estate. You'd think it would be #1. I got it for my 9th birthday and it was probably the most anticipated gift I've ever received. I had the perfect place for it-in a corner of my basement bedroom was the sump pump, and someone had drywalled a box around it with a carpeted cover. So it was like a big square seat that was the perfect size for PE. I just honestly don't have that many memories of actually playing with it; it was just too big to move around or set up alongside other playsets. Still, it was magnificent! FYI, it retailed for $74.95 at Toys-R-Us that year...I remember this, because I was talking to my dad about wanting to save up the money myself for it, and he told me to remember that the tax on something like that would end up being like another 4 bucks or more, and it seemed so, so, so intimidating of an amount of money to me.

#2: Perm Shoppe. It was my sister's, but we had so many fun stories with this playset,  it would make this comment sooo super long to tell them!

#1: Lullaby Nursery. I had more baby ponies than adults, so this was the place most of my girls hung out. I have a super cute story about how I acquired this playset, but I'll save it for another thread sometime, I've already rambled enough!

Honorable mention: Cuddles' Baby Buggy. I got this as a consolation prize when I had to get a tetanus shot...haha. My sister had already had this for years and she was mad that mine looked brighter. She gloated that my Cuddles had the BB eyes and hers didn't, but hers was missing its tail, so I guess we were even.

[brightberry]

I love the Pretty Parlor so it's my #1.  The Lullaby Nursery is my #2.  After that, they kind of fall into a blur for me.  I spent most of my time outside so I didn't get a lot of play sets.  I preferred ponies I could carry with me.

But, Pretty Parlor could go a lot of places and I could arrange ponies in front of it.  It also came with a cat which melted my heart.

[Ponybookworm]

Since I have one version of every playset save the Bed & Crib for Surprise twins Mum & Twins, I think I'm going to have a go at this.

Least fave: Perfume Puff Palace. It's small & hardly fits a Pony inside, & has easily-lost fripperies in it, plus i think it came wi make-up & we know what that does to Ponies!!! On top of this the US name is pretty rude over here in the UK...

RockaBye Bed is next on this list. It's big & cumbersome, & won't fit inside a large playset. The blanket is also very thin, so not suited for sleeping in northern winters. I currently store my G2 Beanies on mine.

Scrubadub Tub is next up. At least it can fit in somewhere, but its lack of actual water or a way to get water in it (unlike the Perm Shoppe & Waterfall) is frustrating for when you want ot bathe your Ponies.

Next comes the Schoolhouse. It's small, too small to educate even my childhood Baby Ponies, let alone the huge amount I have now!!! That though is one of its few flaws. Were it bigger I'm sure it would have more desks for the Baby Ponies to learn from, & maybe Lady Lessons would have squeezed in as headteacher!!! It does have some good playable features though, like the board you can write on & re-used ad infinitum, the window which becomes a slide, & the bell at the gate.

Sharing the next place are the two Grooming Parlours. Bad points: small, that raised floor, & Hasbro missed the opportunity of putting so many more ribbons in there. Good points: each had its own Pony & its own cat, the hats were great & fit all earth & pegasus G1s, & each came wi one of the few sensible combs in all of the combs & brushes Hasbro made (ie it didn't break easily & actually groomed manes & tails pretty well). The first one edges pit as slightly better due to those nametags you could slot in the front. I used to have the first one.

The Kitchen is next up. Again pretty small & lacking actual playset Pony, but since it's just a kitchen (one room) as opposed to a whole building, the small size is forgivable. I can imagine a lot of youngsters having fun putting cakes & pies in the oven & setting out the plates & so on, while making biscuits out of Plasticine (child's clay) & the cutters & rolling pin. A lot of the accessories are what is used in a real kitchen, & this makes it a good set overall.

Satin Slipper Sweet Shoppe comes next. I love it's charming cafe design & the fact it comes wi its own Pony, along wi a good few other bits, like the take-away counter & the sit in room & the signs advertising its products. its only flaws in my book are 1/ the fact it only sells ice cream, meaning the G1s never had a place to sit down & eat anything else, & 2/ the way it had two chairs when Ponies can't sit on chairs.

Next up is the Dream Castle. Yep, the Dream Castle. For one reason: its third wall. This wall makes it impossible for Ponies to go all round the ramparts (half the fun of a castle), as it's nothing more than a wall with those whatsits (I can't recall what they're called but thy're the wee sticky-up bits to defend Ponies on the ramparts from arrows) along the top. Question: why have said whatsits if no Ponies can even climb up the wall??? Speaking of: no stairs. Only Spike in his basket & the pegasi can get to the ramparts in the first place. Aside from these points it's a reasonably good playset, with one more exception: Spike's eyes. Twinkles, the white cat, Duck Soup & Brandy have nice quality eyes, so why does regular Dream Castle Spike have "couldn't be bothered" eyes??? Only improved in a rarer, Mail-order version. Dream Castle otherwise is a nice size, has a Pony & a pet, has some nice accessories like the throne, the hoops for royal exercise, the table & Spike's basket. It also has turrets into which at least one Pony can fit & look out the window, & two lots of ramparts for the Ponies to monitor.

By far the best accessory playset is next: the Sweet Dreams Crib. Its flaws: again a thin blanket, plus its size near dwarfs a Baby Pony, let alone a newborn. I can fit four Teeny Tinies in it, along wi thicker blankets round each & toys. It's still a great accessory set overall, as it has its own mobile, toys & baby accessories, & I definitely don't see the Teeny Tinies who sleep in it complaining!!!

Waterfall comes next. Having never owned the bubbles which came wi this, I can't say anything about the quality of them. The Waterfall also has two versions, both coming wi the same pet (Duck Soup), though the later UK/Europe version had a different Pony to the US one. It's small, but in this case it's meant to be, & was the first real cleaning station for Ponies. I like its cloud shape for the both of them (the second could be hillocks being green), its raised drying platform, its bright designs holding its mechanisms in place, & how it can both rinse a Pony & foam up the bubbles. The accessories are good too, like the sponge brush wi a real bit of sponge on to wash your Pony, & the towel to help her dry on the raised drying platform.

Next is the Show Stable. I used to have this, so I know it's a good, large set which can house a lot of Ponies. The accessories mean the Ponies get to exercise as well, holding races & doing jumps, & you can give the best ones prizes & trophies. It had its own Pony & its own pet, & a good lot of play potential. My only complaint is the style of bed, & the style of thin blanket.

The Perm Shoppe is next. I HATE the plasticky ribbons it came wi, but LOVE the ribbon tree!!! No pet, but again its own Pony, who runs the shop to this day. The shower works, & you can use it as a Pony hairdresser's with ease. I also love how it looks like a small dressing table when closed wi the mirror on top.

EDIT because I forgot to rank Paradise Estate!!! I think it goes in third place due to its huge size & lack of Pony. Apart from those two things it's a great set wi rooms for adult Ponies, a room for Baby Ponies & a pool for Sea Ponies. And so much attention to detail in the furniture!!! I'm still missing some of the smaller accessories, like wine bottles (Ponies don't drink do they??? Lol) & cutlery, but overall it's a great set & I found a way to display it in two halves.

Second place, another I used to have, is the Bonnet Dance School. Love the tags for different dances, love the turning wheels to make your ballerinas dance, & when you get regular eye Baby Halfnote, even the BBE-haters can't complain. The six pets are by far the simplest of all the animals, but there are six of them!!! I know I loved making Halfnote & some Baby Ponies dance on those wheels when I was younger!!! The barre across the back mirror is also reminiscent of ballet schools pretty much everywhere, while Halfnot's tutu & tiara fit in her ballet box.

Like a lot of peeps, my fave is the Lullabye Nursery!!! Roomy, display-conducive & fun, with its own Pony, it has everything you could want for your baby Ponies: a swing, a bath to clean them, a place to store their bottles & stuff, & a rocking crib to put them to sleep, among others. I remember wanting this set for a long time but never managing to get it (I have it now of course). Nowadays my baby Ponies have outgrown it, & it's home to the Newborns & Teeny Tinies, with a few older babies helping out after school, including its original Pony. (In my Ponyworld, those wi babyish rumpmarks are gentle, motherly types well-suited to foal-sitting).

[Ribbs]

I've owned most of the US playsets at one time, so here are my personal opinions of them (mini playsets too!) from least favorite to favorite:

Waterfall:
This is the one playset I never had, which is why it's last for me. From what I understand it's quite fragile, but I love the design and idea! Sprinkles the pony and her duck friend are pretty darn cute too.

Sweet Dreams Crib: Eh... It's a crib. Nothing remarkable here, and also a bit big for what it is.

Pretty Parlor/Brush Me Beautiful Boutique:
The later variant has a prettier color scheme, but ultimately I found this playset sort of boring. I would have prefered barrettes, a better brush (the long soft bristles just sort of frizzed out the hair...) and maybe some more "glammy" amd less "horsey" accessories. Bonus points for the cat.

Rock-A-Bye Bed: It's... A giant rocking bed, with a day/night cloud wheel headboard thing. Cute design. The little diary and bedtime accessories are cute but... What can you do with such a huge bed? It takes up almost an entire Paradise Estate Room...

Perfume Puff Palace:
The design is pretty cute. I loved the scented perfume spritzer, but I found it a bit awkward and the accessories were sort of boring. Again, more glammy accessories would have made this much better. Like, take away the messy lipstick/nail polish and replace with some of those cool dance n prance earrings or more ponywear and pretty-up type stuff. Bonus points for the faux-fur boa.

Baby Buggy/Princess Baby Buggy:
Cute, but a little fragile. The buggy was also rather large, so it had to be disassembled to really fit "in" the nursery. I think they could have done better with this. I much prefer the updated color scheme of the Princess buggy, but both are kind of mediocre to me.

Scrub-A-Dub-Tub:
I actually really like this playset but again, where in the Paradise Estate, or any other playsets does it really fit? The bath accessories and clawfoot seapony legs are adorable but the rest of the structure is rather fragile and breaks easily.

Show Stable/Megan's Place/Home Sweet Home:
This playset has grown on me. The one I had as a kid didn't have any accessories other than the bed, so I'm sure had I had them I would have enjoyed this more. To me it was just sort of... A barn. Back when they made this they obviously had intended MLP to be more "horse" like, given all the showy horse tack accessories. I guess I prefer my ponies more fantasical than realistic... The updated color schemes didn't really do it for me either, but I guess I prefer the original Show Stable colors. Bonus points for Lemon Drop, who I love.

Paradise Estate:
Getting this playset for the first time was a dream come true! Mine was missing a roof and a few minor things, but all in all I think it was a pretty cool playset. The pool was really cool, and the seapony statues were the selling point for me I think. It's unfortunate that all the furniture is really for the Megan and Molly dolls and that it's so... Huge. This should have come with Paradise the pony for the price this sold for but for some reason they sold it without her. It's unfortunately just too big and hard to display without breaking up the structure.

Baby Bonnet School Of Dance:
This was a really fun playset! I never had any of the adorable little accessories like the tutu or the bunnies, but I loved making my ponies "dance" on the little platforms. I would re-enact the Baby Lickety Split dance disaster from MLP the Movie almost religiously. Very cute design.

Satin Slipper Sweet Shoppe:
This is a really cute and somewhat odd design, and I love that ice cream is the main theme here. (I LOVE ice cream!) Again, the ponies can't really use the table and chairs but they're perfect the Megan and Molly. I love the little ice cream sodas and sundae accessories, and lets just admit that there's really nothing cuter than Scoops behind that little ice cream counter with her hat and apron.

Perm Shoppe:
Okay, I admittedly just got this but wow! Aside from the messy make-up and terrible hairspray/mousse product, I really love the accessories here. The sink with that adorable flower spray nozzle that sprays real water (better to wash out the awful hair gunk) and the salon chair is too cute. Fifi is adorable too, and I love the vanity mirror you can put on top. Too bad the make-up stuff stained the ponies...

Lullaby Nursery:
What an adorable playset! I love the design and the accessories. My only complaint is the door doesn't "open" but the swing more than makes up for it. Honestly I think it should have come with 2 swings, one for inside and one for the detatchable canopy out the back, but honestly the swing is the best part of this playset! I played with this so much as a kid, and I recently got a near complete playset and everytime I'm near it I give Baby Tiddly Winks a little push in the swing.

Dream Castle:
By far, hands down, the best G1 playset. The accessories are great, I love the little wine glasses and revolving mirror. Majesty and Spike are awesome too! My only complaint is how fragile it is and how the 2 main turrets don't stay on well. I don't think I've ever seen one with the doors still attached, unbroken but I love this playset none the less. Bonus points for the drawbridge! 

[SpacePinto]

11. Scrub-A-Dub-Tub
10. Poof ’n Puff Perfume Palace
9. Perm Shoppe
8. Pretty Parlor
7. Waterfall
6. Satin Slipper Sweet Shoppe
5. Baby Bonnet School of Dance
4. Show Stable
3. Lullabye Nursery
2. Dream Castle
1. Paradise Estate