Will the franchise ever be how it was, again?

[Snapdragon]

I need to watch the TTMU episode, clearly it's a hot topic! (I already wanted to see it, but I was preemptively disappointed knowing it was going into it with 'look at these wacky Bronies!' as the clear subplot, LOL.)

To address the original post (because I know everyone's eager to see how I feel about this topic, I'm sure! ), I don't think the franchise will ever be how it was... but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

Yes, I basically loathed how many of the memes or fandom hints snuck into the MLP:FiM show; but I can see how they got there. A lot of modern cartoons for kids will have little hints of adult-angled humor. Not NSFW material, but little commentaries, little references that won't harm kids, but that might make adults laugh. For example; the DuckTales reboot, I LOVE. It's exciting, and action-packed, and I think the average kid would love it! One of my favorite gags was when the villain Glomgold got to direct the opening song for one episode, and he ends the theme song with "okay we ran out of budget/but kids six to ten will love it!/GLOMTALES!" It's a meta joke about budgets and media popularity, so adults will get a chuckle and kids might scratch their heads, but ultimately aren't harmed.

I don't think FiM managed to do that, especially in later seasons. The episode about an annoying, pedantic fan of Daring Do? A little edgy, because you could potentially be insulting the very kids who love this show and attend conventions, but not necessarily harmful. The body pillow references, complete with unhappy Daring Do tied up with a rope? Beyond the pale.  This is stuff that an exec should have seen and went, 'why are we showing this to children?' I'm usually anti censorship from executive figures who don't necessarily understand children's media, but this is something that I would have liked censored out of existence.

So, will MLP ever return to 'elongated commercial for toys with fantasy type plots'? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't mean it has to be the same offensive material they've been putting out, either. I think, if they re-animated the exact same episodes we had in MLP and Friends and the other G1 cartoons, we'd probably hate it, because it's already been done. I tend to dislike revamps of movies that are exactly the same, because it feels like a waste of effort. I'm sure we'll see more and more revisions of the MLP series in the future (if it's still a moneymaker, we definitely will!), and I wouldn't be against it having the occasional tongue-in-cheek jokes that, say, DuckTales has, because I think it has the capacity to be a lot of fun! I think so long as you're writing jokes for 'parents' and not 'fandom adults', there's less risk of things going sideways into skeeze-land.

[Taffeta]

TBH the eighties had nods to cultural material or events as well, it's not a new thing or a FIM thing.

I still remember an episode of the Turtles called "the Maltese Hamster"...

And I'm pretty sure there's a reason why that ice cream guy in Ice Cream Wars has a dodgy scottish accent.

[ChocolateStarfire]

I would like to know how early gen fans feel, and whether you guys think that the pony franchise will ever Return to the way it was before. Not largely  influenced by and made then onward by an adamant and vocal fandom.
On the flip side, are there any positive elements that you might think can result in fandom influence in future pony generations?

I don't think the MLP franchise will return to the way it was--each generation sees a new incarnation of MLP, regardless of how vocal the fan community is. I do feel that there might be a separate collectors' line (like the retro MLP re-releases) but that will be it. I am not a fan of the Pony Life series out now, and I have a feeling if it is popular among kids, that will be the direction of MLP in future (cartoony, with giant heads and tiny bodies, like G3.5).

I grew to like G4 MLPs, in terms of both the toys and the show. The brony situation was from the 4-chan/furry community, and tbh I wasn't keen on their...interests, let's put it that way. Did Hasbro pander to them? Eh, yes and no. Bronies did buy a lot of merch, so in that sense Hasbro saw their input as valuable, but other than that...expendable like all other fandoms.

I'm not familiar with this show you're mentioning from Netflix, as I don't have it rn, but I am curious about it so I will have to watch it some other time.

I don't think FiM managed to do that, especially in later seasons. The episode about an annoying, pedantic fan of Daring Do? A little edgy, because you could potentially be insulting the very kids who love this show and attend conventions, but not necessarily harmful. The body pillow references, complete with unhappy Daring Do tied up with a rope? Beyond the pale.  This is stuff that an exec should have seen and went, 'why are we showing this to children?' I'm usually anti censorship from executive figures who don't necessarily understand children's media, but this is something that I would have liked censored out of existence.

Wait...what about Daring Do being tied up? I don't remember that from the episode!! D:

[Nemesis]

I am with Zapper on the pony and gender thing.
It's always bothered me that it's fine if girls like 'boyish' things but there's immediately so much hassle for guys who like 'girl' toys. Toys are toys and you like what you like. Sorry, but I thought that as a kid and still do as an adult.

You called my name, so here is a rant about the purpose of toys and why they are gendered

Spoiler

We have to remember that toys exist by and large because of social conditioning. Girls were given chore toys such as cleaning and cooking tools, toys that steered them towards the only acceptable female role in society: wife and mother, such as baby dolls, and later on beauty toys such as fashion dolls and play make-up to get an early grasp on how women should always go the extra mile to look attractive for their future husbands. Of course boys would be kept away from such toys. They go opposed to their gender role. And this is true even today. Nobody buys their son a make-up kit without getting weird remarks despite some of the richest make-up artists being men. Same for cooking tools. The industry is dominated by men but the cooking toy is still seen as a chore toy for girls, not a career path toy.

It was never ok for a girl to play soldiers or cars, it was deemed as odd and opposed to being "good" and girlish, girls who would express interest in boy toys where often kept a shameful secret or placed in "domestic training", lady school and all those "fun" clubs, they were even medicated and tortured. It's just that history recording is biased and female oppression was never an issue until the late 19th century, so we always kept track of what boys couldn't do and not really of what girls couldn't do. Girls not being able to do a thing was normalized and expected.

Only due to women's lib we got to a point where girls could express their interests more freely and ask for more spaces to be created for recreation specifically. Games and toys have always been a boy-centered market because boys were the ones expected to be wild and curious, girls were expected to be quiet and doing chore play, knitting, beautifying.

And then of course due to the gay panic in the 60s/70s people were suddenly watching their boys play behaviour like hawks. For girls it was more about looks. She wanted to cut her hair and not wear dresses? Possible lesbian. And neither was accepted.

Sorry but I am tired of this cliché that girls just out of the blue were allowed to have interest in boy stuff. It's due to women's rights movements we won that privilege. And considering most people in my country still assjme each girl who likes to play soccer instead of doing ballet is a secret lesbian... yeah, gendering kids interests and activiyies is alive and well. Girls are also not given Batman toys, they are given the Mattel Batgirl with oversized head and fashions

Toys will end being gendered the moment toy companies stop market research. And that won't end any time soon. What we can hope for is that more themes and shapes and gimmicks will become "gender neutral". Such as The Joker make-up heads along with warmongering MLPs

Agreeing with so much of this! The gendering-of-toys issue has gotten better over the years, but it still has a long way to go. Certainly women’s lib and gender equality activists deserve due credit!

I do feel like the GoH Twilight Sparkle came pretty close to “My Warmongering Pony”, lol.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

TBH the eighties had nods to cultural material or events as well, it's not a new thing or a FIM thing.

I still remember an episode of the Turtles called "the Maltese Hamster"...

And I'm pretty sure there's a reason why that ice cream guy in Ice Cream Wars has a dodgy scottish accent.

Yeah, odds are preeeetty darn good that Fudgy McSwain's accent is a Montgomery Scott reference.

I've also seen people compare Wind Whistler to Spock but I don't know that that's as solid.

[LadyMoondancer]

No, I did not watch the episode. I don't watch TTTMU. And all the complaining about the Lauren Faust interview with little mention of anyone else made it sound as if she was almost the sole interviewee.

Ah, okay. Yeah, that's not the case at all.  Lauren Faust was interviewed for a few minutes and talked about how she played with the toys as a kid.  G1 collector Summer Hayes was interviewed in a similar manner, talking about the various toys.  (Favorite line: "This is totally not crack-pipe pony."
LOL.)

Most of the episode was about the creation of MLP and the contentious disagreement about who was the "real" creator of it (since Bonnie Zacherle and that one vice-president guy both claim credit . . . I totally believe it's Bonnie.)  Bonnie got a HUUUGE segment and fully explained her childhood love of ponies and how she designed the first MLPs.  They showed her prototype ponies (the natural horse-colored ones) and those beautiful, clear shots are the closest that most of us will get to them unless we're lucky enough to attend a MLP Fair that Bonnie's at.

And they also had several designers and sculptors from G1 over the years.  Including a guy who was instructed to design the Pretty Parlor and the lady in charge of his department kept coming by, inspecting his work, and instructing him to "pink it up."  (I don't think in the literal "color pink" sense but more like add more hearts, make it more bubbly, etc.)

It was very insightful and fun!

[Leave a Whisper]

No, I did not watch the episode. I don't watch TTTMU. And all the complaining about the Lauren Faust interview with little mention of anyone else made it sound as if she was almost the sole interviewee.

Ah, okay. Yeah, that's not the case at all.  Lauren Faust was interviewed for a few minutes and talked about how she played with the toys as a kid.  G1 collector Summer Hayes was interviewed in a similar manner, talking about the various toys.  (Favorite line: "This is totally not crack-pipe pony."
LOL.)

Most of the episode was about the creation of MLP and the contentious disagreement about who was the "real" creator of it (since Bonnie Zacherle and that one vice-president guy both claim credit . . . I totally believe it's Bonnie.)  Bonnie got a HUUUGE segment and fully explained her childhood love of ponies and how she designed the first MLPs.  They showed her prototype ponies (the natural horse-colored ones) and those beautiful, clear shots are the closest that most of us will get to them unless we're lucky enough to attend a MLP Fair that Bonnie's at.

And they also had several designers and sculptors from G1 over the years.  Including a guy who was instructed to design the Pretty Parlor and the lady in charge of his department kept coming by, inspecting his work, and instructing him to "pink it up."  (I don't think in the literal "color pink" sense but more like add more hearts, make it more bubbly, etc.)

It was very insightful and fun!

I just hafta ask, was the crack pipe pony a BBE?

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

You take that back, you big meanie!

[LadyMoondancer]

LOL no, it was one of the Soda Sipping ponies.

[SpacePinto]

I thought it was Dream Valley which was a part of Ponyland?

Indeed it was, at the end of "The Return of Tambelon Part 1" Grogar says: "Today Dream Valley, tomorrow all of Ponyland"

[Leave a Whisper]

LOL no, it was one of the Soda Sipping ponies.

I would have never made that connection.

[Carrehz]

I thought it was Dream Valley which was a part of Ponyland?

Indeed it was, at the end of "The Return of Tambelon Part 1" Grogar says: "Today Dream Valley, tomorrow all of Ponyland"

Thank you! I was sure they said it outright at some point, but I just couldn't think of a specific moment.

[flutterscotch]

I dunno, I was there at the Hasbro My Little Pony Fair where they unveiled the "Core 7" and went on and on about their "focus group" wanting it (which, I kinda question their selection criteria).   I am sure that's why we went into so many iterations of the Mane 6 to begin with, and then it got doubled down on when a bunch of dudes screamed about show accuracy and people were shelling out hundreds for custom plushes that Hasbro wasn't getting a part of the action on.