Where did the unfinished version of Over Two Rainbows come from?

[MintyMyndi]

For anybody who needs history...

There was a set released during G3.5 called the Family Convertible which featured Newborn Pinkie Pie and her mother, the titular vehicle, and a handful of accessories.
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A little later on, a free DVD was included. It contained the only two episodes of the Once Upon a My Little Pony Time cartoon, meant to promote the Newborn Cuties and So Soft Newborn toylines.
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This DVD even had an international release, with dubs in French, Spanish, German, Dutch, and Italian (not 100% certain on those languages; it was hard to find a legible image).
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Both episodes can be readily watched on YouTube (in English), but you may notice a considerable difference in quality. The first episode, Over Two Rainbows, begins with a G3 logo and lacks sound effects, lip movement, and even has the credits taken from Pinkie Pie's Special Day. But if you do a bit more digging, you'll find a finished version of this episode, its quality on par with the other one.

...Or, at least, that's how it used to be. Now, the finished version is the first one you'll find. For a long time, the unfinished version was all you could find. And due to the... interesting... style of this cartoon, it seemed plausible that it was the finished version.

I don't have any reason to believe either version is fake; I've even seen somebody claim to have gotten a hold of a DVD and the finished version was on it. I can't really verify this claim, since the DVD isn't readily available due to its distribution method.

Do all of the DVDs have the finished version? If so, where the heck did the unfinished one come from? Is there an unfinished version of So Many Different Ways to Play as well? (Probably not on that one; I imagine the unfinished one served as a proof of concept for both of them, but you never know.)

For reference:
Over Two Rainbows, unfinished: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2LCSzPcvrw
Over Two Rainbows, finished: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7jzFwtikSI
So Many Different Ways to Play, for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va-v89P7M6E

Thank you to anybody who can help!

[starrynights]

I have no idea, but I just wanted to say I'm charmed by the strangeness of these specials and the animation style of them.

[Mlp Sunsparkle]

My childhood car came with a dvd, and I can assure you that the finished one is on it! The other one is really strange, definitely not right! It’s possible it was on hasbros website at some point, or maybe on their press site to show an idea of what was in store for the next year? It doesn’t seem fake, and I can’t image why or how someone would want to do that! Removing all the mouth movements and sound effects for a few views seems odd, so I’m going with pre production/test shot. It’s cool but really off to see as I watched it a lot as a kid! I’ll add a pic of the cover and disc later xx
Super cool topic! I hope we find out!

[Minty_Magic]

How strange! I never knew two versions of this existed! Is it weird I kind of like the unfinished one more? I feel like the limited animation fits the simplistic story better. It seems like a little storybook tale to keep younger kids entertained.

My childhood car came with a dvd, and I can assure you that the finished one is on it! The other one is really strange, definitely not right! It’s possible it was on hasbros website at some point, or maybe on their press site to show an idea of what was in store for the next year? It doesn’t seem fake, and I can’t image why or how someone would want to do that! Removing all the mouth movements and sound effects for a few views seems odd, so I’m going with pre production/test shot. It’s cool but really off to see as I watched it a lot as a kid! I’ll add a pic of the cover and disc later xx
Super cool topic! I hope we find out!

I think you may be onto something with it being for press or to show where the brand is going. Notice in the unfinished one, the opening shows it as “My Little Pony Brand”? It doesn’t look like the finished one has that. I wonder if they pushed it out before it was fully finished to show off the new art style for the brand!

When did Twinkle Wish Adventure come out? I haven’t watched the G3.5 stuff in years, but I just recently rewatched this today and Twinkle Wish adventure a couple days ago. I can see soooo many similarities to FiM art style in the G3.5 era stuff. The more simplified backgrounds, the Chibi ponies, the focus on a cast of core characters, I can really see how this was the beginning of what we have now. It’s clear Hasbro had an idea of where they wanted to go with the brand, so I wonder if reinventing G3 at the bitter end was their idea of a safe way to test the new concept? Even though these are the shorts/media bronies love to rag on, its the most direct link to FiM there is. It’s been fun to watch all these in hindsight now. They have grown on me and are charming in their own right.