The Issue I Have With the Big Brother Ponies

[Strawberry Swirl]

I'm glad this has struck up a discussion.

Admittedly, I have filled in the gaps in my mind as well.  The Mountain Boys are unicorns, the BB's don't have a streak in their manes, and I came up with male pegasi.  Though, I've also come up with my own ideas for the natures of some ponies like Truly is a nurse and Sparkler is a demolitions expert. 

The cartoon is certainly not the be all and end all of the franchise (something G4 needs to remember), but it's still an important advertising tool, and I think Hasbro screwed the pooch using it to present male ponies.

Somebody please draw Sparkler as a Demoman. (Demomare?)

I do the same thing. It's sort of hard for me to recognize character traits if they're not glaringly obvious [ie Fluttershy's shyness), so I like to make up my own headcanons. :>

[Dragonflitter]

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That's it, Barnacle will forever be 'ship's cook' to me, now. Awesome pic! Hang in there, Beachball!

[MikeysGrrrl]

I agree with the sentiment of it being a line aimed at little girls...that typically equates to female characters. As others have mentioned the opposite happens in some male orientated boy lines...how many female transformers were there in the cartoon again? I love MLP for what it is - a simple sweet toy line with the cartoons as a cute merch angle but certainly not something which affects my opinion of the toys.

As for the name it is a gentle alliterative name which is cute and appealing for the target market. The boys were not designed to be boyfriends or dads...they were supposed to just be male ponies in the line and the nicest way to do that is literally to make them "big brothers". Its a very common way to introduce male characters in a line with such a young demographic. As to the lack of unicorn and pegasus...gosh yes I would have loved these too. But with the majority of ponies in general being earth ponies and the boys only getting a couple of sets [remember the first sets of the girls were all earth after all], the fact all the boys were is not too surprising. If you dont like Big Brother...dont use it. As Karen says Adventure Boy is what they went with in the UK. Personally I dont see it as some kind of deep and dark hidden meaning about dominance...I think it literally was that they were bigger ponies and their relationships to the other ponies were cutest explained as like big brothers.

I fully agree with this ^^

[KarentheUnicorn]

And for History's sake and my sanity, please remember that the first male pony introduced to us was Lucky. HE was the first pony 'presented' to us by hasbro, NOT the cartoon.

SO it was not through the cartoon that a lot of us came to know male ponies, it was through the mail. No not email, the actual postal service. You send in money and horseshoe points and Hasbro sent you a shinny new stallion.

Who knew you could get a man in the mail who would date your ponies; dang, I gotta wait for him to grown up, he's only a baby pony!!!

[Tirac]

I kinda felt uncomfortable about the stereotypical "male roles" they were given and also feel there should have been more variety to them in regards to pony races and toy types. (I think that a twinkle-eyed big brother pony would have been awesome)
The name for them doesn't really bug me much though because Hasbro did the same thing with the sweetheart sisters. Ponies that looked vastly different to the others were given a special grouping name.

[Shiromisa]

And for History's sake and my sanity, please remember that the first male pony introduced to us was Lucky. HE was the first pony 'presented' to us by hasbro, NOT the cartoon.

SO it was not through the cartoon that a lot of us came to know male ponies, it was through the mail. No not email, the actual postal service. You send in money and horseshoe points and Hasbro sent you a shinny new stallion.

Who knew you could get a man in the mail who would date your ponies; dang, I gotta wait for him to grown up, he's only a baby pony!!!

Hey, maybe that means they're all Lucky's big brothers! You know, since he's obviously the little one.

[KarentheUnicorn]

And for History's sake and my sanity, please remember that the first male pony introduced to us was Lucky. HE was the first pony 'presented' to us by hasbro, NOT the cartoon.

SO it was not through the cartoon that a lot of us came to know male ponies, it was through the mail. No not email, the actual postal service. You send in money and horseshoe points and Hasbro sent you a shinny new stallion.

Who knew you could get a man in the mail who would date your ponies; dang, I gotta wait for him to grown up, he's only a baby pony!!!

Hey, maybe that means they're all Lucky's big brothers! You know, since he's obviously the little one.

or he's the original daddy, horses grow up faster than humans. 

[Rosencrantz]

And for History's sake and my sanity, please remember that the first male pony introduced to us was Lucky. HE was the first pony 'presented' to us by hasbro, NOT the cartoon.

SO it was not through the cartoon that a lot of us came to know male ponies, it was through the mail. No not email, the actual postal service. You send in money and horseshoe points and Hasbro sent you a shinny new stallion.

Who knew you could get a man in the mail who would date your ponies; dang, I gotta wait for him to grown up, he's only a baby pony!!!

Hey, maybe that means they're all Lucky's big brothers! You know, since he's obviously the little one.

There's also a few other boys, including one of the newborn twins, and Clipper! New headcanon. Also, they could be the sweetheart sisters brothers!

[KarentheUnicorn]

And for History's sake and my sanity, please remember that the first male pony introduced to us was Lucky. HE was the first pony 'presented' to us by hasbro, NOT the cartoon.

SO it was not through the cartoon that a lot of us came to know male ponies, it was through the mail. No not email, the actual postal service. You send in money and horseshoe points and Hasbro sent you a shinny new stallion.

Who knew you could get a man in the mail who would date your ponies; dang, I gotta wait for him to grown up, he's only a baby pony!!!

Hey, maybe that means they're all Lucky's big brothers! You know, since he's obviously the little one.

There's also a few other boys, including one of the newborn twins, and Clipper! New headcanon. Also, they could be the sweetheart sisters brothers!

Yes, but they all came after Lucky.

And now that I'm thinking about it, I think his mail order pamphlet came in the mail to me, that I didn't get it from an insert in a pony package.

I think how it worked is they already had my name because I'd already ordering ponies through the mail order program. If say you ordered birthflower ponies or baby ember you were in the system. So you were mailed the pamphlet for.

I got quite a few order forms sent to me directly from Hasbro, so I'm almost positive Lucky's was mailed to me.

This pre-dated all the other male ponies in the toyline.

[Rosencrantz]

I wasn't saying any of those pre-dated Lucky, I was adding to Shiro's idea.

[sweetiebabyfizzy]

Well.... I was about 4 years old and a little girl when the released the "big brothers" and I will be honest with the other who have said so... I did not like them. Simply because they were boys. I didn't want to play with boy ponies, I wanted pretty girl ponies who had pretty colors and I could style their hair.

I remember for Christmas that year I got like 3 boy ponies and I was sad. I also remember the boy ponies sitting on the store shelves for a lot longer than any other ponies.

However, I do love the episode they were released in it's one of my favorites.

I started playing with them once I was older and they became the "Dad's to my pony families.

Sorry, but My Little Pony is a little girls toy esp back then....

http://youtu.be/bCFKFcmQZfA

SO it was not through the cartoon that a lot of us came to know male ponies, it was through the mail. No not email, the actual postal service. You send in money and horseshoe points and Hasbro sent you a shinny new stallion

And for those of you who don't like the name "big brother" they called him "Lucky the Stallion" just an FYI 

[Al-1701]

Even though Lucky was a colt.

This is why I think Hasbro did not do a good job with the BB's.  They didn't do enough to sell the idea to little girls that there are boy ponies who enjoy a good grooming as much as the girls.  They were instead the guys who did manly things and the mares swooned over the simple idea of their return.

[Strawberry Swirl]

Even though Lucky was a colt.

This is why I think Hasbro did not do a good job with the BB's.  They didn't do enough to sell the idea to little girls that there are boy ponies who enjoy a good grooming as much as the girls.  They were instead the guys who did manly things and the mares swooned over the simple idea of their return.

This, too. Gender roles have always been a problem in American society but when you force them on horses it gets to be a bit ridiculous imho.

[sweetiebabyfizzy]

They were instead the guys who did manly things and the mares swooned over the simple idea of their return.

lol! Maybe... you know what as a little girl I bet I would have been head over heels for a handsome Prince pony with lovely brushable hair! They made a few G2 Princes that are handsome, I have them. I also have Shining Armor too I couldn't resist him... although I do wish he had better hair.

[Malicieuse]

Even though Lucky was a colt.

This is why I think Hasbro did not do a good job with the BB's.  They didn't do enough to sell the idea to little girls that there are boy ponies who enjoy a good grooming as much as the girls.  They were instead the guys who did manly things and the mares swooned over the simple idea of their return.

Erm, i'm sorry but this is not a MLP or Hasbro problem. This is an "entire society" problem.
I think there are worse aspects to it than the big brother ponies...Also, they still had brushable hair and the commercials showed them getting their manes brushed.
I'm sure that if they did not make them "manly" enough people would have complained too. Like how some complained about G2 male ponies looking just like the female ones.

Also the whole colt/filly stuff only started in G4.