80s MLP Animation Production Material

[Rhaegar]

I have come into possession of a large quantity of MLP production material. It's mostly Rescue From Midnight Castle and the TV series but there are commercials here and possibly other things I'm still going through. I will be scanning these but it will be a very long time before I'm done (there are hundreds) but I'll be posting them in this thread as I do them. Hope you guys enjoy.

The Sunbow Marvel Archive (https://sunbowmarvelarchive.blogspot.com) has permission to host these and I'll be adding them to tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/yanchamisc) and certain ones also to archive.org.

The archive.org uploads will be found here:
https://archive.org/details/@yanchagraffiti

[lovesbabysquirmy]

oooo exciting!  thanks for sharing

[Rhaegar]

It's gong to take me a very long time to go through all these. But included are:

Storyboards for midnight castle and various episodes including the end of flutter valley, ghost of paradise estate, sonumbula, and tambelon.
Character designs for TV and commercials
At least one page of lyrics.
Midnight castle press kit
Tons of sketches
Three background cels, one of which has fire damage.

The press kit is scanned I just need to clean and upload so expect to see that first. Some beautiful art I've never seen before.

[LadyMoondancer]

OMG!  That is a treasure trove!!!  Thanks for uploading them / sharing them with the archive, I love seeing animation history being preserved!

[Rhaegar]

Press kit up on archive and tumblr, feel free to reblog/share and do whatever you want with them.

[Gator]

I am a big Draggle fan.  Wish I could have afforded that Reeka/Draggle piece on eBay, but that was way out of my league😩

[Rhaegar]

I do have character models of them you'll see eventually.

[greeby]

Just to save time as we go along, material at the Archive's end will be available at the MLP N Friends page (theoretically covers all four shows in the anthology): https://sunbowmarvelarchive.blogspot.com/p/mp-5201-my-little-pony-1984-1986-sunbow.html

[Carrehz]

OMG OMG this is amazing!!!

Storyboards for midnight castle and various episodes including the end of flutter valley, ghost of paradise estate, sonumbula, and tambelon.

I've been longing for stuff like this for years now! OMG I can't wait to see the Flutter Valley stuff ;_;

Thank you so much for sharing and preserving these!!

The Press Kit is fascinating - this is the first we've heard of the "It's A Brand New Day" cut song, right? I always thought the special ended somewhat abruptly! I wonder what the song would've been like :O And it's interesting how the plot summary doesn't really mention Spike either - and Glory was originally going to be taken by Tirac instead of Cotton Candy! Ahhh omg I'm living for this

[LadyMoondancer]

Amazing . . . so much changed!  "The Rainbow of Darkness terrorizes the little ponies and turns their beautiful hair into tangles."  No mention of Scorpan being a prince either.  What I wouldn't give to hear the ending song.  Some genuine lost media there . . .

[Rhaegar]

There's other minor differences on some storyboards I've noticed. Please document anything you notice different here, some episodes I've seen considerably less than others (like prince and the ponies which is also in here) so I'm going to miss things. My husband is taking the storyboards to his job to scan in batches since they won't fit in my scanner. The smaller pieces I'll do at home.

I have also come into possession of an audio reel. Nothing as exciting as a missing song I'm afraid but probably still interesting to hear once I get it digitized.

[greeby]

Amazing . . . so much changed!  "The Rainbow of Darkness terrorizes the little ponies and turns their beautiful hair into tangles."  No mention of Scorpan being a prince either.  What I wouldn't give to hear the ending song.  Some genuine lost media there . . .

For specials and miniseries that got the full press release treatment, the summary was usually the writer's original premise, which could change a lot as it went through outline and full script.  So just be aware that some of these things may not have made it that far.

[Rhaegar]

Things of interest I am noticing as I go through these

On the ROMC size comparison chart names are spelled:
Tee-Jay
Tirac
Scorpan

Twinkles the cat is mentioned by name but no mention at all of First Born.

Princess Pony TV commercial: Princess Sparkle named Princess Lilac. Her symbol also does not appear to match unlike the rest.

Big Brothers TV commercial changed names:

Casey crossed out and renamed Steamer
Tumbleweed crossed out and renamed Tex
Touchdown crossed out and renamed Score (this is Quarterback)

Majesty lised in the unicorn listing for the TV series yet I do not see any character designs for her.

There's more things like this I'm sure I'll find as I continue to go through this massive pile.

[Carrehz]

Dang, we've been spelling TJ/Tee-Jay wrong all these years!

Touchdown crossed out and renamed Score (this is Slugger)

do you mean Quarterback? Slugger's the baseball pony - Quarterback was called "Score" in Somnambula.

which speaking of, ahhh that explains Sparkle and Quarterback having the wrong names in the cartoon!! I assumed they were early names that got changed too late to be reflected in the cartoon, but it's so good to finally have some concrete confirmation of that! I've seen "Casey" for Steamer before, but "Tumbleweed" and "Touchdown" are new ones on me :O I guess Quarterback got renamed super last minute? I wonder what happened there.

re: the RaMC summary, I think it's interesting that there's no mention of the Sea Ponies either!! So interesting to see what is/isn't there.
The write-up for Tommy Goodman describes him as writing "six" songs for the special (I assume opening, ending, Dancing on Air, Little Piece of Rainbow, Call Upon the Sea Ponies, and the lost "Brand New Day" song) so it sounds like the lost song was written. probably a demo recording existed at least at one point, who knows if it was ever recorded with the actual voice actors... oh man, I'd kill to hear it ;_;

Twinkles the cat is mentioned by name but no mention at all of First Born.

Is there any mention of Peachy anywhere? I think she was listed in the series bible Wildshadow has, and we've theorized before that "First Born" started off as Peachy before being changed into a rainbow pony (which would explain why Twinkles is there).

[Rhaegar]

Ah yes sorry, I'm half asleep today you are correct, I've edited the post. I've always wondered about the odd names they had in the cartoon and it makes sense that they were changed very late in the game. Maybe legal issues? Ice Crystal had a name plate with Frost on it so it's happened before.

So far no sign of Peachy anywhere. Anyone able to contact Wildshadow and have her confirm/deny any information she has on Midnight Castle? I'd love to sort this all out.


Post Merge: October 18, 2023, 04:07:02 AM

Call upon the sea ponies storyboard is up. It has several changes from the final version. This one is dated 1/3/1984, there is also a different revised one dated 1/6/1984 that I will also scan.