Pony Talk > Pony Corral

Questions about set releases

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kingluke:
Hello everyone,

I was wondering what caused certain ponies to be available in multiple sets, rather then their original release. For example, Tex was released in the first set of big brother ponies but also in the second set of big brother ponies.

Why was that? Were certain characters so populair that they were released again? Was it cheaper than making new ponies? Or did Hasbro have a bunch of characters left over in stock that they wanted to sell?

I would love to hear your thoughts and theories :)

Cheers,

Luke

lovesbabysquirmy:
Probably a combination of all three things you mentioned. 

Taffeta:
I can't answer the question, because the only people who really know are Hasbro. But with respect to ponies still in stock, I don't think so. That assumes that all ponies were sold at the same time in the same place and same format, but this isn't the case. There's a lot of slide between when certain sets are different places, and there isn't even a rule which says x country always have ponies a year before y country. So these ponies are in continuous production over a period of sometimes (using your example of Tex)at least three years - 1987-8 in North America, 1988-9 in the UK, and various versions of that in other places.

Sometimes production changes slightly between years as well - eg Tutti Frutti is different in the UK from some of Europe, she was also sold in 1987 in the UK and 1988 in most of those European countries - the box looks the same at a glance but the European one has the updated rainbow, and the pony is slightly different, accessories are as well...

And so on. Another good example are the glowing magic ponies - blue heart Dazzleglow didn't seem to get to Europe, but pink heart is available all over the place. So that's a production change while the pony is still on sale.

I think Hasbro probably looked at sets and considered what characters they thought they could pitch or pivot the line on. They reformatted Cherries Jubilee in 1986 in different ways in the UK and in some of Europe, and made her a SS pony in North America, so they obviously thought that pony had currency to sell a lot of units (and she did). Likewise Lickety Split and Posey, who also have reissue variations and So Soft versions.

But why specifically those characters? That's one only Hasbro can really explain.

kingluke:
Thank you for your answers.They are interesting to read :)

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