It's definitely one of those moments where it's most obvious that advertising new products is the no. 1 priority of the G1 cartoon. Story and logic doesn't matter as much. It's such a boring way to handle it too. In the books and backcard stories PE is portrayed more like a fun place to visit and not the permanent home of all ponies. It's basically only the cartoon that has all the ponies live under the same roof, in other stories they seem to live in various different places. From a marketing perspective it was a pretty smart move by the cartoon though. It makes PE seem much more important and a must-have for kids, since it's the home of ALL ponies!

I think if I remember correctly, the cartoon was a bit inconsistent on whether the babies lived in a room in Paradise Estate, or the Lullabye Nursery. I'm sure I remember both of them showing up in the series at different times.. or am I getting mixed up? 

The beginning of The Ghost of Paradise (which is also one of the earliest episodes) seems to imply the ponies built a second nursery next to Paradise Estate.
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They're working on the interiors in this different looking pink nursery, and it's said the babies will have to sleep in the estate while the paint is drying. However we see the regular nursery in many other episodes, and it often seems to be much farther away from PE. There's not much that's consistent from episode to episode.

The Nursery was rereleased in 1986, so it was probably mandated by Hasbro that the building had to appear in the series. Otherwise they could've just had the babies live in PE too since the playset already has a nursery in it.

They are indeed all China

So they're all made in China? I did a search on eBay and found a few princesses that the sellers claimed were marked Hong Kong. But looking closer at the ones that have photos from below it does indeed look like it actually says China. I guess that would make some sense, since the princesses are also a bit special with their multiple parts inset symbols. All that extra manufacturing might've been cheapier/easier to do in China.

I wonder if the Starlight Babies (and possibly their US equivalent set) were the last ponies to have Hong Kong versions?

Aren't Princess Ponies from 1987 also often China? Or did I hallucinate that memory?

Yeah, that's true. And the first set of TAF ponies also have China versions. Might have something to do with these ponies' later release in some European countries.

It's interesting to consider if the accompanying dolls had something to do with it. Perhaps it was more cost effective to manufacture dolls and dolls' clothes in China. The Megan and Pony Wear cards also say "made in China", despite most other Pony Wear parts still being made in Hong Kong. Hasbro's Jem dolls also switched production from Hong Kong to China (which was in 1986/1987). And the Pony Friends set was intended to include dolls at one point. Maybe it was just more convenient to have Sundance and Baby Sundance manufactured in China as well, so they could be assembled and packaged in the same country. It could simultaneously have been a way for Hasbro to test out having ponies made in China, if they were considering moving the entire production there eventually.

Looking closer at the other screenshots, the one with the ponies running into Dream Castle has also been altered with more ponies added in.
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I think the bottom screenshot with Megan and Baby Moondancer has also been redrawn slightly, but it's less obvious.

Anyone know if these pictures were used on the backcard for this release? If it was only in a dealer catalog (not intended for the general public) it probably didn't matter too much that the screenshots didn't match 100% with what was on the video.

Possibly someone working on this got the specials mixed up, or didn't release they were two separate specials and that the stories weren't connected.

It's all so very muddled by this point - I'm not sure we'll ever know for sure unless someone finds an unopened Hasbro case of 1987 TEs. xD.

Oh, if only!

Basically as far we know, every factor that might make Mimic rarer than any other TE also applies to Bright Eyes and Quackers. What we're left with is that Mimic was the only one out of these three to appear on the cartoon. She's not the only Year 5 pony to get a brief appearance, but there might've been something special about her depiction and the episode itself that made it stick out in people's minds. And there's been some mythos building around her in the collector community ever since it was first formed on the early internet.

With Transformers from the same period, Hasbro often shortpacked the characters that were reissued from the previous year. It'd make sense if they did this for MLP too, considering how uncommon the curly-haired year 3 versions of Applejack/Bowtie/Firefly/Medley are compared to other ponies from their set (even if you just account for the US market). If that was the case for the year 5 TE set, Speedy would've been the shortpacked one, Mimic was one of the new characters for the year. Then again, it's not impossible that due to her color scheme she was not expected to be a big seller compared to say, Locket (I have a feeling pink ponies were basically never shortpacked. If anything there might've been one extra of them compared to the others). But even then that alone wouldn't make Mimic special enough to warrant all this hype.

There are a lot of factors as to why things have turned out this way with Mimic, which is difficult to grasp right away when you're new to the community. Which is why a lot of new collectors always assume Mimic must've had a more limited distribution, since that's most logical, simplest explanation. So it's unfortunate that MyLittleWiki just straight up states that this was the case, without providing any evidence for it. When you've been collecting for a while you start realizing that rare doesn't equal expensive. There are some things that are incredibly rare, but not sought after by many and doesn't demand high prices. Mimic seems like a pony a lot of collectors are eager to add to their collection, but I'm speculating she's also one that quickly gets sold again when someone is in need of funds or want to downsize their collection. Hence why we see so many up for sale and being sold all the time.

From what I could tell when I noticed it (a few years ago), the older DVD releases had the title cards say "Escape from Midnight Castle" for both parts. The original TV airings (?) had "Rescue" for part one and "Escape" for part two, I think? And the Shout Factory release has "Rescue" for both.. I hadn't noticed the "Midnicht" typo before though. Do you know what release that screenshot's from? I've been meaning to make a thread about this title card thing for a while, just haven't found the time..

It's a DVD rip I downloaded from somewhere, so I don't know exactly from which set. Was the title "Rescue AT Midnight Castle" ever used somewhere officially, or was it always "from"?

I remember someone saying that "Hurry" never made it on the VHS releases also.  I've heard it was cut for time when Disney Channel got the series but it seems odd to me that they would only cut one song out of the series of MLP and Friends and leave the rest. 

I've read that the episode was slowed down so it would run the same length even without the song. Looking at it that seems about right, everyone's voices sound slightly more lower-pitched than usual in the final part.

The song is very annoying to listen to (Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!), but not so much more than some other songs from the series I think, and it doesn't seem like a likely reason for it to get cut. I wonder if there was something in the animation. Possibly not something super obvious, but still objectionable enough for it to be removed. Maybe some sharp object was used carelessly when Megan and the ponies were making the cloak or something like that?

The cut versions of the specials are part of the MLP 'n Friends TV series package, so possibly the uncut specials would have to be licensed separately, but I doubt that option is even available now. And even if it was, most companies likely wouldn't consider it worth it for two 22 minute specials, most of which is included with the TV series package anyway. And the demand isn't that big unfortunately. It's a shame the best parts of animated G1 only get to be released in such a hacked-up form.

BTW, I just realized the episode title for Midnight Castle actually says "Midnicht Castle".
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Is every version like this? Really highlights even further how sloppily these episodes were edited. 

I wish we knew why "Hurry" was edited out, it's so weird... from what we know about it, I really can't see any reason they'd cut it... I also wish footage of that sequence would turn up! Hopefully one day.

I guess this song isn't on any VHS release, or any foreign dub either (it certainly wasn't in the Swedish dub)? It only aired on TV back in the '80s? That really is strange. You'd expect there to be cuts for TV airings, but not home video releases. If not for the fact we have a sound recording of it I would've been skeptical it even existed.