should Hasbro be capitalizing on nostalgia?

[Mana Minori]

There are a lot of franchises who have played the nostalgia card, whether by re-tellings of the originals, like the Pokemon Generations anime, complete re-masters like Sailor Moon Crystals, incorporating them into the new generation like Sonic Generations, or continuing the story where they left off with the original, like Yugioh Dark Side of Dimensions or Digimon Adventure Tri. Pokemon/ Game Freak especially very often makes remakes of their generation main series, gives plenty of attention to previous generations in big milestone anniversaries, events, and the like, and reboots/ retellings of their previous generations in series/ shorts form. On the other hand....Hasbro doesn't, as far as MLP is concerned. Could Hasbro benefit from Mimikyu'ing these mentioned franchises who have capitalized on nostalgia? Personally, I would really like to see a "MLP Generations" with the alicorns of g4 interacting with the ponies of g1 (especially Queen Majesty). There could also be revamps of g1, or continuations; or even g2's Friendship Gardens, which never even got a tv series (11 minute old school shorts would be perfect). Takara Ponies should also get a short series, since they never had one- geared toward both Japanese and English audiences.

should Hasbro work to capitalize on Nostalgia of the early pony generations (g1 and the g2 that never was)?

[LadyMoondancer]

I'd enjoy seeing G1 easter eggs in the G4 TV show.  Would Hasbro benefit from it, as in would they get a benefit out of it that they otherwise would not get?  Aside from some fan appreciation, they probably wouldn't get any concrete benefits.

It's more the concept of MLP that is nostalgic to most people, especially people who played with MLPs as kids but who are not collectors.  Almost every woman my age (late 30s) had some MLPs and will talk fondly about playing with them . . . but a lot of times they can't remember their ponies' names.  Sometimes they can't remember the colors!  They do remember the fun of playing with colorful fantasy ponies, though.

But it makes tapping into G1 nostalgia more of a challenge than it is with, for example, Sailor Moon, which is a more character-based franchise.

I do like your idea of G4 MLPs interacting with other generation ponies.  I love crossovers like that.  IMO it would be more "doing a favor to the fans" than "capitalizing on the fans", though.

[Shimmer Mist]

Cartoon-wise It probably wouldn't work too well... Toy-wise I'd say it'd be more successful. I know I'd kill for a Sub-line of MLP toys that focus on other pony gens.

[LadyMoondancer]

Yeah, true, there'd really be nothing to lose by using older designs in the G4 line which they've already done to some extent with a couple G3 ponies, and also Moondancer in the Playskool line.

https://www.amazon.com/Playskool-Friends-Little-Figure-Two-Pack/dp/B00TPB0L6I/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1496646846&sr=8-10&keywords=playskool+friends+pony

Moondancer is sold packaged with Minty, so it's like a double win.  (I think she's also available in a six pack.)

[orangepeachmango]

this topic comes up quite a lot, and while we are all desperate for some recognition from hasbro, the truth is hasbro can't do a whole lot because they lost the licensing to those characters and it would be expensive to get them again. and it seems like hasbro doesn't care, heaven forbid they spend a few extra bucks.

its annoying to see transformers get so much g1 related merch and callbacks, but mlp is left in the dust. even within the company itself..its not like hasbro CANT, its just clear they WONT.

[lostpony]

Pretty sure it's settled that Hasbro has rights to G1 still.  If they have lost the rights, what rights?  Copyrights?  Trademarks?  etc.

Hasbro is including an increasing amount of G1 callbacks in FiM now, but positioned in a way that suggests they are more trying to move fans of previous gens to like the G4 show because G4 fans who don't know what those things are have no reason to know they are from previous gens.

I think there is a lot of negative view of G1 among some of the G4 fans so there is a potential for Hasbro to actually do more harm than good if they tried too hard to re-marry the earlier gens in any obvious way. 

Nonetheless, there are an increasing number of G4 fans who are open to earlier gens so we can always hope that a re-union of sorts may lie in the future.

[Tulips]

I've heard it said many times that Hasbro lost the licensing to many G1 characters... but I don't know the first thing about business speak so what does that mean? Did they lose the rights, or sell them? Who owns them? I've never seen a concrete answer with proof to back up that statement. Not saying it's not true, I just don't know the who/what/when/where/how of it. Can anyone explain?

[Taffeta]

I'm not in favour of forcing G1 ponies into G4 animation, I think that would upset some G4 fans and I don't think it's necessary. I don't think G1 needs to be in G4, really. G4 is a thing on its own. It doesn't need to be shored up by nostalgia from the past. The G4 animation as far as I understand it has already lifted a lot of old G1 concepts and character ideas, and that is probably as far as they dare go (or should go). I don't even know how many G4 fans are aware how many G1 things have been rehashed for FIM, and maybe it's better that way.

I would love to see a Ruby anniversary pony in 5 years time, though, as a proper collector release. The UK pony fan in me would obviously make that Princess Ruby, with dragon and wand and everything, but unfortunately the US drives everything MLP these days, even here, and even with the old copyrights. This was made abundantly clear when the name Princess Sparkle was used instead of Amethyst for the dollymix pony and on merchandise here in the UK.

This is also the problem which you would have with Queen Majesty, as she never really had that role in the US. Queen Majesty and her many exploits are almost uniquely part of the UK canon, which is bolstered by a long running series of comics between 1985 and 1993. Majesty was a major figure in our canon, both in the comics and in storybooks, but she never appears with Dream Castle in the animation, and I am not sure how many times she ever appears in US stories, either. Maybe once? The trouble is that while (almost) all G1 ponies had backcard stories that told the collector something about them and their character, most of them didn't get depicted in actual stories in the US line. Once the animation ended, it ended. And Hasbro US don't know or probably care about the UK comics or how they presented characters. Most of the characters in the UK comic stories do not match the ones that are known in the animation that does exist. Hasbro is more likely to default to its own animated collection in the US if it did go down that line.

It's also a problem for G2, which failed horribly in the States. It was much more successful in Europe (we had comics for it, too, and I think other places did as well) but again, if the US is dictating these things, which it seems to be, I would expect G2 to just disappear. As for G3, the presence of Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash alone kind of indicate that connection...though the worlds of G3 and G4 are so different in their apparent target audience that I wonder how difficult it would be. I think it would be easiest, though, to bring in G3 characters and names into the G4 line (as they have done from the start) because the idea of the core 7 is essentially the same concept as the mane six. It's a concept that G1 didn't really use until the very end, and G2 only used successfully in Europe, not in the US.

Takara MLP nostalgia isn't likely. Japan no longer sells G4 MLP and while they did have the animation over there, it's not a huge thing. When I was there earlier this year, the only MLP items you could see there were the TY plushes, and only in a very few stores. If the toyline isn't there, Hasbro are not going to be interested. Besides, Takara was a franchise from Hasbro and it lasted a very short time. Even the Japanese themselves are not that familiar with it and they are very hard to find. Hasbro are more about profit than anything else, and there's no way that would be viable if they have already given up on G4 in Japan.

G1 also wasn't really a toyline defined by animation anyway. It was defined by toys and the animation was there to sell those toys, not as a thing in its own right. Unlike Jem, I don't think the G1 animation has really taken on 'cult status' beyond the toyline.  There are so few episodes really compared with the number of toys available. Only the UK comic really has a good shot at representing and writing about many characters across the years, and there are a lot of G1 collectors and fans who would not know or recognise those representations because the comics were here, not everywhere.


I think some of the name trademarks for individual ponies lapsed, and that might be the confusion. I don't suppose they have the rights to all the G1 pony names after this long, because it just wouldn't be profitable to have licences for several hundred toy products they no longer make. I seem to remember there was some kind of conflict over 'Cotton Candy' at one point, but I don't remember all the details.

[LadyMoondancer]

Hasbro did not lose the rights to G1 ponies.  If they had, Applejack wouldn't be part of the cast and we wouldn't have retro G1 merchandise flying at us left, right, and center, lol.  I just bought some Starshine and Windy socks . . .

Sometimes Hasbro might lose the trademark on a name if another company uses it while Hasbro has left it inactive.  But that's not really a problem since they can just add something to the name to slightly change it.   For Transformers, they trademarked "Autobot Ratchet" because someone else had grabbed the Ratchet name (probably the "Ratchet and Clank" movie people.)  Easy to do for ponies too.

[Leave a Whisper]

It'd be nice if they did it more often for something other then G1 Transformers fans. I can easily see retro older gen pony toys, retro GI Joe anniversary figures, affordable retro Jem dolls for the kids and kids at heart, Moondreamers anniversary toys, anniversary M.A.S.K toys. That'd be nice.

They're like Sega sometimes. They forget they have more then Sonic to their celebrated name.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

G4 *IS* nostalgia for G1 by its very existence. 

And really, Hasbro has tried before with various re-releases and exclusive ponies... what always happens is we all get excited about the idea, then when the item hits the shelves, we realize the price doesn't line up with the value in our minds and we don't buy, then Hasbro thinks it's a failure and we don't get more.

Look at the G1 Re-Releases - they asked what we wanted, we told them, we did not consider that original materials would not be available and that the price point was going to be so high.  Yes, $14 for four ponies does work out to the "original MLP price" each, but that is a lot of money to pay for ponies that look substantially different from what we thought Hasbro was going to give us.  However none of us thought about how the plastic would have to be different for today's safety laws, etc. 

And the Art Ponies - for one, they were $40 so that was off-putting for many.  And then the body design changed from G3 to G4.  Go ahead, ask the Fair Staff how many of these Fair exclusives they had to pay OUT OF POCKET to order and are STILL in storage collecting dust!!! Hundreds from what I hear!

I think the most successful G1 reboot has been the fanmade Genie project... but Hasbro will definitely want to hear NOTHING about that!    And I don't even know how profitable Genie *is*, I think right now, each run has paid for itself? 

[Carrehz]

I wish this stupid rumour would just die already. If Hasbro lost the rights to anything, it would have been the names (which, as has been said already, they could easily get back - sure they might have to rename one or two or have them be like, "Firefly the Pegasus" instead of "Firefly", but there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing that, is the point). The characters, their designs and such, are still fair game. If they weren't, we wouldn't have all the retro merch that's out right now. Heck, I'm wearing a Moonstone shirt right now that I bought from Primark recently. Dollymixes, the Running Press ponies, the upcoming Loyal Subjects ponies, those also wouldn't have happened if they had "lost the rights". (Now yes, these are all licensed products and not made by Hasbro themselves, but my point still stands; I admit to not knowing all the ins and outs of this stuff, but I kind of doubt *anyone* would be allowed to [legally] sell these things if they had, indeed, "lost the rights".)

Hasbro aren't producing any "nostalgia"/"retro" stuff (well, mostly they aren't, I guess there is Minty, and the Playskool Moondancer figure, but you know) because they don't want to, plain and simple. Would they profit off it? Eh, maybe. I'd agree with LadyMoondancer though, the nostalgia regarding MLP is really more the idea of it than the characters.

Personally, I don't want any more G1 stuff in FiM (and I saw how they referenced G3 so I'd prefer if they stayed away from that, too..). I like little easter eggs here and there, but by and large I think the two should stay their own seperate things.

I'd also agree with Taffeta that you need to be thinking of this from an American perspective, here. There was never a G2 cartoon, or a Oshare na Pony (Takara) cartoon, because there wasn't the demand for them, and honestly in the grand scheme of things, I don't imagine there'd be demand for them nowadays, either. Amongst us fans/collectors, maybe, but not from the general public, and that's who you need to think of when making things like these - it's simply not feasible to make something that only a short crowd will enjoy, particularly not when they could just put that money towards more FiM stuff, which is current and clearly makes money since it's still going.

It's hard to put into words, but your perspective on this is kind of off, too? Not meaning that in an insulting way, just trying to explain where I'm coming from, here. I've noticed a lot of G4/FiM fans seem to assume that the UK comics were a bigger/more universal thing than they actually were, and that's not really the case? Now I don't mean this as an insult, I mean to say that since they weren't sold in the US, US collectors didn't know about them until the internet really caught on, from what I understand. Also that prior to G4, most MLP collectors were really more focused on the toys, not the cartoons and related ephemera. That stuff was just sort of a nice bonus; in general no one really cared about the "canon" of the franchise. That is to say, it wasn't a huge concern or the main draw, for most people, unlike G4/FiM where pretty much everything has to relate back to the show. Which honestly I miss, it's so limiting to feel like you 'have' to conform to the show canon..

but yeah, you need to look at this from the proper perspective; MLP has primarily been toy-driven, not show-driven, which affects a lot of decisions made regarding it. If that makes sense. Again, not trying to have a go at you, just trying to explain where most of us are coming from when you make threads like this. You're trying to put a G4 perspective on the G1-G3 stuff, when they're fairly different things in general.

edit: gah, lovesbabysquirmy ninja'd me No, you bring up a good point that I hadn't thought about before. It's easy to say "wouldn't it be awesome if they rereleased G1 ponies for the Xth anniversary?!?" but.. they did that before, during G3, and they didn't sell. I can see why Hasbro would be unwilling to try again, lol. They have no guarantee that this time round would be any better, and honestly I can't blame them for wanting to save their money instead of throwing it away on a gamble that, in the past, didn't pay off.

[Leave a Whisper]

G4 *IS* nostalgia for G1 by its very existence. 

And really, Hasbro has tried before with various re-releases and exclusive ponies... what always happens is we all get excited about the idea, then when the item hits the shelves, we realize the price doesn't line up with the value in our minds and we don't buy, then Hasbro thinks it's a failure and we don't get more.

Look at the G1 Re-Releases - they asked what we wanted, we told them, we did not consider that original materials would not be available and that the price point was going to be so high.  Yes, $14 for four ponies does work out to the "original MLP price" each, but that is a lot of money to pay for ponies that look substantially different from what we thought Hasbro was going to give us.  However none of us thought about how the plastic would have to be different for today's safety laws, etc. 

And the Art Ponies - for one, they were $40 so that was off-putting for many.  And then the body design changed from G3 to G4.  Go ahead, ask the Fair Staff how many of these Fair exclusives they had to pay OUT OF POCKET to order and are STILL in storage collecting dust!!! Hundreds from what I hear!

I think the most successful G1 reboot has been the fanmade Genie project... but Hasbro will definitely want to hear NOTHING about that!    And I don't even know how profitable Genie *is*, I think right now, each run has paid for itself?

The Mini Glory and Book set is pretty popular.

How well did the G1 Dollymix Ponies do?

[Wardah]

I wish this stupid rumour would just die already. If Hasbro lost the rights to anything, it would have been the names (which, as has been said already, they could easily get back - sure they might have to rename one or two or have them be like, "Firefly the Pegasus" instead of "Firefly", but there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing that, is the point). The characters, their designs and such, are still fair game. If they weren't, we wouldn't have all the retro merch that's out right now. Heck, I'm wearing a Moonstone shirt right now that I bought from Primark recently. Dollymixes, the Running Press ponies, the upcoming Loyal Subjects ponies, those also wouldn't have happened if they had "lost the rights". (Now yes, these are all licensed products and not made by Hasbro themselves, but my point still stands; I admit to not knowing all the ins and outs of this stuff, but I kind of doubt *anyone* would be allowed to [legally] sell these things if they had, indeed, "lost the rights".)

Hasbro aren't producing any "nostalgia"/"retro" stuff (well, mostly they aren't, I guess there is Minty, and the Playskool Moondancer figure, but you know) because they don't want to, plain and simple. Would they profit off it? Eh, maybe. I'd agree with LadyMoondancer though, the nostalgia regarding MLP is really more the idea of it than the characters.

Personally, I don't want any more G1 stuff in FiM (and I saw how they referenced G3 so I'd prefer if they stayed away from that, too..). I like little easter eggs here and there, but by and large I think the two should stay their own seperate things.

I'd also agree with Taffeta that you need to be thinking of this from an American perspective, here. There was never a G2 cartoon, or a Oshare na Pony (Takara) cartoon, because there wasn't the demand for them, and honestly in the grand scheme of things, I don't imagine there'd be demand for them nowadays, either. Amongst us fans/collectors, maybe, but not from the general public, and that's who you need to think of when making things like these - it's simply not feasible to make something that only a short crowd will enjoy, particularly not when they could just put that money towards more FiM stuff, which is current and clearly makes money since it's still going.

It's hard to put into words, but your perspective on this is kind of off, too? Not meaning that in an insulting way, just trying to explain where I'm coming from, here. I've noticed a lot of G4/FiM fans seem to assume that the UK comics were a bigger/more universal thing than they actually were, and that's not really the case? Now I don't mean this as an insult, I mean to say that since they weren't sold in the US, US collectors didn't know about them until the internet really caught on, from what I understand. Also that prior to G4, most MLP collectors were really more focused on the toys, not the cartoons and related ephemera. That stuff was just sort of a nice bonus; in general no one really cared about the "canon" of the franchise. That is to say, it wasn't a huge concern or the main draw, for most people, unlike G4/FiM where pretty much everything has to relate back to the show. Which honestly I miss, it's so limiting to feel like you 'have' to conform to the show canon..

but yeah, you need to look at this from the proper perspective; MLP has primarily been toy-driven, not show-driven, which affects a lot of decisions made regarding it. If that makes sense. Again, not trying to have a go at you, just trying to explain where most of us are coming from when you make threads like this. You're trying to put a G4 perspective on the G1-G3 stuff, when they're fairly different things in general.

edit: gah, lovesbabysquirmy ninja'd me No, you bring up a good point that I hadn't thought about before. It's easy to say "wouldn't it be awesome if they rereleased G1 ponies for the Xth anniversary?!?" but.. they did that before, during G3, and they didn't sell. I can see why Hasbro would be unwilling to try again, lol. They have no guarantee that this time round would be any better, and honestly I can't blame them for wanting to save their money instead of throwing it away on a gamble that, in the past, didn't pay off.

I think the G1 re-releases, even if they were exactly the same, would do much better now. During the time they were released it was still easy to find G1s at yard sales and thrift stores inexpensively. Now the supply has dried up a lot and it's much harder to find even "common" G1s as cheaply. Tho I do think a big mistake was focusing on sets. They should have included a variety of different types similar to the Party Packs G1 had.

[banditpony]

TBH, we DO have retro merchandise that feeds on nostalgia.

They aren't going to do a remake of the G1 MLP movie because that competes with their current goals. It's fair game after FiM goes away, but I sort of hope they don't.

As for remakes of the toys, well it's not going to be the quality or price point that people want. The playskool line was geared with nostalgia in mind, for parents who knew the brand (and probably grew up with it), but that unfortunately flopped.