The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: Mrs. Prospector on October 10, 2023, 05:23:13 PM
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So I was thinking the other day about the G3 Core 7, and how I just don't understand why Hasbro made the decisions they did with this refresh. I somewhat understand that they wanted to have some characters become the face of the brand for merchandising purposes, but I don't know why they chose the ponies they did.
It could be argued that Hasbro wanted to tie the toyline and movies together more, but they could have used characters that had already been established such as Minty, Wysteria, Starcatcher, or Rarity. They instead decided to choose the oddest group of ponies and try and force kids to love them, while erasing the 300+ other ponies from existence. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were obvious shoe-ins, but they decided to change Dash's voice and personality, making her traits less unique and unfamiliar to those who saw her in the earlier movies. The only other character from earlier that went unchanged was Scootaloo, also a strange choice seeing as she never appeared in any cartoons and only had one toy release. Then for some reason, they took Cherry Blossom, but gave her the name of another pre-existing pony, who had a prominent role in previous cartoons, which I don't understand at all. I understand even less the decision to take Toola Roola, a pony whose name is a reference to an Irish song, tying in with her Celtic symbol, and slap the name on a completely different art-themed pony, where the name makes no sense. There was no reason they couldn't have made Toola 2 a completely original character. Starsong and Sweetie Belle are brand new to the Core 7 refresh, so I don't have much to say, except that they didn't even let Starsong be completely unique-her Cutie Mark is the same as Silver Glow!
Not to mention, it's just a weird selection of characters from a group standpoint. 3/7 ponies are pink, and all of them have pink somewhere on them. I get that pink sells, but it makes the limited number of characters look even more limited. They needed a green pony in there (hint hint).
Honestly, I don't even know why the Core 7 refresh was made in the first place. I don't think Hasbro understood why kids were so drawn to MLP, especially at a time when it wasn't as character and media driven as G4/5. Apparently around this time MLP sales were getting low, because kids became more interested in LPS instead. As an LPS kid around this time, who recently lost interest in MLP, I was into LPS because of the collectibility and huge number of pets you could get. So how does Hasbro try and boost MLP sales? By limiting the number of ponies you can get!
This era was a harbinger of sorts for what MLP would become for the next decade and a half. I understand having a focus group of characters, especially for a TV show-other toy lines have done this for decades. But just because there are main ponies doesn't mean that no other ponies can exist, or that nobody will buy them. G4 had loads of characters in the show that you'd think would be perfect toy material, but never existed-the reformed changelings, the Kirin, the student six, the Pillars of Equestria-If you didn't know better, you'd think the inclusion of all these characters was to push toys, but Hasbro was too busy selling Pinkie Pie with a new hat instead of Thorax or Autumn Blaze. The popularity of background ponies like Muffins and Lyra was because fans enjoyed being imaginative and giving these incidental characters in the MLP world their own personalities and stories. Fans of all ages have been making their own OC ponies and giving them their own personalities and stories. Not even the most die-hard fans are tied so hard to FIM canon that they will not accept any character that is not one of the Mane Six. Kids are no different than Bronies in that regard. Give them a random character like Dewdrop Dazzle or Snowcatcher, and they can imagine their role in the world of Equestria and their relationships with the Mane 6 and other characters. TV tie-ins and toy variety don't have to be mutually exclusive, and I don't know why this big toy company seemingly doesn't know that.
What are your thoughts on the Core 7 15 years later, and are there any other decisions made about MLP that make you go "Hmmm"?
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The first thing which made me go EH???!!! was the G3 Soft Newborns. Like, these were supposed to be relatable to the actual Ponies, how??? To resolve this (& the lack of variety in Core 7) I made Customs in Newborn Cutie of the Soft Newborns. Before that Pony plush lines were like Pony minis: offshoots of the actual Pony line with actual Ponies tying in. Even G3 Ponyville was mostly, except Breezie Dreams (I Customised her as a Divine Shine using a G3 mould glitter Fakie), smaller versions of existing Ponies.
Core 7 was next, for exactly the reasons you said: variety (both number of characters & colour schemes) out the window, CLONE POSE, plastic clothing...
Then we got the Mane Six, & so few other toys the ones we DID get are three to four times the price I could get them new already. I'm already shocked to see Plumsweet now considered rare, for example.
But then we got the next baffling thing: drawing the focus AWAY from brushables, & to, of all things, MINIS. Like, minis are fun to have a few of, but for them to DOMINATE??? Just look at everybody's size opinions & see how many times G4 Blind Bag size comes up: you've guessed it, NONE!!! Everybody's G1/ G3, sometimes G4 Brushable, often G2, but NOBODY is blind bag. If G4 Blind Bags had been just an offshoot of the main brushable line, fine, but the fact that Flim, Flam, all but four (if you count the GOH Cheese Sandwich) of the Boys, & more than even came to mind for characters, let alone was made a brushable, were all Blind Bag, compared to fewer than 100 unique brushable & GOH characters combined (want a changeling, want Cheese Sandwich, want Daring Do in normal size, want the pirates from the Movie??? Got to go GOH), & even fewer without the GOH adding essential characters.
And of course, the G4 brushables are smaller size, like Baby Ponies, so there's lees room for decent quality. The Fashion Style Ponies helped a bit, but there are even fewer of them than of the standard brushables!!!
And then we get to G5.
Five main characters & an antagonist. And only four of those are made fully brushable (I know, Shining Armour's Russ Troll hair, but it was still better than moulded manes on Hitch & Sprout ad nauseum. It took all the bad stuff about G4 & MADE IT WORSE, regarding toy releases. The small figures are too small, & a pain to do anything with, the big ones are bigger than G4 Fashion Style, & therefore incompatible with G1 & G3 in any way, & their symbols are so tiny & hardly visible, yet somehow, since G4, they're all-important & tied to your destiny. Oh yep, AND the G5 world is a continuation of the G4 one, rather than a unique new world as every gen before had been.
Hasbro, make it make sense, PLEASE!!!
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Weren't the Core 7 also all in the same pose (until G3.5 molds were created) so they could wear interchangeable plastic clothes? Which made them look even more samey and boring.
I think there was an internal document from around that time that said "Ponies are not ponies, they are six year old girls and they ONLY do the things six year old girls do." Which is lowkey insulting imo . . . as though six year old girls don't aspire to growing up and doing grown-up things. They would never say that about a toyline aimed at six year old boys; hell, the Rescue Bots (the Playskool Transformers line) go around putting out fires and saving people from earthquakes! But anyway, I think that's why Rainbow Dash's voice was changed: it was too adult sounding. Her new voice was so generic.
The original set of Big Brother ponies are fan favorites, but very weird from a marketing perspective. So, you're adding all these boy ponies to your toyline; the way I see it, you have two obvious options.
#1, market them towards girls, as all the rest of your ponies have been, and give them unisex symbols / themes.
#2, market the ponies towards little boys and give them boyish symbols, colors, and themes. Also make the packaging and commercials aimed at boys, with a new jingle. Make it a rap or something (it's the 80s baby) and show little boys playing pretend tug-of-war with their ponies or running races with them.
Instead they're this confusing mishmash where the ponies have a LOT of pink in the set and there's nary a boy to be seen in the commercials, but the ponies have themes like football?? and dump trucks?? Obviously some girls are into those things, but from a marketing perspective it's sooo stupid, lol.
It also floors me that the flutter ponies got a second set. I love the flutter ponies but they have a close to 100% breakage rate on THEIR SIGNATURE GIMMICK.
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Because whoever runs MLP at Hasbro is not the brightest crayons in the box. They keep at it because it turns a profit for little to no effort. They're lazy. And the brand has been suffering since the core group thing was established proper. But they don't care.
Legacy characters are okay sometimes? But they still don't get the memo that kids got tired of seeing 40 Scoot-a-loos, 1,000 Twilight Sparkles and 20 Sunny Starscouts instead of ANYTHING else.
Like seriously, outside of Jazz and Pipp I have never even seen Zipp or Trailblazer by themselves. It's just Sunny and Moonbow and anything else is stuck in a pack. And I'm already tired of them.
At least HQG1C and Basic Fun gave us something new.
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All I can say, is I couldn’t collect G4 because every unicorn toy had “evil” eyes to me. And they didn’t have these eyes in the cartoon show. I did not like those eyes, so Hasbro did not get my dollars
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Gator, did you ever see the Sunset Shimmer pony toy? Her eyes looked very pretty to me. (Ironically she started out as an antagonist so evil eyes would have fit her, lol.)
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Something I don't get is why they didn't make the G4 unicorn horns longer. Like, just one or two more spirals tall would have looked so much better. The short horns aren't even show accurate so . . . why? Anyway, that's one of the reasons I liked the redesigned G4 molds (the ones that came out during the G4 movie) more than the original G4 molds.
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I'm still bewildered by this stuff too! Core 7 definitely felt like MLP (or at least G3) dying in a way. And what do ya know, it actually was! So sad going from seemingly endless new designs to...the same 7...in the same exact pose everytime. The goofy name changing and reusing always annoyed me too. Honestly they did Cherry Blossom dirty, then they did her even more dirty in G4 by making Cheerilee's lovely symbols so cutesy. And original Styling size Cheerilee was a pretty pony. Sure she was just pink and purple, but she was nice shades of those colors that you don't see much. Shame she didn't get a regular size release. Original Toola Roola being replaced was sad too. Why could they not just...come up with another name for these ponies?
Of course G1 didn't get away without reusing some names too. So strange that they can have hundreds of different characters then suddenly there's a second pony named Yum Yum. No one in the company could suggest a new name for a pony with candy on her butt? Really?
All I can say, is I couldn’t collect G4 because every unicorn toy had “evil” eyes to me. And they didn’t have these eyes in the cartoon show. I did not like those eyes, so Hasbro did not get my dollars
Yeah, I never did like G4 unicorn eyes either (except Sunset Shimmer as mentioned above!) I don't know how they managed to make them look so bad. Same with Fluttershy. Even after they "fixed" her eyes she just looked like she was constantly terrified lol.
My own contribution here is G4 Applejack having eyebrows. Did anyone ever find out why she has them? It drives me crazy when I think about it. It's so odd!! Who decided she should have them? Why was everyone else involved with the final design okay with it too? Why was it only her and no other ponies??
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I've always wondered why so many G1 names sound like Hasbro made them up during a company cocktail party game. Names like Woosie, Brandy etc...
Ponyfan
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I've always wondered why so many G1 names sound like Hasbro made them up during a company cocktail party game. Names like Woosie, Brandy etc...
Ponyfan
Floater? that's a great one!
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I think there was an internal document from around that time that said "Ponies are not ponies, they are six year old girls and they ONLY do the things six year old girls do."
They told us that on the HQ tour in 2008. We were all like...
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I've always wondered why so many G1 names sound like Hasbro made them up during a company cocktail party game. Names like Woosie, Brandy etc...
Ponyfan
You just answered your own question. Booze was mixed up with the naming committee. Brandy and Mai Tais for all! :lol:
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What a dark time. I remember it.
Before Core7 reboot, there was Ponyville toy line which is exactly what Littles Petshop was. So, your point about LPS makes sense.
But I think G3 never had true main characters beofore Core 7. Most of us thinks of The Charming Birthday cast is the main characters thanks to toy release. They operate on a similar G1 principle, where anypony have potential to be the main character for a day.
Hasbro is never good at My Little Pony from day one. They never respect little girls enough to put in meaningful effort. The toys keep getting worse.
I still remember the day I was gifted Royal Rose, the first time I hold her and, feel her cold, hard plastic body. I will never forgive Harbro for this one decision.
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Polypropylene hair, enough said. Poor Avon ponies.
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I've always wondered why so many G1 names sound like Hasbro made them up during a company cocktail party game. Names like Woosie, Brandy etc...
Ponyfan
Floater? that's a great one!
:lmao: you guys
don't forget pillow talk :snicker:
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Adding Kiss & Tell to the list of names that should probably never have happened.
We could also talk about Kiwi Tart...especially as the first place she was found was in NZ.
The core 7 wasn't Hasbro's first rodeo at trying to bring out a core group, incidentally. They'd been playing around with the idea since MLP Tales/the 7 Characters, though fortunately we didn't get to see much of that. With G2 there were a lot of rereleases of the same basic character, only I think some of them fly under the radar because of the European only release and the fact that meant some of them changed names between releases. And of course G2 did have a balance of original characters as well.
The core 7 is probably the prototype for the mane 6 and now the whatever the main characters are, though. I feel like it was absolutely a plan for most profit with least effort. But the success of G4 (driven mainly by the cartoon) maybe suggests what kids wanted at that point was different (or was thought to be, even if it wasn't).
The sad thing about particularly the way G4 was marketed after the first couple of years is how quickly those same toys showed up at second hand sales and so on. I'm not even talking about online or on ebay, but basic things like car boot sales, charity shops, thrift stores etc. By contrast, in the mid 1990s when we first started carbooting for G1, you would still find ponies from the early eighties. You'd find ponies from the same household from several years. You'd have kids who were selling ponies that they had originally got from a cousin/sibling but had now grown out of. Ponies that had stayed in people's houses and been played with multiple times by multiple kids for several years before hitting the second hand market.
...Whereas when I was in London and going to the carboot sale regularly, I would see G4 ponies that were still in store, regularly. And this in spite of the growth of online selling and collecting and so on. These were being sold as kids' toys tossed in a box for 50p or £1, not people trying to profit from collectors. They just didn't have that longevity.
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I'll add flutter pony wings fragility. Fortunately its easy to make or buy a sturdier pair.
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To this day I’m STILL baffled by Hasbro’s decision to move away from collectibility to just a core cast of characters for the toys. The thing that drew me to MLP as a kid was all the different characters! I loved going to the store and seeing what new ponies were out. If it was just the same few ponies over and over in the toy aisle I don’t think I would have gotten hooked on MLP like I did. Ah well, on the bright side all the re-releases are good for my wallet! I don’t buy as many new ponies anymore since…there just isn’t anything new to get.
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Their open disdain of generation 1, which put this toyline on the map, and generation 3 which brought it back to wild popularity. All to appease a niche' group of toxic creeps.
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My own contribution here is G4 Applejack having eyebrows. Did anyone ever find out why she has them? It drives me crazy when I think about it. It's so odd!! Who decided she should have them? Why was everyone else involved with the final design okay with it too? Why was it only her and no other ponies??
I think it's maybe because they were basing it of this one old piece of concept art?
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I always thought that was weird too. They honestly did Applejack's toys so dirty. No hat, no freckles, eyebrows, weird "shy" looking eyes, more yellow than orange-no wonder she was the worst seller among the Mane 6.
Speaking of pony eyes, why did they change Fluttershy's eyes from sweet and dreamy
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To looking like she's having war flashbacks?
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The old ones were so much cuter and more show accurate, I don't understand at all.
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Their open disdain of generation 1, which put this toyline on the map, and generation 3 which brought it back to wild popularity. All to appease a niche' group of toxic creeps.
At the end of the day, it was about money, and Hasbro wanted to appear cool, but were dealing with a completely different market to their usual demographic...
I think Basic Fun's success with the retro ponies startled them a little bit more though. Now they talk about retro stuff more than they did initially, when they were keen to tell everyone the BF ponies were nothing to do with them.
That said, it may also be that reason which allowed BF the licence to produce Celestials...so...
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At the end of the day, I don't think Hasbro had any disdain towards G1, or any of their previous generations - I know that they released some joke videos about it towards the end of G4, but I think that's all they were - jokes, like you can playfully mock yourself, but that's probably all it was (I will admit I didn't watch them, so I don't know for sure - I only glanced at the Megan one.)
The thing is, Hasbro put a thing online where they asked bronies to be nicer to the pre-"Equestria" ponies, and to give them a chance too - I remember bronies being surprised that Hasbro would stand up for the generations before G4, as they weren't making money from them, which obviously isn't the point, but yeah... Hasbro stood up for G1-G3.5, so ultimately I don't think they have anything against it...
I mean, they even payed homage to G1 in G5 not that long ago (though that may have been the writers, rather than Hasbro) and it was beautiful in my opinion - at the end of the day, I think Hasbro appreciate where they came from, even if some bronies don't.
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The mouth holes on the Soda Sippin Ponies are bizarre. Did hasbro just forget where mouths are supposed to be located? They're pretty girls though.
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MLP's 40th Anniversary. :biggrin: :lookround:
Basic Fun did a good job as a third party, but Hasbro was just embarrassing. In general, a complete lack of content. "Let's release a digital album... and only put one song on it!" (if you want to be fair, it's multiple remixes of the same one song). Let's do a clothing collab... and make everything black and white (or at least, have minimal colour)? The Loungefly stuff this year was cute but it wasn't necessarily "40th Anniversary". It was just more MLP like they've been doing. Same with the Erst Wilder, La Vidriola, and Oodie collabs... they're just kind of generic products and nothing celebratory. Compare to Care Bears who introduced a character that celebrated the brand, Care-a-Lot Bear. Make Your Mark had the Bridlewood special. Ruby Jubilee happened but she's never going to appear in the series again and she will absolutely not get a toy. We hardly got ANY toys this year from Hasbro. Their big showing at the Toy Fair was the Marestream playset, which had been out for MONTHS, if not a year. LPS had a bigger presence. Care Bears is always getting something new, left and right. We're getting more plushes from Basic Fun, at least? Stores like Walmart are slowly getting rid of the MLP section.
Terrible and embarrassing year.
Unpopular opinion, I think Applejack's eyebrows are cute. :lol: But I wish they gave her freckles. She has a sweet expression. G4's mid-generation reboot wasn't good. The faces are relatively more accurate, but I wish they had more sculpting. But the bodies are confusing. The first G4s had a more accurate bodytype... why did they make them so skinny, their necks so long, and their legs so short??? I could go on and on about Hasbro's handling of G4 but I'll end it on: why did they NEVER give Twilight Sparkle, the MAIN character, the CORRECT COLOUR FOR HER HAIR? It took them until G5 over 10 years later to give her blue hair!!
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Their insistence on making g4 boys with either moulded hair or that awful troll doll crap. And of course it all has to be short.
G5 toys with partial moulding is irritating. Hitch Trailblazer, Sprout, Opaline, Misty Brightdawn.
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.Hasbro is never good at My Little Pony from day one. They never respect little girls enough to put in meaningful effort. The toys keep getting worse.
this response really speaks to me, honestly. we're seeing proper studies now on how crucial imaginative play is for children's healthy brain development. the shift from lovingly made, high quality toys/dolls that can easily last 2-3 generations to highly disposable garbage because kids handed an ipad from birth just don't have the attention span to play with a toy for more than a few weeks has just become this absolutely vicious cycle of a self fulfilling prophecy. like duh, with this new awful stringy hair and accessories that snap just getting them out of the box? i wouldn't have wanted to play with that as a kid either! heck, i barely want anything to do with it as an adult who knows how to restore/repair toys now
i had better as a kid which is why i want better for future generations too! this "trend" of horrible quality toys is quite literally giving kids brain damage.
sorry to absolutely go off lol i feel very strongly about this
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.Hasbro is never good at My Little Pony from day one. They never respect little girls enough to put in meaningful effort. The toys keep getting worse.
this response really speaks to me, honestly. we're seeing proper studies now on how crucial imaginative play is for children's healthy brain development. the shift from lovingly made, high quality toys/dolls that can easily last 2-3 generations to highly disposable garbage because kids handed an ipad from birth just don't have the attention span to play with a toy for more than a few weeks has just become this absolutely vicious cycle of a self fulfilling prophecy. like duh, with this new awful stringy hair and accessories that snap just getting them out of the box? i wouldn't have wanted to play with that as a kid either! heck, i barely want anything to do with it as an adult who knows how to restore/repair toys now
i had better as a kid which is why i want better for future generations too! this "trend" of horrible quality toys is quite literally giving kids brain damage.
sorry to absolutely go off lol i feel very strongly about this
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.Hasbro is never good at My Little Pony from day one. They never respect little girls enough to put in meaningful effort. The toys keep getting worse.
this response really speaks to me, honestly. we're seeing proper studies now on how crucial imaginative play is for children's healthy brain development. the shift from lovingly made, high quality toys/dolls that can easily last 2-3 generations to highly disposable garbage because kids handed an ipad from birth just don't have the attention span to play with a toy for more than a few weeks has just become this absolutely vicious cycle of a self fulfilling prophecy. like duh, with this new awful stringy hair and accessories that snap just getting them out of the box? i wouldn't have wanted to play with that as a kid either! heck, i barely want anything to do with it as an adult who knows how to restore/repair toys now
i had better as a kid which is why i want better for future generations too! this "trend" of horrible quality toys is quite literally giving kids brain damage.
sorry to absolutely go off lol i feel very strongly about this
DO NOT APOLOGISE!!! This is legit & one of our MANY gripes!!!
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I remember seeing Monster High on the shelves in 2011, 2012, whenever it was they first came out, and thinking, if I was a kid now, I'd walk past MLP and go for those. There was so much thought that went into each of the characters, as individuals. The shorts were funny as well, given the target market. Whatever I think of MH now or since, at that time, I felt like it was a better toyline with more care put into it than G4.
And that was when G4 did still have different characters, although the distribution for most of those hereabouts was awful. I got Honeybuzz and one other in Hamleys in London as I had moved down there for my MA - I never saw any of them again after that, anywhere.
I am not sure whether the disposability of toys now reflects the society we live in or is creating it, honestly.
I feel like we live in an angry, judgemental society, where people want solutions to problems RIGHT NOW but don't want to put in work or effort to overcome them.
It's maybe a poor comparison but when I was a kid, I didn't get bought a pony or a toy every time we went into town. I rarely got bought one, except on birthdays or Christmas, or if I had saved enough money. Usually after birthdays and Christmas. I therefore took time and care over the ponies I bought and I looked after them. I mostly had one pony from certain sets, never all of the sets, over a span of years. It kept getting a new pony exciting as it was such a rare event, but at the same time there were the comics to read which kept me engaged with the whole thing. The idea that someone can have a toy for ten seconds, then outgrow it and sell it at a carboot sale for peanuts is...an indictment to me of parenting.
I am sure there are tons of parents out there whose kids are like my sister and I were, saving up for things and taking good care of their toys, or playing with those handed down from siblings or cousins. But just those kids who have a toy one moment and get rid of it the next...this is only going to be a bigger societal problem going forward. If it isn't one already.
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And that's just looking at it from a personal viewpoint. We NEED things to last, be collected & collectable, be able to be passed down to the next generation, to be easily fixable, for the simple reason the longer a toy is being loved, the more we get out of it AND the less likely it ends up being trashed. And the LAST thing the environment needs is stuff being trashed!!!
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And that's just looking at it from a personal viewpoint. We NEED things to last, be collected & collectable, be able to be passed down to the next generation, to be easily fixable, for the simple reason the longer a toy is being loved, the more we get out of it AND the less likely it ends up being trashed. And the LAST thing the environment needs is stuff being trashed!!!
Well said
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Part of it isn't Hasbro, but a societal shift where kids get out of toys faster and instead do online stuff. I was setting up at a toy show and this little girl who was 8 or 9 (a kid of one of the other vendors) looked at my booth and said "You have cool stuff!" Then she said, "I'm not buying anything at the toy show, though. I'm saving up all my money for Roblox."
Roblox do have play value, my understanding is they're kind of like online Legos? So, yeah, that's still imaginative play. But still . . . dang . . .
But yeah, investing money into quality toys is a better long term strategy, since the kids playing with toys will someday grow up and you want them to be nostalgic about your company in general and the toy in particular. G4's increasingly crappy hair was soooo frustrating to me. G5 is a mixed bag, the 6" figures (like the Target exclusive set) have incredible hair but some of the smaller brushables have bad hair. Personally I don't mind the molded hair, but I do prefer that a pony either have all molded hair or all brushable.
A baffling (but welcome) Hasbro decision was dropping the Mane Six for G5. They didn't even go with the low-hanging fruit of "The new ponies are the children of the Mane Six," instead it's this grim dystopian future where the Mane Six failed and are all presumably dead. It's sooo funny and probably my favorite way they could possibly have kept a connection to G4. Anyway, the surprising part is that they would sideline the Mane Six since Hasbro has been trying to establish a core cast of widely recognizable ponies for SO long (since MLP Tales) and had finally achieved it. Through cultural osmosis, even people who weren't into ponies knew names like "Fluttershy" and "Twilight Sparkle". The early leaked concept art for G5 showed exactly what I expected: the same six ponies, rebooted in a new universe with some minor cosmetic changes. But then Hasbro punted them to the side in favor of a new cast.
I can only speculate that Hasbro wanted to leave the whole "brony" thing behind them and thought the best way to do this was to pivot away from the G4 cast. And it worked, most bronies seem to hate (or at least be annoyed by) G5. This makes me even more enthusiastic about the new generation, lol.
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Spoiler
Part of it isn't Hasbro, but a societal shift where kids get out of toys faster and instead do online stuff. I was setting up at a toy show and this little girl who was 8 or 9 (a kid of one of the other vendors) looked at my booth and said "You have cool stuff!" Then she said, "I'm not buying anything at the toy show, though. I'm saving up all my money for Roblox."
Roblox do have play value, my understanding is they're kind of like online Legos? So, yeah, that's still imaginative play. But still . . . dang . . .
But yeah, investing money into quality toys is a better long term strategy, since the kids playing with toys will someday grow up and you want them to be nostalgic about your company in general and the toy in particular. G4's increasingly crappy hair was soooo frustrating to me. G5 is a mixed bag, the 6" figures (like the Target exclusive set) have incredible hair but some of the smaller brushables have bad hair. Personally I don't mind the molded hair, but I do prefer that a pony either have all molded hair or all brushable.
A baffling (but welcome) Hasbro decision was dropping the Mane Six for G5. They didn't even go with the low-hanging fruit of "The new ponies are the children of the Mane Six," instead it's this grim dystopian future where the Mane Six failed and are all presumably dead. It's sooo funny and probably my favorite way they could possibly have kept a connection to G4. Anyway, the surprising part is that they would sideline the Mane Six since Hasbro has been trying to establish a core cast of widely recognizable ponies for SO long (since MLP Tales) and had finally achieved it. Through cultural osmosis, even people who weren't into ponies knew names like "Fluttershy" and "Twilight Sparkle". The early leaked concept art for G5 showed exactly what I expected: the same six ponies, rebooted in a new universe with some minor cosmetic changes. But then Hasbro punted them to the side in favor of a new cast.
I can only speculate that Hasbro wanted to leave the whole "brony" thing behind them and thought the best way to do this was to pivot away from the G4 cast. And it worked, most bronies seem to hate (or at least be annoyed by) G5. This makes me even more enthusiastic about the new generation, lol.
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Other than what has already been mentioned here, Sea Ponies.
I like Sea Ponies, but a vinyl bath toy with a metal weight inside? That's just asking for mould and rust. Their manes are also going to get all nasty in that bath water.
To be fair, bath toys made out of materials that are prone to moulding are not new; mould accumulating in or on the outside of bath toys (especially the former) is actually pretty common. Nevertheless, it's very unfortunate.
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I don't understand Hasbro’s baffling hatred for anything that resembles a horse. It's my little pony, not my little human, or my little hydrocephalused chihuahua. The G5s are a little better in this regard in comparison to G4 but not by much. Horses are beautiful creatures. Why do they insist on bracycephalic balloon heads? Of course that unfortunate design choice was in the brand dating all the way back to G1 with the fancy mermaid babies and teeny tinies, then it went onto G2 babies and ponyvilles.
Also, what possessed them to remove the jaws in pony life?
It's irritating that most other companies who make toy horses make them more beautiful every decade, but hasbro makes them more ugly, deformed, and awkward every generation.
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I've seen a few girls around 9 or 10 stop playing with toys completely and get in to "grown up stuff" (for lack of a better word) like makeup and jewelry. I think I was around 12 when I stopped playing with ponies.
Other than what has already been mentioned here, Sea Ponies.
I like Sea Ponies, but a vinyl bath toy with a metal weight inside? That's just asking for mould and rust. Their manes are also going to get all nasty in that bath water.
To be fair, bath toys made out of materials that are prone to moulding are not new; mould accumulating in or on the outside of bath toys (especially the former) is actually pretty common. Neverthless, it's very unfortunate.
I lost all of my sea ponies except Baby Celebrate to mold. My mom wouldn't let me put Baby Celebrate in the tub.
Ponyfan
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I only had sunshower and ripple as a kid, but Sunshower had to be treated for mould. Ripple somehow survived. I did have Sunshower longer, though. Maybe that's why. They both did come swimming with me in the bath and at least once when my friend's mother (rich family O.O) took us to their country club for the day (o.O)...we had them in the water then as well (my friend had Backstroke).
I was quite careful about putting them to drain dry, but still.
Fortunately Sunshower recovered from her mould battle and is still with me now.
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And that's just looking at it from a personal viewpoint. We NEED things to last, be collected & collectable, be able to be passed down to the next generation, to be easily fixable, for the simple reason the longer a toy is being loved, the more we get out of it AND the less likely it ends up being trashed. And the LAST thing the environment needs is stuff being trashed!!!
this reminds me of the similar argument for clothes tbh. like, natural materials are great and renewable, but a lot of them just don't last very well, so it's about finding a balance with synthetic fibres which, yes, they're overglorified plastic, but you only have to create the emissions of making them once, and they very well may last several decades/generations. i think it's the same for toys. plastic isn't as terrible and evil as people say if they're being made to last (ie look how well g2s are still doing!), but they're just not anymore :huh:
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And that's just looking at it from a personal viewpoint. We NEED things to last, be collected & collectable, be able to be passed down to the next generation, to be easily fixable, for the simple reason the longer a toy is being loved, the more we get out of it AND the less likely it ends up being trashed. And the LAST thing the environment needs is stuff being trashed!!!
this reminds me of the similar argument for clothes tbh. like, natural materials are great and renewable, but a lot of them just don't last very well, so it's about finding a balance with synthetic fibres which, yes, they're overglorified plastic, but you only have to create the emissions of making them once, and they very well may last several decades/generations. i think it's the same for toys. plastic isn't as terrible and evil as people say if they're being made to last (ie look how well g2s are still doing!), but they're just not anymore :huh:
very well said!! i hate it when people fear monger over social media about plastic use and global warming. one persons actions arent going to kill the planet, its the overly rich ceos using their private jets to skip a 45 minute drive that hurts the earth more than one person buying something made of plastic. i really like that hasbro is trying to be more eco friendly but it is really making the toys seem so trashy, when the kids in the store can touch them freely and get them dirty still in package. for me it makes it much less desireable to collect nibs when theyre not protected in the box.
anyway, im done with my existential tangents lol
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this reminds me of the similar argument for clothes tbh. like, natural materials are great and renewable, but a lot of them just don't last very well, so it's about finding a balance with synthetic fibres which, yes, they're overglorified plastic, but you only have to create the emissions of making them once, and they very well may last several decades/generations. i think it's the same for toys. plastic isn't as terrible and evil as people say if they're being made to last (ie look how well g2s are still doing!), but they're just not anymore :huh:
Yeah, but with clothes there's also the question of fashion. Most people are not going to wear bell bottoms from the 70s, the wide-shouldered women's power suits of the 80s, or the godawful fashions of the early 2000s in the modern day regardless of how well the clothing are made in a technical sense. Make them of natural fibers and let them decay, I don't want to look at them lol.
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this reminds me of the similar argument for clothes tbh. like, natural materials are great and renewable, but a lot of them just don't last very well, so it's about finding a balance with synthetic fibres which, yes, they're overglorified plastic, but you only have to create the emissions of making them once, and they very well may last several decades/generations. i think it's the same for toys. plastic isn't as terrible and evil as people say if they're being made to last (ie look how well g2s are still doing!), but they're just not anymore :huh:
Yeah, but with clothes there's also the question of fashion. Most people are not going to wear bell bottoms from the 70s, the wide-shouldered women's power suits of the 80s, or the godawful fashions of the early 2000s in the modern day regardless of how well the clothing are made in a technical sense. Make them of natural fibers and let them decay, I don't want to look at them lol.
Begone foul demon pants of the Bottoms of Bell!
Back to the attic from whence thou came!
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Yeah, but with clothes there's also the question of fashion. Most people are not going to wear bell bottoms from the 70s, the wide-shouldered women's power suits of the 80s, or the godawful fashions of the early 2000s in the modern day regardless of how well the clothing are made in a technical sense. Make them of natural fibers and let them decay, I don't want to look at them lol.
i am! i'm going to wear bell bottoms and 80s shoulder pads. i love that stuff. if they lasted this long give them to me :lol:
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Yeah, but with clothes there's also the question of fashion. Most people are not going to wear bell bottoms from the 70s, the wide-shouldered women's power suits of the 80s, or the godawful fashions of the early 2000s in the modern day regardless of how well the clothing are made in a technical sense. Make them of natural fibers and let them decay, I don't want to look at them lol.
i am! i'm going to wear bell bottoms and 80s shoulder pads. i love that stuff. if they lasted this long give them to me :lol:
:biggrin:
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A baffling (but welcome) Hasbro decision was dropping the Mane Six for G5. They didn't even go with the low-hanging fruit of "The new ponies are the children of the Mane Six," instead it's this grim dystopian future where the Mane Six failed and are all presumably dead. It's sooo funny and probably my favorite way they could possibly have kept a connection to G4. Anyway, the surprising part is that they would sideline the Mane Six since Hasbro has been trying to establish a core cast of widely recognizable ponies for SO long (since MLP Tales) and had finally achieved it. Through cultural osmosis, even people who weren't into ponies knew names like "Fluttershy" and "Twilight Sparkle". The early leaked concept art for G5 showed exactly what I expected: the same six ponies, rebooted in a new universe with some minor cosmetic changes. But then Hasbro punted them to the side in favor of a new cast.
I can only speculate that Hasbro wanted to leave the whole "brony" thing behind them and thought the best way to do this was to pivot away from the G4 cast. And it worked, most bronies seem to hate (or at least be annoyed by) G5. This makes me even more enthusiastic about the new generation, lol.
They lost rights
https://nitter.cz/TorpyPony/status/1716027649414304013
Most people are not going to wear bell bottoms from the 70s
Excuse me, I will
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I remember kids getting bored with their toys -even in the 80s. Once I visited a little boy who had entire toy chest just for his transformers but, he said he didn't play with them. He was more interested in the TV he had in his room. He just had... too many toys. Another girl left her ponies outside all of the time. They were trampled and forgotten. She said she didn't care about them. I felt so awful for them. Poor Sunbeam. I saw this sort of thing a lot growing up. I just remember thinking how much of a waste that was. Especially as I adored the few toys I had... even my sister's barbie. We played too rough with them sometimes but we still loved them.
I think maybe most kids would be happy with one or two toys. More than that and it's about impressing classmates or family doesn't know what to give them. Now, collector children and adults... that's a different story. :P
A baffling (but welcome) Hasbro decision was dropping the Mane Six for G5. They didn't even go with the low-hanging fruit of "The new ponies are the children of the Mane Six," instead it's this grim dystopian future where the Mane Six failed and are all presumably dead. It's sooo funny and probably my favorite way they could possibly have kept a connection to G4. Anyway, the surprising part is that they would sideline the Mane Six since Hasbro has been trying to establish a core cast of widely recognizable ponies for SO long (since MLP Tales) and had finally achieved it. Through cultural osmosis, even people who weren't into ponies knew names like "Fluttershy" and "Twilight Sparkle". The early leaked concept art for G5 showed exactly what I expected: the same six ponies, rebooted in a new universe with some minor cosmetic changes. But then Hasbro punted them to the side in favor of a new cast.
I can only speculate that Hasbro wanted to leave the whole "brony" thing behind them and thought the best way to do this was to pivot away from the G4 cast. And it worked, most bronies seem to hate (or at least be annoyed by) G5. This makes me even more enthusiastic about the new generation, lol.
They lost rights
https://nitter.cz/TorpyPony/status/1716027649414304013
That's shocking.
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I really don't think children today are anymore focused on electronics as kids in the 80s and 90s. I think it's been pretty even the last few decades. I mean, I grew up rich and had any toy I wanted. We also had computers that I played games on and consoles. We also had lots of movies at home. A pool in the backyard. I had a bike and other outdoor toys. I spent time with all of them. I also spent time with my friends playing imaginary games like house and gameshow.
I think kids today seem like they are on their phones all the time because we only see them in public places usually. I know the kids in my neighborhood spend time outdoors playing with friends and sometimes it involves toys. When the big Magic Mixies was the huge toy that year, one kid had gotten one for Christmas and played with it outside. I got so tired of hearing that little jingle that played each time she interacted with it. Someone might say that a toy like that doesn't spark creative play or something, but I had Teddy Ruxpin and loved him and got plenty of imagination out of the stories. Same with read along books on tape and Tiger Electronics.
Parents play a bigger role. They're responsible for teaching their kids to take care of and appreciate their things. Both my parents grew up poor so with me they really hammered in that if I didn't take care of my things, they'd be taken away or if I broke something it wouldn't be replaced. They also taught me to be grateful for the gifts I got from extended family even if it was something I didn't like (sooooooooo many Barbie dolls).
I also think it depends a lot on the kid. I was always content by myself. Heck, give me a tub of Playdoh and leave me to my own and I'd have a great time. Some kids need more stimulation. I believe that not everyone is born with an imagination too, so those kids would probably be on their phones more.
Uh, I started with a point. I've lost it now.
Basically, I don't think "the kids" have changed too much. Toy manufactures have. Parents have. The world has.
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On the rights thing, I'm actually amused by it.
If they had bothered to come up with an original concept for G5 then it really wouldn't be an issue.
And yes, I know that one is on Hasbro. But if Hasbro hadn't allowed so much of G4 to be sucked into an animation rather than taking control of it through the toyline...and here we are.
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I'd be really surprised if the rights thing was actually true tbh. That tends to be a common fandom excuse... I'd like to see more of a source than just "I heard this from...".
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Considering how often they continue to shove Twilight Sparkle into the G5 line, I'm not quite convinced.
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I think it unlikely Hasbro doesn't have the rights to the names of the M6, since they can still produce her toys. But I can believe that the rights to show only content, created for the animation and not for toy production...those may well rest with the tv channel who owns the rights to FIM.
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instead [G5 is] this grim dystopian future where the Mane Six failed and are all presumably dead.
This is kind of off topic, but I keep seeing this view point, and I just don't relate to it, no offense. This isn't the vibe I get with G5 at all...
What I get from G5 is that the Mane Six were successful, and that friendship is still, and will always be, "magic", because of how easily things were put right - pretty much the worst of it was the A New Generation movie, and even that showed hints that the magic of friendship wasn't gone, it just needed to be rediscovered, and the fact that it still existed to be rediscovered shows that the Mane Six were successful, which is what I personally feel that G5 is trying to say - it's like saying that a marriage is bad just because you argue at times, but that's not how it works; loving someone doesn't mean never fighting with them, it means that you always make up when you do. That's ultimately a simplified version of how I look at G5 following G4, Equestria just had a bad patch, albeit one that lasted (in my headcanon at least) a few centuries, but a bad patch that could be solved, and pretty easily from the look of it (and yes, I get that's because they had to make it MLP as soon as they could.)
Also, as much as I love the Mane Six, I don't get the problem with them being dead in G5, as it's basically centuries in the future - of course they're dead, but they're still alive in their own time, so it's not like G4 ended with them dying (which in itself, also shows that if anypony did fail, it wasn't the Mane Six, as this all happened after their time, most likely.)
And in any case (though this seems to be something that a lot of bronies seem to miss), My Little Pony has multiple canons in each generation anyway, right? So if one wants to, they can view G5 as being a sequel to its "own" G4 rather than "our" G4 (and what "our" G4 is, is different to everyone, at the end of the day, or it should be because that is one of the beauties of My Little Pony) I mean, G5 already feels like it's own generation, with its own rules - it's just saying it's taking place after one of the previous generations as part of its storyline, but as everything else is going its own way, and the idea of how things work has again changed for this generation, it may very well be a sequel to the G5 version of events of what happened to the Mane Six, rather than G4 itself.
But at the end of the day, the overall vibe I get from G5 is that the Mane Six succeeded. :lovey:
EDIT: And to be fair... G5 may not be that hated by bronies, I mean, those who hate it exist, but I've seen a lot of people (who are at least likely to be bronies) just getting on with it, and enjoying G5 - in some cases, it's probably just the kind of bronies who only like G4 to an excessive degree, and the haters being louder than the fans again (like with the bronies who hated the previous generations Vs. the ones that did.) I dunno, it's probably more balanced than it seems, at least. I also don't think that Hasbro are trying to discourage bronies (or at least G4 fans) either, as G5 seems pretty respectful and nostalgic towards it (and G1 for that matter) while still being its own thing.
And yeah (getting back on topic) I doubt that anything happened to the rights with the G4 ponies, the same as I no longer think anything happened to the rights with the G1 ponies - they just want to focus on the newer ponies (or the ponies they want to focus on.)
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I think G4 is the one generation where it is hard to claim there are separate canons.
I mean, of course individual fans can have their own ideas, I don't mean that. But I just remember how at the height of G4, whenever you went near a brony space, you would see people insisting that certain things had to be seen a certain way or the person wasn't a fan (or even a human being, apparently).
Toys were expected to have show-accurate hair. 100% that never happened in MLP before.
So G5 is a successor to the canon those bronies drummed into the asphalt. G4 did not promote individual canons and nor did the most vocal elements of the fandom. The fact there are bronies like you, MJSNEIFER, who see things differently, is great - but we're still talking about a fandom, the vast majority of which struggled with the existence of prior generations (even if they did not actively mock them).
I don't have a problem with G5, I just don't care about it. The ponies, toys, show are all bland to me. But by the same token I think G5 needed that blandness, to neutralise the toxicity from the previous iteration.
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this was the prototype for magic motion moonshadow
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i fully do not know what kind of person would have looked at the second one and said "oh yeah that looks better"
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this was the prototype for magic motion moonshadow
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this is what we got instead
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i fully do not know what kind of person would have looked at the second one and said "oh yeah that looks better"
I don't know what kind of person thought either of those looked good? >_< It's a shame because she'd be so pretty otherwise.
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I think G4 is the one generation where it is hard to claim there are separate canons.
I mean, of course individual fans can have their own ideas, I don't mean that. But I just remember how at the height of G4, whenever you went near a brony space, you would see people insisting that certain things had to be seen a certain way or the person wasn't a fan (or even a human being, apparently).
Toys were expected to have show-accurate hair. 100% that never happened in MLP before.
So G5 is a successor to the canon those bronies drummed into the asphalt. G4 did not promote individual canons and nor did the most vocal elements of the fandom. The fact there are bronies like you, MJSNEIFER, who see things differently, is great - but we're still talking about a fandom, the vast majority of which struggled with the existence of prior generations (even if they did not actively mock them).
I don't have a problem with G5, I just don't care about it. The ponies, toys, show are all bland to me. But by the same token I think G5 needed that blandness, to neutralise the toxicity from the previous iteration.
Agree on those kind of bronies not getting it, but G4 itself was promoted into separate canons, like all generations - the toys, cartoons, comics, books, etc. were all their own canon, which bronies tended to miss (hence them referring to the comics as "non-canon" which is incorrect, they were just their own canon.) There is also stuff that contradicts G4's cartoon canon in G5, so it is likely part of it's own canon (somethingly, at least one thing about G5's canon actually aligns with my G4 headcanon... and it's one of the headcanons that bronies probably wouldn't agree with!)
I know what you mean about those kind of bronies though - I've seen them, and I thought they were silly even back then. They still exist today (and the same applies to those who view anything that isn't "cartoon-canon" as "non-canon") but I at least like to assume that it's getting better. I definitely know that it exists, and never got it, even back then (and I even admit that there are some established "brony headcanons" that I use, but only because I personally like them)
But yeah, what you're talking about is/was definitely a thing. Unfortunately. I think you're right and it connects to the fact that some bronies didn't acknowledge the previous generations, and thus didn't get how MLP worked and the like (and some didn't even get how fanon works, for some reason...) Thank you for being okay with the fact that I view things differently.
I personally don't find the G5 ponies bland, I get so much inspiration from the personally, same as I do with all generations, but I respect that you do. Basically for me, all generations are what bronies view G4 as, if that makes sense, but of course, that's just my own personal opinion.
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this was the prototype for magic motion moonshadow
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this is what we got instead
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i fully do not know what kind of person would have looked at the second one and said "oh yeah that looks better"
The proto looks much better!!! And would have well improved Dizzy Lizzie too
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Yeah but they still have those ridiculous tails.
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this was the prototype for magic motion moonshadow
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this is what we got instead
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i fully do not know what kind of person would have looked at the second one and said "oh yeah that looks better"
Personally, I prefer the final result. It being made of an entirely different material just doesn't appeal to me so much, even if the end result does look a little strange. With that said, I wouldn't have minded the original being created as a separate toy, independent from the "main" brushables.
I think G4 is the one generation where it is hard to claim there are separate canons.
I mean, of course individual fans can have their own ideas, I don't mean that. But I just remember how at the height of G4, whenever you went near a brony space, you would see people insisting that certain things had to be seen a certain way or the person wasn't a fan (or even a human being, apparently).
Toys were expected to have show-accurate hair. 100% that never happened in MLP before.
So G5 is a successor to the canon those bronies drummed into the asphalt. G4 did not promote individual canons and nor did the most vocal elements of the fandom. The fact there are bronies like you, MJSNEIFER, who see things differently, is great - but we're still talking about a fandom, the vast majority of which struggled with the existence of prior generations (even if they did not actively mock them).
I don't have a problem with G5, I just don't care about it. The ponies, toys, show are all bland to me. But by the same token I think G5 needed that blandness, to neutralise the toxicity from the previous iteration.
Agree on those kind of bronies not getting it, but G4 itself was promoted into separate canons, like all generations - the toys, cartoons, comics, books, etc. were all their own canon, which bronies tended to miss (hence them referring to the comics as "non-canon" which is incorrect, they were just their own canon.) There is also stuff that contradicts G4's cartoon canon in G5, so it is likely part of it's own canon (somethingly, at least one thing about G5's canon actually aligns with my G4 headcanon... and it's one of the headcanons that bronies probably wouldn't agree with!)
I know what you mean about those kind of bronies though - I've seen them, and I thought they were silly even back then. They still exist today (and the same applies to those who view anything that isn't "cartoon-canon" as "non-canon") but I at least like to assume that it's getting better. I definitely know that it exists, and never got it, even back then (and I even admit that there are some established "brony headcanons" that I use, but only because I personally like them)
But yeah, what you're talking about is/was definitely a thing. Unfortunately. I think you're right and it connects to the fact that some bronies didn't acknowledge the previous generations, and thus didn't get how MLP worked and the like (and some didn't even get how fanon works, for some reason...) Thank you for being okay with the fact that I view things differently.
*SNIP*
Bronies were/are often prone to thinking of the show as *THE* product, and everything else a promotion of it, it seems. Therefore, anything that, in some form, contradicts it is inaccurate or non-canon, rather than simply being another version. To be fair, the show was pushed more than previous generations in the marketing (remember it being directly advertised on the packaging of the earlier releases? At least in the US; I don't recall whether it was a thing over here in the UK.) It is also true that the canon show designs came first. Even so, I'm not sure if there was a strict main canon exactly, and I do think that it is best to simply separate it into multiple canons rather than treating only one as correct, unless you are specifically talking about one canon and are expressing that the others don't apply in this specific context.
Being a show fandom, it makes sense that the focus is, well, on the show from their perspective, even if the show isn't everything when it comes to even just G4.
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Hasbro didn't lose the rights to G4 ponies or animation, lol. First, Hasbro would never allow that. Second, Hasbro made at least two other shows featuring the G4 characters: Pony Life and that CGI variety hour show with Pinkie Pie.
Hasbro never lost the rights to the G1 ponies' likenesses either. IMO the reason the ponies in Lauren Faust's original pitch (Firefly, G1 Twilight, Surprise, Posey etc) were changed were as follows:
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were THE most marketed, merchandised ponies from G3 so Hasbro wanted them to continue into G4. It doesn't matter that they have different personalities than G3; what matters is during G3 kids were buying more balloons and shirts of RD and Pinkie Pie than of Sparkleworks, Minty, or Sunny Daze.
Fluttershy and Rarity the Unicorn(tm) were both trademarked names from G3. You'll notice G3 tended to have more elaborate and sort of weird names compared to G1. Like a lot more "Tink-a-Tink-a-Too" and lot fewer "Bubbles". IMO part of the reason for this is it's easier to defend the trademark on a name like Tink-a-Tink-a-Too. If a competitor uses that you KNOW they are copying you and you can take them to court. This is also why the toys of Mrs. Cake are "Mrs. Dazzle Cake", lol. And why Rarity's full trademark is "Rarity the Unicorn". (This was also the trademark of G3 Rarity.)
G1 Twilight and Firefly are pink and The Pink Slot was already taken up by Pinkie Pie. With a small main cast, you want each one to have a different signature color, like the Power Rangers, TMNT, the Rescue Bots, etc. Not for nothing did the TMNT cartoon change the headbands of the turtles, which were ALL red in their initial comics.
Applejack was the lone survivor, long live Applejack. :)
I like the G5 ponies. IMO they have a lot more nuance to their personalities than previous gens, including G4. Not that lack of nuance is necessarily a problem for cartoon characters, like Donald Duck doesn't have any nuance either and I love him, but I do find it a refreshing change. G5 reminds me of Transformers Prime, in that something about the way they're written makes me believe they had histories and lives and emotions before we were introduced to them, which is not something I feel about a lot of cartoons. (Though TFP does it better than G5 MLP.)
Oh, incidentally I wasn't complaining about the G4 ponies being dead, I actually find it knee-slapping funny. It's just so unusual for a girls property. Like imagine if during the 1986 MLP movie Megan had said "Hey where are Firefly and Bow Tie?" and Wind Whistler had said "Time moves differently here, let me take you to their GRAVESTONES." (Honestly . . . I wouldn't hate it. I'm peeved that they just yeeted Firefly etc into the void.)
I think Hasbro will start moving to shorter generations, like Transformers (where most gens last no more than three years), but script them out more than with G1 through G4. Watching G5, it's interesting how purposeful it is. Like Misty's plotline is baked into the entire season, from reluctant villain to heelturn to main cast member. The writers don't always hit the right balance with the episodes, some of them are not that interesting because the non-Misty portions are kind of space-fillers, but the overall concept is interesting and imo the episodes pick up in quality as soon as Misty is added to the main cast.
Anyway, back to baffling decisions . . . The Glow 'n Show ponies only had four ponies in the set and TWO of them are orange. Same for the Baby Sparkle ponies set. If they were bigger sets I would find this less weird.
There are no G1 Petite pony unicorns. Why? They could have molded the horn to be flush with the hair sculpt, doesn't seem that hard.
There aren't any G3 baby unicorns either. Again, why? Rarity is literally a baby unicorn in G3 but her toy is an adult.
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I really don't think children today are anymore focused on electronics as kids in the 80s and 90s. I think it's been pretty even the last few decades. I mean, I grew up rich and had any toy I wanted. We also had computers that I played games on and consoles. We also had lots of movies at home. A pool in the backyard. I had a bike and other outdoor toys. I spent time with all of them. I also spent time with my friends playing imaginary games like house and gameshow.
I think kids today seem like they are on their phones all the time because we only see them in public places usually. I know the kids in my neighborhood spend time outdoors playing with friends and sometimes it involves toys. When the big Magic Mixies was the huge toy that year, one kid had gotten one for Christmas and played with it outside. I got so tired of hearing that little jingle that played each time she interacted with it. Someone might say that a toy like that doesn't spark creative play or something, but I had Teddy Ruxpin and loved him and got plenty of imagination out of the stories. Same with read along books on tape and Tiger Electronics.
Parents play a bigger role. They're responsible for teaching their kids to take care of and appreciate their things. Both my parents grew up poor so with me they really hammered in that if I didn't take care of my things, they'd be taken away or if I broke something it wouldn't be replaced. They also taught me to be grateful for the gifts I got from extended family even if it was something I didn't like (sooooooooo many Barbie dolls).
I also think it depends a lot on the kid. I was always content by myself. Heck, give me a tub of Playdoh and leave me to my own and I'd have a great time. Some kids need more stimulation. I believe that not everyone is born with an imagination too, so those kids would probably be on their phones more.
Uh, I started with a point. I've lost it now.
Basically, I don't think "the kids" have changed too much. Toy manufactures have. Parents have. The world has.
I understand you. I see kids playing outside a lot where I live. It's clearly something that kids still do, very much against the stereotype that older people like to put on them.
With that said, I'm a mid-range millennial. I kinda did go down the stereotypical path once technology increased. I played outside and played with toys a lot in the early to mid 90s, but by the end of the 90s I preferred indoor electronic activities like TV and video games (although I would still, on occassion play with a doll house - which BTW, Animal Crossing and The Sims came in and kinda filled that void for me... Incidentally as a 34 year old I still need that void filled xD - or draw. So it's not like even I never enjoyed these activities later on). Around that time I was also first granted access by my parents to the internet, and I became addicted fairly quickly. When high-speed internet got installed in our home in 2004, then I got really addicted. I'm NOT an outdoors person, AT ALL anymore.
I do want to note, that my path might be because of my neurodivergence - I am ADHD and and potentially mildly autistic. The ADHD has always made me crave stimulation.
So... I think we could say that this varies kid by kid. I just wish people would stop being so judgemental one way or another.
Anyway, sorry, this is getting way off on a tangent. I very much wish we could go back to the early to mid 2000s or before MLP. I miss the high quality toys with lots of variety. I'm just glad that we at least have Basic Fun.
I don't know that I can give a great answer of "mistakes" that Hasbro has made with MLP. Aside from maybe the pandering that they began showing to Bronies. =/
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tbh I actually prefer the final ver of Moonshadow. The first one looks more... toy-ish? if that makes sense - she reminds me of those dunking birds lol. Neither version looks *fantastic* but the final ver does look a lot more natural to me.
re: the rights thing - keep in mind "they lost the rights!!11" is a stock fandom reaction that shows up.... basically any time something isn't used. by "fandom" I mean fandom in general, not MLP fandom specifically. If I had a penny for every time I'd seen someone claim that... :silly:
And I'm pretty sure Hasbro confirmed somewhere that the names like Tink-a-Tink-a-Too, Scootaloo, etc are easier to trademark, yeah.
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Once I was looking for trademarked MLP names and I found a record of suing another toy company for using a pony name. The pony name: Cotton Candy. The toy that was being produced: a toy that produced real cotton candy.
The really interesting thing was it occurred after G1 and before G3. It might even have been before G2. So that baffles me. They lost the lawsuit, obviously.
Maybe the purpose was intimidation? Like, smaller toy companies probably don't want to go to court even if they know they'll win, because they'll have to pay lawyers. So maybe this was some weird warning, like "You'd better double-check that you don't use a pony name from over a decade ago or WE'RE COMING FOR YOU."
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Once I was looking for trademarked MLP names and I found a record of suing another toy company for using a pony name. The pony name: Cotton Candy. The toy that was being produced: a toy that produced real cotton candy.
The really interesting thing was it occurred after G1 and before G3. It might even have been before G2. So that baffles me. They lost the lawsuit, obviously.
Maybe the purpose was intimidation? Like, smaller toy companies probably don't want to go to court even if they know they'll win, because they'll have to pay lawyers. So maybe this was some weird warning, like "You'd better double-check that you don't use a pony name from over a decade ago or WE'RE COMING FOR YOU."
Seriously? :blink: That's super petty of hasbro. I seriously hope they were laughed out of court.
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On the subject of canon, I think the word simply didn't exist prior to G4. It's a byproduct of a world in which now canon and non-canon is normally discussed (or theorised about, or argued over) online in fandoms, which in the past didn't happen. So I guess what I mean is that the bronies determined canon and non-canon, rather than multiple canons as a thing.
Different nuance I guess.
Aside the movie on the Movie Star backcard, the G1 TV show/animation was very little promoted in the UK. Some adverts in the comic about the movie, so probably some promotion then. But otherwise, not. Probably because (aside maybe the first special) it didn't actually air on TV here till around 1995. It was all VHS release till then.
This is me going back to geekdom but I still find the name changes in G1 interesting. Not just the difference between US and UK releases, but also how individual ponies changed through the process.
I can see that Storm and Frosty would've been harder to trademark than Thundercloud and Ice Crystal. But all the weird with the Sundae Best names both here and in the US raises questions about how many of the UK release names were original names Hasbro US ditched and how many were designed for a UK release for other reasons? Suspect some of them were easier to trademark just in the UK or Europe than overall, so that may be a reason. Some are cultural (you wouldn't have a pony called First Base in the US, for example - but since baseball was a non-thing here (still is really), the closest was rounders, and thus a universal term was chosen (ignorant of US slang! LOL).
The Sundae Best are odd though. Cherry Berry is a US name. We have proof of that. It was reused in G4. But before the Sundae Best were released, the name was changed to Crunch Berry (and possibly the designated pony was also changed, judging by the advertising photo.) And the US cards, some of them have capitalised names and some not. In the UK, there was a lot of confusion about which one was which as well, both on Hasbro inserts and in the comic.
If Cherry Berry was a US name that was changed for some reason over there but not here, how many more are like that? I wonder a lot about the Tropical Ponies, and whether it was just cheaper for HAsbro US to use the Fairy Tail names instead of trademarking original ones.
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The word canon was used in fandom prior to G4 times. I don't know when it first became a thing, but Transformers fans argued about canon when Beast Wars was airing (late 90s). Or they would argue about the origins of the Constructicons in the G1 cartoon. In the TF show bible they said "The origins of the Constructicons, who form the giant robot Devastator, are a mystery", so three different writers took that to mean "Oh, I should invent an origin for these guys" and of course all the origins contradict each other. #1: Megatron built the Constructicons. #2: The Constructicons built Megatron. #3: The Constructicons used to be Autobots but Megatron turned them into Decepticons with his Turn-Evil Ray. Technically all these origins are canon since they were in the show which just goes to show that just because something is canon doesn't mean it has to make sense.
Oh yeah, pony names! The name "Tootsie" is very confusing to me because no one in the US uses tootsie as a generic term for candy (unlike some states using "Coke" to refer to any soda), it's specifically used for Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops. And those were named after the company founder's daughter, so it wasn't a generic term in The Old Days either.
Also, her symbol doesn't look like Tootsie Pops. Usually they are wrapped in a patterned, waxed paper wrapper. (There are a few different patterns and when I was a kid there was a rumor that if you found the wrapper with a boy shooting a star with an arrow then you could turn it in for a free Tootsie Pop. As far as I know this rumor was false, ha ha.) And when you do unwrap Tootsie Pops they're never light pink. They're very dark colors and they have a kind of raised band around them.
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So like. Why call her that. Why not "Lollipop" or "Candy"?
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I think Taffeta's point was more that while the term "canon" has existed + been used in fandom circles forever, it wasn't really something that pony fans really concerned themselves with until G4? If that makes sense. There weren't great debates about if this book or that comic were canon, for example.
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Adding to the multiple cannons discussion, there's at least 2 ways Tempest's backstory is told. One version is the movie prequel comic and the other is in a book. Both versions contradict each other though at one point though because in one version Tempest meets a pony trying to sneak aboard a train or something and in the other she gets on board without meeting him. I remember it being discussed about which version was "correct" since they differed on that point. Neither one was really relevant to the events in the movie that I recall so it didn't really matter, but there was a lot of arguing over the versions being different instead of it being accepted as "this is the way it was in the book" vs "this is the way it was in the comics."
Ponyfan
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I think Taffeta's point was more that while the term "canon" has existed + been used in fandom circles forever, it wasn't really something that pony fans really concerned themselves with until G4? If that makes sense. There weren't great debates about if this book or that comic were canon, for example.
That exactly. I know it existed - I've been involved in other fandoms online since before FIM happened. But it wasn't something discussed in the pony world in the way that G4 brought in. The idea of something being canon and non-canon was anathema to My Little Pony because we all just followed our own stuff and nothing was considered universal. FIM changed that.
Also, these days you hear pony fans talking about 'the dark origin of the TE ponies' as though it was some kind of universal origin story 'in pony canon' (I have seen people talk about it like that on other sites/platforms), when in fact it was a pretty obscure story even here in the UK, as it was in such an early comic. It wasn't on a single pony backcard, and only really gathered momentum when (later arriving) people started to try and patch together all the bits and pieces of old MLP into something more 'canonical'.
I grew up with the UK comic, and in a sense that was my childhood 'canon' - but I find it ridiculous when people take things (like the TE origin, or Majesty's depiction or whatever) and try and make it some universal fact that all G1 pony kids grew up with. Even though I grew up with the comics and stuff, and thought about the ponies' abilities based on those things, the pony games I'd play with friends or my sister were never based around anything except our own imagination. We'd keep their names but everything else was our own.
By the same token, I'm not massively keen on most/any of the characterisations in the G1 animation.
I find it pretty peculiar honestly. You have things like the TE backstory (comic, UK) and then you have the original Movie (US made)...and there are people out there talking about both as if they were part of some overall collective 'canon' we all grew up with.
The more stupid thing about it is that in many cases the US backcard stories got used in the UK comics more than they got used in the US animation (eg the concepts behind Shady's sunglasses was all over the UK comics, whereas the animation just took the mention of her being a bit insecure and turned it into a monstrosity - without any balance.) What makes this even more stupid is that in the UK Shady doesn't even have a backcard story. In fact, on her backcard is just a short line describing her in the way the movie depicts her - which is completely contradictory to the way the UK comic does.
But back in the eighties and nineties, literally nobody cared about this. Because nobody was trying to put it all together. And because up until G4, most of the people in the online community grew up in the eighties and nineties, nobody thought about trying to make it make sense.
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Putting ponies in an expensive multi-pack with only 1 or 2 new ponies. Or worse, all old ones.
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the thing that urks me with g4 is the switch from the beautiful boxes with the window to the boring cards... they did that in 2013 i believe, my nib g4s are from the 2012 waves. i understand it was changed to save money on packaging, but its just so boring on my shelf! its not as sturdy as my boxed ponies either, poor cherry berry is peeling off her card. :( i dont think they were as popular with kids either, even the special playsets were packaged a lot more boring than the early ones. i also do not like the reboot era/g5 3 inches... theyre getting so skinny!
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Not making more unicorns in G2, G3 and G5. Not making more pegasus in G3 and G5.
Giving ponies clip-on wings in G2 and G4 is lazy and tacky. The changeable tails in G2 look awful. The removable symbols in G5 is idiotic. Kids lose those kinds of things. Pieces of the body are not accessories Hasbro.
Who decided on those sorts of necks in G2? Haven't they ever seen any other jointed animal toys before? It makes the ponies look like giraffe weevils.
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I don't know if this has been covered yet, but all the articulation in G5. There's always been a little bit in other gens, but I've been trying to find a regular solid bodied Sunny to no avail. She comes in sets that way, but I just want her in a bigger size.
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Mm, I don't like the articulation but I can understand it. Lots of points of articulation are common in toys now so I guess Hasbro is trying to compete. I just wish they'd compete a little less since I think ponies look weird with articulated legs :P
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I don't know if this has been covered yet, but all the articulation in G5. There's always been a little bit in other gens, but I've been trying to find a regular solid bodied Sunny to no avail. She comes in sets that way, but I just want her in a bigger size.
I saw some at the 99 Cent Store yesterday. Try checking there.
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The gimmick of the G1 Sunshine ponies is that their one hair stripe color-changes in the sun, but several of them have the pink hair that fades in the sun.
Maybe Hasbro was just unaware of this? They probably didn't take their prototypes outside a lot.
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I always found it baffling that G3 took so long to introduce pegasai & unicorns to the line. I was 10 when the generation launched & I remember reading an annual at the time with the line: 'Kimono loves to tell stories of the days when the woods were filled with unicorns.' I couldn't understand why earth ponies were now the only race. I'd grown up playing with G2 toys & watching G1 videos, so the absence of the other two races was really obvious to me.
I do quite like the way the pegasai of Butterfly Island were eventually introduced, followed by the unicorns. Although it's a shame there were so few of them in comparison to the others; feels like a big missed opportunity.
Hasbro's questionable name choices are hilarious. My family held quiz nights on Zoom during lockdown, & I drafted a round where they had to guess which pony names were fake & which were genuine. Nobody got any of them right. I had to show them proof that somebody had actually named a children's toy Pillow Talk. :lol:
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Not connecting FairyTails to MLP. It had a lot of potential imo
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Not connecting FairyTails to MLP. It had a lot of potential imo
I know it's not the same/doesn't count, but I actually want to connect them in my fanseries, so thanks for the reminder. :good:
But yeah, FairyTails would have fitted in with the MLP world perfectly, or failing that at least give them a show (if they did have a show and I missed it, feel free to say.) I'm sure some of them had the same names as some G1 Ponies too, or one got the unused names of the other? (Might check later...)
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why are all the birthflower ponies in the same pose with the same colors??? it drives me crazy!
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I always found it baffling that G3 took so long to introduce pegasai & unicorns to the line. I was 10 when the generation launched & I remember reading an annual at the time with the line: 'Kimono loves to tell stories of the days when the woods were filled with unicorns.' I couldn't understand why earth ponies were now the only race. I'd grown up playing with G2 toys & watching G1 videos, so the absence of the other two races was really obvious to me.
I do quite like the way the pegasai of Butterfly Island were eventually introduced, followed by the unicorns. Although it's a shame there were so few of them in comparison to the others; feels like a big missed opportunity.
I wrote a fanfic about why that was and it turned out to be (sort of) the reason G5 used to separate everyone--a bad guy did it XD
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Where did all the other species go in Tales? Yeah, we got the Glow n Shows, but surely unicorn and pegasus would still be around.
I hate Store Exclusives.
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I'm also not a fan of store exclusives. I know they can be a pain for folk in the US - they're even worse when the exclusive ends up not being translated overseas into any store for whatever reason.
At least G4 mostly fixed that gap issue by assigning Target, Walmart exclusives etc to equivalent stores here, but G3 was a nightmare.
I wouldn't have wanted Fairy Tales to be part of MLP, but maybe I'm just jaded from years of seeing people trying to sell them as such ;)
The names are also overlapped on the US release of the tropical ponies, though not here, where the pony names are original.
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Twins: Sniffles and Snookums
Twins: Sticky and Sniffles
Playset: Baby Cuddles
Drink n Wet: Baby Cuddles
BBE: Baby Gusty
Sparkle Baby: Baby Gusty
Brush n Grow: Ringlets
Rainbow Curl: Ringlet
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I wouldn't have wanted Fairy Tales to be part of MLP, but maybe I'm just jaded from years of seeing people trying to sell them as such ;)
The names are also overlapped on the US release of the tropical ponies, though not here, where the pony names are original.
I saw a fairytail listed under random MLP name two times. I was ebaying pony, then halaboom, fairytail with her name.
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The names are also overlapped on the US release of the tropical ponies, though not here, where the pony names are original.
That'll likely be what I was thinking of earlier - Yeah, I remember it being the Tropical Ponies that had the same names, thinking of it (can't remember for if I knew they had different UK names, though...)
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Hasbro likes reusing names, even across franchises. They sure did like the names Spike and Danny
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Going through the costly process of creating poses that only end up being used twice or even just once. (G3 Bath time Sweetsong was such a lovely pose, but we never saw it again.)
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The names are also overlapped on the US release of the tropical ponies, though not here, where the pony names are original.
That'll likely be what I was thinking of earlier - Yeah, I remember it being the Tropical Ponies that had the same names, thinking of it (can't remember for if I knew they had different UK names, though...)
We call the unicorn Sail Away, the earth pony with the palm trees is Hula Hula, the yellow one is Summer Heatwave and the pegasus is Surfing Days.
I like the name Pina Colada, but honestly don't understand why Hula Hula is the unicorn in the US. I feel like that was a mistake somewhere, given the swaying palm trees motif...
I really don't know if this was a case of the UK just using different names or if it was like with at least one of the Sundae Best where the names were established then changed in the US (like Cherry Berry --> Crunch Berry).
I wish we had more info on that.
While we're on name repetition, though, there was very little in the UK because we either didn't have every release of pony with a certain name or we had our own names for at least one of the offenders (eg Twinkler/Moonshimmer). We did have both Sky Rockets, and we had baby Half Note and adult Half Note. I am struggling to think of any others though. We didn't have SS Fifi...or TAF Buttons, so those didn't apply here.
BUT...we had one name overlap the US did not have. Candy Cane with the gingerbread symbol is officially Gingerbread here. Although...because of US imports she was sold under both names Gingerbread and Molasses...LOL
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Why did the UK even go through the process of renaming ponies to begin with? Anyone know? It's so curious.
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I assume for the same reason anything else gets renamed when it arrives in a different country? It's hardly a MLP-exclusive thing.
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Why did the UK even go through the process of renaming ponies to begin with? Anyone know? It's so curious.
I think in the case of some it was cultural. I do think we originally had the Mountain Boys ahead of the Big Brother Ponies (here, Adventure Boys) because weather was more 'British' than some of the themes in the Big Brother set. But they released those here eventually anyway, just with name changes and set name change.
The name thing is interesting though. There's not a lot of name changing in the early stuff. There are sets missing, like the early unicorn/pegasus ponies, but they appear in our comics with the same names as the US. There's that one Sea Pony but who knows whether that was just a coincidence, since the accessories, rest of the set, everything is different...
The definitely deliberate first name change I can think of is Sweetie (for Sweet Stuff) and that would have been 1986, since that set was out here in 1986. That one seems linguistic, just something British kids would make more sense out of.
It's after that that things go a bit crazy on the name front.
If it was just a case of 'one of those things that happens' when things go international, you'd expect it from the beginning, but this doesn't happen. We have 'Cotton Candy'. That term does not exist in the UK. We call it Candyfloss. But the pony's name is not changed.
And then even in 1987, where you have wholesale changes (eg all 6 Princesses, 4/6 TAFs, 4/6 Big Brothers, set names of both the latter)...we had Tic Tac Toe under that name (and baby Tic Tac Toe) although the game here is Noughts and Crosses. Maybe Hasbro thought it sounded nice for kids tongues? Not sure, but always wondered why Tic Tac Toe and not Quackers in the UK set, given the name thing?
I think in some cases where the Uk names are original and the US ones aren't, it's down to copyrighting as well. It's easier to trademark a name for a localised area than a global one. There are quite a lot of name changes between 1987 and 1991, which could easily be put down to just local custom, preference, ease of trademark, whatever. But then there are those weird things like the Sundae Best, with 'Cherry Berry' used in the UK but advertised originally in the US. And the Tropical ponies as mentioned before, were they always those names?
We'll probably never know why and there may be multiple reasons involved. It is interesting, though, since it should be fundamentally unecessary to change the names for an English-speaking market. Translating them for other language markets is one thing (and let's not forget Canadian french names and French names weren't always the same either...eg Shady as Incognito/Petit Ombre) but to do it for some US-ish names and not others, at certain times and not others I think is more about the individual marketing plans over successive years (and the reach of Hasbro UK as a company) than it is just a random state of affairs.
I'm glad, because aside the silly over Molasses/Gingerbread, it's nice not having a lot of double names to deal with. But it's also sad because most UK collectors don't use the UK names, not even those who grew up with them. So the advantage of having additional names for ponies that double up is kind of gone now.
Also, if you put it into the bigger context, G3 and G4 do not have name changes for ponies in the UK release. Even when the boxes are European, the names are not changed (correct me if there is an exception but I can't think of one right now).
G2 has one, but then the end of G2 is different anyway, with European releases, some only having names in French or Spanish, etc. But at the start of the release Sundance (US) is Sunsparkle in the Uk and Europe. The name Sunsparkle continues beyond the death of G2 in the US. But aside the names that shift because of translation etc, I think she's the last official time a pony in the UK has a name different from the US.
So from 1986/7 to 1997/8, this is a thing. And then it isn't.
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I'm not sure if they ever did any more different-in-the-UK naming after G2 Sundance/sparkle. I know G4 Cupcake was also released as Sugarcup and some have said that's a UK thing (i.e. US name Cupcake / UK name Sugarcup), I'm not sure if that's true though. I feel like it was a running change in the US and it's just that the UK only got the Sugarcup edition? Anyone know for sure?
Aside from maybe that, I think everything has been more-or-less consistent/standardized across the board after G2. The example that immediately comes to mind is the G4 Flim Flam Bros playset... that was called "Super Speedy Squeezy 6000" in all regions - renamed from the cartoon because the original name (Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000) wouldn't have flown over here. If that'd been in G1 then it probably would've only been renamed for the UK release (like the Perfume Palace... :silly:).
I guess the UK name thing doesn't seem like a big deal or mystery to me cause it happens/happened in other toy lines. Like Tomy's Sylvanian Families - there's quite a few that have different names between the US and UK. I.e. US Sybil Hoppinset vs Christabel Corntop. I mean, I couldn't tell you why they did that, but my point is that it definitely isn't something that only Hasbro did.
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Mine are the large pony baby dolls I get baby dolls have there fans but the pony baby dolls have been in almost all generations so there must be some popularity.
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I guess I can kind of understand the G3/G4 "baby doll" ponies. They're more baby doll-y so I can see how they'd appeal to kids that liked baby dolls *and* ponies (I'm assuming they sell well with kids? Collectors usually seem uninterested in them, but like you said, they obviously sell well enough if they keep making them...). They're not my thing but I can just about see the logic/appeal there.
But the Soft Sleepy Newborns in G1... who the heck were THOSE aimed at?!?! And why did they call them that?? They're not soft! They're just terrifying!!! :drunk:
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I'd love to have one of those things just because they're so freaky.
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I guess I can kind of understand the G3/G4 "baby doll" ponies. They're more baby doll-y so I can see how they'd appeal to kids that liked baby dolls *and* ponies (I'm assuming they sell well with kids? Collectors usually seem uninterested in them, but like you said, they obviously sell well enough if they keep making them...). They're not my thing but I can just about see the logic/appeal there.
But the Soft Sleepy Newborns in G1... who the heck were THOSE aimed at?!?! And why did they call them that?? They're not soft! They're just terrifying!!! :drunk:
NOT making Newborn-sized Soft Sleepy Newborns!!! (still seeking white Newborn blank ideally in Dangles pose for my Custom Hushabye)
RE: the G3 Soft Newborns: I customised Newborn Cuties of each one I have, so all but the bath ones & Good Morning Sunshine
Edit: who is Dingles??? I meant Dangles
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@Carrehz, that sounds like a standard 'blame it on the UK' myth. I'd be surprised given how standard all the stuff is in G4 for one name to be different here for any reason. G4 is also full of fan names which still have currency even if they are not on the pony package, so maybe an excuse to try and 'legitimise' a fan name...? Not sure but it would be odd if they did it just for one pony.
It's true that other companies did change names as well, but the lack of pattern/consistency in how MLP is done means that it's difficult to just assume it as one of those things. Sylvanian Families aren't even Sylvanian Families in all locations, iirc.
Perfume Puff Palace...yeah. Well. Right.
They still showed the G4 episode where AJ and co are making lotsa cider though over here. Whoops. I did see that one and I may have laughed all the way through it.
Baby dolls...are there baby dolls in G4? I thought they were a weird G3 only thing.
(Not so) Soft Sleepy Newborns are more just what would happen if your baby pony stumbled onto the set of Honey I Blew Up The Kids...I don't really see them as baby dolls as such. I suppose they could be...? But yeah. I'm still stuck on the name. I only have Hushabye but I guarantee she is anything but soft.
I think she could probably be used as a cannonball, honestly. She'd do damage.
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@Carrehz, that sounds like a standard 'blame it on the UK' myth. I'd be surprised given how standard all the stuff is in G4 for one name to be different here for any reason. G4 is also full of fan names which still have currency even if they are not on the pony package, so maybe an excuse to try and 'legitimise' a fan name...? Not sure but it would be odd if they did it just for one pony.
It's true that other companies did change names as well, but the lack of pattern/consistency in how MLP is done means that it's difficult to just assume it as one of those things. Sylvanian Families aren't even Sylvanian Families in all locations, iirc.
Perfume Puff Palace...yeah. Well. Right.
They still showed the G4 episode where AJ and co are making lotsa cider though over here. Whoops. I did see that one and I may have laughed all the way through it.
Baby dolls...are there baby dolls in G4? I thought they were a weird G3 only thing.
(Not so) Soft Sleepy Newborns are more just what would happen if your baby pony stumbled onto the set of Honey I Blew Up The Kids...I don't really see them as baby dolls as such. I suppose they could be...? But yeah. I'm still stuck on the name. I only have Hushabye but I guarantee she is anything but soft.
I think she could probably be used as a cannonball, honestly. She'd do damage.
They were the gross lala loopsie faced dolls.
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Taffeta - Cupcake/Sugarcup wasn't a fan nickname. I don't think she was even in the cartoon. She was legitimately released with both names but I don't know the exact details, just that early releases were called "Cupcake" and later releases were called "Sugarcup".
(but, yeah, I do think it was a universal change and it just happened to be spotted in the UK first. Heck, I think that happened with one of the G4 blind bags too. Things in general seem so much more unified and consistent these days, I don't think they'd randomly change a name unless there was like some region-specific trademark issue or whatever)
re: Sylvanians, they were Sylvanians in all regions during the Tomy years - when things were more unified - that's why I specified that era. Didn't seem to be much of a pattern or consistency there, either, just names changed at random.
my point was that I think _in general_ back in the day - not just for toylines, for most stuff - there was less focus on creating one Unified Brand for things, it was more... everyone doing their own thing, each market doing their own version and presenting it the way that made sense to them.
(edit: I realized I'm erring by focusing on just the UK... My point was that ALL markets were changing stuff back in the day. Like how the USA had Gusty with glittery symbols or flocking, we had her with painted symbols, Italy had Gustavo, etc etc. [just picking on Gusty cause she's the first to come to mind :P] It wasn't a UK specific/exclusive thing and it's not a MLP specific thing either.)
I thought the cider ep was never aired over here...? I know they did eventually catch on in the US and switched to calling it just "apple juice" in later eps, I remember there being a thread about it on here.
and yeah there were G4 baby dolls too!
http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/G4_Plush_Ponies#So_Soft
I never saw them though so not sure if they made it out of the US. I know they did some more baby-type things near the end of G4 too... can't remember if it was the Movie or G4.5 line though.
I'm still annoyed they made more of these than the brushable G4 babies :(
(Not so) Soft Sleepy Newborns are more just what would happen if your baby pony stumbled onto the set of Honey I Blew Up The Kids...
:lmao:
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I watched the cider episode on TV here when I was living in north London, so sometime between 2016 and 2018. I only had freeview, so pretty sure it was on Tiny Pop. I was a bit surprised, let me tell you. Amused, but surprised. I had never heard about it beforehand. So yes, it aired over here.
Oh, those doll things are horrible o.O.
Something like that with the names happened in G2 with a couple of ponies, I always assumed it was translation related. Trying to remember which. Wing Song might be one of them. I feel like Light Heart might have been one too, but since I have a bunch I only remember the French names for (as we got them in Paris) I might be wrong.
Region specific naming hasn't been a thing since G2 though. I am still putting this down to if in doubt, blame the UK. LOL :)
You're right about the regional diversity in earlier lines though. One of the things I love about G1 is that there are these quirky differences (little things like for example Tuneful is actually written as Tunefull in the US, so everyone is using her UK name, LOL).
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I will never get why these cartoon-exclusive G3 Pegasus and Unicorn ponies were...cartoon-exclusive and not 'real'. :<
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I will never get why these cartoon-exclusive G3 Pegasus and Unicorn ponies were...cartoon-exclusive and not 'real'. :<
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I would love to have had them
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I will never get why these cartoon-exclusive G3 Pegasus and Unicorn ponies were...cartoon-exclusive and not 'real'. :<
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I'm working my way through the G3 unicorns. I've included one baby size & one Dance-Around size in them, but I still have a few to go. I might make the pegasi pegacorns...
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I will never get why these cartoon-exclusive G3 Pegasus and Unicorn ponies were...cartoon-exclusive and not 'real'. :<
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I am very sad about this. G3 didn't have many unicorns or pegasi compared to earth ponies, and some of these designs are lovely. I love all of those pegasi, and I only recognise one, which is Island Delight.
I'd love to have the yellow, purple and blue and pink and blue pegasus especially.
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There were more toyless background G3 ponies too!
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I think that last one inspired Sunny from G5, though.
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I want Bubbles the Pegasus!!!!
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Ohhhh I want ALL OF THOSE G3s. ;__; They're all so beautiful.
Actually that reminds me of something else that's always puzzled me, why didn't FiM use more of the toy designs in the show? Like didn't Plumsweet ever show up, for example. (as far as I know?? I just did a quick search and it doesn't look like she did, but I'm not an expert LOL) I feel like in the early days of G4 there wasn't much communication/synchronization between the cartoon and toy people (thus explaining odd stuff like the first Trixie toy being called "Lulamoon") so I understand the initial mismatches, but later on... the toyline started borrowing more from the cartoon but not the other way around (as far as I could tell). Just weird to me since it's like.. surely it'd be easier for them to use existing designs rather than keep making up new ponies? haha
Also, why didn't brushable Sweetie Blue ever go into full production? well why didn't _any_ prototype pony go into full production, I guess, but she stands out to me since I think she's the only G4 brushable character that just got cancelled completely and was never released in any form? If that makes sense?
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Actually that reminds me of something else that's always puzzled me, why didn't FiM use more of the toy designs in the show? Like didn't Plumsweet ever show up, for example. (as far as I know?? I just did a quick search and it doesn't look like she did, but I'm not an expert LOL) I feel like in the early days of G4 there wasn't much communication/synchronization between the cartoon and toy people (thus explaining odd stuff like the first Trixie toy being called "Lulamoon") so I understand the initial mismatches, but later on... the toyline started borrowing more from the cartoon but not the other way around (as far as I could tell). Just weird to me since it's like.. surely it'd be easier for them to use existing designs rather than keep making up new ponies? haha
The opposite sort of confused me, too. Like the staff of FiM made so many unique ponies and other characters for the show, and Hasbro creating more toys of them would have given the G4 toyline the much needed variety it was missing. But instead they just gave many of these various characters toys and merch not part of the main brushable toyline (like the blind bag size ponies), or nothing at all. FiM staff had made so many characters and Hasbro just did really nothing or very little with them. G4's toyline could have had much more variety than it did, and they could have used all these toys to further promote the show, which itself would have been further promoting the toys. Just very strange decisions all around.
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Oh no, I agree completely that Hasbro didn't utilize the FiM characters as much as they could've, too! We got some lovely blindbags... eventually, and they did put out the odd brushable set here and there like Silverstream the hippogriff or the big TRU exclusive packs, but otherwise there were sooooo many missed opportunities. :/ It felt like the only time the two REALLY tried to coordinate was the Royal Wedding thing.
I'm glad we at least got a great variety of blindbags, that's better than nothing, and... I guess I can understand why Hasbro put a lot of effort into those, because they were tiny and affordable and probably easier for kids to talk their parents into buying for them ;) ;) I just wish they'd put even a little of that kind of effort into the rest of the line.
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THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!!
All that potential for extra brushable figures & we got, next to NONE!!! Where's our Babs Seed, for one glaring example???
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SheRa was like that though, back in the eighties. Aside the core group, of which not all were made (Madame Razz, etc), there wasn't a lot of effort put in to making sure many of the (especially later) toy characters were in the line. They actually went to more trouble promoting some of the MoTU characters in SheRa as the villains in that story, but aside Castaspella, Glimmer and a couple of others, many of the dolls were only in one or two episodes iirc. I am pretty sure Flutterina and Netossa, who were two of my favourite dolls, had maybe only one or two episode appearances.
They also didn't make Shadow Weaver, which was long since a gripe of mine. I think they may have done since in some retro thing but it's not the same.
I've never really known why that happened (I know it's Mattel not Hasbro) except that maybe SheRa was more about plugging the boy-targeted toys than the ones aimed at the girls. Maybe Hasbro cared less about pumping toys into the animation and vice versa for FIM because it was targeting an audience who were less interested in the toys and more interested in the show/merch/whatever? Or because they really just thought kids would only care about the M6.
G3 had a lot of BG characters unmade but they did try and include a lot of real ponies in the stories and in scenes. Most early G1 ponies aren't in the animation, but they did at least vary the cast from time to time. But if you think about it, aside the family friends/babies set (which are reinvented) most of the ponies available at the time the Tales ponies were in stores are not in the animation. While the three boys and most of the family members are regular cast members.
Glowing Magic ponies were no longer being sold by the time Tales aired, not even here (Rockin' Beats were also borderline, though we still had them on clearance shelves for quite a while)...It always bothers me that there are no hairdo ponies in Starlight's Salon.
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This was brought up in another forum and it was something that raised the question with me with Funko's awful NFT lines; why did Funko only produce certain MLP figures (https://data.mlpmerch.com/funko-figures/type/funko-pop!/)? They came out when the bronies were at full strength, and there were a few produced for the movie, so I'm confused as to why only certain ones were made. Rarity wasn't made and is now part of the recent NFT line, same with Princess Luna. There was no Applejack at all, no Princess Cadance despite the uproar about her at the time, Spike isn't his own POP! and is instead Freddy Funko dressed at him. No doubt there's other brony-championed characters that you'd think they'd jump on to make, as well as variations based on episodes. It just seems ... so odd they didn't start off with the Main Six, then the next wave be the Princesses and supporting characters/villains.
I thought Equestria Girls wasn't too surprising, although straying away from the core 'they're horses/animals' appeal, I didn't think it warranted having a tantrum over and was pretty much the sort of AU fans would make. Lauren Faust's rage over it was funny to me; you were brought in to reboot a toy line, that is not your own IP, why are you mad about this.
EDIT: Now I'm thinking about it, there were WAY more characters in the vinyl figure line (https://data.mlpmerch.com/funko-figures/type/vinyl/), why that line and not the POP!s? I really liked the vinyl line and felt Funko did a really good ob rendering the ponies into 3D figures. I have Luna, although her tail has broken twice, and I would like to get either version of Cadance or another Luna
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The Funko vinyl ponies (not the POPs) were REALLY popular amongst bronies in their day (because they were ~*show accurate*~
even though they're all in the same boring old pose), that's probably why they made so many of them.
No idea why they skipped over so many characters for the POP line, but I've noticed that with other series too :/
I'm guessing the Glowing Magic thing was a side-effect of animation lead time? MLW says that ep aired in August 1992 and the Glows were 1991... so I could see that just being a case of bad timing.
vaguely related, actually I was thinking about this the other day, how the original cartoon almost never(*) made up ponies, and every MLP 'toon afterwards *has*. That's why the Rainbow Pony in RAMC is so weird/mysterious, but if she was in any other cartoon it wouldn't be noteworthy at all... I wonder if bronies/MLP fans that came in from a later gen in general, think all the buzz/theories/etc around Miss Rainbow is weird because of that. Lol.
(if that makes sense... I rewrote this a bunch of times and couldn't get it to sound right. x_x)
(*- I think aside from the Rainbow RAMC pony, the only time they did make up stuff was the crowdfiller Flutters and Seas - which I don't think really count since they were just there to make up the numbers, so to speak, they didn't do anything - and then the odd animation error, like Baby Wind Whistler at the end of the movie. oh, and there's some random crowdfillers in one ep.... Little Piece of Magic, I think? in an imaginary sequence or something? But they didn't have symbols or anything)
rolling back on-topic, that's another baffling thing, WHY did they never make toys of the Tales boys???
PBW I always wanted them to make Babs too!!! I really thought they would sooner or later, especially after the blind bag-sized figure of her, but no :(
the hate over EQG amused me since it's not like human/anthro/high school AUs are exactly new or uncommon in fandoms? Why is it different when Hasbro does it themselves? XP
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The Funko vinyl ponies (not the POPs) were REALLY popular amongst bronies in their day (because they were ~*show accurate*~ even though they're all in the same boring old pose), that's probably why they made so many of them.
No idea why they skipped over so many characters for the POP line, but I've noticed that with other series too :/
the hate over EQG amused me since it's not like human/anthro/high school AUs are exactly new or uncommon in fandoms? Why is it different when Hasbro does it themselves? XP
True, Funko is no stranger to weirdly skipping over certain characters. I'm still waiting for them to finish the Direwolves in their main POP!s line (the direwolves are complete in the Dorbz line, the POP!s have Ghost/Grey Wind/Nymeria, and the Mystery Minis have Ghost, Shaggydog, Grey Wind (In Memorandum) and Lady (In Memorandum). I am confused as to how they decide which to make, after presumably which characters are licensed is decided by the owning company, like for MLP that would be Hasbro. Unless Hasbro didn't want it to compete with their own line? I don't know, I'm just baffled at the lack of Rarity and Applejack in the main lines.
For Lauren Faust, she seemed mad it was being turned into 'yet another' girls show, she seems to have this thing where she didn't want her vision of MLP to be about tea parties and dressup (needlessly being trite there) and certainly has a thing against it being made purely for toys. ... Despite being brought on to a franchise that was explicitly made to sell toys, and an IP that wasn't hers. She's come and gone from a few projects and she seems to come across as very difficult and unyielding to work with, it's either her core principles or nothing, with any flexibility very quickly exhausted.
That's just my take. I just remember very explicitly that she drew a version of herself 'Hulking out' upon seeing the Equestria Girls promo images and thought 'really? You're not even part of the franchise anymore and it wasn't yours to start with'.
From the brony side of things, it's hard to really articulate what fans hated in between incoherent rantings. The most I can gather was the fact that they weren't the 'same' as the characters they fell in love with (... happens with such a massive change in setting), hatred over a 'common' setting (as if Monster High didn't make that a gigantic success), discomfort over some of the outfit choices (okay yes, I do agree not giving Rainbow Dash pants instead of a skirt-and-short combo was bizarre, are skirts mandatory in this world), perhaps the idea of a human world being so 'close' to the pony world in that ponies could go to it when a lot of bronies used MLP:FiM as escapism? Not entirely sure. I do see a lost appeal with the lack of everyday magic and fantastical settings, a High School AU is fun for fanfics, but not really something to hang a franchise on.
Still, it gave the series Sunset Shimmer and she was great when she stopped being a villain. At one point she was as hated as Starlight Glimmer, but the sequel with the sirens and her character change made a lot of people really come around to her (don't think that's really happened for Starlight lol man do people not like her).
EDIT: Since I wrote about Kotobukiya in another thread, it's odd how they did the Mane Six first and foremost, then Sunset Shimmer, then two main Princesses (Celestia and Luna) before doing Hastune Miku. This is the order (minus Miku lol) I would normally expect. Although I did find it a little odd they did Pinkie first in line, but perhaps she was proof-of-concept there was a market as her colours and designs could appeal to maybe a broader market
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yeah, defs think Bishoujo Pinkie was a proof of concept/Kotobukiya's way of "testing the waters". like I can totally see her appealing to anime fans in general - I think the others would too, but she seems the safest bet to use as a test run.
Ugh yes, I remember the "Hulk Lauren" pic. I just... I dunno, I don't like to speculate on people or speak ill of them or whatever, but... mhhh. On the one hand, I can understand being frustrated because something you helped develop is being taken in a direction you don't like/wouldn't have done/etc. On the other hand, that's... what happens sometimes when you don't own the property, unfortunately. and like...... it's MLP, it's one iteration of something that's been around for a LONG time. I guess to me, it's like if someone came in as a writer for... I dunno, the third Pokemon series, and then started whining about something that happened in the sixth. Does that make sense? (was trying to think of another long-running franchise XD)
She's come and gone from a few projects and she seems to come across as very difficult and unyielding to work with, it's either her core principles or nothing, with any flexibility very quickly exhausted.
Yeah, I've noticed that too. :/
I dunno, I can see both sides of it. Mostly I just think she should've kept the more extreme reactions to herself and been more professional about the whole thing. Oh well.
And I guess in all fairness I can't say I wasn't sceptical about EQG when the news first broke :silly: But it ended up growing on me (at least the toys did... only saw the Rainbow Rocks movie and tbh I can't even remember any of it XP).
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THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!!
All that potential for extra brushable figures & we got, next to NONE!!! Where's our Babs Seed, for one glaring example???
Unfortunately, I think when we look at Babs we can see some pretty glaring issues, toy-wise:
1. Her hair is short, thus making her difficult/expensive to trim/style for a brushable, and if you give her long hair you risk collectors complaining about accuracy,
2. She's brown.
I mean, we're talking about Hasbroken here; the people who took the canonically white Princess Celestia and turned her first toy pink, because 'little girls like pink ponies.' If we can't even get the main figurehead of the series the right color, in a traditionally-unicorn-coded color no less, how are they going to get Babs to pass corporate focus groups?*
I agree with you here, for the record! I'm sad we only got a little Ponyville sized figure, and I'm not even sure I ever found that one! But I'm sure Hasbro was better able to justify a tiny figure that would cost pennies to manufacture, over the potential 'failure' of a brushable brown pony toy. I'm figuring that's similar to what happened to the other background characters. A lot of them are really nice colors, but there's also a lot of bold colors, bright colors, colors that might not have "enough pink" to pass Hasbro muster. Easier to make a bunch of pink-purple adjacent original designs, and not bother, I guess?
I wish we had gotten more backgrounders! It was cool that we eventually got Lyra, and even Bon Bon, but there were so many I would have loved to see! I mean, can you imagine an Apple Family Multipack with like, ten apple family ponies?!
*(I do know that we eventually got several releases of Celestia in white, but AFAIK there was a looooot of backlash from collectors before they changed it!)
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Heh, I always figured Cadance was made so they could have a pink princess and change Celestia back to white for the toyline.
y'know honestly I don't think Hasbro would give a fig about Babs' hair length (they didn't usually bother giving the brushables ~*show accurate*~ hair... Well aside from Zecora and Maud, I suppose), but you could be right that her body colour might've been an issue :O But idk, they made Silver Spoon and she's grey, Babs is way more colourful. I still think she should've been in that set too >_<
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I'm guessing the Glowing Magic thing was a side-effect of animation lead time? MLW says that ep aired in August 1992 and the Glows were 1991... so I could see that just being a case of bad timing.
It's interesting. I think that depends on who the real target audience was for MLP Tales. The US pony line tended to be one in and one out, they cycled through gimmicks so by the time the episode aired, they might've been on clearance.
In the UK, however, the Glowing Magic ponies (note, Glowing Magic is the UK name, Glowing Magical in the series, Glow & Show in the US) were part of the 1992 line. Tales is officially 1993, according to Hasbro UK. That makes sense with airing dates and such as well - they would be on shelves still here at that point. Unlike the US, the UK also didn't cycle through new styles. They introduced new stuff each year, but it was common for old stock to stay on shelves (and be promoted by stores) after their official release date (eg the first year flutters in Argos in 1987 for one example).
I am never sure about the target for Tales, whether they intended to bring out the whole line we had here in the US after the anniversary range from 92 or whether they didn't. If they did, the august timing would have made sense given how US lines tended to start in the autumn (pre-Christmas) and end the next summer.
But this is the bit we don't know.
Was the name Glowing Magical used simply because it was the name being marketed at the time and the US didn't check back on what they had used?
I feel like the lack of any US-release ponies in the Tales series makes it possible that the target was really Europe, but then why make it in the US? It's all very weird.
Note - Rockin Beats and Glowing Magic Ponies are not US ponies, they were globally released and were part of most countries' lineups in 1991 or 1992, depending on region. This means their inclusion tells us nothing about the target audience.
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Heh, I always figured Cadance was made so they could have a pink princess and change Celestia back to white for the toyline.
y'know honestly I don't think Hasbro would give a fig about Babs' hair length (they didn't usually bother giving the brushables ~*show accurate*~ hair... Well aside from Zecora and Maud, I suppose), but you could be right that her body colour might've been an issue :O But idk, they made Silver Spoon and she's grey, Babs is way more colourful. I still think she should've been in that set too >_<
That, and this was around the time of the first royal wedding in the UK (ugh) so naturally we had to have one in the show. The amount if vitriol around Cadance was so intense, and I'm surprised how much I like her. She's just so fun and sweet! She comes across as a middle Princess compared to the 'adult' Princesses Celestia and Luna. I wish she wasn't just introduced as a bride and then given a baby, but again, that's probably just following the real-life script. She could have just been so cookie-cutter, I like her design a lot (despite being scary thin in places) including her pretty colours, and her voice is so upbeat and cheery!
Speaking of that, remember when they gave Shining Armour that weird mohawk?! Was there ever a reason for that!?
For Babs, you could make her if you put her as part of a 'sweets' themed packaging and pretend she's made of chocolate :biggrin: She might be more 'marketable' if she had white patches outside of her freckles or was a different shade. I'm trying to think of another background or main character who is brown from FIM and I can't name any off the top of my head, most heading towards that colour are a lighter brown like buck or a darker orange.
EDIT: Closest is the Kirin? They have a lot of earth tones to them like browns and darker reds/greens. But the fact they're kirin immediately make them different and more marketable
EDIT2: Wasn't Bab's talent revealed to be hairdressing later down the line? Make her with super long hair and have her cut her own hair!
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I've always been puzzled at "Glowing Magical" too. That's one of the weirdest things about Tales to me, where the heck did they get that name from?
We know the MLP and Friends crew were working off early info sometimes (Score, Princess Lilac) so could that be what happened here? Was Glowing Magic(al) originally intended to be the set name across the board, but Hasbro US changed their minds at the last minute while Hasbro UK kept the name? And what's with Magic vs Magical? Did it change from Glowing Magical -> Glowing Magic -> Glow n Show or (assuming the "US renamed at the last minute" argument is true, for argument's sake) did something get mangled in communication to either the Tales ppl or Hasbro UK?
Or is it just a wild coincidence and Hasbro UK and the Tales crew just managed to come up with almost the same name independently of each other? But then it'd be weird for Tales to just rename them for no reason. Then again, they gave all of them wings and made Tuneful green, so who can say with this show :lmao:
EDIT2: Wasn't Bab's talent revealed to be hairdressing later down the line? Make her with super long hair and have her cut her own hair!
Oh that would be adorable!
I never got Shiny's troll hair mohawk either. Big Mac and Soarin both had mohawks too though so I guess someone at Hasbro just felt boy ponies should only have mohawks? -_-
There's a few brown-brown (not orangey brown like Babs) ponies in G4... Doctor Whooves is one, and there were a decent amount of brown blind bags too, like Cherry Fizzy and Cherry Spices, I don't know if they're from the cartoon though or if they were toy-only characters. But none of them were ever made into brushables, I suppose.
Also I wish they'd made kirin toys. :< Don't know anything about the FiM kirins, I just think kirin MLPs would be cool (I've wanted them before FiM made them a thing!).
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The core 7 wasn't Hasbro's first rodeo at trying to bring out a core group, incidentally. They'd been playing around with the idea since MLP Tales/the 7 Characters, though fortunately we didn't get to see much of that. With G2 there were a lot of rereleases of the same basic character, only I think some of them fly under the radar because of the European only release and the fact that meant some of them changed names between releases. And of course G2 did have a balance of original characters as well.
The core 7 is probably the prototype for the mane 6 and now the whatever the main characters are, though. I feel like it was absolutely a plan for most profit with least effort. But the success of G4 (driven mainly by the cartoon) maybe suggests what kids wanted at that point was different (or was thought to be, even if it wasn't).
Focusing on a core group of characters makes sense from a writing perspective for a show - it gives more room for those characters to be fleshed out and have arcs. Not that the Core 7 thing in G3 seems to have taken advantage of it, but FiM sure did and Transformers has been doing it since Beast Wars. But on the toyline side of things, you don't want those core characters to overly dominate - especially not in a collectible doll line where the basic version of everybody is at the same inexpensive price point. The tricky part is balancing that need with the need to keep the main characters - who people will of course want - available. And that can get worse the longer something drags on... G4 should have either ended years sooner than it did in favor of a proper new generation, or internally passed the torch to a successor core cast.
The sad thing about particularly the way G4 was marketed after the first couple of years is how quickly those same toys showed up at second hand sales and so on. I'm not even talking about online or on ebay, but basic things like car boot sales, charity shops, thrift stores etc. By contrast, in the mid 1990s when we first started carbooting for G1, you would still find ponies from the early eighties. You'd find ponies from the same household from several years. You'd have kids who were selling ponies that they had originally got from a cousin/sibling but had now grown out of. Ponies that had stayed in people's houses and been played with multiple times by multiple kids for several years before hitting the second hand market.
...Whereas when I was in London and going to the carboot sale regularly, I would see G4 ponies that were still in store, regularly. And this in spite of the growth of online selling and collecting and so on. These were being sold as kids' toys tossed in a box for 50p or £1, not people trying to profit from collectors. They just didn't have that longevity.
Yeah. Ironically, in the first couple years G4 had problems with the Mane Six being hard to find all of, especially if you came in after Season 1 ended. But things definitely way overcorrected for that and never rebalanced.
To this day I’m STILL baffled by Hasbro’s decision to move away from collectibility to just a core cast of characters for the toys.
Yeah, doing that on the toyline side of things was just dumb. Doing it in the fiction is one thing - easier to develop a smaller cast.
And that's just looking at it from a personal viewpoint. We NEED things to last, be collected & collectable, be able to be passed down to the next generation, to be easily fixable, for the simple reason the longer a toy is being loved, the more we get out of it AND the less likely it ends up being trashed. And the LAST thing the environment needs is stuff being trashed!!!
Indeed.
I don't understand Hasbro’s baffling hatred for anything that resembles a horse. It's my little pony, not my little human, or my little hydrocephalused chihuahua. The G5s are a little better in this regard in comparison to G4 but not by much. Horses are beautiful creatures. Why do they insist on bracycephalic balloon heads? Of course that unfortunate design choice was in the brand dating all the way back to G1 with the fancy mermaid babies and teeny tinies, then it went onto G2 babies and ponyvilles.
Also, what possessed them to remove the jaws in pony life?
It's irritating that most other companies who make toy horses make them more beautiful every decade, but hasbro makes them more ugly, deformed, and awkward every generation.
I mean, G2s and G3s were decently horse-y. But yeah. I was really hoping that after FiM was over we could get back to more horse-y designs. But nooo, the so-called fifth generation is just G4-but-3D because Hasbro is still desperately clinging to FiM instead of letting G5 actually stand as its own thing (to the detriment of both their stories and worlds).
Shining Armor and the Princesses are my favorite FiM designs because they actually look decently horselike.
I really don't think children today are anymore focused on electronics as kids in the 80s and 90s. I think it's been pretty even the last few decades. I mean, I grew up rich and had any toy I wanted. We also had computers that I played games on and consoles. We also had lots of movies at home. A pool in the backyard. I had a bike and other outdoor toys. I spent time with all of them. I also spent time with my friends playing imaginary games like house and gameshow.
I think kids today seem like they are on their phones all the time because we only see them in public places usually. I know the kids in my neighborhood spend time outdoors playing with friends and sometimes it involves toys. When the big Magic Mixies was the huge toy that year, one kid had gotten one for Christmas and played with it outside. I got so tired of hearing that little jingle that played each time she interacted with it. Someone might say that a toy like that doesn't spark creative play or something, but I had Teddy Ruxpin and loved him and got plenty of imagination out of the stories. Same with read along books on tape and Tiger Electronics.
Parents play a bigger role. They're responsible for teaching their kids to take care of and appreciate their things. Both my parents grew up poor so with me they really hammered in that if I didn't take care of my things, they'd be taken away or if I broke something it wouldn't be replaced. They also taught me to be grateful for the gifts I got from extended family even if it was something I didn't like (sooooooooo many Barbie dolls).
I also think it depends a lot on the kid. I was always content by myself. Heck, give me a tub of Playdoh and leave me to my own and I'd have a great time. Some kids need more stimulation. I believe that not everyone is born with an imagination too, so those kids would probably be on their phones more.
Uh, I started with a point. I've lost it now.
Basically, I don't think "the kids" have changed too much. Toy manufactures have. Parents have. The world has.
Agreed.
I think there was an internal document from around that time that said "Ponies are not ponies, they are six year old girls and they ONLY do the things six year old girls do."
They told us that on the HQ tour in 2008. We were all like...
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Ugh. What a bunch of Removed by BlackCurtains
It also floors me that the flutter ponies got a second set. I love the flutter ponies but they have a close to 100% breakage rate on THEIR SIGNATURE GIMMICK.
Ah, but didn't that take a while to rear its head and be noticed? Plus, Hasbro did try to fix it.
The gimmick of the G1 Sunshine ponies is that their one hair stripe color-changes in the sun, but several of them have the pink hair that fades in the sun.
Maybe Hasbro was just unaware of this? They probably didn't take their prototypes outside a lot.
They probably weren't aware. I think it took a while for that problem to manifest itself, for one thing, and unless people specifically wrote letters in it took longer for corpos to get feedback about their stuff back in the eighties.
why are all the birthflower ponies in the same pose with the same colors??? it drives me crazy!
Probably because they were a cheap gimmicky mail-order thing with the flower designs being the only effort put in. And weren't they from early-on when there weren't many Earth Pony poses?
Actually that reminds me of something else that's always puzzled me, why didn't FiM use more of the toy designs in the show? Like didn't Plumsweet ever show up, for example. (as far as I know?? I just did a quick search and it doesn't look like she did, but I'm not an expert LOL) I feel like in the early days of G4 there wasn't much communication/synchronization between the cartoon and toy people (thus explaining odd stuff like the first Trixie toy being called "Lulamoon") so I understand the initial mismatches, but later on... the toyline started borrowing more from the cartoon but not the other way around (as far as I could tell). Just weird to me since it's like.. surely it'd be easier for them to use existing designs rather than keep making up new ponies? haha
Not to mention it would have made for much better marketing synergy to have the show and toyline share non-main characters.
I mean, we're talking about Hasbroken here; the people who took the canonically white Princess Celestia and turned her first toy pink, because 'little girls like pink ponies.' If we can't even get the main figurehead of the series the right color, in a traditionally-unicorn-coded color no less, how are they going to get Babs to pass corporate focus groups?*
I mean, that was also Target and Mall-Wart's focus groups at work.
Heh, I always figured Cadance was made so they could have a pink princess and change Celestia back to white for the toyline.
Perhaps. What I've always figured is that they made her an alicorn - and specifically a hairswap recolor of Luna's body design - to get Luna better toys than "Standard unicorn head on standard pegasus body". Basically "This character's getting a toy, so we'll take advantage of that on Luna's behalf".
MLP's 40th Anniversary. :biggrin: :lookround:
Basic Fun did a good job as a third party, but Hasbro was just embarrassing. In general, a complete lack of content.
Tbh the only brand Hasbro seems to not botch the anniversaries of is Transformers.
I always found it baffling that G3 took so long to introduce pegasai & unicorns to the line. I was 10 when the generation launched & I remember reading an annual at the time with the line: 'Kimono loves to tell stories of the days when the woods were filled with unicorns.' I couldn't understand why earth ponies were now the only race. I'd grown up playing with G2 toys & watching G1 videos, so the absence of the other two races was really obvious to me.
I do quite like the way the pegasai of Butterfly Island were eventually introduced, followed by the unicorns. Although it's a shame there were so few of them in comparison to the others; feels like a big missed opportunity.
Hasbro's marketing team was reeeeally hung up on Earth Ponies and slice-of-life during G3, it feels like, and possibly trying to downplay the fantasy aspect. Which they were really dumb for.
Hasbro's questionable name choices are hilarious. My family held quiz nights on Zoom during lockdown, & I drafted a round where they had to guess which pony names were fake & which were genuine. Nobody got any of them right. I had to show them proof that somebody had actually named a children's toy Pillow Talk. :lol:
I strongly suspect that with G1's perennial thirst for new names, people occasionally slipped in naughty suggestions to see if corporate would catch them. And some slipped through.
From me... Here's another bonehead move on Hasbro's part re: G5, and one where they really should have known better: Making the show that fancy CGI. They really should have known from experience that that would make it a fair bit more expensive to add more characters and populate crowd scenes.
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Hasbro is never good at My Little Pony from day one. They never respect little girls enough to put in meaningful effort. The toys keep getting worse.
I agree that the toys keep getting worse, but I think some magic must have happened for G1 to be created. Some alignment of talent produced a truly magical thing and that's certainly why I'm here.
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I agree with Artie, there seems to have been a lot more freedom to experiment in G1, which I think made for a better line. Accidental success, maybe, but some effort went into the marketing, at least in the early years.
@Carrehz, great point on the set name. It could have been a development name that the UK kept (like Cherry Berry). Do we actually know for sure btw that Score and Lilac were development names? I ask genuinely as I have no early US information like this. I only have the UK ones, by which point names were determined (and Lilac had a different UK name anyway). But going back to the GM set, it could be that the name was a production name that was changed. The only spanner in the works for that is the other things you said - green earth pony Tuneful and the GMs all having wings. None of which comes from development. I don't want to say 'they just made it all up!' but maybe they did. Maybe we're all just overthinking xD.
On the fading pink hair, I may be wrong about this, but I'm sure there was something earlier than the sunshine ponies about pony colours fading in the sun. Maybe on backcards. Going to go check my scans and see if I can track it down, since getting out my folders is a big of an undertaking right now. There's definitely a warning about combing curls when wet on the Groom & Style cards here (Posey, CJ etc)...I may have hallucinated it but I just have a feeling there was something, somewhere. (I also found the grooming when wet warning on the US TE cards, so that one was universal).
But then if what I'm remembering was a UK only thing, we didn't have the two from the set with fading pink colour change streaks, so maybe it wasn't universal. It could also have been in the comic or in the club material...I really can't remember but I'm sure it was somewhere.
I can't find it right now but not all my backcards are scanned.
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Yeah, Score/Lilac being production names was confirmed with some of the materials Rhaegar's posted:
https://mlparena.com/index.php?topic=405074.0
The sticking point w/ the Glowing Magical name is that it's close enough to the UK name - and so far from the US name - that it's hard to imagine them coming up with it by themselves. And re: Tuneful, for all we know maybe there *was* an early prototype of her that was green (I'm assuming her being an earth pony in Tales was a deliberate change rather than anything meaningful, ditto the GMs all having wings). Or maybe they just messed up or decided to change her for the hell of it! I wish we knew more about Tales' development.
Haha we're definitely overthinking things, but it's fun :P
I do remember seeing a scan from a UK comic somewhereabouts that said to keep ponies out of sunlight to stop their "pretty colours fading" (or words to that effect). They might not have known about the pink hair specifically being an issue but they did know sunlight could cause colours to fade back then.
edit: Aha, I found it! It was on LadyMoondancer's blog!
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I do remember seeing a scan from a UK comic somewhereabouts that said to keep ponies out of sunlight to stop their "pretty colours fading" (or words to that effect). They might not have known about the pink hair specifically being an issue but they did know sunlight could cause colours to fade back then.
edit: Aha, I found it! It was on LadyMoondancer's blog!
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And yet a lot of MLP commercials shows kids playing with ponies outside in bright sunlight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nprTKZiS9Bc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZZNLH6cGDI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAyc-Nt3Z_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLgZo6RA7MU
There are others, but I don't want to overwhelm the thread.
I just looked at Tuneful's backcard and it looks like she was drawn as an Earth pony instead of a unicorn.
http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/File:Sweet-notes-backcard.jpg
Ponyfan
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I do remember seeing a scan from a UK comic somewhereabouts that said to keep ponies out of sunlight to stop their "pretty colours fading" (or words to that effect). They might not have known about the pink hair specifically being an issue but they did know sunlight could cause colours to fade back then.
edit: Aha, I found it! It was on LadyMoondancer's blog!
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That's it! So it was from the comic, by the looks. Thanks, Carrehz, you have saved me from going mad :D The ponies shown in that picture does suggest it was a lot earlier, too. Sometime in the early/mid 1980s.
And how you are meant to play with the sunshine ponies without putting them in the sun is an ongoing mystery xD. But as I said, the two with the fading pink streaks weren't sold here. It wasn't unusual for us to have 4/6 in sets at this time, but I do wonder if Hasbro UK looked at them and went, nope, that's silly, let's just not.
I will have to look more closely at the stuff you linked to. It's interesting how some of those names changed a few times, though. I am sure I heard Casey mentioned before but I can't remember the context. I remember because it was such a silly name.
It does show how much change was going on during production though, with names, symbols, etc. I know this happened in the UK, but it must have happened in the US at a much higher frequency, given so many of the designs began there.
I just looked at Tuneful's backcard and it looks like she was drawn as an Earth pony instead of a unicorn.
http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/File:Sweet-notes-backcard.jpg
Ponyfan
Hrm, that's also interesting on the Tuneful. I did know the US name had the double L, but I don't think I ever noticed that before. I don't think I have the US Rockin Beat card in my collection. I know that in the UK she was used on all of the cards from that year, under the rainbow and on the front of the insert - and she was drawn as a unicorn. Though I think the artwork may have been based on prototype photos from the US release, as many that year were...
Borrowing a picture here, not my image:
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I don't know if this was a weird thing or not, but between 1990ish (when they introduced that border style) and 1992 (when it ended) Hasbro UK would have three 'tiers' of pony advertising the line. The 'under the rainbow' pony (which I think was Mainsail, then Rainbow Rider, then Tuneful). The 'set mascot' pony (which was one from the set drawn on the front and back, in the above image it's Brightglow, but each set was different). And then the actual set (which would be a photograph of the group. If the set was sold in the US, the picture would be of the US set, which is why blue-heart Dazzleglow is shown on the UK card).
Going back to Tuneful, though, I suspect she was dehorned simply to fit into a non-magic world (Glowing Magical Ponies are on Patch's reality cusp, so don't count).
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I'm open to the idea of Tuneful legitimately being an earth pony (and/or green) at some point in production, but it also wouldn't surprise me if the backcard was an error and her lack of horn in the cartoon was a deliberate choice, as Taffeta said. FWIW I always assumed the cartoon made the call to de-horn her, but then I've never noticed her backcard has her as an earthie before now :O
I suspect the GMs were all given wings to seem ~extra magical~ and really stand out, compared to the rest of the earthbound Tales characters. It's kinda weird they decided to keep Dazzleglow's horn as well though.
The warning to me comes off as less "Keep ponies out of sunlight AT ALL TIMES" and more "Don't leave them in sunlight for prolonged periods of time", if that makes sense? It could also be that everyone else at Hasbro US/UK were clueless and it was just one person involved with the comics that knew how sunfading works :silly: Who knows.
"Casey" was in a catalogue too. Weird thing is I think it was for the second set of BBs, not the first. I'll see if I can find the pic later. It's always stuck in my mind since it's such an un-ponyish name (I get it's referencing Casey Jones, but it's still so odd next to all the other BB names!).
Taffeta, I hadn't noticed that about the UK backcard "mascots" before, but that's really interesting.
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Why was G3 the only one without males?
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Why was G3 the only one without males?
YES!!! I've never understood this!! I know Hasbro had their ridiculous idea of "the G3 ponies are six year old girls :)" but like ??? six year old girls hang out with boys too??? what's the excuse Hasbro! It's not like they'd have to make a new mould for them either - G2 never differentiated the boys like that. Heck, G2 had Clever Clover as one of their first ponies!
I love G3 but man, Hasbro made some weird decisions with it. No boys, very few unicorns and pegasi... Which is especially weird because they DID do those. Why go to all the trouble of making unicorn/pegasi moulds and then only use them a handful of times each?
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Especially cute baby pegasi :(
And 0 baby uni.
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Hasbro's questionable name choices are hilarious. My family held quiz nights on Zoom during lockdown, & I drafted a round where they had to guess which pony names were fake & which were genuine. Nobody got any of them right. I had to show them proof that somebody had actually named a children's toy Pillow Talk. :lol:
I strongly suspect that with G1's perennial thirst for new names, people occasionally slipped in naughty suggestions to see if corporate would catch them. And some slipped through.
I still maintain that Pillow Talk is a cute and nostalgic name for a Little Pony, and may have just been something like "talking to your friends during a slumber party/sleepover" (she is part of the Slumber Party Gift Pack) - I have some (non-pony) books on tape that end with a segment where the two kids are talking before bedtime, and the book uses the term "Pillow Talk" for that too.
Ultimately, I just find it cute and nostalgic - the silly thing though, is that part of my nostalgia comes from me liking a song of the same name, and associating it with the pony, and I think that song does refer to the other kind of Pillow Talk, but I'd already associated it with the pony before really taking notice of that...
On topic of the thread (and keeping in the theme of names), I don't know why the Big Brother Ponies were so called, when (from the look of it - I am admittedly going by the cartoons here), they weren't brothers to any pony. I feel they should have done what they did with the Mountain Boys, and just given them their own collective name, like the [Something] Boys, each time.
I also don't get why the Baby Ponies were treated like new characters, rather than just the younger version of the pony they resembled. I don't know if all canons did this (the cartoon did, and there's a comic that has the baby ponies being cloned from a mirror), but I find it strange that they made baby versions of the adult ponies, and made them new/different characters (I'll check what the toyline did, but the cartoon could have easily have had flashbacks to when the adult version of whatever baby pony they wanted to market was younger...)
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Frankly I completely understand the Equestria Girls hate. The first couple waves in particular were terrible fashion dolls (molded on tops and ugly ugly ugly skirts). They are cheap and created to try to lick up the crumbs falling from Monster High's plate. They are just so lazily made, like it's unbelievable to me that they just molded dolls legs in green or pink or whatnot to give them "tights" instead of of actual cloth tights. Who cares if their actual, not-able-to-be-removed legs clash with other outfits in the line, right? They're only FASHION DOLLS where switching clothes is the main mode of play.
But more to the point, ponies have never been fashion dolls and I think that is very freeing. There usually are clothing sets that either come with the ponies (like G3) or that you can buy separately (like G1), but they're totally optional. And it's really rare for a girls toy to go "hey, fashion is fine but not caring about it is fine too." And with G4 specifically, two of the characters are tomboys. It doesn't make sense for their humanized versions to wear preppy skirts on the daily. But there they were, wearing them. One thing I noticed with those prototype(?) G5 "human dolls" is they put Zipp Storm in stylish clothes that a jock girl would actually wear. But with G4 Equestria Girls, they didn't.
Also the high school setting is so uncreative, boring, and, again, obviously just a desperate attempt to ride Monster High's coattails. IMO Monster High and Bratz are the only two doll lines that have EVER made the high school setting work. With Bratz it worked because it subverted Barbie's campy, fantasy vibe (that she had at the time), plus they look like they would gladly push you down a flight of stairs which is a very high school vibe, and with Monster High it worked because the idea of monsters doing something as mundane as going to high school is funny and made for all kinds of silly puns and dark humor, like going to Home Ec class and making Eye Scream Cones out of eyeballs or whatever. With horses it's like . . . okay. They were adults as horses who had jobs and saved the world and stuff . . . don't see why they couldn't do that as humans . . .
Also high school is usually an exciting, aspirational place for tweens, but the major MLP market is for young girls (like three to eight) so it isn't even a sound marketing decision imo. But, once again . . . Monster High was selling like hot cakes. Why think about your audience when you can just copy Mattel's homework?
Rainbow High is another doll line where I absolutely hate the high school setting. It doesn't even make sense because the dolls HAVE MAJORS. But god forbid a toy company even branch out enough to put them in college instead of high school. Girls are only allowed to fantasize about being in high school, and after they get out of high school . . . I don't know, I guess we are to assume that the earth opens up and swallows every female fashion doll character immediately after they graduate. Except Barbie. That is actually why Barbie owns so many planes, she needs them to save her from the pit.
Man I miss Jem.
I also don't get why the Baby Ponies were treated like new characters, rather than just the younger version of the pony they resembled. I don't know if all canons did this (the cartoon did, and there's a comic that has the baby ponies being cloned from a mirror), but I find it strange that they made baby versions of the adult ponies, and made them new/different characters (I'll check what the toyline did, but the cartoon could have easily have had flashbacks to when the adult version of whatever baby pony they wanted to market was younger...)
Because mother-daughter sets / play is cute and endearing. The babies look identical to the moms so that children can immediately identify which baby pony goes with which mom pony. Also in the 80s Hasbro was all about collectibility, which meant collecting new characters. I think their feeling was "If a kid already has Pony XYZ, why would they want a new version of her?" Like, why would Baby Glory being "Glory as a baby" be any more engaging than "Glory had a baby who looks just like her"? If they're separate characters, you can have Glory nuzzling her baby, putting on her diaper, and feeding Baby Glory her bottle. If they're the same character that deletes the mother-daughter play and interactions between the toys wouldn't really make sense.
I mean you could make up a time travel plot, but what about when you don't want to have time travel, what about when you just want the ponies to go to a party?
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Jem's problems were body proportion and price point. The series has always outstripped the dolls in that way, although I love them as they are.
Going back to the Big Brothers, I think the idea was that they were meant to be 'big brother' type figures to 'little girls' collecting them, doing 'boyish' activities. Or something. I don't really know. In the UK the original set is called the Adventure Boy Pony set. We used Big Brothers in the second release in 1989, largely because we defaulted to a lot of US packaging design in 1989, but Adventure Boy seems a bit more logical.
Back to Jem and EQG. I actually love EQG unashamedly more than I do the FIM series. Yes, most specials have the same underlying plot. And yes, I do cringe at the 'they do things on merit but we do things on popularity!" statement in Friendship Games which they seem to be proud of. The main reason I like it better is that Sunset Shimmer has a personality and has a plot development arc. And so does Twilight II. It makes the rest of the M6 seem more relevant rather than just annoying. Although there is one Pinkie Pie short that...yeah. Anyway.
But what amuses me about it is how much Rainbow Rocks' ending overlaps the concept of the Battle of the Bands at the end of Jem's Truly Outrageous (first five eps). Remembering this coincided with the trainwreck Jem movie a bit, I feel like Hasbro decided, "Jem won't survive on its own, but if we shove Jem stuff into MLP and make it all magical, then we'll sell stuff." And that did actually work.
Not to go off topic, but there are some things in the Rainbow High cartoon, given it's aimed at kids, that really bothers me (mostly the way certain characters treat each other). I love the dolls. But the series...reinforcing popularity memes and social hierarchy is not a healthy model.
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I found a Jem doll at the thrift store and I was FLOORED by how tall she is. An amazonian queen! But I get it, it would deflate any of Mattel's attempts to sue Hasbro and claim that Jem was a copy of Barbie.
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I found a Jem doll at the thrift store and I was FLOORED by how tall she is. An amazonian queen! But I get it, it would deflate any of Mattel's attempts to sue Hasbro and claim that Jem was a copy of Barbie.
They used the Darci mould I think as a basis...I have one Darci that I customised and her proportions are more or less the same (assuming this was also owned by Hasbro at the time). But this was also one reason it failed - because the standard doll clothes didn't fit Jem as well as they did other fashion dolls. Win some lose some I guess.
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I was surprised when I saw a Jem (well, Clash) in person for the first time, too. They're so tall and beautiful! I love it but I can see why it was a problem.
I like the baby ponies matching their parents :B I like the symmetry (? I guess you'd say) of it all. But then I'm a Sylvanian Families collector too, so I'm used to "identical family" sort of things, I suppose.
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Ponies being Babified versions of themselves do not sell well. As we have seen with newborn cuties and the g4 baby doll monstrosities. It is common and profitable in animal toylines to have family units either sold separately or together.
Plus some of the babies are slightly different from their parents, either by species, symbol, or color schemes. As seen with Baby Moondancer, Baby Sunbright, and Baby Milky Way. And you can mix n match families that don't have similar looking family members. Or that you don't have matching set to.
That Hasbro has foregone families for a lazy rehash of Pinkie Pie #3,874 is not what ought to be encouraged. It's a Bad Baffling Idea that diminishes creative play.
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I'll never understand why Hasbro stopped doing family sets after G2. Well no, G3 did have those two big/lil sis sets, but that's about it, right?
What gets me is that they tried doing Baby Main 6 once or twice, but they never did what seems like an obvious idea to me - why not do main 6 family sets??? I remember talking about this with a FiM fan once and we both agreed we'd buy the HECK out of those. Imagine a set of brushables with Pinkie's parents in adult moulds, Pinkie, Maud and the other two sisters (I don't remember their names! ^^;) in baby moulds? I wouldn't mind the constant onslaught of the same few characters over and over if they at least switched them up a bit instead of just being the same. freaking. figure. EVERY TIME.
(which, speaking of, why did they decide that G4 only needed 1 or 2 poses total...?)
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Why was G3 the only one without males?
There WAS one male pony in all of G3.
Here he is!
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Why was G3 the only one without males?
There WAS one male pony in all of G3.
Here he is!
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Oh. I stand corrected
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reminds me of Teddy
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Why was G3 the only one without males?
There WAS one male pony in all of G3.
Here he is!
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OMG! Alright, I'll bite, who is this? :lmao: I'm wildly curious! I recognize Cotton Candy on the left, but that's all I got!
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No idea, he was cartoon-only. I call him Propeller Hat.
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No idea, he was cartoon-only. I call him Propeller Hat.
Did he speak?
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No idea, he was cartoon-only. I call him Propeller Hat.
Did he speak?
Nope!
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Why was G3 the only one without males?
There WAS one male pony in all of G3.
Here he is!
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there were some more male ponies in one of the crowd shots in twinkle wish adventure
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Have to keep my eye on these for G3 Baby Boy Custom ideas
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Have to keep my eye on these for G3 Baby Boy Custom ideas
Good idea!
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I also don't get why the Baby Ponies were treated like new characters, rather than just the younger version of the pony they resembled. I don't know if all canons did this (the cartoon did, and there's a comic that has the baby ponies being cloned from a mirror), but I find it strange that they made baby versions of the adult ponies, and made them new/different characters (I'll check what the toyline did, but the cartoon could have easily have had flashbacks to when the adult version of whatever baby pony they wanted to market was younger...)
Because mother-daughter sets / play is cute and endearing. The babies look identical to the moms so that children can immediately identify which baby pony goes with which mom pony. Also in the 80s Hasbro was all about collectibility, which meant collecting new characters. I think their feeling was "If a kid already has Pony XYZ, why would they want a new version of her?" Like, why would Baby Glory being "Glory as a baby" be any more engaging than "Glory had a baby who looks just like her"? If they're separate characters, you can have Glory nuzzling her baby, putting on her diaper, and feeding Baby Glory her bottle. If they're the same character that deletes the mother-daughter play and interactions between the toys wouldn't really make sense.
I mean you could make up a time travel plot, but what about when you don't want to have time travel, what about when you just want the ponies to go to a party?
To answer the last part, I was thinking more of an "episode" created with the toys that takes place when the ponies are younger or something (like the idea of a flashback in the cartoon), but yeah, I see what you're getting at - it does seem pretty cute that way. Good point. :)
Ponies being Babified versions of themselves do not sell well. As we have seen with newborn cuties and the g4 baby doll monstrosities. It is common and profitable in animal toylines to have family units either sold separately or together.
Plus some of the babies are slightly different from their parents, either by species, symbol, or color schemes. As seen with Baby Moondancer, Baby Sunbright, and Baby Milky Way. And you can mix n match families that don't have similar looking family members. Or that you don't have matching set to.
Understandable. As an aside; I'm sure I remember at least one person admitting that they misunderstood the point of the baby ponies, and thought she was the younger version of the pony, even with the symbol being different (they're justification being "I just thought she got more [symbol specific things] as she got older...") b
But yeah, good points all 'round on the G1 baby ponies. Thanks. :good:
Going back to the Big Brothers, I think the idea was that they were meant to be 'big brother' type figures to 'little girls' collecting them, doing 'boyish' activities. Or something. I don't really know. In the UK the original set is called the Adventure Boy Pony set. We used Big Brothers in the second release in 1989, largely because we defaulted to a lot of US packaging design in 1989, but Adventure Boy seems a bit more logical.
That's a possibility, thanks. I don't think I knew the first set were "Adventure Boys" over here, or I forgot (I'm more familiar with the American terms, despite being English), but I personally feel that is a better term.
the GMs all having wings. None of which comes from development. I don't want to say 'they just made it all up!' but maybe they did. Maybe we're all just overthinking xD.
This is late, but at the very least, I can theorize that they were changed for storyline reasons - they needed some ponies who could all fly, so they all had to be pegasus ponies, and they also needed to have one of them fix the balloon with magic, so they made her an alicorn (decades before MLP used that term.) I don't know why these ponies specifically needed to be the Glow 'n Show Ponies, though (sorry if it was said in the thread, I kind of skimmed through) - I'm pleased they were, though, as this was my introduction to them, and I've loved them ever since.
I agree that the toys keep getting worse, but I think some magic must have happened for G1 to be created. Some alignment of talent produced a truly magical thing and that's certainly why I'm here.
Agree completely about G1 - I didn't even grow up with it, but G1 was always the toyline I'd look at back when I was getting into the entire fandom, and imagine how awesome and nostalgic it would have been to collect and play with them (and in a perfect world, be watching the show as well), and it's likely because of how imaginative the G1s are (and for the most part, that's without needing the toys to "do" something.) For the cartoons, I can imagine myself being a fan of pretty much all of them as a kid, and said cartoons tend to give that nostalgic feel for me, but toyline-wise, it's definitely the G1s that say "childhood" despite not being part of mine. :lovey:
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Is that G3.5 pony confirmed male or are we just assuming because of the short hair? He's cute either way, though!
It's so weird seeing the non-core 7 ponies in G3.5 style.
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What are your thoughts on the Core 7 15 years later, and are there any other decisions made about MLP that make you go "Hmmm"?
:lookround: So I am late to the party...haha. I still want to talk about it though :) !
I never understood the "core cast" that MLP kept pushing for. It happened with Tales (Someone else mentioned this!), it happened in G3.5, and it's still happening as MLP continues. I heard this theory that the "cast" system was pushed to try to market recognizable characters, like in other children's toys and media. It's not completely outrageous to suggest MLP try it again (They have tried it every generation. Megan, G2 Sundance/Sparkle, etc etc.), it never really, truly appeals to me however. I think it has to do with my approach to collecting them.
There's a "cheapness" that comes with it in my mind, I'm not exactly sure how else to describe it. I know it costs less to produce 10 Pinkie Pies with slightly different cutie marks, than 10 different ponies. Ponies don't have an inherent image in my mind like Disney, or "army building" aspects that well, army toys have. I'm sure there's people who like to have 20-30 of the same character, and I like that for them. I don't think I am one of those types of collectors. I can tell they're really trying too, with MLP- different outfits, or themes, maybe a different mane or a gradient. Maybe it worked for G4 because there where a different kind of fanatics are out there, where the FIM design reached that "iconicity" of other "hello kitty"s or "pikachu"s of that era.
I just don't really need 10 of the same pony, with slightly different gimmicks unfortunately. I give them a good pat on the back for adding sick translucent glitter variants and dresses- I sure do love a cute pony in a dress! So, maybe- one or three of the same pony is okay? G3 had a nice sweet spot- some with tinsel, some with big TAF-esc marks- a new pose etc, etc, etc. Re-releases are okay in my book, it's different when there's somewhere close to 2-3 new versions of the same pony every year for me though.
I usually don't like to give pony designs a hard time, but I am starting to realize they rely on certain patterns. Food themed, flower themed, star themed- Pink, white, purple, rinse, lather, repeat unti- I have completely forgot what I'm talking about. There's nothing wrong with these in concept of course, I love all my ponies of the aforementioned adjectives. There is in fact, a limit to how many times you can give the pink haired earth pony with a flower mark, a new name. I'm jaded :razz: Don't let me rain on your parade. I still love my fair share of Blossomforths and Cupcakes.
Now that I think about it- I really enjoy my ponies looking similar in some aspects. The collector's pose ponies are quite charming to me, they have an antiquity that some toys few toys meet (In the context of the 80s, and in today's age). But, I think what Hasbro has missed is variety in some cases. I don't gravitate to newer MLP toys because, they all sort of look the same.
I don't mean to knack G4 and 5 (and even some G3.5/Ponyville), this is more of just an observation I have; They share molds, so the toys look really similar. That's good for building an image and recognition, but it makes me less interested in collecting. In laymens terms, Ponies aren't traditional dolls, I guess? They're inherently novel, and collectable in the same way a postcard or statue is, well at least to me. I liked the LPS comparisons made to MLP too.
I think G5 has made great strides to push MLP towards their ideal, a toy that can continue to be supported with accessories (much like a doll). They've yet to release very many toys outside of the same 4-5 ponies, there is an occasional new one (I think the mini world stuff has more variety). That just isn't my ideal of a pony unfortunately.
For me, it comes off as too corporate, and manufactured. I'm so happy I can walk into a store and get myself a Sunny Starscout or Pipp, because surely there's children who want that too. But that's uh, all I have to pick from. I don't have a reason to collect something that isn't really collectable or appealing to me.
To leave on a less sour note ^^; I don't collect G4, but I remember when I saw it's first toy reboot, and was super shocked. I totally thought they where doing well with the style they had, although I didn't collect them. I'm not sure how to describe the style. "Movie"? 2017 reboot? I don't find the sculpts particularly pretty, but wow do I understand the appeal they where going for. Different poses made me retroactively interested, but kind of suffers from "same mares syndrome".
All of the above is just my hot takes and ramblings XD Sorry, I didn't mean to make this an entire thesis paper...
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The eyes sliding down on the crossover ponies. Who approved that? It's also baffling that hasbro didn't use the moulds for G5. And that they didn't make more unicorns, unipegs, and pegasus for any but the retro main six pack,and sdcc twilight.