The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: northstar3184 on January 01, 2017, 04:59:02 PM
-
I watched Rescue at Midnight Castle last night. I've seen it over a dozen times but didn't notice the presence of Twinkles the cat until yesterday.
Also, last time I watched it I noticed that all the sea ponies' colors correspond to other ponies in the cartoon. For Sealight (whose colors correspond w/ Baby Ember) and Wavedancer (whose colors correspond with Firefly) this makes sense as their cartoon colors match the toys. But Seawinkle's hair color was changed from purple to pink (corresponding with Bow Tie) and the nonspeaking sea ponies' colors just happen to correspond with Medley, Applejack, and Bubbles. Any one else notice this?
-
I had noticed that about the sea ponies. Seawinkle even has a yellow ribbon in her mane like Bow-Tie.
-
I was talking (emailing) the storyboarder of the sea pony song for RaMC a while ago and he said that the non-speaking sea pony colors were chosen based on what would look good in the scene, if that makes sense. (Like, they had to pop against the background, one row of sea ponies couldn't be too similar to the ones behind them, etc., if that makes sense. :) )
-
I was talking (emailing) the storyboarder of the sea pony song for RaMC a while ago and he said that the non-speaking sea pony colors were chosen based on what would look good in the scene, if that makes sense. (Like, they had to pop against the background, one row of sea ponies couldn't be too similar to the ones behind them, etc., if that makes sense. :) )
That's interesting. :). But funny that it worked out being the same colors as the aforementioned ponies.
-
I thought that the sea ponies matching the other ponies was neat. I always wondered if the extra ponies were colored in to match Applejack, Medley and Bubbles purposefully but it sounds like the animators weren't really thinking about matching the other ponies when they chose their colors.
I was probably the only one who never noticed this before but just before Applejack is captured you can see the guard's shadow on the wall behind her as he approaches her
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
(https://flic.kr/p/QCN5Se)Applejack is being followed (https://flic.kr/p/QCN5Se) by LovesBarbie (https://www.flickr.com/photos/93040822@N05/), on Flickr
Ponyfan
-
where did you see twinkles?
-
Twinkles is sitting on the unnamed white pony with rainbow hair, I believe during the scene when Megan has arrived and everyone's cheering.
-
You can always see her in the opening too.
-
You can always see her in the opening too.
I missed her in the opening. The scene I noticed her was the one Shatyr referenced. I'll have to watch it again :)
-
I would have missed her in the opening if ember86 hadn't mentioned her being there. Twinkles is riding on the rainbow pony's back as the ponies run out of Dream Castle.
Ponyfan
-
Here, have some Twinkles screenshots:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Her presence does raise questions.. I wonder if the rainbow pony was going to be Peachy originally.
I always liked how they reused the other ponies' colours for the sea ponies :)
-
Here, have some Twinkles screenshots:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Her presence does raise questions.. I wonder if the rainbow pony was going to be Peachy originally.
I always liked how they reused the other ponies' colours for the sea ponies :)
Thanks Carrehz
-
Here, have some Twinkles screenshots:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Her presence does raise questions.. I wonder if the rainbow pony was going to be Peachy originally.
I always liked how they reused the other ponies' colours for the sea ponies :)
Yeah, that's an excellent point. Why not just put Peachy there instead...? You'd think that'd be a lot easier than coming up with an entirely new character that nobody recognizes.
-
I wonder if they thought Peachy's color was too close to Applejack's? It is interesting that the rainbow pony always carries Twinkles.
Ponyfan
-
Thanks Carrehz
np! :)
Here, have some Twinkles screenshots:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Her presence does raise questions.. I wonder if the rainbow pony was going to be Peachy originally.
I always liked how they reused the other ponies' colours for the sea ponies :)
Yeah, that's an excellent point. Why not just put Peachy there instead...? You'd think that'd be a lot easier than coming up with an entirely new character that nobody recognizes.
I think you misunderstood me, I was suggesting that maybe she was Peachy originally.
Personally, my theory is that Hasbro wanted to promote the upcoming Rainbow ponies, but none of them had finalized designs, so the Midnight Castle pony was just thrown together for that purpose. Either that or she uses an early/prototype design that was changed later, or maybe Peachy's colours just.. didn't work in animation, for w/e reason? I remember seeing someone suggest once (can't remember where.. it might have been on here?) that her unique body colour might have looked too similar to Megan's skin colour, for example, which seems plausible to me.
aaaaa, I wish we knew for sure!!! I've wondered about this for years, she's such a fascinating mystery~
-
Here's a screencap of animated Peachy from the Pretty Parlor commercial
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
(https://flic.kr/p/QQYVNn)Peachy (https://flic.kr/p/QQYVNn) by LovesBarbie (https://www.flickr.com/photos/93040822@N05/), on Flickr
And a screncap of Megan and Applejack together
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
(https://flic.kr/p/QMxGj7)Megan and Applejack (https://flic.kr/p/QMxGj7) by LovesBarbie (https://www.flickr.com/photos/93040822@N05/), on Flickr
I've also heard that mystery pony might have been an animated version of the porcelain First Born.
Ponyfan
-
I wonder if they thought Peachy's color was too close to Applejack's? It is interesting that the rainbow pony always carries Twinkles.
Ponyfan
Kitty says: Walk? Who needs to walk when I've got my own personal transportation. You wouldn't believe the horse power on this baby! :biggrin:
-
I wonder if they thought Peachy's color was too close to Applejack's? It is interesting that the rainbow pony always carries Twinkles.
Ponyfan
Kitty says: Walk? Who needs to walk when I've got my own personal transportation. You wouldn't believe the horse power on this baby! :biggrin:
I love it! :lol: Twinkles is a very smart kitty.
Ponyfan
-
Just to throw this into the conversation about the mystery rainbow pony, there's a very short commercial that is on the end of the Children's Video Library VHS version of Rescue at Midnight Castle that features the real rainbow ponies (hope a YouTube link is okay to post here):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8xzCehlp5k
All six original rainbow ponies make an appearance, running around in some of the same scenes from Rescue at Midnight Castle (the rainbow, the cliff).
Just to confuse us all further! :P Hasbro, what were you planning . . .
-
Could it be that maybe Twinkles fur blended in with Peachy's fur?
-
Just to throw this into the conversation about the mystery rainbow pony, there's a very short commercial that is on the end of the Children's Video Library VHS version of Rescue at Midnight Castle that features the real rainbow ponies (hope a YouTube link is okay to post here):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8xzCehlp5k
All six original rainbow ponies make an appearance, running around in some of the same scenes from Rescue at Midnight Castle (the rainbow, the cliff).
Just to confuse us all further! :P Hasbro, what were you planning . . .
I started a thread about that a year or so ago. Someone responded that the animation is from the commercial used for the rainbow ponies. Then, the voiceover perhaps refers to either Escape from Catrina or the cartoon series. It's INCREDIBLY misleading. I had started the thread thinking there was a lost MLP special or a planned project that was never finished. I would have loved to have seen a cartoon with the rainbow ponies.
-
I've also heard that mystery pony might have been an animated version of the porcelain First Born.
I think that's extremely plausible, since Mystery Pony's cutie mark is like a simplified version of First Born's. Too bad she doesn't have a vinyl toy.
I started a thread about that a year or so ago. Someone responded that the animation is from the commercial used for the rainbow ponies. Then, the voiceover perhaps refers to either Escape from Catrina or the cartoon series. It's INCREDIBLY misleading. I had started the thread thinking there was a lost MLP special or a planned project that was never finished. I would have loved to have seen a cartoon with the rainbow ponies.
Since she mentions "Megan, Moochik, and Firefly" I guess it was released after Rescue at Midnight Castle but before the plot Escape From Catrina had been finalized?
-
I've also heard that mystery pony might have been an animated version of the porcelain First Born.
I think that's extremely plausible, since Mystery Pony's cutie mark is like a simplified version of First Born's. Too bad she doesn't have a vinyl toy.
I started a thread about that a year or so ago. Someone responded that the animation is from the commercial used for the rainbow ponies. Then, the voiceover perhaps refers to either Escape from Catrina or the cartoon series. It's INCREDIBLY misleading. I had started the thread thinking there was a lost MLP special or a planned project that was never finished. I would have loved to have seen a cartoon with the rainbow ponies.
Since she mentions "Megan, Moochik, and Firefly" I guess it was released after Rescue at Midnight Castle but before the plot Escape From Catrina had been finalized?
Yeah, that would be my guess.
-
Part of the Rainbow ponies animation was used in the rainbow ponies commercial including them sliding down the rainbow and the ponies in the flowers. That commercial must be one of the hardest to find since I only saw it for the Once Upon a Pony celebration that some website was having for MLP's anniversary but that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe Hasbro was planning on using the Rainbow Ponies in the next special but by the time everything was finalized they decided to shift the focus on the baby ponies and bushwoolies. But if Hasbro already had a few seconds of the Rainbow pony animation at the time Rescue at Midnight Castle aired that makes Mystery Pony's appearance even more puzzling.
Does anyone know how long it was before the Rescue at Midnight Castle came out on VHS after it was on TV? I never saw it on TV but my grandparents had a copy on tape that I watched many, many times.
Ponyfan
-
Just to throw this into the conversation about the mystery rainbow pony, there's a very short commercial that is on the end of the Children's Video Library VHS version of Rescue at Midnight Castle that features the real rainbow ponies (hope a YouTube link is okay to post here):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8xzCehlp5k
All six original rainbow ponies make an appearance, running around in some of the same scenes from Rescue at Midnight Castle (the rainbow, the cliff).
Just to confuse us all further! :P Hasbro, what were you planning . . .
I started a thread about that a year or so ago. Someone responded that the animation is from the commercial used for the rainbow ponies. Then, the voiceover perhaps refers to either Escape from Catrina or the cartoon series. It's INCREDIBLY misleading. I had started the thread thinking there was a lost MLP special or a planned project that was never finished. I would have loved to have seen a cartoon with the rainbow ponies.
I think there were plans for a Rainbow Pony special. However, two things got in the way. The first was the Transformers was going to have to have a full season in 1984 to compete with the Go-Bots. So, the lion's share of the animation budget went to that (also note G.I. Joe also only got a second miniseries and would have to wait until 1985 to get its full series started). Second, David DePattie headed up this pony venture, probably to do something not related to Marvel Comics (hating that company with the power of a thousand white hot suns). He kind of blew up at Marvel Productions' new CEO in 1984 when she told him they were going to work more closely with Marvel Comics in the future. So, any plans he might have had for MLP were likely tabled and Loasch waited until the following year and made Escape from Catrina.
-
The Mystery pony has always been the cutest my little pony to me. I really wish they made a real toy of her/a real character of her. I'm aware of the porcelain that looks similar but a real plastic toy.
-
Could it be that maybe Twinkles fur blended in with Peachy's fur?
Sounds plausible to me! I could definitely see that being a problem.
re: First Born, I agree there's similarities but idk if the RaMC team would've been aware of the porcelain ponies, or vice versa? I dunno. I agree that "First Born" is as good a name for her as any, if that makes sense..
-
While the finished porcelain First Born looks different from the mystery pony, her prototype is identical - same hair color/pattern, same symbol. I think WildShadow has a pamphlet/booklet with the prototype porcelain in it. I know she's shown the picture before!
-
Why is she called First Born anyway? She's not a baby pony. She's not the first pony ever made or showed, her symbol has nothing to do with it, though that's not uncommon. Her name makes no sense to me. :huh:
-
While the finished porcelain First Born looks different from the mystery pony, her prototype is identical - same hair color/pattern, same symbol. I think WildShadow has a pamphlet/booklet with the prototype porcelain in it. I know she's shown the picture before!
Ahh, I know the photo you mean but I can't find it anywhere x_x; I know I've seen it before..
This is one of my favourite pony mysteries, hehe. I love how many mysteries G1 has.. but also I hate it since we'll probably never know the answers to all of them.. XD aaa.
-
While the finished porcelain First Born looks different from the mystery pony, her prototype is identical - same hair color/pattern, same symbol. I think WildShadow has a pamphlet/booklet with the prototype porcelain in it. I know she's shown the picture before!
Ahh, I know the photo you mean but I can't find it anywhere x_x; I know I've seen it before..
This is one of my favourite pony mysteries, hehe. I love how many mysteries G1 has.. but also I hate it since we'll probably never know the answers to all of them.. XD aaa.
Looks like we to make another G1 mysteries thread!
-
I think she is called First Born because of her pose, although Newborn would have worked also.
Ponyfan
-
First Born is the name of her porcelain "piece". Every piece has a name, like the one where Posey and Baby Blossom are touching noses is called "An Affectionate Moment." :) I think the name of each porcelain is printed on its underside.
In terms of "why did they name the piece that", I wonder if they were trying to cash in on people buying gifts for baby showers?
-
Another thing I just realized is a lot of the ponies only get one or two lines except for Firefly, Bowtie, Twilight, Applejack and Ember.
Ponyfan
-
Another thing I just realized is a lot of the ponies only get one or two lines except for Firefly, Bowtie, Twilight, Applejack and Ember.
Ponyfan
yeah, this is what I thought when I watched the episode. I know that it was made for little kids, but they didn't really delve into the characters like they could have. I wanted to see the inside of dream castle, and I thought that they would have shown more of Tirek. I thought that Firefly had the best personality (she's a lot like Rainbow Dash from FiM) but I feel like that they could have given every character more depth if they just had the time.
-
Part of the problem is you only have 20 minutes, and there was a lot of cover. It would have been nice if they got the three or five episodes Transformers and G.I. Joe got for their pilots. Though, then The End of Flutter Valley showed how you can squander that kind of an opportunity.
-
I think the Parade of Costumes at the end of Escape from Catrina takes place inside Dream Castle and I think there are two very short scenes in the movie where we see the ponies and animals trying to protect Dream Castle from the Smooze and also where the Smooze goes over the wall and inside Dream Castle.
Maybe Hasbro didn't want to use lines on ponies that spent most of the special as dragons in Midnight Castle but it's a little sad when you realize that Moondancer and Bubbles only got lines like "Oh! Help! and "Let us go!" Cotton Candy got a few more lines than the rest of the captured ponies.
Ponyfan
-
Speaking of Bubbles, dose anyone love that she used her tail to wash her mane when she was bathing in the brook?
-
Speaking of Bubbles, dose anyone love that she used her tail to wash her mane when she was bathing in the brook?
yup! always thought it was cute.
-
I love threads like this.
I haven't seen the prototype Porcelain baby pony but I would sure love to. :D
I never though about the mystery rainbow pony being the "original" peachy. But that is a super good hypothesis since she always carries around they cat. Maybe they wanted the Pretty Parlor to come with the rainbow pony but found that production cost at the time were too high for a "give away" pony so they use a Snuzzle recolor? The playset ponies were always pretty simple probably for that reason. Someone with more knowledge of of the release timelines for these will probably help debunk this theory.
As for the corresponding Sea Pony thing, I always wondered that myself since the blue and pink one had yellow bows like Bowtie. Glad I'm not the only one that thought that.
I still wonder to this day if they ever thought of making Scorpan or Tyrek toys.
-
Part of the problem is you only have 20 minutes, and there was a lot of cover. It would have been nice if they got the three or five episodes Transformers and G.I. Joe got for their pilots. Though, then The End of Flutter Valley showed how you can squander that kind of an opportunity.
yeah they could have done that, I wish that they would have done that in FiM. Animation companies always want to have the pilot in a max of 2 episdoes, when they can extend it to however much they need.
-
I still wonder to this day if they ever thought of making Scorpan or Tyrek toys.
I wish they had. Just about every other toy line had toys of their respective shows' villains: Jem, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Moondreamers, Care Bears, etc..... I would have loved to to have had Scorpan, Tirek, and Lavan as a kid.
-
I still wonder to this day if they ever thought of making Scorpan or Tyrek toys.
I wish they had. Just about every other toy line had toys of their respective shows' villains: Jem, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Moondreamers, Care Bears, etc..... I would have loved to to have had Scorpan, Tirek, and Lavan as a kid.
yeah, but they don't really match the "girly girl" likeness of the ponies. They don't seem to go together very well (at least i don't think so toywise) and maybe they thought that it would confuse kids who hadent seen the special.
-
I still wonder to this day if they ever thought of making Scorpan or Tyrek toys.
I wish they had. Just about every other toy line had toys of their respective shows' villains: Jem, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Moondreamers, Care Bears, etc..... I would have loved to to have had Scorpan, Tirek, and Lavan as a kid.
yeah, but they don't really match the "girly girl" likeness of the ponies. They don't seem to go together very well (at least i don't think so toywise) and maybe they thought that it would confuse kids who hadent seen the special.
So? It didn't stop kids from getting Discord, The Misfits or Queen Scowlene
-
That's true. Rescue at Midnight Castle came out in the spring of 1984, and was in response to the popularity of the Year 2 ponies. Tirac and Scorpan would have been released as part of Year 3.
Glow in the dark Lavan Demons and Ice Orcs would have been a fun toy to add to the Year 5 line. However, I think they were an invention of Michael Reaves for the episode, so you had the same issue. The show was always behind the toys, so any ideas exclusive to them were after the toys had already been out for almost a year.
Too bad Hasbro U.K. never used any comic characters. The Weather Witch would have made a nice doll with her weather motif clothes (better than Megan in yet another white and pink dress).
-
I would have been over the moon for a Moochik doll, as well as Tirek and Scorpan. I can just imagine Tirek coming with his chariot, and ponywear showing the ponies as the chariot beasties. Or Scorpan with the dragons he rode, large enough to pick up ponies.
Oh man, those would have been AMAZING. Then I wouldn't have had to borrow my rothers' Ninja Turtles enemies to be the ponies' foes!
-
I would have been over the moon for a Moochik doll, as well as Tirek and Scorpan. I can just imagine Tirek coming with his chariot, and ponywear showing the ponies as the chariot beasties. Or Scorpan with the dragons he rode, large enough to pick up ponies.
Oh man, those would have been AMAZING. Then I wouldn't have had to borrow my rothers' Ninja Turtles enemies to be the ponies' foes!
even tho hopefully they wouldn't have toned tirek down for the toy, he's such a good villain!
-
I would have been over the moon for a Moochik doll, as well as Tirek and Scorpan. I can just imagine Tirek coming with his chariot, and ponywear showing the ponies as the chariot beasties. Or Scorpan with the dragons he rode, large enough to pick up ponies.
Oh man, those would have been AMAZING. Then I wouldn't have had to borrow my rothers' Ninja Turtles enemies to be the ponies' foes!
Sounds like playtime at your house was fun. Are the turtles and ponies still foes? Or did they bury the hatchet? :p
-
Sounds like playtime at your house was fun. Are the turtles and ponies still foes? Or did they bury the hatchet? :p
The turtles went back to their own dimension (ie: were sold at a garage sale) and now the ponies rule unchallenged. But theirs is a golden reign, full of equality and compassion and mostly confined to plastic storage bins because a one bedroom apartment just doesn't have enough display space that isn't sunlight-prone. Historians have no idea how long their dynasty will last, but it's not slowing down any time soon!
-
Love the turtles vs ponies concept. It sounds like the kind of zombie apocalypse games my sister and I played and that I played at school with friends and ponies. Plus I had ghostbuster toys. So you can imagine how that played out.
Ok, on topic.
Love that animation of Windy. Can't remember if I saw it before. Feel like I did remember a conversation ages ago (I mean ages ago) about that animation but don't remember what came of it.
Peachy and the rainbow pony. Okay well, this may have nothing to do with it at all, but I actually wonder if Peachy was an afterthought pony overall. Rationale for this:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
This is from the Argos catalogue in the UK in the autumn of 1983. It's the earliest My Little Pony item in an Argos that I've found, as UK catalogue stuff is hard to come by. Argos didn't have the full line, there's a TV commercial for the flatfoot ponies that's a cut up version of the US commercial so I know we had those as well BUT this interests me more.
I've never seen a parlour like that in reality, nor a box for it. It could be a prototype image, but the reason it intrigues me is that Argos didn't usually use stock photos. They usually deboxed an item and photographed it. The text, however, says nothing about a pony included. The one pictured is Butterscotch.
So the idea that Peachy was still a concept in design at this point is really highly possible for me. And I think that the suggestion they recoloured Snuzzle for it also makes a lot of sense. Doesn't rule out the idea that the rainbow pony was the original idea for the grooming parlour but got pulled. We've seen other things pulled for whatever reason, so maybe she did exist, as a prototype, but then instead they decided to do a whole Rainbow pony set, and make a simpler pony for the parlour.
Snuzzle did come with the Grooming Parlour as well here, but only in 1987, which was much later.
Re "girly girl". I think the fact we're discussing an episode in which ponies are enslaved, turned into monsters, and a creepy, beating heart of darkness is trying to take over the world really proves G1 MLP was not a girly girl toy with girly girl stories. But I think that there were a number of "girl" aimed toys and storylines in the 1980s that weren't as "girly girl" as they would be in the modern "safety first" climate of kids TV shows. I remember someone saying once that if Jem was aired on TV today it would have to be aired after 10pm (this was someone in the US, dunno about here) because of the gratuitous violence from the Misfits and Rio's random potplant kicking temper tantrums. There are some amazing videos on Youtube of "violent" or "dangerous" Jem scenes!
Let's not forget, too that the villains of SheRa are actually MOTU figures/characters that got used in that series instead. And some serious stuff happens in SheRa too. This is the climate G1 was competing with, and so it matched up to the demand in my opinion for less "girly" and more "actiony". But I'd guess the reason that, unlike SheRa or Jem, MLP villains were not sold is that, unlike Hordak and company, they did not make regular appearances. It's a lot of money for a one shot wonder character and the TV series did not endure very long. So investing in making them seems risky. Maybe the movie witches. Otherwise, I don't see it working in a business sense. I doubt it had anything to do with girly girlness, since G1 is not as pink and sparkly as G3 and G4 in that regard.
The Weather Witch would have been a much more interesting doll than Megan, but sadly not to be...I would also have liked Question Mark and a few of the other comic regulars, like Junk-It, but Hasbro UK already scrimped on releasing full sets of ponies here.
-
I still find hilarious people gush over Twilight's Kingdom and Tirek. I just sit there and can tell they were trying way to hard to be cool and "hardcore" leading to a fight that felt gratuitous and a design for Tirek straight out of a Powerthirst commercial. They wanted to one-up the original Tirac but ended up making such a joke "pale imitation" is too kind a phrase.
Tirac of Midnight Castle will always be the true Tirac. Accept no imitations.
-
To me Rescue at Midnight castle is one of the darkest G1 MLP stories so I don't think Hasbro was afraid to release villain characters due to MLP being a brand marketed to girls. I agree that they probably didn't want to do the villain characters because most of them were only seen once. I have a VHS copy of the original special uncut and this is what the back of the box says.
My Little Pony, the wonderful series of toys that children love is now an enchanting animated program full of fun adventure and fantasy. Featuring the voices of Tony Randall and Sandy Duncan plus an original musical score My Little Pony is a delightful animated adventure for children to enjoy over and over again.
They're all here-the winged Firefly, beautiful Bowtie the baby Ember , Applejack Moondancer and more- all the fabulous Little Ponies that live in Dream Valley. When the evil half horse Tirac begins to kidnap them one by one to pull his dark chariot the Little Ponies ask their young friend Megan for help. With her beside them they set out from Dream Castle to battle Tirac's forces of darkness.
Ponyfan
-
The issue I have with the "we only see them once" thing is we only saw the ponies in the specials once as well, but we have toys of them. Some of them even have multiple releases (Firefly, I'm looking at you)! I grant, they wouldn't have been very good dolls. Making a centaur like Tirac/Tirek back in the 80's would have been a very different proposition than making it now. But we still would have had them!
-
The issue I have with the "we only see them once" thing is we only saw the ponies in the specials once as well, but we have toys of them. Some of them even have multiple releases (Firefly, I'm looking at you)! I grant, they wouldn't have been very good dolls. Making a centaur like Tirac/Tirek back in the 80's would have been a very different proposition than making it now. But we still would have had them!
Wrong emphasis. Toys existed, show made to showcase toys. It's not the other way around. I dunno how it works with the G4 line, as I don't follow it, but with G1, it was a case that ponies were made and animated specials were created to sell them. Therefore there are more ponies than animated scenes.
Same happened with Jem. The animation is the thing that has lasted, but it was created to sell dolls. The dolls didn't come from the animation.
By contrast, the one-ep-villain was literally that - a one episode character designed to showcase the heroics of the pony toys the kids were hopefully going to buy. Just like the comic characters mentioned above, they serve no other purpose really and thus aren't financially worth the investment. Not saying fans wouldn't have liked to have them, but from Hasbro's point of view, it didn't make sense.
Besides, I'm not sure how influential the G1 series was compared to FIM now. I suspect, considering its short run, Hasbro realised it didn't need cartoons to sell ponies. They were selling fine on their own. If the cartoon wasn't that influential, then there's even less reason to make villains who appear in one episode in a time period pre-online streaming and youtube and where VHS is basically the only option available.
-
Wrong emphasis. Toys existed, show made to showcase toys. It's not the other way around. I dunno how it works with the G4 line, as I don't follow it, but with G1, it was a case that ponies were made and animated specials were created to sell them. Therefore there are more ponies than animated scenes.
Same happened with Jem. The animation is the thing that has lasted, but it was created to sell dolls. The dolls didn't come from the animation.
By contrast, the one-ep-villain was literally that - a one episode character designed to showcase the heroics of the pony toys the kids were hopefully going to buy. Just like the comic characters mentioned above, they serve no other purpose really and thus aren't financially worth the investment. Not saying fans wouldn't have liked to have them, but from Hasbro's point of view, it didn't make sense.
Besides, I'm not sure how influential the G1 series was compared to FIM now. I suspect, considering its short run, Hasbro realised it didn't need cartoons to sell ponies. They were selling fine on their own. If the cartoon wasn't that influential, then there's even less reason to make villains who appear in one episode in a time period pre-online streaming and youtube and where VHS is basically the only option available.
Oh, you're absolutely right that the cartoon was made to sell toys, not the other way around. I just wish they had made villains along with pretty ponies in the toyline. It's mostly a waste of flailing at this point, but a collector can dream, right?
:hope:
-
Yeah. Firefly and company were released in the fall of 1983. Rescue at Midnight Castle was made because they were a smash hit success.
And the series was more taking MLP's popularity and trying to use it to the elevate other brands. That ended up being a failure (all the "Friends" quickly went into the ash bin of history) and the Transformers and G.I. Joe cratering convinced Hasbro to give up on animation all together (for a whole year).
-
Love the turtles vs ponies concept. It sounds like the kind of zombie apocalypse games my sister and I played and that I played at school with friends and ponies. Plus I had ghostbuster toys. So you can imagine how that played out.
Ok, on topic.
Love that animation of Windy. Can't remember if I saw it before. Feel like I did remember a conversation ages ago (I mean ages ago) about that animation but don't remember what came of it.
Peachy and the rainbow pony. Okay well, this may have nothing to do with it at all, but I actually wonder if Peachy was an afterthought pony overall. Rationale for this:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
This is from the Argos catalogue in the UK in the autumn of 1983. It's the earliest My Little Pony item in an Argos that I've found, as UK catalogue stuff is hard to come by. Argos didn't have the full line, there's a TV commercial for the flatfoot ponies that's a cut up version of the US commercial so I know we had those as well BUT this interests me more.
I've never seen a parlour like that in reality, nor a box for it. It could be a prototype image, but the reason it intrigues me is that Argos didn't usually use stock photos. They usually deboxed an item and photographed it. The text, however, says nothing about a pony included. The one pictured is Butterscotch.
So the idea that Peachy was still a concept in design at this point is really highly possible for me. And I think that the suggestion they recoloured Snuzzle for it also makes a lot of sense. Doesn't rule out the idea that the rainbow pony was the original idea for the grooming parlour but got pulled. We've seen other things pulled for whatever reason, so maybe she did exist, as a prototype, but then instead they decided to do a whole Rainbow pony set, and make a simpler pony for the parlour.
Snuzzle did come with the Grooming Parlour as well here, but only in 1987, which was much later.
That cat in the picture is so different! Is it plush? I like the blue cards with the white text. :D
We have a new mission. To find out if there was ever a prototype of the white pony with the rainbow hair. I bet there is a poloroid somewhere of her with the cat on her back that was sent to Sunbow back in the early 80s . XD Now to question the correct special pony guest. :D
-
Looking at First Born, her hair colors actually don't resemble Mystery Pony's much. First Born has only three colors in her hair: blue, pink, yellow, and blue again. RaMC Mystery Pony's hair is pink, orange, yellow, green, purple, and sometimes you can see blue in her mane, depending on the angle. Blue is the least prominent color in Mystery Pony's mane, but the most prominent on First Born.
I'd love to see pictures of the First Born prototype that was mentioned, though.
-
On the villains thing, Hasbro wasn't going to make Cobra until Marvel literally wrote them in. When Marvel was brought in to make a comic adaptation of the reboot, they asked "Who is G.I Joe's enemy" and the Hasbro people just sat there with blank expressions. So, Hasbro had no input with the MLP villains and allies and therefore, and their exposure was too limited to bring out a toy of. It took years just for them to figure out what to do with bushwoolies. Their only attempt was the Fur-Bobs and for that got tabled probably because they were so annoying in animated form.
-
Any thought about Scorpan? I know he was forced to serve Tirek but unlike the guards and Stradons that blindly followed his every order Scorpan seemed to keep some of his free will. He saved Megan from falling and freed Spike and Ember.
I wonder if Tirek was planning on leaving Ember in the dungeon until the castle collapsed on top of her?
Ponyfan
-
There are two likely reasons for that.
1. Remember the other creatures were created from birds and butterflies. They probably had the intelligence to match. Scorpan was originally human.
2. Tirac seemed to relish forcing Scorpan to be submissive to him. Allowing him to keep his free will while still being powerless to do anything but obey made his humiliation all the sweeter.
-
Ohhh I would love toys of Scorpan and Tirac.. or any of the other cartoon-only chars (Catrina would make a great toy..)..
I never though about the mystery rainbow pony being the "original" peachy. But that is a super good hypothesis since she always carries around they cat. Maybe they wanted the Pretty Parlor to come with the rainbow pony but found that production cost at the time were too high for a "give away" pony so they use a Snuzzle recolor? The playset ponies were always pretty simple probably for that reason. Someone with more knowledge of of the release timelines for these will probably help debunk this theory.
I think you misunderstood me, I was talking about the cartoon, not the toys. My line of thinking is that perhaps Rescue at Midnight Castle was storyboarded/scripted with the background-pony-carrying-Twinkles as Peachy, but was later changed to Mystery Rainbow Earth Pony for w/e reason (i.e. Hasbro told them to put a rainbow pony in there to promote the upcoming line, Peachy's colours didn't work for animation, etc etc). I imagine the ponies wouldn't have their symbols in the original boards (they don't have them in the boards for the "Call Upon the Sea Ponies" sequence (http://www.wendellwasher.com/samples/storyboards/mlpseaponies/sbdmlpsea-109.htm), and I've noticed in storyboards of other cartoons that small details like that tend to be left out, presumably so they don't have to draw them over and over again), so it probably wouldn't be too hard to swap the two. If that makes sense...
I completely don't think that Miss Mystery (I'll call her that for the rest of this post, it's easier than typing "Mystery Rainbow Earth Pony" over and over) was ever supposed to be released with the Pretty Parlour. The earlier ponies were all very simply designed, with single-coloured hair and simple cluster symbols.. Miss Mystery doesn't fit in so I really don't think she had anything to do with that playset at any point. I mean, I guess it's *possible*, we don't know that she didn't, but it seems unlikely to me.
Of course, if you think otherwise, that's totally fine :B I just wanted to clarify my earlier post to avoid any confusion, lol.
Okay well, this may have nothing to do with it at all, but I actually wonder if Peachy was an afterthought pony overall. Rationale for this:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
I love seeing prototype photos :D thanks for posting it! So interesting.. I love the proto-Twinkles.
I was thinking about this earlier on, about Peachy being an afterthought. It makes a lot of sense to me! She IS basically just a recoloured Snuzzle, I wouldn't at all be surprised if she was slapped together quickly at the last minute. Either that or perhaps the Pretty Parlour was originally going to be released with Snuzzle, and she was swapped out for a new pony (which would make sense from a marketing point of view - having a new pony in a set instead of an "old" one makes it more appealing), again, at the last minute. Either makes sense to me. That's just idle speculation on my part, of course, I could be way off XD
There are two likely reasons for that.
1. Remember the other creatures were created from birds and butterflies. They probably had the intelligence to match. Scorpan was originally human.
2. Tirac seemed to relish forcing Scorpan to be submissive to him. Allowing him to keep his free will while still being powerless to do anything but obey made his humiliation all the sweeter.
I like these theories :o Especially the second, it makes a lot of sense.
-
Good point about all the early ponies being simple. Miss Mystery has six colors in her mane--more than any real MLP has ever had, as far as I know. Which does make me think she's more of a stand-in, like if Hasbro said "BTW we are also making rainbow ponies, put a rainbow pony in the show."
Miss Mystery's design is lovely, it's classic. But it's so classic it's almost generic, if that makes sense? Like, if you took a bunch of people who didn't know MLP and told them "draw a rainbow pony" with no other instructions, I feel like there's a good chance that you'd get some drawings of a white, rainbow-haired ponies / horses . . .
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
-
I just had a thought what if Miss Myserty was originally supposed to be Majesty? She has at lest Majesty body color.
-
Good point about all the early ponies being simple. Miss Mystery has six colors in her mane--more than any real MLP has ever had, as far as I know. Which does make me think she's more of a stand-in, like if Hasbro said "BTW we are also making rainbow ponies, put a rainbow pony in the show."
Miss Mystery's design is lovely, it's classic. But it's so classic it's almost generic, if that makes sense? Like, if you took a bunch of people who didn't know MLP and told them "draw a rainbow pony" with no other instructions, I feel like there's a good chance that you'd get some drawings of a white, rainbow-haired ponies / horses . . .
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
That's a good point, about how her design is kind of generic! It makes perfect sense :) She really is lovely - one day I'd love to get a custom of her.
-
There are two likely reasons for that.
1. Remember the other creatures were created from birds and butterflies. They probably had the intelligence to match. Scorpan was originally human.
2. Tirac seemed to relish forcing Scorpan to be submissive to him. Allowing him to keep his free will while still being powerless to do anything but obey made his humiliation all the sweeter.
I agree with both of these. Tirek thoroughly enjoyed his power over his more intelligent captives and watching them suffer. Without a second though he ordered the attacks on the ponies, had the captured ponies chained in his throne room so they couldn't escape, unleased the Rainbow of Darkness on them and threatened to behead a baby dragon for Scorpan's failure to comply with his demands. Watching Scorpan forced to follow his every order and knowing that deep down Scorpan was serving him unwillingly made Tirek's power over him more satisfying.
Ponyfan
-
I noticed in this scene there are a couple of different sea ponies that we don't see again during the rest of the song (the ones in the front)
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
(https://flic.kr/p/R6fQii)sea ponies (https://flic.kr/p/R6fQii) by LovesBarbie (https://www.flickr.com/photos/93040822@N05/), on Flickr
Ponyfan
-
I noticed in this scene there are a couple of different sea ponies that we don't see again during the rest of the song (the ones in the front)
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
(https://flic.kr/p/R6fQii)sea ponies (https://flic.kr/p/R6fQii) by LovesBarbie (https://www.flickr.com/photos/93040822@N05/), on Flickr
Ponyfan
Oh wow, I must have missed those.
-
I noticed in this scene there are a couple of different sea ponies that we don't see again during the rest of the song (the ones in the front)
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
(https://flic.kr/p/R6fQii)sea ponies (https://flic.kr/p/R6fQii) by LovesBarbie (https://www.flickr.com/photos/93040822@N05/), on Flickr
Ponyfan
Oh wow, I must have missed those.
i missed those as well.
-
The purple ones would have made lovely toys. Aren't the blue one Sea Winkle clones?
-
They're similar to Seawinkle, but she has a darker body and hair. (She's in the top corner to compare to, lol.)
There are also pink sea ponies and yellow sea ponies in the "haven't got an oar, OAR!" scene.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
-
I want a Bubbles colored sea pony.
-
Oh, I love those red/pink sea ponies! They're so pretty.
Then again, I love all of the background sea ponies XD Their colourschemes are all really nice; you can tell they put a lot of effort into making them look good.