Did TV influence your collecting?

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Did you watch the animated My Little Pony TV shows/movies of the 1980's-2010's?  Did it have an influence of any kind on your collecting? 
Consider "collecting" to be when you made the decision to worry about value, condition, and display potential...  regardless of age.
Please explain more in a reply if you have a different answer than the four I came up with!
 
A)Yes, watched show, it encouraged my collecting
B)Yes, watched show, but it didn't encourage collecting as you liked the toys more
C)No, didn't watch show, so it encouraged collecting
D)No, didn't watch show, didn't encourage collecting as you liked the toys
E)Completely different answer which I will reply to below!
 
I'm probably a "B".  I didn't have steady access to TV so I didn't usually see the show.  To compound this, it started as I was leaving for preschool/kindergarten.  It was one of the few shows I was allowed to watch when we DID own a TV (30% of the time), as my reading time dropped significantly with a TV in the house.   
 
And you?

[hathorcat]

I am a "no didnt watch the show" person - I watched the movie as often as I could convince my dad to hire it from the video rental shop...but that was obviously after I had the ponies....

I just loved ponies since the day my mum and dad brought the first one home...if I am honest even to this day the whole MLP thing is about the toys for me and the shows whether G1 or G4 are just a nice little addition but something I could live without if they had never been made.

[StarSwirl05]

I saw the G3 movies and the MLP Tales TV series but my collecting really hasn't taken off from that, though I guess my collection might expand with the release of the Nightmare Moon toy.

[Koudoawaia]

I believe joining here actually started my collecting though it was because of FiM that I looked for pony boards since none of the ones I was on was a place I could talk about how awesome it was and ended up here.

[ponylady]

I am a (D) because "no I didn't watch the original".  I was a little to old at that point  
 
Anyways about 4 or 5 years ago I purchased a Snuzzle at a second-hand shop(loved her colors).  I love toys so it felt natural to want more!
 
And then..............the rest is history! 

[kittybethy]

I loved the old show, but it did not affect my collecting!

[ZettaMomo]

I believe joining here actually started my collecting though it was because of FiM that I looked for pony boards since none of the ones I was on was a place I could talk about how awesome it was and ended up here.

I have to say this!
I watched FiM, but I really wasn't into collecting. I just had a few ponies (by few I mean 2). Once I joined here I started collecting more and more ponies.

[cloud_weaver]

Hrm...tricky one for me to answer.  I answered "Yes in influenced my collection" because in my early teens when I picked up collecting again it was a huge influence, especially with certain ponied.

But honestly when I was a tiny tot, I don't remember getting that many ponies - my parents got me what they liked.  (Like my dad got me quite a few of the Brother ponies!)

[Baby Sugarberry]

I started "collecting" (childhood collection) ponies long before I ever saw the show - and even after I knew it existed, I never got to see more than maybe four or five episodes (mostly rented from the video store).  We only had four TV channels; my parents were not hip on using it as a babysitter.

[SkyCakes]

I was able to watch the 80's show as a little girl though I was older around 7-8. I did think it influenced my collecting habits. That is why I fell in love with Surprise. I bought alot of ponies after that.

[StarDragon]

I watched the G1 show as a child, but it never influenced what toys I would get, considering that they didn't have pony toys during 1994-96.

In fact, I didn't know pony toys existed until I was 12 or 13, which was when I began collecting them. Had there been toys when I was a girl, I definitely would have wanted some!

[OctoberFlash]

I am an A... if it weren't for MLP:FiM, I wouldn't be here today. I loved the show, which encouraged me into customizing, and then I discovered there were beautiful ponies I DIDN'T want to customize, which made me a collector too

As a child, I had ponies but I didn't watch the shows... I gave my childhood ponies away a while ago, though, and would not have gotten back into ponies without the show. xP

[Malicieuse]

I would collect no matter if there would be a tv show or not.
The shows do influence me though. Both positive and negative.
For example, when Thistle Whistle was first shown i loved her. But because of her annoying personality in the show i never got her. Same thing with Trixie. Her design is nice but her show personality is so obnoxious. That's why i don't care that much about getting her either.

While on the other hand, because of the show i wouldn't mind getting several versions of Rarity. Something i would never care for if there was no personality attached to her.

[Lancer]

I guess I'm an A, although it's a tricky question to answer.  My first experience of ponies was seeing them being sold off in a toy shop at the end of the G1 line, I had a few which I adored.  About six months after that, I got my first video of the MLP & Friends series and fell in love with the show as well.

Later in my childhood, around 1996-7, they started showing repeats of both the original series and Tales on Sky One and I was addicted to it, especially Tales.  Ponies were long gone from the shops by this point though so it didn't influence my pony buying, I just used to pretend the ponies I did have were the characters I watched on TV and act out the stories that way.

When I started buying ponies at toy fairs and car boot sales in 1998 (aged just 7, but that's really when I started "collecting" properly), it was definitely the TV characters I wanted.  I'd squeal out loud when I found one as I'd waited years to be able to act out the stories "properly" with the correct ponies.

So yes, I love the toys and the TV series equally.  The TV show certainly held my interest throughout my later childhood, inspired my fanfiction series, and made me keep searching at car boot sales for my favourite characters.  I probably would have kept on collecting without it, but not to the same extent.

[Vintergatan]

I wasn't even aware there were pony shows and moves until i started collecting a few years ago, so absolutely a D