Nice youtube review of all MLP series :)

[Dragonflitter]

It's so hard for me to find an online review that discusses all gens of MLP and is willing to talk about the pros of each in a fair light. I was pleasantly surprised to find this short 13-minute review while cruising youtube and I thought I'd share it with all of you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaNQyiPCCW4

[ringwraith10]

Wow, that really is a pretty nice review and it covers a lot of the aspects of the original shows that modern fans tend to be unaware of. It's either too bad or a wise decision that he skipped the G3.5 videos, though -- IMO those were pretty creepy, so maybe they didn't need to be covered.

[Leave a Whisper]

Yeah I've seen this one.

[Deep Purple Crystal]

Yeah I've seen this one.

I have as well, back when it was uploaded in 2013. It basically sums up the general consensus for each generation's media, though. I prefer videos with more interesting or differing opinions, rather than just a repeat of what others have stated before.
Also, this is not the only video to fairly cover all the generation in terms of their media. I'm sure I saw some kind of commentary by 'Familiar Faces' about this topic, but yeah, still just consensus.

[Lore-Lei]

The guy differentiated G1 from Tales but didn't bother to look into the G3/Core7/G3.5 timeline transition? I wonder if he even noticed it.

Regardless, it's better than most of the brony gushing I've seen, but it is fairly short and vague still.

[LadyMoondancer]

It's okay, but he implies that G1 My Little Pony was marketed towards both genders, and as proof points out that G1 had danger and adventure.  Really?  So any excitement and adventure is automatically there for boys?   No.  No offense intended towards little boys who liked G1, but it was marketed squarely at little girls in every possible way.

[Leave a Whisper]

It's okay, but he implies that G1 My Little Pony was marketed towards both genders, and as proof points out that G1 had danger and adventure.  Really?  So any excitement and adventure is automatically there for boys?   No.  No offense intended towards little boys who liked G1, but it was marketed squarely at little girls in every possible way.

Yup. Little girls like adventure and danger too. Care Bears, MLP, Sailor Moo, She-Ra, Rainbowbrite, Jem and the Holograms. We had it so good back then!

[Lore-Lei]

It's okay, but he implies that G1 My Little Pony was marketed towards both genders, and as proof points out that G1 had danger and adventure.  Really?  So any excitement and adventure is automatically there for boys?   No.  No offense intended towards little boys who liked G1, but it was marketed squarely at little girls in every possible way.

Yeah, I'm getting real tired of the 'it's dark and dangerous so it's cool and dude-ish' elementary school mindset lingering around as of late. Just because something has action in it, that doesn't automatically makes it well-written and vice versa. Of course, I'm not saying G1 was not well-written, I'm merely stating it was so for more than just the dark adventures.

[Al-1701]

It's okay, but he implies that G1 My Little Pony was marketed towards both genders, and as proof points out that G1 had danger and adventure.  Really?  So any excitement and adventure is automatically there for boys?   No.  No offense intended towards little boys who liked G1, but it was marketed squarely at little girls in every possible way.

Sadly a mentality that still exists.  G1 was squarely marketed towards girls.  It was all girls in the ads, it almost all female cast.  The ponies wore bows in their tails and had blush on their cheeks.  The main means of playing with them was combing and styling their hair.  Many of them were in classicly female roles like ballerinas and nurses.  I guess you can say they didn't make everything pink and heart-shaped (though there was a generous amount of pink and a few hearts) but that was out of respect for their customers' (girls) desire for diversity.

The animation was also made with the female target demographic in mind.  An almost entirely female cast with the two regular males being minor characters (the only real "boy" episode was "Spike's Search").  The ponies were all unmistakably female in their behavior (with some that were tomboyish at most).  Girls and women can be adventurous and face danger.

I got into the series because I liked these characters and became invested in their story.  Wind Whistler remains best pony with Fizzy a close second.  There are about a dozen G1 cartoon ponies I would put above any of the current Mane 6.  Though, I know I was not the target audience.

[Jorgito93]

It's okay, but he implies that G1 My Little Pony was marketed towards both genders, and as proof points out that G1 had danger and adventure.  Really?  So any excitement and adventure is automatically there for boys?   No.  No offense intended towards little boys who liked G1, but it was marketed squarely at little girls in every possible way.

Sadly a mentality that still exists.  G1 was squarely marketed towards girls.  It was all girls in the ads, it almost all female cast.  The ponies wore bows in their tails and had blush on their cheeks.  The main means of playing with them was combing and styling their hair.  Many of them were in classicly female roles like ballerinas and nurses.  I guess you can say they didn't make everything pink and heart-shaped (though there was a generous amount of pink and a few hearts) but that was out of respect for their customers' (girls) desire for diversity.

The animation was also made with the female target demographic in mind.  An almost entirely female cast with the two regular males being minor characters (the only real "boy" episode was "Spike's Search").  The ponies were all unmistakably female in their behavior (with some that were tomboyish at most).  Girls and women can be adventurous and face danger.

I got into the series because I liked these characters and became invested in their story.  Wind Whistler remains best pony with Fizzy a close second.  There are about a dozen G1 cartoon ponies I would put above any of the current Mane 6.  Though, I know I was not the target audience.

You know,when something isn't overly girly and cliche with characters only having tea parties (ironically a thing some bronies think g1 is) it must be for boys right? Because boys, as the superior gender, are the only who can have quality entertainment, riiiiiiight?

[Al-1701]

I always found the tea party accusation because:

1.  What's wrong with tea parties?
2.  Even if there was something wrong with them, they never had one.  They went on picnics.

[Dragonflitter]

I don't think the reviewer was saying G1 was aimed at both girls and boys because it had action in it. In fact, he specifically says in the opening of the review that he never watched the show as a kid because back then cartoons were more clearly "boy cartoons" and "girl cartoons" and he only watched boy ones. And as he's saying this, he shows us clips of MLP commercials that are clearly all girls brushing the ponies' hair. I think what he was saying is that Tales and G3 episodes were more stereotypically "girly" in comparison to G1, in that they focused on day-to-day things that are stereotypically considered important to young girls, like gossip and boys from Tales or making friends and birthdays like in G3.

I would have liked him to go more in depth, sure, but it was just a short over-view of the MLP brand. I liked a lot of his points. I never really considered that the music and songs have been such a part of MLP even from the very beginning and carried through to every generation, which makes the current incarnation stand out from a lot of the other cartoons aimed at children today.

(I like that there was a GI Joe episode about how not to litter )

[Beldarna]

It was an interesting watch but I get the feeling he kind of like just fastforwarded the episodes of earlier gens and didn't really watch them in full as he claim gen 4 has more diverse personalities and depth than "the past two gens". I mean, really. Now gen 3 was not the best cartoon ever made, but it was easy to distuingish Minty from Pinky Pie by just listetning to them (what they said, not their voices) and the Tales ponies were built on their different personalities. Also, he spent about two minutes rewieving each gen, except gen 4 who got double that which doesn't seem fair.. Maybe a small thing to hang up oneself on, but I did.

[LadyMoondancer]

I don't think the reviewer was saying G1 was aimed at both girls and boys because it had action in it. In fact, he specifically says in the opening of the review that he never watched the show as a kid because back then cartoons were more clearly "boy cartoons" and "girl cartoons" and he only watched boy ones.

Here's exactly what he says:

"With this first bunch [meaning the specials and MLP & Friends] you can sort of tell they haven't yet been effected by the massive success and overwhelming female fanbase, because they aren't afraid to have the ponies going on crazy adventures and fighting monsters."

Keyword: because.  BECAUSE MLP didn't yet have "a massive female fanbase", he says, the show had adventures and monsters.  Of course this is inaccurate in every possible way, including the fact that Year 2 was the pinnacle of popularity for MLP.  MLP was popular for a long time, but nothing ever quite matched the sheer hype of Year 2 (not even when the movie came out).

[Al-1701]

Dream Valley describes Years 4 and 5 as being the most popular, Year 2 as being the most memorable, and Year 3 as being the obscure in-between period.

Whatever the case, My Little Pony was on the map in a big way by its second year without the help of animation (Rescue at Midnight Castle coming out late in the release year).  The special was just icing on the cake, and its dark tone was probably because someone's love of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon since they got a lot of talent and ideas from it.

Years 4 and to a lesser extent 5 might owe some of their popularity to the show.  However, the brand had already made a big impression on little girls even without the television show.