POTD 8/31/2016 Baby Schoolbag

[invaderhorizongreen]

Lovely little gal, I want her dutch counterpart thoguh.

[northstar3184]

He's new to me. I'd like to have him someday.

[ringwraith10]

Most definitely a want!

[Taffeta]

Baby Schoolbag is cute, but as others have said, not a "her".    On his backcard, plus in all his comic appearances, he's a boy.

Yep. Baby Schoolbag is officially a boy pony. Hasbro made boy ponies in female moulds from that time onwards (Schooltime being another, and the Dads from the later families). It's a European release thing but every piece of material relating to him confirms he's meant to be a boy, even if for some reason they didn't/couldn't use the pose (I suspect that was a painted old pony and therefore they didn't still have the boy pose by that point.)

 I think it's hard enough on the poor lad that he looks effeminate without people calling his gender into question!

I had the same experience with seeing him in the shop and deciding he wasn't right, though. The main reason I never had any of that set as a kid was that the ones I saw never looked like their adverts, and him most of all.

I had Rainbow babies instead. They looked right.

I have both Baby Schoolbag and the dutch version, whose gender I guess is open to collector decision, as it wasn't officially stated.

[shintoji]

i legit did a 180 on how i feel about this pony. now that i know he's just a feminine looking boy, i absolutely LOVE HIM!!! i relate to him so much just because of that fact, and now im looking to buy him and his dutch brother. (if anyone is selling, pm me!)

[FarDreamer]

I have her and I think the set is really cute with the schoolhouse, but I think her color combo is ugly.

[S.o.a.r.]

She's my favorite in the set and the only one I really want!

[princessluna11706]

It's a girl in my herd.  I just can't accept that pose as a boy  I wish they would have made the boys in the proper molds for that set and the families!  I also have the Dutch version.

[Carrehz]

I have him!! Gotta love pink boys It's a shame they didn't make him in the boy pose like the prototype image, but I do love the final pony too.

I also have his Dutch counterpart ^^ I consider her a girl, I like pink boy/blue (well blue-green) girl pairs. She's such a lovely colour

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Taffeta]

It's a girl in my herd.  I just can't accept that pose as a boy  I wish they would have made the boys in the proper molds for that set and the families!  I also have the Dutch version.

My theory is still that Hasbro had sold or removed the boy moulds from manufacture by that point. We know from Ember's painted Paintingtime and the others that HAsbro UK did spray other ponies to create samples or designs, and there's a good chance the one in the insert photo is painted or resin rather than an actual moulded boy pony. Hasbro dropped down the number of poses being used, especially when it came to European releases. You really see that towards the end, except for the very last year, when they inexplicably start bringing in new poses again.

So because the proto showed feathered hooves, the comic drew him with feathered hooves. But the real official gender is what the Hasbro backcard says. And it says he's a boy, so he's a boy. I do wonder if Hasbro in Europe had a fight over trying to get him made as a boy mould, tho, only to find that the moulds were not available. It's a bit of a time lapse between the boy sets, and playschool babies. Plenty of time to decide that boyish boy ponies were no longer needed.

Alternatively it might have been the first sign of Hasbro removing obviously male ponies from the pony line. Thinking about it, they never did make Ace, Teddy and Lancer, and the Gingerbread pose became the default boy-pose when boys were made. Gen 2's boy ponies were not hugely different from the girl ponies in their poses. G3 had no boy ponies, I don't think...and G4...well, there have been a couple, mostly shining armour, I think? But it's not hugely on the agenda.

Maybe some silly person within Hasbro decided girls didn't want boy ponies that looked boyish even as early as 1990...O.O. You have to wonder, don't you...

Mind you, baby Schoolbag actually went through more than one transition. This is the prototype everyone's been mentioning again:

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


But there's also this one, which gets less discussion, which I think of as the middle step in the process (the Schoolbag had that a first tooth...)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


That latter comes from their actual release backcard. Nuff said...

[FarDreamer]

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Is this the same mold as one of the baby boys who's heads move?  I can't tell.

[Carrehz]

Ah, I don't know if I've seen FT-prototype Schoolbag before :O I wonder why he went through so many changes.. I'm glad they didn't go with that pose, anyway (I'm not a fan of FTs, lol). It is interesting, though :o

Alternatively it might have been the first sign of Hasbro removing obviously male ponies from the pony line. Thinking about it, they never did make Ace, Teddy and Lancer, and the Gingerbread pose became the default boy-pose when boys were made. Gen 2's boy ponies were not hugely different from the girl ponies in their poses. G3 had no boy ponies, I don't think...and G4...well, there have been a couple, mostly shining armour, I think? But it's not hugely on the agenda.

Maybe some silly person within Hasbro decided girls didn't want boy ponies that looked boyish even as early as 1990...O.O. You have to wonder, don't you...

You know, I wouldn't all be surprised if this was the case...

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Is this the same mold as one of the baby boys who's heads move?  I can't tell.

yup! The baby boys with non-moving heads didn't have feathered hooves

[reanna-mator]

Nope, don't have her. I really like her color combination, though.

[nemubones]

Don't have her as of yet but she is a cutie.