Missed opportunities in the G1 cartoons

[sunshinedim]

What do you think were some missed opportunities in the G1 cartoons?

I would have loved to see the pony friends (Zig Zag, Creamsicle, Spunky etc.) featured in at least one of the episodes. An episode featuring the sweetheart sister ponies would also have been cool!

Also I would have loved to see more backstory about Megan... get to see her parents or her house in the human world and as well also see more of her regular non-talking pony TJ.

[Ponybookworm]

To see it go on for longer would have allowed a load of Ponies to come in: the Sparkle Ponies, the individual Newborns, the Sunshine Ponies, the Brush & Grow Ponies (animators would have had a field day with all that hair), the Loving Families & many others.

Another thing I would have liked was some Ponies from other countries coming in, like some of the gorgeous German Ponies or our own UK ones...

But then we had the comics so...

[kingluke]

Maybe more humans, in different skin tones?

Or pony friends?

But definitely more episodes and more different ponies.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

I have a lot of feelings about the n' Friends cartoon because I feel like it could use a lot of fine tuning...

I think a more refined art style, similar to RAMC, would help give these darker stories feel like they had a bit more weight. Some of these stories are really interesting, but the squishy ponies and inconsistencies make it kind of hard to take it as sincere! More budget, I guess, lol.

I both like the focus on so many different ponies, and feel like there could be more effort to characterize different ones. Maybe pick a few ponies to keep as common characters, but focus on adventures with some other new ponies sprinkled in. Thinking about that episode with Twilight and Locket, Heart Throb was a good choice, but she could have featured in some other episodes more prominently to have a better grasp at their characters. They did this to a degree, but more!!

Less of the baby ponies with that stupid voice. >< It's irritating and I don't remember liking baby voices as a kid. Could keep it goofy, but tone it down somewhat. I wouldn't mind focusing on them so much if they didn't all talk like that.

[Leave a Whisper]

I would have liked a few sea pony centric episodes,  and for the boys to come back more often.

I would have liked to have more interaction between Patch and the Glow n Shows.

Baby talk was stupid, especially when they spoke normally in the movie.

[Taffeta]

Fewer humans.

Otherwise...I think it would've been difficult for the tv series to have the mass cast that the comic managed, because of the format, so I'm fine with a more limited cast. I'm also fine with it being a cast drawn from ponies sold in the US (aside Tales). I always twitched at the 'wrong' names but most of them aren't wrong for the real target audience, which honestly wasn't me.

But I agree on baby language.

Also, attempting to make ponies the correct species at all times. Like Sniffles and Snookums are unicorns. Thank you Sunbow.

I'd have liked to have seen more emphasis on stories like Mimic's, with the backstory behind her lineage. It wouldn't need to be complicated. I think they did an ok job of developing characters that repeat appeared, like Wind Whistler, Fizzy etc - but not so much some of the small part characters. This is especially a problem now that Surprise, Sparkler etc are 'important' to another gen of fans...there's not a lot for them to work with and so the G4 impression kind of overwrites the G1.

Maybe some more relationship between some of the stories. I don't want a main cast, but it always felt sad to me that in Tambelon, they didn't have the option of going to talk to Firefly etc about how they defeated THEIR demon...

[Carrehz]

I would've loved to see the Twice as Fancies in the cartoon. Would've been interesting to see how they handled those symbols - if they'd have simplified them down to regular hip symbols (like they did with Scoops + the Rockin' Beats in Tales) or drawn them properly. There's a gorgeous VHS tape cover that depicts the TAFs hanging out with the Big Brothers, I wish that was a real ep!

[SpacePinto]

I believe it's okay as it is and doesn't need anything else that wasn't already included in it (although I would rewrite the big brother storyarc completely if I could), but if I had money and permission from Hasbro, I would fund a project to have all of its animation redone from scratch in order to fix all the animation errors, make it more fluid and maybe even alter some scenes a bit for better effect (like add a short dramatic scene in Magic Coins pt. 4 with burning ashes landing on the roof of Paradise Estate or something) The biggest challenge would probably be the audio errors, like where a character speaks someone else's line or speaks their own line in someone else's voice, but I believe this could be fixed by re-animating the scene with another character talking. The only problem I could see here is a scene in Ghost of Paradise Estate pt. 1 where Wind Whistler talks in Madquarade's voice, and this is probably the mistake I hate the most since the line she says is something that would just fit her so well and I would really love to hear her say it in her actual voice, but the only way to fix it (other than just hiring Ms. Partridge to record that line again) would be to replace her with Masquarade saying it which just wouldn't be the same.