It’s taking them a while, but it looks like Hasbro is finally getting these DVD releases right. What did you think of the wedding special? Will you be picking it up on DVD?

In the 80s and 90s, My Little Pony had a special promotion going with Chuck E. Cheese restaurants. One of your prize options was… a special My Little Pony with the Chuck E. Cheese logo symbol on her rump exclusive to Chuck E. Cheese locations. (Symbols are what cutie marks used to be called, youngster. )

She’s a pretty collectible G1 pony because of her rarity but I think she’s unusual for another reason. She’s the one and only MLP to ever have a corporate logo on her rump!

Doesn’t everyone like a little pony with their pizza?

Oh, Petite Ponies!

My littlest ponies!

You’re this little, but I love you this big!

Your world is this little, but I love it this big!

Petite Ponies were plastic ponies of an inch high, some of which had brushable hair. Their bases had a horseshoe pattern that allowed you to activate their playset features. You can find a complete record of every Petite Pony and Petite Pony playset ever released in The My Little Pony G1 Collector’s Inventory.

I couldn’t find the original commercial with an English dub but the visuals are the same in this one:

I loved Petite Ponies. The Prancing Pretty Carousel was my favorite because it was more like a whole theme park. I especially liked the Petites as a kid because they were smaller and easier to get out without having to drag out all the full sized pony playsets. That said, I could never get into Dream Beauties.

Did you have any Petite Ponies in your collection?

Suddenly that free two week trial never looked so good!

Will you be watching?

The Original 2003 Pinkie Pie
[photo credit MyLittleWiki

I’ve been wanting to do a series like this for a long time so a big thanks to trviamaven for teeing me up with last week’s trivia question. Now if only we can sneak them all in as trivia columns, I might actually get to do the whole series.

Pinkie Pie debuted first debuted in 2003 as part of the Glitter Celebration Set. She was actually in both the first and second set of Glitter Celebration ponies in two different poses, an early example of the overexposure that would eventually make her infamous with collectors.

See, Hasbro has long insisted that pink ponies sell better than ponies of any other color and Pinkie Pie soon became one of the most hated characters ever as the market was flooded with version after version of this same pony in a variety of poses and styles. Even many of the collector exclusive ponies during the early years of G3 were just special versions of Pinkie Pie. The situation only got worse when she was named one of the Core 7.

For collectors who were used to a wide variety of ponies, colors and symbols, the glut of Pinkie Pies lead to collectors getting sick of her, begging Hasbro to turn their attention to new ponies or, at least, different ponies. But while collectors may have had mixed feelings, Hasbro embraced her fully making her the unofficial face of the new wave of ponies that began in 2003 and continues into today.

Pinkie Pie was also the very first pony made into a walkaround character.

In 2010, Pinkie Pie joined the cast of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Though there was talk of changing her into a pegasus (as they did with fellow 2003 release, Rainbow Dash) they ultimately left her as an earth pony. As the show brought her to a whole new audience of children and bronies, Pinkie Pie has enjoyed new found popularity with her new bubbly personality.

Has the new show finally redeemed this MLP black horse? Only time will tell.

But with Friendship is Magic borrowing so heavily from the first generation of MLP, I had to take a look back to see if maybe there was a proto-Pinkie Pie hidden somewhere in a past generation. Let’s see… pink hair, pink body and balloons… Might her distant ancestor be Twice as Fancy Up, Up and Away released between 1986-87? Her balloons are green and yellow instead of blue and yellow but the similarities are there.

How do you feel about Pinkie Pie? Do you still harbor some ill will or has she wormed her way into your heart?

Princess Twinkle Star

The second generation was different in a lot of ways but none more obvious then when it came to pegasus ponies. In addition to the fact that this was the first generation where some unicorns also had wings, the pegasus ponies of the second generation could… remove their wings entirely! As Princess Twinkle Star on the right shows, their wings were removeable and clipped either onto the pony’s back or in your hair.

Once you had a pair of G2 wings, this let you make any G2 pony into a pegasus… just like that! Pretty nifty, huh?

One thing I find strange, though, is that… of all the pony conventions and meet-ups I’ve been to over the years, I can’t ever remember seeing someone wearing a pair of G2 wings in their hair. See how cute it would look?

Why isn’t this fashion trend sweeping the collecting community? Have you ever rocked this look? Pictures are absolutely welcome!

PS: I know that G1 Flutter Ponies wings come out but since they aren’t supposed to be removed, they don’t count as being removable.

Image via Wikipedia

Hasbro has a bit of a dilemma on their hands. Obviously, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on The Hub is a runaway hit and a big part of that success was the fact that episodes were so easy for anyone to watch online on sites like YouTube. Originally, Hasbro’s stance seemed to be that they didn’t care that episodes were being streamed on the web… they only cared about sales of the toys itself. But once they started selling individual episodes on iTunes the situation got a little more complicated.

Having worked with a variety of toy companies, let me just take a second to tell you that Hasbro is AMAZING to their fans. If you knew how often other toy companies were suing the heck out of their fans for the slightest things, you’d have a renewed appreciation for just how fantastic and fan friendly Hasbro is with their properties. They let us all happily run amuck with their characters when it comes to fan art, fiction, customs, websites and more.

But the streaming video issues is more complex. It’s hard to fault them for wanting to profit on their own content… they have every right to! But they don’t want to give up the ease of viewing that got them this huge fan base in the first place.

You can make the case that fans are just being lazy when they complain that they need the episodes streaming, especially when legal downloads of the show are just a quick visit to iTunes away. I can’t help but feel like a proper DVD release of each season would go a long way to help this situation and I believe that’s on the radar… eventually.

But the question a lot of people are asking, and rightly so, is why doesn’t Hasbro just stream the episodes themselves? Either directly through a partnership with YouTube or on The Hub website, they should be able to run advertising on the streaming videos and still profit off the content… without limiting its availability. Is the issue with this the advertising itself? Is it because they wouldn’t know what sort of ads to run, ie would they target parents and little girls who are the target demographic or us adult fans? It’s left a lot of people wondering why they aren’t doing this and I can only assume it’s because of a very good reason… that we just haven’t thought of yet!

What do you think is the biggest problem with Hasbro doing their own MLP: FiM ad supported streaming? How do you think Hasbro should handle this situation?

Related articles

• My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic finally coming to DVD with The Friendship Express (mylittleponycollecting.com)

Now… extra bonus points if you can tell me which pony it is…

But it also makes a very simple little fan art generator for those of us that may not have the artistic ability of others out there. With a bunch of backgrounds, all the major characters in a variety of poses and costumes and a bevy of props, you can actually use this creator to set up scenes for fan art and comics. Just grab a screenshot of your work once it’s finished.

From a multi-panel comic to a one-panel gag for the My Little Brony crowd, there’s a lot of potential!

If you end up making anything, please share it with us below!

Here’s some quick screenshots to give you an idea of what it’s like. No, I don’t know what’s going on in any of these scenes either.

CNN: ‘My Little Pony’ Goes Geek

Check out Ponyrific Pictures on Facebook here.

The answer is… sort of. Because look what I just found:

Adorable? Yes. Officially Hasbro licensed? It’s being sold by by Disguise which sells the other licensed MLP costumes so that sign points to yes.

And, before you ask, only child and toddler sizes. Sorry, adult sized guys and gals! But think of the fun you can have dressing your little ones!

Not comfortable ordering from Disguise? Amazon has these new My Little Pony costumes as well.

What do you think of this costume? Cute? Lame? Do you think we’ll see more before trick or treat time?

You can buy the MP3 by naming your price here.

The Death Star symbol (cutie mark if you’re new school) is clutch! I’ve never met her, but I kind of love Sarah…

(via Cake Wrecks)

Steampunk Ponies, y’all! See all the new shirt designs here. 

(via My Little Brony)

Their awards are actual early G3 ponies spray painted gold! (Are they only picking ponies with pink hair to spray paint or are they re-rooting the manes and tails? These are the things I wonder when I see something like this.)

See?

Their logo, as you can see, is even old G3 artwork. You can learn more about the awards by checking out Pwnies.com/. CNN also has an overview here.

Click any image below to see full size.