Often mistaken for My Little Pony toys, Hasbro also released colorful horses of a similar size as part of which of their other popular toy brands?

Think you know the answer? Go ahead and post it below.

The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Your first guess was Powerpuff Girls, wasn’t it? But Lauren Faust, original executive producer of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, actually won an Emmy in 2008 for her work as head writer on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.

Out of Powerpuff Girls, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which show is your favorite?

Lauren Faust, the original executive producer of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, won an Emmy in 2008 for her work as head writer on what show?

Think you know the answer? Go ahead and post it below.

The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

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?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Back in the early days of My Little Pony, Hasbro gave us all those brides and wedding dresses… you better believe we had some weddings. Summer did a great post tracing weddings, brides and wedding dresses throughout the history of MLP here.

In honor of the Wedding of the Century on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic today, I wanted to ask: When you were little, which ponies did you couple off? Which of your ponies were married to each other or coupled off?

If you got into MLP as an adult, tell us who you ship these days.

When I was little, my favorite pony couple was Moondancer (that I made male) and Glory. Their kids were Baby Moondancer (who, oddly enough, was still female and just totally Daddy’s little girl) and Baby Glory. (Pearlized Baby Glory and Moondancer were their freaky cousins from an alternate dimension. Obviously.)

I also had Special Edition Firefly married to original Firefly. Someone on Twitter told me this was weird and like marrying her to her clone which I never really thought about before. I think I renamed special edition Firefly something like Lighting so it wasn’t weird that they had the same name. That said, I have two friends in real life named Jamie (one male, one female) who are married so it’s not that weird.

My weirdest family was Wigwam who was married to Peppermint Crunch and lived in the Show Stable with their three kids: Little Racer, Frilly Flower, and Baby Wiggles. I keep meaning to commission a fan artist to draw me this because I definitely need a picture of this little family hanging in my office somewhere.

Lemon Drop moved into a Collector’s Case (which, let’s face it, are basically pony condos) with Peachy after Peachy sold the Pretty Parlor to Twilight and Sunbeam and their Teeny Tiny pony twins, Sniffles and Snookums (they waited a long time to have kids, clearly).

Tux ‘n Tails also left Satin ‘n Lace and ran off with Bow Tie. It was a huge scandal.

Anyway, that’s some of my childhood couplings. How about you?

Did anyone couple ponies from different generations?

What playful pizza place partnered with Hasbo in the 80s and 90s with an exclusive pony?

Think you know the answer? Go ahead and post it below.

The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

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?

What inch high plastic ponies and mini-playsets predated Ponyville?

Think you know the answer? Go ahead and post it below.

The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

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?

What year did future Friendship is Magic star Pinkie Pie make her debut?

Think you know the answer? Go ahead and post it below.

The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

What differentiates the wings of pegasus ponies from the second generation (G2) from all other generations?

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The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

The name Bettina Bush may not be immediately familiar to you but she’s an actress, singer and, most importantly for our purposes, was the voice of Megan in My Little Pony and Friends (1986). But what you might not know was that she was also the voice of another 80s icon… Rainbow Brite!

Image via Wikipedia

Bettina’s also had roles on Rugrats and has done a ton of familiar commercials and video games so I recommend taking a quick pop over to her official website at Bettina Bush.com and listening to all the vocal clips. She’s also a singer with several albums to her credit that you can sample and purchase from her website.

Not bad for a girl that used to hang out in Dream Valley!

Bettina Bush, the voice of Megan in My Little Pony and Friends (1986), also voiced what other iconic 80s character?

Think you know the answer? Go ahead and post it below.

The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

Considering how many sets of Valentine’s ponies there have been since this set first debuted, these little ladies were real trend setters!

If it were up to you, what would you have named these Valentine’s Day Twins?

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

The very first Valentine’s Day ponies every released were unnamed and weren’t available in toy stores. Where could you find them?

Think you know the answer? Go ahead and post it below.

The answer will post next Tuesday so watch this space!

Image via Wikipedia

Hey guys! Kathy aka triviamaven here. I know… you thought I fell off a cliff or something. I’ve been a pretty terrible blogger lately but that’s about to change.

Long time readers will remember that we used to do a weekly trivia question here at MyLittlePonyCollecting.com. Well, we stopped doing it for a while mostly because… I was going nuts trying to remember to post it every single week. But I’m please to announce that, starting tomorrow, trivia is back… with a few changes.

The biggest change is that trivia will now be every other week instead of every week. Every Tuesday (starting next week) I’ll post a trivia question. Everyone will have a week to leave their guesses and then the answer will post the following week in a bi-weekly column from Hillary. Simple enough, right?

There won’t be any prizes for the weekly trivia most of the time… you’ll just get bragging rights for posting the correct answer. But we’ll have more trivia based contests in the future, don’t worry!

So get your thinking cap on and stay tuned for more trivia fun!

Well, in one of those, the internet is wonderful moments, I was contacted by the culprit behind the cute that you see above! Turns out, the photo above was taken by one of our own, namely Ianthe99 (aka Amber) of the MLPTP. I asked her if she’d be willing to give us a little “behind the scenes” info about both the photo and how it ended up in the calendar and she was kind enough to agree.

AND, because she’s extra awesome, she also gave us a few more pictures from that same day which you can see after the interview below.

OK, I gotta ask: what was going on when you snapped that photo?

Well, I was rearranging my pony collection. I was getting ready to put all of my gem G3′s on a separate shelf. So I pretty much just took them all and dumped them on the couch. Next thing I look over, Biscuit has curled up right in the middle with them… so out comes the camera. I got lucky and was able to sneak one under her paw.

How did it end up in the Cute Overload calendar?

If I remember right, I posted it to a Livejournal community dedicated to cute cat pictures. People kept telling me I should submit it to Cute Overload..so I did. She wound up on the site. Then, a while later, someone from the site contacted me and told me they were using it for the calendar, and asked me if I would like a copy! It was pretty neat!

Do you remember what other ponies were in attendance that day?

Only ones I can remember are the ones I can pick out of the pictures. It’s pretty much most of the gem g3′s. I think I was missing a birthstone or two and Silver Lining at the time. Here’s a list.

Valenshy
Wondermint
July Jubilee
Crystal Lace
January Joy
Sunshimmer
Hidden Treasure
Gem Blossom
June Blossom
March Mischief
Juniper Jade
Star Dasher
Twilight Twinkle
Winterberry
Windy Wisp
November Nights

I think that’s most of them. It’s been a while.

(Click the pictures to see them full size.) Thank you, Amber!

Isn’t the internet wonderful, you guys?

This is one of those things that causes some confusion amongst pony fans. Sparkle Ponies, Baby Sparkle Ponies, Glow ‘n Show Ponies and Divine Shine Ponies are sometimes referred to as being one of a kind (that’s OOAK for the cool kids). While obviously these were factory made like all My Little Pony items, what collectors really mean by this is that no two are exactly alike.

See, all four of the types of ponies listed above are filled with something (glow in the dark chips in the case of Glow ‘n Show, sparkles in the other three cases). Literally, this means the ponies were lined with a sticky substance and the “filling” was tossed inside.

But gravity added the element of surprise and randomness and no two ponies could possible be filled in the exact same pattern as it all depended on how the filling fell. Meaning, the one you have in your hands, while technically the same as the one I have in mine, will have a totally unique pattern of sparkles (or glow in the dark chips).

To illustrate this further, you sometimes find ponies like this:

This is Baby North Star of the Baby Sparkle Ponies. She’s cute and she knows it. But what isn’t immediately clear from this picture is that her sparkles are really uneven.

See? There are hardly any sparkles on her from this angle. But when we go back to the top of her head…

There is a massive clump of sparkles in her one ear and a disproportionate number of sparkles on her face in general. (Her forelock is also trimmed but that’s besides the point.)

Does this make her more or less collectible? Well, that depends on how unusual the spread is. A pony like this still looks mostly like herself. However, if, say, she had almost no sparkles on her body and they were all clumped into one foot, I could see that decreasing her value. Even though that’s how the factory made her, just the fact that a pony looks off can decrease its value.

However, that said, there are always those collectors that specialize in the unusual and a one of a kind pony like that may be just what they are after! There is, very literally, no other pony just like this.

Have you ever gotten a particularly unusual spread of sparkles or glow chips in a pony? We’d love to see the photo!

How do you feel about uneven fillings? Would it be enough to make you not want the pony?

What color is her body, you ask? Well, let’s talk about this.

See, there are two different versions of Skywishes. They are in the same exact pose, have the same hair color, same symbol, same eyes, same cutie mark and both are insufferably smug about something.

It’s like they think they’re so much better than us

But their bodies, while both in the pink color family, are clearly not the same color.

One is a bright neon pink while the other is a shiny pale purple. This isn’t fading or damage, there really were two different versions of this pony.

The neon pink version (on the left) is from the 2nd set of Seaside Celebration Ponies set. She was on a tropical vacation. Maybe its supposed to be a tan?

The purple-y version (on the right) came with the first Perfectly Pony set, Sweet Reflection Dress Shop, and the Musical Wishes Jewelry Box.

So, as a collector, all you want to know is which is worth more, right? Well, here’s the thing. Logically, the neon version should be rarer since she only came with one set and the purple one came with several. But since not every collector got playsets and the Seaside Celebration was a popular set (everyone is a sucker for little plastic friends and hula skirts), it may end up being more even than you think. The one factor to keep in mind is that, since she came with more accessories, Neon Skywishes will be worth more mint in box than Perfectly Pony Skywishes who only came with a brush and possibly a charm.

“Psst! I think they’re talking about us.”

But sellers don’t often realize there is a difference so you’ll have to look closely when buying online to check which version of her you’re getting. You’ll often see either version of this pony listed as the other so by careful when you buy and be sure to ask questions to avoid disappointment.

Anyone want to add anything to this discussion of Skywishes? Please chime in below.

• NRFB – Never Removed From Box
• MIB – Mint in Box
• MOC – Mint on Card
• NWT – New with Tags (mostly used for clothing or dolls that did not come in packaging)
• NIP – New in Package (this term is newer than the rest and is only recently coming into popularity)

There are also a wide variety of mash-ups of the terms above where the user tries to jam two of the acronyms above together so you get things like NRFC (Never Removed From Card), MIC (Mint in Card) or NWOT (New WithOut Tags). You will also sometimes see things like NMIB which means that the item is Near or Not Mint in Box.

As a buyer, you don’t want to actually put these terms into your search because there is a such a wide variety of ways people use these but it is helpful to know what they stand form when you encounter them. As always, make sure that you read the seller’s description fully before buying as their title may not agree with their description.

As a seller, when deciding which one to use in your description, go for the most commonly used term for your sort of item.

Think you know the answer? Post your guess below.

Please feel free to post your response even if someone has already posted an answer. Answering trivia questions is sometimes just for fun and sometimes for prizes so be sure to put your answer in if you know the answer or at least have a good guess so you don’t miss out when we are offering something. If we are currently giving prizes for trivia answers, we will post the details on the homepage. Trivia questions post at a slightly different time each week to make it fair for all time zones to participate. We post a new trivia question every Tuesday and post answers every Thursday. If you want to be sure not to miss a question or answer, you can subscribe via email, RSS, or Twitter here.

That special symbol designates that the pony that bears it is in the Dress-Up pose. Introduced in 2008, this symbol indicates a pony that can fit into special molded clothing and accessory pieces. The presence of this symbol means that this pony can freely trade these molded clothing pieces with any other similarly marked pony.

Most of the ponies released in 2008 were in a Dress-Up pose.

Dress-Up ponies, as well as their clothing pieces, are covered in greater detail in The My Little Pony 2007-2008 Collector’s Inventory.

Think you know the answer? Post your guess below.

Please feel free to post your response even if someone has already posted an answer. Answering trivia questions is sometimes just for fun and sometimes for prizes so be sure to put your answer in if you know the answer or at least have a good guess so you don’t miss out when we are offering something. If we are currently giving prizes for trivia answers, we will post the details on the homepage. Trivia questions post at a slightly different time each week to make it fair for all time zones to participate. We post a new trivia question every Tuesday and post answers every Thursday. If you want to be sure not to miss a question or answer, you can subscribe via email, RSS, or Twitter here.

An alumni of many popular 80′s and 90′s cartoons including Snorks, Alivin and the Chipmunks, Shirt Tales, Pound Puppies, Bonkers, Goof Troop, Animaniacs, Rugrats, Pinkie and the Brain and more, Nancy Cartwright chats with other great figures from the world of animation in her column on Animation World Magazine.