This is not the newer television series of “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic” but the original 1986 series. Originally a toy line that began in 1982 or 1983 it served as a the inspiration for a television special a couple of years later that would serve as a pilot for a whole series. Now Shout Factory brings us the entirety of that original television series series to DVD.
What I remember about “My Little Pony” was that it had two segments – the one about the ponies’ adventures in Ponyland then an unrelated segment (I think it was “The Glowworms”). Shout Factory has collected only the “My Little Pony” segments, which is fine since they are mostly multi-part stories – and the original specials which predate the full series are also here in a reedited form, perhaps the way they were presented for syndication.
“My Little Pony” seems simplistic now, especially when compared to the current series. There are, however, some similarities that show just what kind of potential there is in the brand. It’s interesting how many different ponies there are – clearly this was a marketing gimmick disguised as a cartoon to sell a large number of collectible My Little Pony toys.
The thing is, there’s actually some decent storytelling here. Alright, so it’s pretty basic stuff but for a 10/11 minute segment from a near-30 year old television series based on a toy line, there’s some thought put into it. In a way this was more creative than the other Hasbro-based television series at the time (based on the Transformers and G.I. Joe toy lines) as they were much more clear cut who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. With “My Little Pony” there was no ready-built antagonists so they had to be developed for the series.
I will admit to having watched a couple of episodes when the series was first broadcast in the last half of the 80s. This was a period of my life when I had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. Now it’s my daughter who is the pony lover in the household and she does prefer “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic” over the original “My Little Pony” but does enjoy the series. We haven’t finished watching the whole of the 4 discs, with its 65 “episodes” (really segments) and approximately 12 hours of total running time.
While there are no special features, which is a shame, at least having the whole of the original series collected in one package should be very welcome to fans old and new to the franchise.