Ponies ARE horses.....

I can see what hasbro was doing. That's the direction that they wanted to take the line in. There must have been some sort of product testing to support it. I can see that being written to get their designers in the "right frame of mind." It obviously didn't work, but I can't scoff at them for trying.
 
Uh huh, Hasbro. Sure they're FIVE YEAR-OLD GIRLS. Because ALL five year old girls walk on four legs and have hair on their rear end and pink fur. Sure. I am SO sure.
 
josiekat said:
I can see what hasbro was doing. That's the direction that they wanted to take the line in. There must have been some sort of product testing to support it. I can see that being written to get their designers in the "right frame of mind." It obviously didn't work, but I can't scoff at them for trying.
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To be honest, I see what they were doing, too. I think that they might have needed to bump that age up a bit higher to get to their core audience: 7 and 8 year old girls. Being in the mindset of a child that's barely into the "Ages 3 and Up" category is a little off the mark.
 
LadyM said:
Oh my God.

How hilariously dumb would that be?

"Optimal Solutions" - In this episode, Optimus tries to make the baseball team!

"How Wide, Ironhide?" - Ironhide learns the value of good nutrition. Don't just eat junk food like computer chips and lugnuts, Ironhide! It's also important to drink lots of oil and eat your corrugated iron!

"And Baby Makes Three" - Ratchet is jealous when his parents build him a new brother out of a do-it-yourself kit.
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Bwahahaha! *Rolls on floor crying from laughter!*
 
LadyM said:
Oh my God.

How hilariously dumb would that be?

"Optimal Solutions" - In this episode, Optimus tries to make the baseball team!

"How Wide, Ironhide?" - Ironhide learns the value of good nutrition. Don't just eat junk food like computer chips and lugnuts, Ironhide! It's also important to drink lots of oil and eat your corrugated iron!

"And Baby Makes Three" - Ratchet is jealous when his parents build him a new brother out of a do-it-yourself kit.
Click to expand...

:funnythumb: You rock!

As for Ponies not being horses... if they're not, why do they have four legs, hooves, mane, tail, long noses, etc. Sounds like a horse to me. :) I think Hasbro would have been better off saying "Ponies are horses that ACT like 5-year-old girls" but even that is pretty crazy.
 
LadyM said:
Oh my God.

How hilariously dumb would that be?

"Optimal Solutions" - In this episode, Optimus tries to make the baseball team!

"How Wide, Ironhide?" - Ironhide learns the value of good nutrition. Don't just eat junk food like computer chips and lugnuts, Ironhide! It's also important to drink lots of oil and eat your corrugated iron!

"And Baby Makes Three" - Ratchet is jealous when his parents build him a new brother out of a do-it-yourself kit.
Click to expand...
I almost broke a rib laughing!! I would so watch those for the lulz. :allecto:
 
The company I work for was briefly in talks with Hasbro to do some work on a new show before it turned into FIM. We were briefed using this very document. I think maybe some might be misinterpreting the point they are trying to make by saying that the characters aren't horses.

Let me illustrate it this way, because basically it is all about how little girls are intended to relate to them, which is as friends rather than as pets: My boss, who wasn't familiar with the property, made the mistake of saying something about people riding on the ponies and it was politely but very firmly, corrected by the MLP brand manager. That's the point here. These are characters, not farm animals. They have personalities. They talk, wear clothes and their daily lives are driven by their personal adventures and agendas, especially social ones, just like little girls. That's the source of the story telling. They are not grass-chewing animals who live in fields and are ridden around by human owners. That's what Hasbro is trying to say here. The ponies are analogous to little girls and are to be related to by their audience and toy buying fans that way - as characters rather than pets or beasts of burden. So, yeah, they're little girls, but in their world little girls have four hooves and manes. :)
 
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yeah, I can see that's where this whole ponysona or whatever it's called comes in (all the anthro stuff) if it's meant to be identified that way (always have a hard time with that persona stuff = I ride horses, I don't want to be a horse - see certain Dexter's Lab episode for clarification on that!)

still, have a hard time considering back in the day Megan would ride the ponies and all = so clearly Hasbro did originate the idea that magical or not, my little ponies were ponies... but yeah, given the story telling of FiM and there are no humans to interact with, I can see how they changed up the concept that the ponies are now the "people" of equestria... kinda fitting that they don't really look like ponies anymore = anime cute and all, but no longer ponies
 
Hasbro did start out at the start of G1 as characterizing the ponies as horses, being ridden and behaving like horses - but that changed with Tales. It's possible perhaps that all the gimmicky stuff they did at the end of the US line alienated the original remaining pony lovers - beyond the scope that the 10 year cycle had caused many of the original little girls that bought them to grow out of them. While the US never saw Tales short of the Disney channel, it was well received overseas- so that's probably why G3 ended up with 'core' ponies later on (over and over... and over again).

I'm taking a guess that Hasbro probably felt the need to try to bring more real characterization back via animation after seeing some mistakes in just producing toys. G2 was a marketing disaster here in the States- a lovely toy line, but no support beyond toys and very little merchandise. The characters disappeared entirely, until G3, which was very anthro style. Once again animation and good writing promoted the toys, developing the pony characters and making them easy to identify with and remember. Except they overdid the 'good core thing' and G 3.5 went away quickly - leaving G4 - where thanks to Lauren and several others, we have ponies which are mostly a happy mix. They eat like horses, act like horses in some ways like pull carriages, but then they can also sew and sing, put on plays and so on.

The scan is awesome- it's a great bit of pony history and clearly a guide for animators or writers. The facial expressions that must have happened after reading that would have been priceless for folks not familiar with the pony line. I'd sure like to see the rest of the guide too. Do any other page scans exist?
 
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Hahahaha! Oh, Hasbroken! Every little girl I know/have known always plays at being a horse VERY seriously.
 
Reverend Strone said:
The ponies are analogous to little girls and are to be related to by their audience and toy buying fans that way - as characters rather than pets or beasts of burden. So, yeah, they're little girls, but in their world little girls have four hooves and manes. :)
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Ponies are not pets, but what little girls wants to pretend to be . . . a five year old girl? I mean, man, how low can you set your sights? I think it's telling yet sad that Hasbro thought it was all right to say "Ponies are five year old girls" for a "girls toy" while saying " . . . and Transformers are HEROES" for their "boys toy."

Here's what Hasbro should've written:

"Ponies are the dominant intelligent species in their world. They are Indiana Jones, Princess Leia, and Galadriel rolled into one. Don't ask about the humans who live in Ponyville, because there aren't any."
 
LadyM said:
Here's what Hasbro should've written:

"Ponies are the dominant intelligent species in their world. They are Indiana Jones, Princess Leia, and Galadriel rolled into one. Don't ask about the humans who live in Ponyville, because there aren't any."
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Brilliant.
 
LadyM said:
Here's what Hasbro should've written:

"Ponies are the dominant intelligent species in their world. They are Indiana Jones, Princess Leia, and Galadriel rolled into one. Don't ask about the humans who live in Ponyville, because there aren't any."
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This sounds like Planet of the Apes. I adore it.

"Get your hooves off me you dang dirty horse!!"
 
Dream Beauties were supposed to be grown up MLP's..they look an awful lot like horses to me...Minus the rainbow hair and the ones that had perfume in their butts.
 
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