My Little Pony (TV series)
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My Little Pony is a 1986-1987 American television series produced by Sunbow Entertainment and Marvel Productions, with animation by Toei Animation. Sold into syndication, it was the first television show based off the My Little Pony toyline and branched out from the animated special, "Rescue at Midnight Castle".
The series lasted for two seasons, though two later episodes were re-edited versions of films, the aforementioned "Rescue at Midnight Castle" and "Escape From Katrina". Ostensibly, the show followed the adventures of the Ponies of Paradise Valley and the Williams family, though the show was also somewhat of an anthology, following a large ensemble cast in unconnected adventures.
Sometimes the later show My Little Pony Tales is listed as the shows' "season 3" on websites such as IMDb, this is not the case and the two series' have little in common aside from being apart of the same franchise.
Synopsis
Format
Although the show did not follow any sort of overarching storyline, continuity was still considered and rigidly followed. Each episode was 11 minutes in length, though were often serialized to form stories longer than found in other cartoons of the time. Every episode featured a song, usually performed by the regular cast of the show and sometimes by the story's villain. Likewise, nearly every episode featured an unique villain for the ponies to face off against, but some episodes featured no such thing, letting a dire circumstance serve as the antagonistic force instead.
Many storylines featured the ponies or Williams' venturing off to strange new lands and countries, only rarely were these populated by other ponies and were instead inhabited by a number of strange fantastical creatures, such as mouse people, bird peoples, monkey people, etc.
A number of episodes often dealt with themes and motifs of romance, tyranny, magic and love/friendship. Often times, the story's villain would be defeated with one of the these concepts. For example, King Charlatan decided to not freeze the world when he realized he loved his son too much to see him suffer and Tirac was just straight up murdered with the magic of rainbow magic.
Episodes would sometimes touch on darker and more 'complex' themes. "Bright Lights" and "The Prince and the Ponies" for example both touched on child psychology, the former being about how easy it is to manipulate children who don't know better and the latter being about the development of morality and compassion.
My Little Pony 'n Friends
Production
My Little Pony employed a large and talented pool of staff members, with several of its directors being golden-age alumni, with many of its writers having worked with companies such as Disney or Marvel Comics. Like many children's shows of the era, My Little Pony was intended to have educational messages and thus two "educational consultants" were hired, Robert L. Selman, PH.D. and Anne P. Selman.
Animation
Music
My Little Pony Main Title, the shows official theme song, was composed by Ford Klinder and Anne Byrant and lyrics by Barry Harman, with Michael Joens credited as its "creator". In 2023, several remixes of the theme song were created by Mona Rue on the album My Little Pony Theme Song - The Remixes. Many of the shows' compositions were composed by Robert J. Walsh, Ford Klinder, Bunny Andrews and William Ashford, while many of the episode-specific songs were created by the team Tommy Goodman, Roy Eaton and Rich Meitin.
Music distribution and licensing were handled by the companies Wildstar Music and Starwild Music, the latter being acquired by BMI who thus holds rights for many of the songs featured on My Little Pony.
Episodes
Season 1 (1986)
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Season 2 (1987)
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