My thoughts on previous My Little Pony cartoons (warning: opinionated)

[TheColtofPersonality]

This Wednesday marks the one year anniversary of my inception into bronydom and while I intend on making a post about it let me share some thoughts on the older My Little Pony franchises.

First of all I will mention that I never really watched the original series as a kid as my sister was never into My Little Pony, but I did see a few episodes of My Little Pony Tales and it is that what made me avoid ponies for so long but I will get to tales a little later.

Now in interest of fairness I decided to watch a vast majority of the older generations that I could online so I could give my full out and honest opinion.

So lets start at G1:

G1 for me is an interesting thing to look at after watching FiM, keeping in mind that this was a different era I did my best to remain fair and this is no easy task when talking about G1.

Now I will have to say that both Escape from Katrina and Midnight castle are actually pretty decent, especially Midnight castle who I can see a lot of in FiM.

But if its one thing that caught me right away, is how bad the voice acting is and how utterly un interesting the ponies are.

I could not tell one pony from the other except the ponies that would become Twilight Sparkle, Applejack and Rainbow Dash in G4.

This is sort of a common problem in 80's cartoons but here it could not be any more blatant.

It lets you know its from the 80's with a large smack to the head no less.

Then I watched a few episodes and I came to the conclusion that this series is no better or worse then most of the stuff for boys at the time overall.

I cannot say more then that, as honestly it did not interest me as much.

Still its not too terrible and I may watch some of it again soon.

Then comes pony tales, and this is where I become a little more nasty.

First they don't retain most of the action or fantasy elements with this one and just stick to a format that practically all cartoons made for girls at the time do.

Now on one hand its kind of good they are trying to make the characters more human in character this time by giving the ponies bit more of a personality but when your characters do nothing but hang around a malt shop and talk about boys you get my ire.

You know going from a series with heavy fantasy influence to a series where a bunch of ponies talk about boys there is only one thing to ask:

What in the flying heck were you thinking hasbro? GAH!

Seriously between G3 I cannot decide which one I hate more and trust me G3 is next.

Now with all this said do I hate Pony tales?

Both yes and no, on one hand its nice they did try to make the ponies a little more realistic but it came with the cost of having mundane stories.

Now contrary to popular belief there is no G2 cartoon, some people think Pony tales is but no its actually later G1.

But G3 exists and boy sometimes I really wish it didnt.

Now first lets get to some of the positives about this generation as they are so few of them.

Firstly I have to say it was good to see that both Unicorns and Pegasi are back in G3 and some of the fantasy elements have returned... but that is all the things positive I can say about it as honestly G3 is a boring, half baked total piece of garbage.

First lets talk about the characters: What characters?

Seriously I thought G1 was bad but this is even worse, I cannot say anything good about any of them and that includes Minty who seems to be popular in that fandom.

Sorry but she does not really impress me as a character, none of them do IMHO.

Secondly story: What story?

Honestly most the episodes I have seen are about birthdays and one episode was about a fashion show where everybody won (for petes sake!)

I watched the longer specials too like Princess Promenade and "A minty Christmas" and I will let Roger Ebert say what I cannot say.

Just replace movie with show and you get the gist.

Sad thing is that it got worse with the core 7 and even more worse with Newborn cuties, I practically snapped at that one and wanted to murder several people at Hasbro for that one.

UGH!

So yeah those are my general thoughts, I honestly dont have much to say on any of them but still its nice to let people know what I thought.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

I think My Little Pony Tales had a lot of good lessons for young girls. Which was wholeheartedly the target audience.

I also doubt you made it to the episode with the Alicorn, did you? Yes, I mean My Little Pony Tales for that one.

G1 had that whole... human thing going on. Humans were kind of hit or miss, but they knew that Megan was pretty much the example of what every little girl watching the show dreamed. They made the show to sell the toys. It was kind of sucky. The villains were pretty good though.

[Rosewind]

So uh...what is it that you thought?

[SonicRainboomGirl]

I am pretty biased about G3.

I adore it, ESPECIALLY Minty. True, they were all stereotypes without complexity, but they were cute, sweet and hilarious! I used to watch the one with the birthday over and over. It starred my favorite pony, Rainbow Dash, and she had a big neon sign that she carried around so that people would pay attention to her.

Of course, we all adore the things we grew up with.

[TheColtofPersonality]

I think My Little Pony Tales had a lot of good lessons for young girls.

Eh, thats debatable to be honest with you as some of the lessons were a little off

I also doubt you made it to the episode with the Alicorn, did you? Yes, I mean My Little Pony Tales for that one.

No I didnt, I only watched a small amount of the episodes and then moved on, the episodes i watched were:

Just for Kicks

The Great Lemonade Stand Wars

The Tea Party

Sadly the selection of tales episodes at the time was small, so I could only base my opinion from those episodes

If there are better ones or recommended ones I should take a look at feel free to swing them my way.

So uh...what is it that you thought?

Whom, me?

[MyLittlePonyTales]

I gathered all the past episodes (from before G3) into a topic: High Quality Original MLP Episodes.

I recommend And the Winner is... and Sister of the Bride, for starters. The first one seems to have inspired The Ticket Master, and the second may have had some influence over the season 2 finale. Other than that... hmm... The Battle of the Bands, Roll around the Clocks, and uh... Up, up and Away.

[TheColtofPersonality]

I gathered all the past episodes (from before G3) into a topic: High Quality Original MLP Episodes.

I recommend And the Winner is... and Sister of the Bride, for starters. The first one seems to have inspired The Ticket Master, and the second may have had some influence over the season 2 finale. Other than that... hmm... The Battle of the Bands, Roll around the Clocks, and uh... Up, up and Away.

I will check them out, thanks.

Dont worry i wont let my past experience bias me, I am trying to give it a fair shot and if I still dont like it I will let you know.

But that goes down to tastes in the end.

[SirShadowdeath]

All I know is that when I was younger the dolls scared me. *Shiver*

[Rosewind]

Yes, you! I was alluding that while you have a lot of thoughts regarding early pony, they felt unfocused and unrelated, so I had trouble understanding your main point.

Shadow: That G1 AJ still haunts my dreams.

[TheColtofPersonality]

Yes, you! I was alluding that while you have a lot of thoughts regarding early pony, they felt unfocused and unrelated, so I had trouble understanding your main point.

Shadow: That G1 AJ still haunts my dreams.

My point was a general commentary nothing more, I wasn't trying to give an all out commentary but give my basic feelings and thoughts on each of the Pony gens before FiM

[SirShadowdeath]

No, your opinions are quite sensible.

Rose: Nightmares. Nightmares every single night.

[tacobob]

I have three sisters, so growing up, there were older generation MLP toys laying all over the place, and yeah, I got stuck watching the older shows from time to time. Can't say I liked 'em. The ponies looked like hippos, and those two legged creatures..er..hooo..something were on the show as well.. But they had some cool bad guys. But they just seemed so out of place.

"Um? Is this the set for 'Heavy Metal'?"

If any of you follow the "Discorderly Conduct" Tumblr, the artist really does an AWESOME job at updating the older generation bad guys and making them perfect for FIM.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

Shadow: That G1 AJ still haunts my dreams.

[Rosewind]

Nooooooo! Why Tales, why?!

[TheColtofPersonality]

By the way Tales I did check out some of your recommendations earlier on as I had nothing better to do at the time and well... I still dont like the My Little Pony Tales series, sorry but being honest here.

Granted they were better episodes then the ones I saw but its still not my cup of tea.

Its still a little too sugary for me in some places and I still dont care much for the characters or the setting, its just so wrong for me.