With the recent death of Saturday morning cartoons in the US, it’s hard not to feel a little sentimental about all this.
My Little Pony: The Complete Series takes us back to the 80’s when the first generation of
My Little Pony toys were introduced, and hence the first cartoons were released.
The order of this DVD set is a little odd, but it’s nothing a quick trip to wikipedia.org won’t solve. For whatever reason, the original episodes from 1984, "Rescue from Midnight Castle" and "Escape from Catrina," are scattered across the last disc, for example. Other than that, at least the separate parts of large story arcs are placed in order, such as parts 1-10 of "The End of Flutter Valley" episode.
To say that 80’s cartoons fueled toy sales is not a far-fetched assumption. Still, the extent to which My Little Pony did this is rather staggering. This was back in the day that nearly everything you saw in the show, you could buy in the store. This included outfits, playsets, and all the main and supporting characters of the show - human or pony. If fans of the current generation want to see what all the fuss about Hasbro toys was about (and why the current My Little Pony toys are such a disappointment), look no further than the "Escape from Catrina" story arc. Nearly all the outfits, the nursery, the castle, Megan, and all the ponies from that episode were available for purchase and were accurate to their look in the show.
But if there’s a bit of nostalgia for the days of show-accurate toys, there’s certainly none for the inconsistent quality of the animation and writing in the show. The two original episodes are definitely standouts for quality animation, though their stories might not be overall winners. Compare "The End of Flutter Valley" with "Escape from Catrina," and you’ll notice a lot more in between frames, as well as richer colors and backgrounds in the "Escape" episode. And however great the overall premise of the "Escape from Catrina" plot may be, in the end it’s not very deep writing. An evil cat sorceress named Catrina has enslaved the innocent Bushwoolie creatures and she finds her spells thwarted by the ponies at about the same time that the Bushwoolies attempt to escape. She does the next logical thing for an evil sorceress and attempts to enslave the ponies, but she abruptly has a change of heart at the end of the episode for no real reason, just so the episode can end on a bright note. Oh, and with a fashion show, also for no real reason, but it’s the 80’s.
There is a definite pattern of moral lessons learned, helping friends, and other themes that will be familiar to anyone who watched cartoons in the 80’s. There are even a couple of Ph.D's credited at the end of each episode for their educational consultations. The moral lessons are not necessarily summarized at the end (as they are in the new Friendship is Magic series), but sprinkled throughout. Still, there are some heavy problems for the ponies that we don’t necessarily expect in such a sugar-coated world. The ponies are frequently kidnapped, their world is invaded by monsters, and they even have the life sucked out of them a few times. We see a lot of these themes in a new way in the Friendship series, but sometimes you just wish you could pick out different parts and rearrange the two series into something new.
It also should be said that if you’ve watched some of the Generation 3 cartoons that came between this and
Friendship is Magic, don’t judge this original Generation 1 series by that experience. Generation 1 was sappy, sugary, and filled with fluff, but there’s definitely more imagination in it than those next few generations. And as bad as the animation might be in parts of the G1 series, it still looks richer and more alive than the G3 series. Does any of it really age well? No, but it’s not completely unwatchable. There are even some reasons to enjoy the shortcomings of the show. Back in the day of handpainted cels, there were lots of mistakes, many of which happened so frequently, they really should have names. There were painting mistakes where heads change color, cupcakes change color, everything changes color, period. There were shaky frames where the cel must have been accidentally moved several times during filming. There were even stranger mistakes like one, for example, where shadows from the dragons in "Spike’s Search" were cast onto sky. Things like this will be familiar to anyone who watched cartoons in the 80’s, so it might be a bit of nostalgia talking here as well. I find them funny to watch, and they might even be a starting point for a conversation with a child on the classic techniques of animation back in the day.
There are also some pretty famous voice actors that are familiar to 80’s kids as well. Sandy Duncan (Firefly and Applejack) and Michael Bell (Grundle and Sting) are a couple that come to mind as very familiar. The voice that really caught me, now that my adult self makes more connections between actors and different works, is the talent of Tammy Grimes. I recognized her voice instantly as that of Molly Grue in
The Last Unicorn, but it did some digging to connect her officially. She is not credited in the episode’s credits, but she is indeed the voice of Catrina in "Escape from Catrina." It’s amazing how expressive and distinct her voice was in that episode; Even today it stands out amongst the other voices. The song, and the background music is also indicative of an era. Who can forget that classic
My Little Pony theme song? Even your parents were singing it back in the 80’s.
I think there’s something for everyone to gain from this collection, whether you’re a child of the 80’s or a fan of the newer My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series. Unfortunately, there could have been at least some sort of making-of feature or history feature to this DVD. After all, we’re coming up on almost 30 years since this show first aired. I don’t like to argue against the value of a complete series, however, and there’s still plenty to love about this DVD set. Buy it for the nostalgia. Buy it to teach a class on early animation. Even buy it since the cover is finally accurate to the G1 era. But definitely buy it if you’re a fan of all the good stuff that goes along with My Little Pony.
