Cartoon Horses - My Little Pony

The first My Little Pony cartoon was the prime time special Rescue at Midnight Castle in 1984. It was followed by a similar special, Escape from Catrina, in which Tammy Grimes voiced the titular character. In 1986, the ponies appeared in their first full-length feature film, My Little Pony: The Movie. Directed by Michael Joens, it starred the voices of Rhea Perlman, Madeline Kahn, Tony Randall, and Danny DeVito, among others. It had a mediocre box office performance, grossing almost $6 million in the United States, and received mostly negative reviews.

It was followed by the more popular My Little Pony TV series. The series promoted a great many of the toys available in 1986-1987, featuring a large regular cast of Earth, Pegasus, and Unicorn Ponies with guest appearances by new lines such as Flutter Ponies and Princess Ponies. It also used the theme song featured in TV advertisements for the brand (as did other series based on Hasbro properties).



The TV specials, the movie and the TV series were all set in the same continuity. They were set in Dream Valley, a land inhabited by witches, goblins and other magical creatures with whom the ponies, their human friend Megan, and their dragon friend Spike would often interact.

A later program, My Little Pony Tales, was set in a completely different continuity. This series semi-anthropomorphised the Ponies - they lived in a human-like town where they went to school, ran businesses, went on vacation and exchanged currency for goods.

In 2004, the first season of the original My Little Pony television series was released on DVD. The four-DVD collection features the two prime-time television specials and 50 episodes from the original series. Some songs from the original airing of the two specials have been cut, leaving the specials as they appeared when syndicated as part of the cartoon series. The ten-episode miniseries "The End of Flutter Valley" was released on a single-disc DVD in 2005.

2006 brought the release of episodes from the second season, with two single-disc DVD releases: "Flight to Cloud Castle and Other Stories" and "Quest of the Princess Ponies and Other Stories", in addition to a DVD of "Two Great Pony Tales", with "The Magic Coins" and "The Glass Princess" available as 8 episodes.

In 2010, an entirely new TV series, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, debuted. The show has become notable for its success outside of its target audience and has become a cult phenomenon on the Internet.

My Little Pony is a brand of toy ponies marketed primarily to young women and children and produced by the toy manufacturer Hasbro. These ponies can be identified by their colorful bodies and manes, and typically a unique symbol or series of symbols on one or both sides of their haunches. Accordingly, the ponies are named after the symbols on their haunches.

Following the related My Pretty Pony toy, introduced in 1981, My Little Pony was launched in 1983. The line became popular during the 80s. The original toy line ran from 1983 to 1995 (1992 in the U.S.) and inspired animated specials, including an animated feature length movie and three animated television series. The brand was relaunched between 1997 and 2003 (1999 in the U.S.), and then fully relaunched globally in 2003. My Little Pony celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2008.