Scott Bradlee's musical trip through our animated youth came to a close yesterday, with the slow jam version of the theme to the first generation My Little Pony cartoon.
The '80s My Little Pony cartoon series started with a 22 minute pilot of sorts called "Rescue At Midnight Castle", starring the voice talents of Sandy Duncan and Tony Randall. It opened like this:
This eventually led to My Little Pony: the Movie, starring Danny Devito, Rhea Perlman, Madeline Kahn and Cloris Leachman. It's the Transformers The Movie of animated pony films, gathering together top-notch talent for the sole purpose of selling more toys.
Here's the opening theme of every My Little Pony animated project from 1986 up to today.
"Isn't the world a lovely place?" No, not really. That's why the latest show has attracted such a diverse fanbase, while the older ones are generally despised — the older ones lie.
Still, you can see the seeds for the current show in those earlier openings, ideas that just needed to be finessed into something everyone not afraid of being ridiculed on the internet can appreciate.
Did I mention I'm attending Bronycon in Baltimore next week?
Anyway, thanks to Scott Bradlee for this series. It's been a blast, rediscovering classic cartoons through music, even if some of them were pretty horrible.