1991: Playschool Baby Ponies

BABY SCHOOLBAG

Pink baby earth pony with green mane and tail, red and yellow satchel symbol

I have a distinct memory as a child of seeing Baby Schoolbag in the shops and choosing not to buy him because, as I thought, he was 'wrong'. That vague memory had no basis until I started going through the old inserts when I began recollecting properly, and realised that, in promotional materials, Baby Schoolbag was advertised as a proper baby boy, with feathered hooves.

The store sold Baby Pony, however, was in a much more commonly used female pose, with no feathered hooves at all. This has caused considerable confusion among collectors, for Baby Schoolbag LOOKS like he should be a girl. The fact of the matter is, though, that both the backcard story AND the UK comic promote him as a baby boy, and, I believe, the comic also gives him the feathered hooves he lacked in life.

This is the only time that a Baby Boy pony was ever made in this pose.

PROTOTYPE IMAGE OF BABY SCHOOLBAG WITH
FEATHERED HOOVES( UK insert)

If this wasn't bad enough, the Playschool Baby Backcard gave yet ANOTHER version of Baby Schoolbag, this time in a female pose. BUT, not in the RIGHT female pose! The image on this card looks very much like they were ceramic/resin painted figures created for the photo, but it is not impossible that they were painted ponies from old sets that Hasbro had lying about, and that is why the pose was wrong. Whichever the truth is, Baby Schoolbag appeared on his own backcard looking like this:


PROTOTYPE IMAGE OF BABY SCHOOLBAG IN FIRST TOOTH POSE WITH GREEN HAIR
(Image from Playschool Baby Pony Backcard)

The hair on both prototypes is also much more green - in the shade of Raspberry Jam's hair, rather than the more aqua green hair he was later sold with.

Baby Schoolbag had freckles on his cheeks. For some unknown reason, when his image first circulated online, he was known as Baby Satchel - but his true name is Baby Schoolbag, as you can see if you squint at the MOC image enough ;).