Baby Ember in the United Kingdom
Ember was the first baby pony to be introduced into the My
Little Pony line. She appeared in both North America and the UK in
1984.
A store release of Ember came to North America in around 1985. She
was lavender with a star marking, making her the only version to
have a symbol. She was not sold in the UK. She was definitively
called "Ember" and sold with a cassette story called "Ember's
Dream". You can see a picture of this release below.
The other three were sold via mail order in several countries (in
1984). Although the UK would not continue with the Mail Order
programme in the same way as other places as the years moved on,
this release did operate via mail order. You sent in horseshoe
points and postage money and you received a little baby pony in a
brown cardboard box that really didn't look like much.. On the
side of the box there was a set of check boxes, so that the
correct version of Ember could be indicated (blue, purple or
pink).
Baby Ember's box, image courtesy of
Chrissytree.
Baby Ember's box, image courtesy of
Chrissytree.
With Ember came a pink note, thanking the new owner for
adopting a baby pony, and exhorting the child to choose a
suitable name. The letter was written from Megan, and was dated
1984. This is kind of interesting because Megan was not released
in the UK until 1986, and a lot of the correspondence that
happened in the pony comic (from 1985) was handled by Majesty.
The ponies illustrated on the letter are from 1984, however - Applejack, Bow-Tie
and Bubbles.
Baby Ember's letter of introduction (UK,
1984)
"Ember's Dream" release of baby Ember.
Image courtesy of KitKatVintage.
So why do we call her Ember?
There are two reasons why these babies have become universally
known as Ember. One of them is the release of the carded Ember,
which definitely gives a name - although whether we can
automatically assume that the name applies to all the others just
based on this release is a bit spurious. More influential is the
first animated special, Rescue at Midnight Castle, which features
what is undoubtedly the purple and pink mail order version of the
baby. In this, she is referred to as Ember.
Some people have hypothesised that when Ember is told that she
will grow into her own little pony, it foreshadows the fact that
when she grows up, she will get her symbol like the other ponies.
But this is an anachronistic assumption based on the hindsight of
G4, which was the first time these rules were clearly outlined.
The existence of so many baby ponies after Ember who had symbols -
even the same ones as their mother pony - suggests strongly that
this is coincidence, although it may well have inspired the
writers of FIM to explore those themes further. Either way, it
probably wasn't a concept for Ember, and the real idea was for
Ember's symbol to be drawn on by a child.
There is another example of this happening in G1, in the UK, with
the first Club baby pony, an all white newborn who had no symbol
and no name. Again, the idea was for a child to give the baby an
identity, and thus we can confidently suggest that this was the
real reason for Ember not having a symbol, either (although
Megan's letter does not explicitly say it).
Hasbro's US catalogue in 1984 explicitly names the baby pony
Ember, and announces she will be available via mail order. As far
as I can ascertain, no such promotion happened here, so UK kids
could choose whatever name they liked.
Ember's Character
Only two versions of Ember have any kind of personality, and
none of them relate to the UK. In the Rescue at Midnight Castle
special, Ember was a plucky but clumsy baby pony, with doubts
about her destiny. In the Ember's Dream cassette, Ember had
prophetic dreams about Rainbow Ponies being kidnapped by a
businessman in new york, suggesting that she was quite a magical
character - but there was no expansion on this in any further
media.
