"The original My Little Pony - phenomenally popular in 1984 and even more successful in 1985 - is joined by four new ponies for fun, fantasy and adventure. The range includes a mix of earthly, pegasus and unicorn ponies, all with straight hair, in a variety of pretty pastel shades and vivid neon colours that girls will simply adore. Each comes with its own bird brush, ribbon and sticker."

This tells us several things about the release. First, Hasbro intentionally made a mixed set. Secondly, Hasbro considered this set a continuation of 'My Little Pony' - as opposed to a set with a gimmick, such as the Rainbow Ponies. Thirdly, they use the term 'original', which speaks to me because as a child I referred to all of this kind of pony as 'The Originals', again to distinguish them from ponies with themes. Finally, there was a conscious decision to make the hair of all these characters straight, rather than a mix of straight and curly. I find this fascinating because of how much emphasis was put on curly hair the previous year, and because they decided to use Cherries Jubilee and not Tootsie or Applejack, despite knowing it meant amending her to fit this convention.

One possible reason for this is that Cherries Jubilee (and Posey) were still in global production, albeit as So Soft Ponies. Both Cherries Jubilee and Posey have darker symbols in the 1986 set, and these match the symbols used on the So Soft set, in order to make them visible through the flocking. It is possible that they thought it easier to amend Cherries Jubilee rather than try and keep Applejack or Tootsie in production. (A version of Tootsie did remain in production in some parts of Europe, but not in the UK)

This set was sent to stores in boxes of 36, indicating six of each character were probably sent out. This is a lot of ponies in one box - later Hasbro releases have smaller distributions. I think this also speaks to the confidence with which Hasbro UK marketed this set, despite it being a very unique enterprise.

Breaking the mould.

One interesting factor about this set is how it breaks the traditions/standards established in North America surrounding earth ponies and unicorn ponies in particular. In North America up to this point, there are no regular Earth ponies with glittery symbols, and every regular release unicorn pony had a streak of a second colour in her mane. Hasbro UK ignored both those conventions with this set. Snowflake is the first (and possibly the only) regular earth pony to have a glittery symbol, while Gypsy has no second colour streak in her mane. Snowflake and Gypsy also both have freckles. While freckles are not unknown for earth ponies (Applejack and Bow-Tie both had them), they were unheard of on unicorns. Gypsy is the only one to feature this trait.

Hopscotch may seem a lot more traditional in comparison, but it is notable that her symbol is considerably more detailed/defined than some other early earth pony symbols. Her hopscotch grid clearly shows squares and numbers, rather than just shapes.

As for the final new member of the set, Honeycomb, there are so many questions here that need anwering. Honeycomb is similar in design to Surprise, suggesting that Hasbro UK liked this colour scheme and pose. But instead of bringing Surprise here, they created their own pony, with straight hair and glittery bees as a symbol. Hasbro themselves seemed confused at times about Honeycomb, however. The Fact File shows her as a unicorn, despite being produced a mere year after her release. She is correctly depicted on her own backcard and also on Megan and Sundance's backcard for 1986, so this is probably just an anomaly, but the story behind her creation remains mysterious.