1991 saw the UK catch up with the latest set of
rainbow ponies. They were promoted as having 'real curls' (I'm
wondering what fake curls are in a pony context) but were
actually sold with their hair in very manufactured ringlets.
This was a technology Hasbro had used for the
Candy Cane ponies,
previously. Unsurprisingly, ponies do not always keep their curl
over years. It is not uncommon to find them with tangles,
half-curls, hair brushed out to straight, and so on.
Hasbro seemed to understand this as an issue, as the ponies came
with a leaflet advising new owners how to recurl hair that had
lost its curl...though I lost the leaflet probably the moment I
opened the package, which wasn't helpful! The below image scan
appears here courtesy of Chrissytree - you can see the whole of
the instruction sheet on her website,
here.
Each Rainbow Curl pony has four ringlets in the mane and tail,
one each for the four colours she is rooted with. Though they
are 'rainbow ponies', the colours used vary, and many are in
pastel shades. Three of the four ponies have a fading pink
ringlet in their mane and tail! Goodie.
They were sold in the UK on lavender themed cards with darker
lavender borders. Rainbow Rider obviously featured under the
rainbow, and Rainbow Magic on the front and back of each card.
In the UK and Europe each pony was sold with a shooting star
comb and a ribbon (not a flower comb, despite the
promotional image above). This is different from the North
American release, where they had shooting star brushes.
Rainbow Cloud, Mint in Box
Colour Palette - lavender
UK, 1991
Image from LunaCat
Names
The Rainbow Curl Ponies all had different names in the UK,
and most if not all European release names were also on a
similar theme, if not exact translations. All of the UK
names had 'Rainbow' as a prefix, which some collectors
consider clunky. Compared to the American names, however,
they are still a good mile better. What happened with the
American name release is unclear - it feels as though they
were named by a five year old. Their US names are Raincurl
(Cloud), Ringlet (Magic), Stripes (Storyteller) and Streaky
(Rider). I admit, I have a personal reason for despising
these names, because Rainbow Magic's name and story has a
very sentimental meaning to me from my childhood. But with
that said, they are still horrible names, and Hasbro could
have done much, much better.
