Teeny Weeny Ponies
"Aren't they teeny?" said one pony. "Aren't they weeny?"
said another. So, of course, now everyone calls them the Teeny
Weeny Ponies!"
~Hasbro UK, UK backcard, 1992
The Teeny Weeny ponies were some of the tiniest baby ponies that
graced the G1 range. If we thought that the baby ponies were baby,
and then the newborn ponies were newborn baby, the Teeny Weenies
were...well...a cross between a pug and a kitten, probably. It's
hard to know where they fitted into the wider pony world, because
they were clearly very young, but also there was no real sense of
'childcare' hovering around them in the way that existed with the
original Newborn Twins.
While baby ponies usually had their name prefaced with "baby", and
newborns generally had no prefix, the Teeny Weeny ponies all had
names prefaced with "Little". Just in case the set name hadn't
already told us they were miniscule.
The set name 'Teeny Weeny' was adopted in the UK, and in European
countries where English language packaging was used. The original
set name, in North America, was Teeny Tiny, and this moniker was
also used for a set of twins in the same style, available
Stateside in 1992. The original release for this set was 1991,
across the Atlantic. They reached the UK in 1992, however, and so
you find them here.
This, combined with a known array of related variations (mostly
hair) during the 1992 line, mean that there are some variations
with this set.
Please note that none of these variations are "UK/European
only" and none are "North American only". There is an
overlap between the two releases and the versions can be found in
both places. One type tends to be more common in each region.
Those with smoother hair are more likely to be found in North
America, because the set was released there first. One of the
reasons for these weird hair variations across 1992 is apparently
related to issues Hasbro had with their usual hair supplier, which
reportedly went out of business around this time. This led to
experimentation and resultant variations. For ease of
understanding, I am going to refer to these as the SILKY version
and the CURLYFRIZZ version.
In the UK release, each baby was sold with a duck comb and a
ribbon, and on yellow bordered cards. There were also two name
changes between the North American and UK releases - Little
Rattles was known as Little Whiskers in North America, while the
UK preferred Little Lullabye as a name to Little Tabby.
As with all sets from 1992, the North American release had a
collective story for all the ponies, while the UK ones still had
individual stories, which gave a hint to the characters of the
ponies. These characters also appeared in the comic.
