1986:

Pretty 'N' Pearly Baby Sea Ponies

In all honesty, these girls are a nightmare. A HUGE nightmare. And making a link image for them was an even bigger nightmare, so I'm afraid it's more than a touch ugly and mishmashed.

Here we go. Let's see what sense I can make of these.

There are two distinct sets of Pretty 'n' Pearly Baby Sea Ponies - one which is generally North American in release and the other of which is decidedly United Kingdom. How the rest of Europe fit into this I'm not entirely sure - though I have seen English-carded Pearly Baby Sea Ponies being sold from Germany, so maybe it was all to do with imports. I really would like to know more, though, so if anyone lives in that part of the world and can tell me, I'd be really happy to hear from you!

There is only ONE pony who was exactly the same in both the UK and the North American set. That pony is BEACHCOMBER. All of the other five ponies differed in some way.

We'll begin with the UK set. Along with Beachcomber, we had the following ponies as Pearly Baby Sea Ponies: Water Lily, Ripple, Sunshower, Sea Star and Tiny Bubbles. The UK set was actually released early in the 1987 line, and continued to be sold throughout 1987 (rather than 1986) but splitting the set would just have complicated matters! The UK set also had puffy stickers.

An example of the card they were sold on can be found below (clicking on the images will open a large size version)

FRONT

BACK

The North American set, in contrast, comprised (along with Beachcomber), Water Lily, Ripple, Sunshower, Sea Shimmer and Surf Rider.

And to make it more complicated, Ripple, Sunshower and Water Lily all had a new 'looking up' pose in their North American release. However, in the UK release, Ripple and Sunshower both face forward, and Water Lily has her head turned slightly to the side.

Groan.

If that's not clear, I don't blame you. But it should be clarified on visiting each pony's page. Please note that the photo images used above are from the UK Hasbro catalogue (courtesy of Pranceatron), so even if you have a pony who is the same colours as, say, Sunshower, but you're not sure the pose is right, still check out her page. You might have the North American version of the pony!

Finally, there was one other Pretty N Pearly Baby Sea Pony. Her name was Celebrate, and she was part of the Party Gift Set, also sold this year, but not in the UK.

One other odd thing happened this year. This is better explained by an image:

FIZZY on SUNSHOWER's CARD
Yes, do not adjust your screens. Fizzy - and other members of the Twinkle Eye set - were released sealed on Pretty 'n' Pearly Baby Sea Pony cards. What happened and why this occurred...nobody really knows, except that someone, somewhere screwed up. In later years, Hasbro did sometimes reuse surplus packaging to package their random weirdball ponies - but this Fizzy and her accessories are normal, making that explanation a little strange...