1988:

MAGIC MESSAGE PONIES

This year seemed a year for gimmicks involving heat. This set of six characters each featured a heat sensitive symbol with the idea that, when warmed or 'rubbed', a secret message or picture would appear.

Sadly, the motifs were somewhat delicate, leading to many on the second hand market with ripped and wrecked symbols. Equally, the mechanism could eventually just stop working, leaving some ponies stuck with either their original or their changed symbol.Each pony had different symbols on each side beneath the heat sensitive patch.

In the My Little Pony comic, each of the Magic Message Ponies played some part. Teddi had a memorable adventure with a group of soap teddy bear cubs which was obviously so popular with editors that it was repeated later on with entirely different text. Magical Breeze was associated with kites, whilst Magic Hat was a magician, and Cloud Dreamer was involved in mystical things with clouds and dragons.

As I remember it, their symbols changed as follows:

Magical Breeze: Tree revealing apples/kites under warmth
Floater: Balloons reveal message 'I Love Ice Cream' and 'I Love U'
Mirror Mirror: Mirror reveals a princess (maybe Rapunzel?) and a witch.
Cloud Dreamer: Cloud reveals a dragon and a castle.
Magic Hat: Cloud of smoke over hat reveals a rabbit and a dove
Teddi: Teddy bear's stomach reveals a flower/a heart

Each of the ponies in this set featured the bi-colour hair once exclusive to Unicorns. The set comprised four earth ponies, one unicorn and one pegasus. Each pony also had a little motif on her cheek.

Magical Breeze and Teddi had different names in the United States. Magical Breeze was also offered via a special horseshoe point release in the United Kingdom...though the pony did not differ from the store sold version and was probably a way of distributing surplus supplies.