1989:

MERRY-GO-ROUND PONIES

I suppose that it was only a matter of time before Hasbro incorporated the theme of the carousel horse into their pony line. This happened in 1989 with the advent of the Merry Go Round Ponies, each of which was decorated with a moulded on patterned cape instead of a specific symbol.

Though there were six ponies in all, only four of them ever saw release in the United Kingdom. (Sounds familiar, huh?)

For the four characters that did see a UK release, their pony comic debut came at the end of a long multi-part story called 'Twirler and the Whispering Whirligig'. The Merry-Go-Round Ponies had been trapped inside the Whirligig and, with the help of Twirler and her friends, they were freed to start a new life in Ponyland.

Each pony was sold in a box and for the four sold in the UK, these were bordered patterned boxes like many of the ponies on release around this time. In terms of accessories, each only came with a brush or comb - not even a ribbon!

Although in the UK, the ponies were sold in blueish -bordered boxes, there does exist a variation to this theme in other parts of continental Europe. Although the layout, accessory and border design seem to be the same, there have been sightings of these ponies mint in pinkish purple boxes - usually Spanish language packages (see below).

Normal UK Release

Alternative Continental Box

Thank you to AIKE and LUNACAT for the above MIP pictures.

There is also at least one oddball MerryGoRound pony who we can't really explain but who seems to have come from the UK. She is in the same pose as Sparkler and Diamond Dreams, but has the colour scheme of Sunny Bunch. She is the only of her kind who has been found thus far, so it is possible that she is a prototype/test model image or, maybe more likely, a factory mess up with pose and design which meant that she was rejected at quality control. Perhaps a company employee took her home for their kids to play with! She is known in the community as "SunSparkler" because of her hybrid appearance.