1991:

POCKET FRIENDS PONIES

aka Precious Pocket Ponies

The Pocket Friends ponies were just downright odd. As a small girl, I remember browsing innocently through the pony shelves in Woolworths, coming across one of them and going...what...on...earth...? They obviously appeared on the shelves sooner than they did in the comics, because I vividly recall the nine year old me blinking several times and then wondering if Hasbro had finally lost the plot.

If a kid sees them and thinks that, they must be odd, right?

Didn't stop me from buying one, though, and, judging by the number found on the second hand market, Hasbro's marketing must've been bang on the mark.

The reason for all the fuss and bewilderment is that each of these ponies, built slightly larger than your average earth pony, but not so much as you'd notice, had raised symbols with a smaller element attached to a piece of silver rope affixed to it. The idea was that the object on the rope belonged inside the raised symbol - for example, a coin in a money bank, a rabbit in a hat.

If you haven't encountered these before, you're probably staring blankly at the above description, and I wouldn't blame you for wondering if *I*'ve finally lost the plot.

However, if you have ever found a largeish pony with, instead of a symbol, three or four holes on her rear flank plus what looks like the edge of something that might've once been there, the chances are you've found a broken Pocket Friends Pony. That, you see, is the other negative of this set. They are not often found in one piece.

Two new poses were introduced for this set, one of which would be used for the later Sweet Talking Ponies the next year. The ponies and the set had different names in the North American release, and there are some variations in colour. There have been suggestions of a European/North American variation difference, but I do not think it is as simple as all that!

POCKET FRIENDS PONIES (INCLUDING UNICORN SINGING POCKET)
(UK PONY COMIC)

The ponies in this set featured new poses which seem to have been created for them. If it was not for one small detail, it would be easy to assume that had been the intention from the start - but it was not quite that simple. In the UK Pony Comic, Singing Pocket was drawn as a unicorn, which none of the ponies in this pose are. Turns out that original prototypes for this set included them in older poses, and Singing Pocket was to be a unicorn (though no pegasus ponies). The prototype for Jingle Pocket also looked an awful lot like the artwork image drawn of her on the 1991 insert (which can be found on the main 1991 page), in the walking pose, and all four of them were drawn in the prototype poses in the UK comic on a couple of occasions (such as the calendar image, above).