1994:

NURSE PONIES

.

Medical emergency was clearly the core theme of 1994, because, along with the Surprising Surprise Twins Pony and her twins, Hasbro issued a set of three ponies who were, officially, Nurses. In the My Little Pony comic, there had been a spate of ponies taking on the role of ponyland nurse -the best known of which was, perhaps, Gusty. Ironically, the real Nurse Ponies didn't appear in the comics at all!

As with other sets this year, one of the three ponies is a variation on the Seven Character theme. This time it's Sweetheart, probably inspired by her kind hearted personality. Sweetheart's colour scheme is the same, only her symbol is different.

Each Nurse Pony had two specific gimmicks. One, the symbol resurrected the idea of the Magic Message Ponies, for the red heart was heat sensitive and would reveal a teddy bear face beneath. The other feature is the hat, which, as is probably obvious, is quite hard to find second hand. These hats were small, white and plastic, with a red cross on them (you can see Loveheart's in the picture) and they affixed to the pony's head by tiny plastic pins that went into holes either side of the pony's mane.

HOLES ON NURSE'S HEAD FOR NURSE'S HAT
(Nurse Loveheart)

These are pretty hard to find on the second hand market, and were never sold in North America.