History YMMV / MyLittlePony

* MainstreamObscurity: While ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Friendship is Magic]]'' is a worldwide phenomenon that's actually watched, good luck finding non-''MLP'' fans who can name any pre-''[=FiM=]'' characters (though a good percentage of the FiM cast were named after pre-FiM characters). The characters are just known as [[MyLittlePhony interchangeably cutesy horses]].

** Some post-season 2 episodes of ''FIM'' are pretty much this to some Slice-of-Life fans.

* CompleteMonster: You'd think that a lighthearted franchise such as this one aimed at a young audience wouldn't have ''these'' types villains, right? ''Wrong'', as [[VileVillainSaccharineShow these ones prove otherwise]]...

* CompleteMonster:

** ''[[YMMV/MyLittlePonyTVSpecials Rescue at Midnight Castle]]'': [[BigBad Tirac]], a [[BigRedDevil demon]] of a [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaur]] in ''Rescue at Midnight Castle'', was the ruler of the Midnight Castle, and planned to send Dream Valley into a state of eternal chaos. To do so, he used a sack containing magical spells in it to essentially torture and transform young ponies into his hideous, winged dragons which he could then use to pull his Chariot of Darkness. In addition, whenever his henchman Scorpan [[YouHaveFailedMe failed him]], Tirac would threaten to have Spike's head cut off if he ever screwed up again; Spike was a [[WouldHurtAChild baby dragon]].
** ''[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicIDWIssue75To78 "Cosmos" arc]'': [[AntagonistTitle Cosmos]] is an alien invader and the Spirit of Malice. Upon her arrival, she was the true entity that threw Equestria into chaos and disharmony rather than [[Characters/FriendshipIsMagicDiscord Discord]]. This included turning an orphanage full of [[WouldHurtAChild children]] into a literal towering inferno and nearly killing them all among other horrible things. When her boyfriend, Discord, [[EvenEvilHasStandards objected to this]], she would begin abusing him out of spite and ultimately goes on a rampage that threatens to destroy the fabric of reality and the planet along with it. In the present, she possesses several innocent ponies to use as her hosts and as weapons against their loved ones before finally merging them into her new body. All the while, she set about turning Equestria into a nightmarish hellscape and its inhabitants into things all sorts of random creatures, some of which could be fatal, all the while they are [[AndIMustScream completely aware]]. When finally confronted by Discord, Cosmos reveals she never loved him at all, seeing him more as a possession she's entitled to than a person.

* MainstreamObscurity: While ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Friendship is Magic]]'' is a worldwide phenomenon that's actually watched, good luck finding non-''MLP'' fans who can name any pre-''[=FiM=]'' characters. The characters are just known as [[MyLittlePhony interchangeably cutesy horses]].

** Is it "Katrina" or "Catrina"? Even sources mix them up.
** Is the first special "Firefly's Adventure","Rescue from Midnight Castle", or "Rescue At Midnight Castle"?

* FandomEnragingMisconception: [[FandomEnragingMisconception/MyLittlePony Has its own sub-page]]
* {{Fanon}}:
** Aside from unicorn Dazzleglow having wings in ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales Tales]]'' and a few [[{{Blooper}} animation mistakes]], there were no {{Winged Unicorn}}s in the franchise until G4, and even then there aren't many of them. Here's a DrinkingGame. Plow through any given listing of ''My Little Pony'' fansites and drink for every website run by somebody with a WingedUnicorn as their avatar/[[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Fursona]]/ponysona/whatever.
** [[Fanon/MyLittlePony This page]] lists a lot of G1 and G3 fanon.

* EarWorm: We apologize for putting the song back in your head after all these years. For those who know not of what we speak, watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9J2vF3Q3o8 this old commercial]]. A lot of the songs, in fact, though "Shine On" and its reprise from ''Come Back, Lily Lightly'' stand out. Also "Wish You Were Here". "La la la lee, la lee loo, every unicorn knows it's true!" Not to mention anything the seaponies sing.

* ObscurePopularity: The series is a CashCowFranchise dating back over thirty years but is seldom referenced out of ShallowParody MyLittlePhony parodies. It lso has a large, active fandom of both toy collectors and adaptation fans but it's in the shadow of other toy collector fandoms like ''Barbie''. The fourth generation escaped this to a degree, but the popular first and third generations are still obscure to the point where few can name a single pony.

** The term "Cutie Mark" originated from G3 but didn't become mainstream until G4.

* CrackIsCheaper Collecting is not a cheap hobby at all. Over 30 years full of LotsAndLotsOfCharacters does that to a franchise.

* {{Hatedom}}: In the earliest days of the ''Friendship is Magic'' fandom, all the older ''My Little Pony'' series got a lot of flak and mockery from bronies, who considered them to be childish pap and contrasted them with the "superior" G4. To a large degree, it probably stemmed from embarrassment about liking a franchise associated with little girls ("Yes, we like ''My Little Pony'' but only the awesome new series, we hate those lame old girly series just as much as you do!") as well as general ignorance of the older installments. It mostly went away with time.

* AdaptationDisplacement: While the series is MerchandiseDriven, many people believe the toys are based off the cartoons. In reality, up until ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' the toys were the original.

** G2 for the toys.
** G3 for the cartoon, though some include G1's ''Tales''.

** With Breyer horses, which is another popular brand of horse toys. ''Breyers'' however strives for realism which puts fans at odds with the very fantasy-geared ''My Little Pony''.

** G3's version of Minty, Pinkie Pie, Wysteria, Star Catcher, and Kimono are likely the most popular G3 ponies.

* YMMV/MyLittlePonyTheMovie

* PopularWithFurries: Historically the franchise contains a lot of horse furries. ''Friendship Is Magic'' is when the divide began. Many of the newer fans introduced with G4 dislike furries, and in turn a lot of furries began disliking ''My Little Pony''. There's still a lot of people who identify as both bronies and furries though.

[[/folder]]

** Amongst G3 fans, Minty x Pinkie Pie and Starcatcher x Sky Dancer get the most fanworks.

'''Entire Franchise''':

* MainstreamObscurity: While [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Friendship is Magic]] is a worldwide phenomenon that's actually watched, good luck finding non-MLP fans who can name any pre-[=FiM=] characters.

'''Fandom''':

** Aside from unicorn Dazzleglow having wings in ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales Tales]]'' and a few [[{{Blooper}} animation mistakes]], there were no {{Winged Unicorn}}s in the franchise until G4, and even then there aren't many of them. Here's a DrinkingGame. Plow through any given listing of My Little Pony fansites and drink for every website run by somebody with a WingedUnicorn as their avatar/[[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Fursona]]/whatever.
** Fanon/MyLittlePony lists a lot of G1 and G3 fanon.

** Many long-time fans dislike the way ponies look in ''Friendship Is Magic''. They [[InformedSpecies barely resemble ponies]] due to the stylized designs, It's not uncommon to hear people describe the ponies as looking more like ugly-looking Chihuahuas than horses.

** Between the generations. The most common is WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic vs Any-other-gen-in-the-series; several bronies consider themselves only fans of G4, and not ''MyLittlePony'' fans. Though anything post-G1 is guaranteed to get hate from even the classic fans

** There are the fans who only pay attention to the toys and dislike (or are at least neutral on) the adaptations versus fans who like the cartoons but don't care for the toys versus fans who lile both.

** There's a bitter inter-fandom rivalry amongst G4 Fans vs Everyone Else. G4 fans are often hostile towards other generations while people who enjoy previous gens are often annoyed by bronies. The two sides are pretty much completely different fandoms in every way besides both liking multicolored ponies.
* FriendlyFandoms: ''My Little Pony'' fans and ''Transformers'' fans. To a lesser extent, with ''Franchise/GIJoe''. Crossover gags between the three are very common and given all three series originated on television at about the same time, it was natural for fans of one series to follow one of the others. Fringe extremists aside, the trio had good relations in the 1980s that persist to this day. Helps they're all owned by the same parent company.

* MyRealDaddy: American illustrator and designer Bonnie Zacherle, sculptor Charles Muenchinger and manger Steve D'Aguanno are the creators of Franchise/MyLittlePony. Fans of [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic G4]] will tell you the only Pony creator that matters is Creator/LaurenFaust. There have been attempts to avert this though. Fans have even [[http://willisninety-six.deviantart.com/art/Thank-You-Bonnie-328343027 ponified]] Bonnie as an alicorn, much like Lauren made an alicorn OC of herself, which fans embraced. It seems more G4-only fans are accepting Bonnie.

** The much-maligned G2 line. [[http://www.kimsites.net/dreamvalley/new_ponies97.html Just see for yourself]]. (For the record, G1 is all the early ponies up to approximately the 10th anniversary or so. G2 was the revival, and G3 is when people stopped complaining.) The G3 line itself later [[http://www.mlptp.net/forums/mlp-discussion/76125-new-bonus-packs-curly-haired-pinkie-newborn-cuties-1-1-a.html received a makeover]] and fans were... not thrilled with it. Even later, [[http://toyfair10.asmzine.com/gallery/hasbro/hasbro-my-little-pony/slides/IMG_3481.html this photograph from Toy Fair]] popped up, and while the Ponies are in yet another redesign, their color schemes were surprisingly similar to those of some G1 characters, and the Fandom was quiet. Then the news of ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Friendship is Magic]]''[[note]]Itself an example.[[/note]] arrived and the rest is history.

** Some post-season 2 episodes of ''FIM'' are pretty much this to some Slice-of-Life fans.

** G3 for the cartoon, though some include the G1's ''Tales''.

* While [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Friendship is Magic]] is a worldwide phenomenon that's actually watched, good luck finding non-MLP fans who can name any pre-[=FiM] characters.

** Aside from unicorn Dazzleglow having wings in ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales Tales]]'' and a few [[{{Blooper}} animation mistakes]], there were no {{Winged Unicorn}}s in the franchise until G4, and even then there aren't many of them. Here's a DrinkingGame. Plow through any given [[http://map_of_ponyland.tripod.com/map.htm listing of My Little Pony fansites]] and drink for every website run by somebody with a WingedUnicorn as their avatar/[[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Fursona]]/whatever.

** Not to mention they named one of the G1 ponies ''Morning Glory''...

** ''My Pretty Pony'' was the prototype for the series and was released a full year before the introduction of its more famous version. The original model's design was used for Applejack and it came with a "baby pony" that would become Butterscotch. The second model's design resembled Posey in colors.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Is it "Katrina" or "Catrina"? Even sources mix them up. "Firefly's Adventure" or "Rescue from Midnight Castle"? Many, many ponies have different names in different countries, leading to this too. There's also Arabus or Erebus, and there at ''least'' four different ways to spell Tirac.

** The Big Brother ponies can also be mistaken for girls, as they were very {{Bishonen}} and looked almost exactly like the girls at first.

** More like an Ensemble Leaf-green Unicorn, though. Her name is Mimic. There is no evidence to suggest that she is the rarest Pony [[note]]the rarest Ponies are probably the Twice-As-Fancy Babies, who didn't sell well because they are completely different Pony "breeds" from their adult counterparts[[/note]], but she is the most sought-after. Just look her up on eBay.

* {{Fanon}}: Aside from unicorn Dazzleglow having wings in ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales Tales]]'' and a few [[{{Blooper}} animation mistakes]], there were no {{Winged Unicorn}}s in the franchise until G4, and even then there aren't many of them. Here's a DrinkingGame. Plow through any given [[http://map_of_ponyland.tripod.com/map.htm listing of My Little Pony fansites]] and drink for every website run by somebody with a WingedUnicorn as their avatar/[[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Fursona]]/whatever.

** Some post-season 2 episodes of FIM is pretty much this to some Slice-of-Life fans.