Have you ever heard of the theory of liking something so much, why not have more of it, except in different colors?
The same thing applies to toys.
In 1986, Hasbro was riding insanely high on the marketability of its toylines and their success in the lucrative world of syndicated cartoons. Growing up in the mid-1980s, it was hard not to find a syndicated cartoon that had a whole toyline based around it. And if it was by Hasbro, it was really not surprising.
For every hugely successful toyline, there is always an attempt to ride that wave intro creating another toyline as the “second coming” of sorts. Sometimes, this seems like a good idea, and sometimes you wind up with Mattel’s answer to Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, Tonka’s answer to Hasbro’s Transformers (even though the former came first), and Hasbro’s answer to their own successful My Little Pony line.
That answer to My Little Pony? Birds with long manes of colorful hair, symbols on their chests, and a look similar to My Little Pony. Why re-invent the wheel when you can just change the type of animal?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Fairytails!
If My Little Pony mated with a bird, this would be their child. At the risk of someone turning that exact thought into creepy fanfic, launching a Brony-esque obsession, and starting a trend I really don’t want to start, I’ll stop this thought immediately.
But seriously, they look like My Little Pony, right down to the animation in the commercial…
My Little Birdies, My Little Birdies…
The elements of the commercial pretty much follow suit with your standard My Little Pony commercial, sans the catchy theme song. And that is probably only because FairyTails didn’t have their own cartoon…
*Checking YouTube*
Nope, no cartoon.
But the commercial had little girls playing with FairyTails!
And you can revel in the beauty of My Little Pony-esque worlds of birds when you click play!
Of course, there’s the mandatory kissing of toys…
Seriously, I’m convinced Hasbro had it that kissing toys was mandatory for their product placements.
I actually remember these pretty well, and considering that they didn’t last nearly as long as their pony predecessors, I can never forget having a vinyl bird that clipped to my finger. Which one, I have no idea – there are so many! And considering the sheer amount of FairyTails that existed, you’d think this line lasted much longer than the 2 years it likely existed.
But wait there’s more!
As I’ve come to find out, there are many more commercials for the various FairyTails birds, thanks to other YouTube users with equally awesome video collections!
And how about this foreign language version?
And if you’d like to know more about FairyTails, My Little Wiki talks about them like a boss.
This was a nice end to the week, wasn’t it?
Hope you enjoyed this look into the (not always so bad!) concept of reinventing the toyline wheel. I know I did!!!!
Throwback/Flashback will return next week, and until then, have a great weekend! 🙂
The pitch to have kids kissing G.I. Joe action figures didn’t go over quite so well…