All that optimism finally paid off for My Little Pony — if plastic playthings and animated characters' personality traits can be said to represent anything from the real world. The Hasbro Inc. line of toys was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong Museum of Play after its eighth time on the finalist list.
Judges declared My Little Pony and its Hasbro stablemate, Transformers, as Hall of Fame worthy Nov. 15. They were joined by the card game Phase 10 among the 2024 honorees.
Hasbro introduced the vinyl horse figures with luxurious manes in 1983 and they quickly became its most popular mini-doll line. The company canceled its My Little Pony collection in 1992 after selling more than $1 billion worth of merchandise, but nostalgia and a new generation of horse girls — along with a new animated cartoon series — prompted the company to bring it back in the 2000s.
"The continued popularity of the line proves that this brand, pardon the pun, has legs," Michelle Parnett-Dwyer, curator of dolls and toys for the museum in Rochester, N.Y., said in a news release.
Hasbro created the Transformers line of toys in the 1980s based on Japanese toymaker Takara's Diaclone and Micro-Change shape-changing robot toys. The rapid growth of the line also relied on Hasbro's marketing strategy of creating cartoons and comic books featuring the toys.