My Little Pony

My Little Pony is a product line of colorful toy ponies marketed to young girls, and is produced by Hasbro. On some occasions they have also appealed to boys. The toys were first introduced in 1982, following the related "My Pretty Pony" toy which was introduced in 1981. They became enormously popular throughout that decade. The original toy line inspired several animated specials, an animated feature length movie, and two animated television series. Redesigned toys have been introduced to the market twice since then, one near the end of 1997 and again in mid-2003. Collectors refer to each line as a "generation", often referring to each as G1, G2 and G3. The use of "generation" (and the "G1", "G2", and "G3" abbreviations) to describe the shorter MLP runs were inspired by Hasbro's boys' line, The Transformers, which unlike the Ponies, did have an official Generation 2 from 1993 to 1995.