My Little Pony
My Little Pony ran for three commercially successful but critically dismissed generations before Lauren Faust — who had worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends — was hired in 2010 to relaunch it. Her stated intention was to make a girls' show that did not assume girls wanted less: distinct personalities rather than interchangeable pastel ponies, real conflict, and jokes that were actually funny.
About My Little Pony
My Little Pony ran for three commercially successful but critically dismissed generations before Lauren Faust — who had worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends — was hired in 2010 to relaunch it. Her stated intention was to make a girls' show that did not assume girls wanted less: distinct personalities rather than interchangeable pastel ponies, real conflict, and jokes that were actually funny. Friendship Is Magic became a critical success and then something nobody planned for, acquiring a large adult male following that generated its own conventions, documentaries and a considerable amount of press bemusement. It remains one of the clearest cases of a toy-driven property being rescued by hiring a good writer and getting out of the way.
Lauren Faust's brief was a girls' show that did not assume its audience wanted less — which is why it found an audience far outside it.
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Key eras
| Era | Years | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Early generations | 1982–2009 | Three generations of toys and animation, commercially solid and critically ignored. |
| Friendship Is Magic | 2010–2019 | Lauren Faust's relaunch, and an unexpected adult audience. |
| Later | 2021– | A new generation in computer animation. |