Small plastic horse that belongs to you

While the males of the species were busily trying to cover every available surface in their bedroom with the massed ranks of Zoids and Transformers, what was it that girls were supposed to be doing? The answer, of course, is playing horses, albeit it in the most nauseatingly candy-coloured fashion possible.

Every My Little Pony came in a different pastel shade, with a different jaunty tilt of the head¹ and a different but always relentlessly perky name (par for the course were Blossom, Tootsie, Bubbles and, most oddly, the pornstar-like Cherries Jubilee). Perhaps to prove that little girls can be nag-happy consumers too, the idea was simply to acquire as many as you possibly could but, unlike Transformers, these didn’t even DO anything. Nope, not a thing. They were moulded solid, so you couldn’t even move their bulgy plastic limbs.

All right, so you could comb their manes and tails, but the charm tended to wear thin soon after an older brother tried to give one of them dreadlocks and got the whole thing irreparably tangled. Perhaps sensing this inbuilt audience irritation factor, Hasbro started to churn out range after range of slightly different Ponies to exponentially expand the collection. Why not try a unicorn, a seahorse or a pegasus this time? Or what about a Baby Pony (hmm, where did those come from, mummy?) Or how about a Mountain Boy Pony - its masculinity in no doubt because of its mighty hooves and delightfully macho name like Lightning or Fireball? And, stretching the brand to breaking point, there were several potential locations for horse-play - the Gymkhana set (make it jump over things!), Grooming Parlour (give it a hairdo!) and the ultimate Dream Castle (make it live out its days in a glorious heap of twiddly purple plastic!).

Contrary to the standard joke at the time, My Little Knacker’s Yard and My Little Glue Factory were never available. Shame, that.