Skip to main content

Fake Plastic Horses.


The other day, I was watching TV on mute - I find all noises distracting - when an advert for My Little Pony came on-screen.
“Does that even still exist?” I asked my wife (a pointless question, as it clearly did).
“Yes,” she replied. “For some reason, they're very popular with teenage boys.”

This blew my mind. Why would they be interested in it? Surely they’re the completely wrong catchment. Not because they’re boys - I don’t hold with toys being gender specific - but because they’re entirely the wrong age group to appreciate it.

For one, My Little Pony was designed for pre-and-infant-school kids; the gumpf-selling bastion Argos lists them as suitable for kids of 3+. But what confuses me the most is the current teen generation isn’t even the right age to enjoy them for nostalgic reasons, as they’d be too young to remember them first time around.

I can’t fathom it out. Am I missing something massive? Why would they be into a toy with no purpose, least of all to people approaching adulthood? It’s not as if they teach you anything about equestria, which is ironic, as Equestria is apparently the name of the land the My Little Pony figurines are meant to inhabit. Horses don’t come in lurid primary colours, with manes as long as they are tall. The only thing My Little Pony teaches you is how to own a tiny plastic horse.

 When I questioned my wife’s assertion, she assured me it was true and said I should Google it. I wasn’t falling for that; the day you look up ‘Do teenagers like My Little Pony?’ is the day the police come knocking on your door; that, or Jeeves will swing by, asking why you searched the whole question and not just a few key words.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...

"Speaking Words of Wisdom, Let it Shine."

Tonight saw the second instalment of BBC1’s latest advertise-a-musical-for-months-and-then-cast-it-with-performers-too-inexperienced-to-do-it-a-thon ‘Let it S̶h̶i̶t̶e̶ Shine’ (or as I call it: ‘REAL AUDITIONS ARE NOTHING LIKE THIS’). I didn’t watch it (clearly), but being reminded of how angry seeing just five minutes of it made me last week caused me to mull over what I would call a musical based on the band’s songbook, if I was responsible for it. Here are a my suggestions: IDEAS FOR TITLE OF A TAKE THAT MUSICAL: Barlow! Dirty Fat-Dancing Orange! A Million Love-changes-everything Songs Owen! Howard's End Pray Misérables Mamma Marka! Babe (with a pig as the lead) …BUT MY FAVOURITE HAS TO BE: Jason & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. "It was Orange, Orange, Orange, Orange..." (TAKE) THAT’S ENOUGH OF (TAKE) THAT.