My Little Pony 'n Friends: Bright Lights (G1 TV Episodes, 1986, 4x 10 minutes)

Part 1

Back to the clamshell stage we've seen before. No piano this time.

Knight Shade honestly looks like Prince in a way, with the jacket, the cravat, the poufy purple hair. It wouldn't surprise me if that was deliberate.

The band look more like KISS, and definitely have the strung-out look that rock bands had at the time.

Huh. Is this the first officially male pony we've seen?

That's a big crowd of things.

Mention of the Moonwalk. Popularized by Michael Jackson in the 1980's, but it's actually been around since the 30's. It was first called Moonwalk in the late 1960's.

Promise their mothers? Again, first indication of family relationships.

Zebra! Anthro one, but still. Zib, Zeb? Something like that. Leisure suit, specifically a 70's style leisure suit.

Village called Rosedale.

Why are they being so creepy? This is more Michael Jackson than Prince, but that whole thing didn't occur until long after this point.

That's a big jump. How did the villains know these three would be any good as backup singer/dancers before now?

Some kind of gas produced by a machine in a bag. It's stolen something, but I'm not sure what.

Lots of standard 80's audio equipment.

Ah, it stole their shadows. That's a pretty standard gambit mythologically.

An entire village of anthro mice called Munchterville. Who trap the adult ponies for no apparent reason. Clothing resembling standard Alpine wear of the 18th century, specifically the Bavarian style with a drop-front lederhosen for the men. In which case it should have been Munchterburg.

Except for the cop and mayor which are far more modern, turn of the century style.

More anthro mice with the rock star.

Part 2

Okay, Megan notices the mice kids have no shadows, and they just *guess* the right answer. Huh.

Another magic mirror.

Arabus, a stormcloud wizard.

Greyvale, previously Bright Valley. These ponies are more like horses in design. We're getting a lot of expanded world in this set of episodes. However Knight Shade is definitely still a pony in design, not a horse. Odd.

Zombie horses.... Well, okay, not quite zombies but that's the impression.

Part 3

Actually, maybe they're not horses, but donkeys. They are bigger than the ponies, but relative to the humans they're well within size for donkeys but not big enough to be proper horses. I don't think their ears are long enough though.

Zeb knows what humans are.

Sounds like Arabus actually eats the shadows.

Wizards and witches always seem to default to weather magic when they run out of ideas.

When did this turn into Scoobie Do?

So they just... leave?

That's an impressive manor house. I swear I've seen that place for real. The windowing of the tallest tower looks like a bell tower, and with the swooped roofing on the towers and the mansard roof on the lower level, I'd say the architecture is Baroque in the Second French Empire period (19th century).

Remind me why the youngest sister is always wandering about effectively on her own?

Part 4

Pegasi are definitely stronger than flutterponies, this one can carry two adult anthro mice.

Manor house is a different color from this angle.

Lighting magic.

Suddenly flutterponies. Hundreds of them. Dues ex machina.

Everyone get's their shadows back. So they weren't consumed?

You know, I expected the wizard to turn into a human or something similar instead of just shrinking down.