What could have been... · 10:01pm May 10th, 2018
I accept that MLP:FiM is, at its heart, a toy commercial. In general, however, efforts to advertise for the toys have been subtle - what could be organically worked into the show was organically worked into the show. As a result, we got appearances by a hot air balloon, a swan boat, and even a pedal-powered helicopter.
That said, there's times where I think they could have done better. Case in point, Shining Armor. For the longest time, I wish that there'd been some alternate version of Sweet and Elite where Shining Armor had been introduced and Rarity would have fallen for him, only to be gently rebuked. This would have led to a slightly clichéd bit at the end where she assumes that he and Twilight were dating, only to be corrected with the truth.
Granted, it would've been a packed episode anyway, but it would've been a much more organic way to introduce Shining Armor into the series than we got. And the only thing keeping me from making that the version that happened in the Quiververse is the fact that I don't want my vignettes to deviate too far from established events. But there you are.
Oddly i would say G1 was more of a advertiment for Toys. like everything 80's was.
4857592
Well yeah, but that was the eighties. Still, there's a good way to be a glorified toy commercial, and there's a bad way, and FiM tends more towards the former than the latter.
4857714
A worthy point, but that being said, I just posted a vignette based on that particular episode, so that ship's kinda sailed.