Their "Friends"

[weirdraptor]

I'm of course referring to the "Glo Friends", "Moondreamers", and "Potatohead Kids". I've been attempting to get these watched on wherever I can find them on YouTube out of curiosity, mostly. I mean, it wasn't until a few years ago that I even knew that these other shows existed, much less were paired up with My Little Pony. The G1 Pony show I grew up was always run as its own thing on The Disney Channel (though find out that it was originally part of a series that had other shows on it did make the ponies' episodes all being quarter hour shorts suddenly make a lot more sense). I have to say that after seeing the orign tales of all three, that I just can't get into them the same way I can just sit down and watch the best of the Pony episodes. It's not that they're necessarily any worse (with the exception of the Potatohead Kids, which are just ruddish), it's...I don't know.
It has to be a mix of the nostalgia I have for the G1 pony series and the fact that the stories for the ponies were the most open and flexible. With ponies, these are all characters I've loved since I was at least 6-8 years old and their adventures were always so much fun. I just don't have that attachment to any of the others, plus, the Glo Friends, Moondreamers, and ESPECIALLY The Potatohead Kids' adventures are just more constricted whereas Dream Valley was always more of an open sandbox of horrors for the ponies with play in. I'll give Glo Friends and Moondreamers an other shot, though, because they do have some interesting conceopts.

What are your thoughts on the other shows Pony was paired with?

[Al1701]

Basically yours. I can see why My Little Pony survived and the others faded away like Charmkins (which fortunately died after its godawful pilot). Perhaps it was because they had to share that second half of the show, but they were less ambitious and more tied into the gimmicks of their toys.

One thing that got me was the moligans wanted the Glo Friends to see in the dark while they're digging. Yeah right. We all know moles barely rely on sight at all and what they really do to insects. Also, why is their boss called Starnose when he isn't a starnosed mole?

[weirdraptor]

I hadn't thought of it like the writers just giving less of a damn about the second stringers, but that makes a lot of sense. Ponies were what the kids were tuning in to see, and while I'm sure the other properties had their fans, I'll bet a good look at the viewership of the second half of the show displayed a lot of people changing channels after the latest MLP episode ended.

[Al1701]

Well, the other shows had different writing staffs. George Arthur Bloom wrote the pilot and another longer story of Glo Friends and Diane Duane wrote a standalone episode for that series. Bloom, Reaves, and Faulk also all wrote for Potato Heads (though their IMDb pages don't mention it despite the page for Potato Heads kids crediting them).

I thought The Quest was better than The End of Flutter Valley, but that's because it actually moved. Unfortunately, it didn't lead to a better series like Flutter Valley did.

[weirdraptor]

Ah, I see. Yeah, that would make sense.

Oh, boy, hearing that it doesn't get any better than The Quest isn't giving me a lot of concidence.

[Al1701]

Well, I haven't seen much of Glo Friends myself, but be ready for it to not reach the same heights as ponies. Remember, ponies went on to be repeated on Disney and get a DVD release. Glo Friends didn't get any of that.

[weirdraptor]

I'm already seeing why.

[darkabomination]

Moondreamers at least had some really cool ideas. I mean basically a bunch of astral creatures run the universe with a combination of imagination powers and magic technology, riding hoverboards along highways in space. that one actually could have made a kinda cool Saturday morning cartoon if hasbro gave it a budget.
Also, the Night Mare seems to have inspired Friendship is Magic's Ursas.

[midnightroses]

One of the videos I used to have had Charmkins, Moondreamers and Glo Friends as well as MLP. I honesty think it was only known as My Little Pony 'n' friends in the US. Because MLP was always shown separate in my country, always alone. That video was the only video I had with the friends on it.